Chapter 1

Ben was back. Back in the dirt and dust and penetrating cold of that high ridge he had dreamed of so often. It had been a few days since he had had this dream and this time it felt more intense than ever. Every detail was razor sharp and there were a few that he had never recalled. The sharp smell of his own sweat. The sounds of the men around him as they began digging into the rocky soil. Details that he had almost forgotten were obvious, like the deep cerulean blue of the sky overhead and the dark steely gray clouds that had just started boiling over the high mountains in front of him.

Early December 2001 6:30am local time

Toba Achakzai mountains near Khojak pass

Kandahar Province Afghanistan

The ghosts appeared out of the mist to his front. Ben could barely make out their shapes as the Scout Sniper detachment approached his temporary Command Post where he sat going over a tactical map of the area,

“Are you Cap’n Clarkson?” said the lead figure, an M40A3 cradled in his arms and a long awkward looking rifle case slung over his shoulder.

“Yep that’d be me Gunny what can I do you for on this fine morning?” Ben replied.

“Nice to meet you sir. I’m Gunny Stillwell.” The Scout Sniper NCO replied in a soft Georgia drawl as he laid the tactical rifle case out in front of Ben and unzipped it. “Sergeant Major said you might be needing to reach out and touch someone from here at the top of nowhere. He also mentioned that you’d know how to use it.” Gunny Stillwell said as he presented an old M40 to Ben. “Now I hear tell that this rifle has somehow lost it’s way off the books. I also might have heard that this particular antique has served him pretty well and he’d appreciate it back if possible.”

Ben respectfully lifted the scoped rifle from it’s padded case noting the scarred wooden stock and expertly refinished surfaces. “Gunny please give him my respects and thank him if you see him before I do.” Ben was deeply touched. Sergeant Major Winters was still looking out for him just as he had when Ben was a boot private making him his coffee back at Camp LeJeune. Sergeant Major Winters had been instrumental in Ben getting into Officer Candidate School and upon his graduation had been among the first to salute him as a newly minted Second Lieutenant.

Both Ben and the Sergeant Major had a love for precision shooting and had competed against one another in the Camp Lejeune Rifle Competitions held every year. He must have heard of Ben’s latest deployment and this mission and recognized that with no direct sniper support Ben’s unit could use an advantage at the longer engagement distances necessitated by his perch on this barren ridgeline above the road. One rifle didn’t seem like much but a well placed round has decided many a small unit action.

“Now if you don’t mind sir, I’d best be getting to getting on. We’ve got a long hump. They want us to go take a look at what’s happening over by the border to the Paki Tribal Areas.” Gunny Stilwell gave Ben a respectful nod (salutes in a combat zone are not a good idea!) and stood. “ We’ll keep you posted if we see anything you might need to know about up the canyon there.”

“Thanks Gunny, I’d really appreciate that and good hunting.” Ben replied as the ghost drifted back into the mists.

“Ben didn’t think he was going to have much of a chance to use the rifle and his CO would give birth to a large female bovine if he knew that one of his Company Commanders was even considering deploying himself as an ad hoc sniper. But the Colonel’s ass wasn’t the one hanging off of a mountain in the middle of East Bumf•©k Egypt with virtually no support.

Well the brass had assured him that the Chair Force was around somewhere if he needed them and he thought they could probably get some carrier based air support to him eventually although he was so far inland it would be right at the edge of their engagement envelope. Their artillery support was still on the ship and the battalion’s 81mm mortar section was back at the FOB (Forward Operating Base) and was so far out of range it would take UPS to deliver any shells they sent downrange. But there was good news too. They had a metric shit ton of ammunition thanks to the Special Forces cache that had been pre-positioned here and a plentiful supply of water and of Meals Refused by Everyone in case their mountain holiday needed to be extended.

The best news though, was that the first stringers were having a party around Kandahar and the Taliban were about to capitulate any minute now. All significant resistance was breaking out to the north, Ben and his lone company were here in the south just in case- keeping an eye for any Tali’s breaking out and heading for the Tribal Areas across the border in Pakistan. Intel was supposedly solid and the brass had a firm grasp of the situation. Of course, these same folks guaranteed that the check was in your mouth and that they wouldn’t cum in your mail. Ben trusted his own men to do their jobs and the battalion CO not to f•©k him unless it was absolutely neccessary. Other than that he assumed that people and circumstances were out to get him and anyone around him. He was not going to become Afghanistan’s version of Custer at the Little Big Horn.

So as a consequence, even though they bitched and moaned his men started digging into the rocky soil where they could and filling sandbags the second they unassed the Ch-53’s that had dropped them here. His men all had alternate positions and a secondary perimeter as well. Machine gunners had prepared fields of fire as well as they could considering the boulder field in front of them and the mortar team had pre-plotted targets covering any dead spots from the floor of the canyon up to the perimeter.

His mission was to keep an eye on the road leading from Kandahar east and south through the mountains into Pakistan and interdict any armed groups passing below him preferably by calling in air strikes on them. His secondary mission was to protect the aid and refuge teams deployed in the small village located about a mile away just south of where the road emptied into the valley. Somehow Ben didn’t think the 120 UN aid workers and doctors (about a quarter of them female) would consider themselves secondary should the Taliban make it to the vicinity of the village. They had been getting reports of the atrocities that the fleeing Taliban had been inflicting on civilians. It was pretty nauseating to think of what those murderous asshats were capable of.

Ben hated to do it but he was forced to split his command. In case the unthinkable actually happened and they encountered fleeing Taliban he had to make sure the civilians had at least a chance to hold out until they could evacuate back toward the FOB or until help arrived. So he had one of his four platoons deploy in defense of the village along with a machine gun section. He sent his executive officer, Ist Lieutenant Broderick down to the village to act as a liaison with the civilian personnel. Broderick was a solid officer and he was counting on him to help keep 2nd platoon’s Lieutenant Unger in check at the village. Unger had potential but Ben would also vote him the lieutenant least likely to have sense enough to duck. God how Ben hated Marines determined to be heroes. They were a danger to one and all.

He had 3 platoons with him on top of the ridge as well as a small Headquarters section but his weapons platoon was short a lieutenant and of course the machine gun section he had sent to the village. Their lieutenant had been injured in a minor shipboard accident right before the mission along with his First Sergeant. Luckily that platoon had a senior gunnery sergeant to take over who probably had more common sense than all his lieutenants combined. His 1st platoon and 3rd platoon were pretty green with lieutenants only a few months out of TBS (The Basic School For Officers) and most of the fire teams were run by senior PFC’s. His squads were run by corporals. The platoon sergeants had been with him since he was a lieutenant and he knew he could count on them. This might end up a good training experience Ben thought, trying to find the clean end of what could be a really shitty stick if things went pear shaped.

Early December 2001 9am local time

Toba Achakzai mountains near Khojak pass

Kandahar Province, Afghanistan

All morning Ben couldn’t shake the feeling that things were about to go sideways and shortly after 0900 he was proven right. It started with a sitrep (situation report) from the Scout Sniper detachment that had hitched a ride in with them that morning. 5 small pickup trucks (often called technicals) carrying what looked like mortar tubes and heavy machine guns, probably Soviet 12.7mm DSK’s, were on the way west up the narrow canyon of the pass and would likely arrive within the hour. Ben had already been out walking the forward perimeter so he decided to stick around for a while and see what showed up.

Ben’s first thought was ‘Whiskey Tango Foxtrot’? The Talis were supposed to be coming from west of their position, not east. He had quickly relayed the sitrep to Battalion and ensured that he was cleared to engage. Since there were no Northern Alliance units operating in the area the only idea the S2 (intelligence) at Battalion had been able to come up with was these were Taliban who had been hanging out in Pakistan and for some reason known only to them had decided to take advantage of the confusion in Kandahar to score some reputation points. It made no sense to him but better minds than his had been trying to figure out Afghanistan since Alexander the Great with no better luck.

In any case, these mooks were about to have a very bad day. Ben had already pulled back his forward listening posts as the early morning mists had cleared off and there was no need to expose them needlessly. Ben issued a warning order to the platoons covering the road approach and then reconsidered. He kinda wanted to know what their plan was. Were they going to turn north at the junction and head toward Kandahar or turn south to where the aid and refugee camp was situated in the small village. He had the luxury to find out as these trucks were no match to what he could bring to bear before they could put the village or his men in serious danger. They also apparently had no idea that his men were in position to rain a world of hurt down on them from the ridgeline overlooking the road junction. He changed his order to 1st and 3rd platoons to not engage until the technicals passed the road junction which was about 500 meters to their front.

Of course the Gods of War must have been laughing their asses as half an hour later the technicals came into view from around a corner and immediately stopped about 400 meters short of the intersection. Ben cursed and broke out his field glasses as everyone in the vehicles got out to have a f•©king quilting circle or something. Ben still wasn’t too concerned until the Taliban quilting circle started to unlimber the mortar tubes. Sonofabitch. These were very uncommon 107mm mortars not the standard 82’s. They had a range of almost 4 miles putting them well within the range of the village, and it looked like that was the direction they were orienting them to. Ben seriously doubted they could hit much from here but on the other hand it only took one round more or less in the right province and a whole lot of UN civilians and villagers could be in a hurt locker.

Shit, f•©k, damn. And where they were setting up put them just outside the range of his company’s small arms fire. His mortars could probably take them out, but it might take awhile and the boulder field where they were deploying made any sort of indirect fire mission against them problematic. He didn’t have time to have 1st platoon get into position to take them under fire and those heavy machine guns could be a real problem once they were fully deployed. He also really didn’t want to give away his positions just yet if he could avoid it. So Ben amended his order again to let his men know to hold fire while he engaged the mortar teams 600 meters to his front.

God bless Sergeant Majors everywhere prayed Ben as he unlimbered the M40 from his back.

“Smitty you ever done any spotting for a sniper” Ben said to his radio operator Corporal Reilly Smythe- AKA Smitty.

“No Skipper, cain’t say that I hev” the tall lean Marine replied in his mild Ozark accent.

“Well you’re about to get some OJT” Ben replied as he handed the field glasses to Smitty. He then unclipped the leather shooter’s sling from the bottom of the rifle and refastened it to make a loop around his upper left arm. After taking a half turn of the sling around his forearm he took a prone position atop the flattish rock they were using to observe the mortars being set up.

“Okay Smitty, this is not a proper snipers hide because we are not snipers. All we have to do is shoot and scoot. I’m going to try and at least get their heads down and maybe perforate one or two of them. Hopefully we can persuade them to leave for healthier locations. I’m going to fire the 5 rounds in the magazine and then we are going to get the f•©k out of Dodge before those heavy machine guns start chewing up this mountain.”

“You gottit Skipper. What do you need me to do?”

“I have no idea what range this rifle scope is sighted into. It’s not set for my cheek weld or for my eye relief so I’m trusting that the previous shooter has left it zeroed for 600 meters and just hope that everything else will work. What I need you to do is focus on the center of numbnuts number one’s chest. He’s the one who’s setting up the tube. Look for the impact and give me the windage left and right and the elevation I need to adjust to center my shots. I’ll have to apply Kentucky windage to bring my next shot online. “I’m going to work left to right on the targets so you’ll need to switch your view to the next target quickly.”

Ben paused and threw up a little prayer. He and the Sergeant Major always shot from about the same position and he had always left his scoped weapons zeroed at 600 meters believing that that was the most common long distance shot during combat. Why the f•©k can’t this work like Hollywood where the hero picks up some unknown sniper rifle from a dead bad guy and immediately shoots a fly in the ass at 1000 yards.? Ben wondered. First shot cold barreled shooting from an unknown distance was more of an art form than a science and he was going to have to have a shit ton of luck.

“Alright here goes. If I miss them altogether I don’t want to hear a f•©king word out of you Smitty gottit?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it sir”. Smitty replied laconically.

Ben relaxed into his prone position and acquired his sight picture. He knew he was shooting downhill with a vertical drop of about 200 meters. So he held under his target just a bit as the bullet would drop less since it was fighting gravity less. He let his breath ease halfway out and then took the slack out from the silky smooth trigger. The break came clean and crisp and the shock of the recoil was a surprise.

He slid the sight picture to the right as he worked the bolt without his shoulder moving from the butt plate or his eye from the scope. Somewhere just inside of his consciousness he heard Smitty call out.

“Hit center mass, adjust left 4 elevation dead on.” recited Smitty.

Target two who had been setting up the base plate was frozen in shock. As Ben’s sight picture stabilized he was already taking up the trigger slack.

“Hit, center mass no adjustments” said Smitty just after the second shot slapped into the target’s upper body.

Ben shifted onto his 3rd target who had just dove flat onto the ground behind what he thought was cover but was, in fact, just a bush. He estimated where the target’s center mass was and squeezed off another shot.

“Hit, unable to adjust.” Smitty said, then paused, “New target 3 meters to right of last. Machine gun in open.”

Ben slid his sight picture to the right as directed by Smitty and saw a brave but stupid Muhajadeen attempting to get his heavy machine gun loaded in the open. He had just got the feed cover down when Ben’s round punched through his sternum.

“Hit center mass, no adjustments. New target. 3 meters behind and 3 meters to the left of last. Machine gun behind rock.”

Ben moved his sight picture up and left slightly to the left and he could see the 2nd DPK barrel poking out from between two boulders. The gunner triggered a long burst that kicked up dirt and rocks 30 feet to Ben’s left but the gunner had no real idea of where Ben was. Ben wasn’t going to give him time to figure it out. This shot was going to be more luck than skill as Ben aimed his last shot at a point along the top of the protruding barrel and slowly took up slack. Again the recoil took him by surprise and Ben could see red splattering over the rocks where the gunner’s head used to be.