CHAPTER 2
Kyle woke gritty-eyed and hating it. He wanted to sleep in another two hours, but that wasn’t going to happen. He’d never been a morning person, but fourteen years of service had conditioned him to rising early. Even that didn’t make up for the night before and the lousy sleep.
But a general officer didn’t want to hear excuses, so Kyle would just have to deal with it. He showered, shaved thoroughly, and put on his “dress” BDUs. They were starched and ironed, in violation of regs, because starch and heat defeated the anti-infrared treatment of the fabric and made it shiny and reflective. The pockets were stitched flat, in violation of regs, because stitched pockets were as useless as tits on a boar. Still, that’s what the Army bureaucracy required to look “professional.” It was one more way the pencil pushers forced style over substance. He felt ridiculous, but it was supposed to be impressive. He still had his old black Ranger beret, but instead would wear the new one, blocked to look pretty, that the Clinton administration had crammed down their throats to make everyone feel special, whether they were or not. He understood his predecessors had had similar complaints about Lyndon Johnson and SecDef McNamara’s changes back in the 1960s. It was always the same. None of it helped his mood.
*****
He arrived at 0600 and grabbed a cup of coffee. That in itself was an indication of how tired he felt. Caffeine caused shakes, which were bad for shooting, and he never touched it if he could avoid it. It was generic coffee, good enough for keeping people awake or scouring sinks and not much else.
Schorlin was already in his office with the door open. The office reflected the man. It was neat enough to use as a backdrop for press releases. Books were perfectly aligned on the shelves, desk dusted. His computer was on but idle, the screensaver showing a scope reticle over a black screen, the last image visible within the panning crosshairs. He had an I Love Me wall that was impressive. It started with Ranger school, covered West Point after that, commissioned, and wound up in Kuwait, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. There were certificates from the Marine and SEAL sniper schools, too, as well as foreign ones. Schorlin was the kind of officer Kyle respected, because he’d been there and done that. He was a pleasure to serve under.
Schorlin looked up and said, “Morning, Kyle. You look like hell.”
“Morning, sir. I feel like hell.” He threw a salute that was casual enough for their relationship, sharp enough to show he meant it and that he was ready for a general to arrive.
“Well, try to cheer up. The general will be here shortly.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied.
“How’s that problem child of yours?” The question was conversational, but interested. Good commanders kept track of such details.
Merrick had done much better in the afternoon, patient and steady in the house. He’d scored a good kill. “He’ll work out eventually, sir. But for now, the boy needs a serious ass-whuppin’. He could shoot for the Olympics. He can quote the book better than I can. He’s got eyes like a cat. But he’s too damned eager.” Aggravating. That’s what the boy was.
“Hmmph. Sound like anyone we know?” Feeling sheepish, Kyle said, “Yes, sir. Me when I was that age.”
Nodding slowly, he said, “So there’s how you approach him.”
“Yes, sir,” Kyle agreed. He hadn’t made the connection in those terms, though he had recognized the annoying attitude. He’d forgotten that it had taken him fourteen years to get where he was.
Right then, the phone rang. Schorlin grabbed the receiver and said, “Yes, Joe? Great, don’t let him wait. We’re ready.” He hung up and said, “He’s here.”
Kyle nodded. It was unusual for a ranking officer to come to the soldier. Usually, the reverse was true. He wondered what was going on.
They stepped into the hallway and Kyle checked over his uniform. Good enough. Then they walked out the door, down the broad metal steps, and down the hill to the classroom.
The Sniper School’s facilities were rather spartan. There was the office building, a maintenance building with a bay for cleaning and repair of the rifles, a basic barracks with racks and lockers and a small classroom, all inside a barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence. That was it, and it surprised the rare visitor with its spareness.
It was that classroom, a bare twenty by thirty feet, that was their destination. With the students on the range, it was very private. Kyle held the door for Schorlin, followed him in, pulled a chair off a desk and sat down.
“Relax, Kyle,” Schorlin said. “No one’s in trouble.”
“I know that, sir,” he said. “I’m just not a morning person.” He winced at the fluorescent lights overhead.
Very shortly, booted steps arrived on the landing outside. Kyle rose to his feet with Schorlin, and awaited the general’s appearance.
General Robash was alone, which was unusual for someone of his rank. He wore old but serviceable BDUs, and a standard BDU hat in lieu of the beret. He looked as if he were ready for the field. He was tall and broad, with a slight bulge in the midsection from too much office work. His presence preceded him as he paused at the door and knocked.
“Come in, sir, please,” Schorlin said. “Welcome.” He saluted and offered his hand.
“Thank you, Captain,” Robash nodded. “This must be Sergeant Monroe. Good to meet you, Sergeant.” He stuck a bear paw-sized hand over, and Kyle took it.
“Good to meet you, sir,” Kyle replied. He saluted after they shook, not worrying about the breach of protocol if the general didn’t. No doubt about it, General Robash was huge, and his demeanor even larger.
Schorlin asked, “Coffee, sir? It’s not the best but it’s fresh.”
“No coffee, thank you. Too much already. That’s why my eyes are brown, no matter what other rumors you may have heard.” There were chuckles. “But let’s step outside so I can smoke a cigar.”
“Yes, sir,” they both agreed, and followed him back through the door.
“Thank you,” he nodded, as he drew one from a tube in his pocket. It passed under his nose for inspection as if it were on parade. A small, pearl-handled Case knife flashed from pocket to teeth to cigar, then closed and disappeared as the snipped tip bounced off the steel railing and onto the ground, and he used a badly scuffed Zippo lighter to breathe fire into it.
Through a rising cloud he said, “Good Dominican.”
“Wish I smoked sometimes, sir,” Schorlin said, eyeing the brown cylinder.
“No, you don’t, but it’s polite of you,” Robash said. He stood easily. The cigar was an affectation. He wasn’t an Academy grad, but maintaining that image was good for dealing with the network who were. Though like a lot of the younger ones, Captain Schorlin didn’t smoke.
Robash spoke. “Well, officially I’m here to inquire about using some snipers in an upcoming field training exercise. We’ll discuss that later. Right now, I need to impose on you.”
Schorlin replied, “No imposition, sir. We’re at your disposal. How can we help?”
The general smiled and said, “I need to talk to Sergeant Monroe for a few minutes. Privately.” It was obviously for show. Schorlin clearly knew what was going on, even if he hadn’t officially been told. He saluted again and walked back to his office. That gave Kyle a slight chill. What kind of mission was this for, if deniability was an issue?
As soon as the captain was gone, Robash said, “At ease, relax, son. This is where I ask you if you can handle the TDY, and you impress me with your coldhearted expertise and gung-ho attitude. Then, when the BS is done, we’ll talk for real. So start by telling my why you’re wearing a stitched and ironed clownsuit.”
Kyle was taken off guard by the attitude. “Ah, I was told to look neat, sir, so I wore a tailored uniform.”
“That’s not what you wear every day, then?” The general was an experienced cigar smoker, and puffed to keep it lit, then waved the cloud clear.
“No, sir,” Kyle admitted.
“Good,” the general blew another cloud of smoke as he spoke. “So don’t waste any more time on that crap. The BDUs are supposed to be used. Class A’s are for impressing generals. And this general isn’t here for a beauty pageant. I need to know three things. Can you shoot?”
Nodding, he said, “Yes, sir. Well enough to teach here, at least.” He was still snickering inside at the general’s agreement with his perception of dress.
“That says a lot, and I knew that. Can you kill?”
“I have, sir,” he agreed, a bit reluctantly.
“Not what I asked, son.”
“It’s my job, sir.” He had a few reservations, but dammit, he was a soldier.
“Good. Will you bag an al Qaeda terrorist asshole for us?”
Kyle paused for just a second as that sank in. “Yes, sir!” he replied. His stomach was twitching in eagerness or nervousness or both, but that was an honest mission.
“Outstanding. You may know there’ve been a few mix-ups over in Afghanistan, and al Qaeda don’t have the people they used to. Nevertheless, they’re a real pain in the ass, and we’re going proactive on them. The current number three man is a real sadistic piece of work, and we plan to use you to shut him up for good.”
Kyle was startled. “Isn’t assassination a CIA mission, sir? Or Delta?”
“Normally, yes,” the general agreed. “This isn’t normal. Delta is busy, and there’s enough press and sympathizers watching them that they aren’t as discreet as we’d like anymore. The CIA has only limited means, and this guy, Rafiq bin Qasim, is a paranoid freak who won’t let anyone get close enough to do a proper job. So it’s got to be a good, reliable shooter from a distance, who they won’t know is in theater. You.” He crushed the cigar against a raised boot, tossed it into the weeds, and opened the door.
Kyle hesitated for a moment, then preceded him in. “Why me, sir?” he asked.
“Why not you?” Robash asked, door closing behind him. “Airborne and Ranger qualified, two real world kills in a war zone, proven to be solid under fire. We’ve got most of our good shooters tied up in Iraq and Bosnia, and we’ve kinda let Afghanistan slide. We want this done quietly, and we need someone good, reliable, who can operate alone. You.”
“Thanks, sir, I guess,” Kyle replied. “Though I lost my spotter on the last mission because we got eager. I got eager,” he corrected.
The general lowered his voice slightly. “I know about that, son. It was a mistake. A bad one. But things like that happen, and you’re aware of it and won’t do it again.”
“You’re right about that, sir,” he agreed, nodding. “I suppose I should take the mission. Though I would like a few more details before I jump aboard.”
“Fair enough,” Robash nodded. “Give me a second.” He whipped out his phone and punched a couple of buttons. Whoever he wanted to talk to was on speed dial. “Sergeant Curtis, come on in.” A minute later, the person in question arrived at a brisk walk. Kyle had met him previously, the sniper community being small. Wade Curtis was a black man with coffee-colored skin and an expressive face built around deep, thoughtful eyes. His build was muscular but not overly large, and he matched Kyle’s six feet in height. He had been an instructor when Kyle arrived, had left shortly afterward for the 10th Mountain Division. He was a staff sergeant, who’d also graduated Ranger School and had done a training stint with a British sniper section with the 42nd Royal Marine Commando. Despite that, though, he’d never actually been in combat. Still, he’d only been in the Army seven years, and there was a first time for everything.
“I believe you two have met,” Robash said.
“Sir,” they both replied at once. Kyle continued speaking as he rose to shake hands. “Staff Sergeant Curtis. Yeah, we’ve met at the club and on the range. Only for about a month last year. Been a while, Wade.”
Wade shook hands back, firmly but with no macho-grip games. “Sergeant,” he nodded. “So, what are we going to do?”
Kyle looked over at the general as they both sat. He wasn’t sure himself, and waited for enlightenment.
Robash nodded to both of them, took a deep draw on his cigar. “The mission is to go into the tribal area of Pakistan and take out bin Qasim. Obviously, that’s the sticky point here. Not Afghanistan, but Pakistan. Technically, that’s friendly territory. Actually, it’s riddled with rats. Those rats have connections within the government, so anything we do officially they’ll hear about. The plan is to give you orders to get over there, cash to operate, and only inform the Pakistanis if something goes wrong.”
He leaned forward and continued, “Please note that distinction. This isn’t a covert operation, exactly. We will be telling the Pakistanis, and we know Musharraf will be okay with it, as we hinted to him already without any specifics. So you can’t bust up a lot of locals to do this, not innocent ones, anyway. It will be semiofficial afterward, even though it will likely stay SCI for a good long time, in case we decide to do it again.”
Kyle thought for a few moments. Actually, that wasn’t too bad. He wasn’t expendable or deniable, he was simply going to be a secret weapon. He looked over at Wade, who was nodding appraisingly, his mouth and brow twisted in thought.
Kyle asked, “Why this way, sir?”
“Remember rumors back in ninety-one that we had a sniper placed to take out Saddam?” Robash waited for nods, then continued, “Those rumors are true. But the press got a leak and had to open their goddamned yaps about how it would be illegal to target a foreign head of state. So now we have the screw-up before us. So for this one, we don’t want any press and we don’t want any leaks. As to why, same reason we’ve got the Special Operations guys running around doing what they were trained to do at long last. While we’ve got a leadership that will let us, we’re going to hunt. We want to do it fast, the backlog’s too much for the spooks, and there’s always leaks. A couple of good Rangers who are also snipers is the prescription for this little disease, and one they won’t see coming.”
Cautiously, Kyle said, “Sounds worthwhile, sir. What kind of gear and backup?” He looked over at Wade.
Wade asked, “Or is there any?”
Through another puff of fumes, he replied, “Oh, there’s gear. We’ll be flying you out there civilian wise until you hit theater, then you’ll take transports. You’ll have Iridium phones, radios, orders to let you requisition stuff in theater and such. Use your government credit cards as needed. Your orders will be secret and just authorize you to ride along with no questions asked. You’ll also have cash in U.S. dollars, Pakistani rupees, and Afghanis. You’ll take whatever gear you want, but it’ll have to be stuff you can hump. Once on station, there’ll be locals to meet you and help you find this jackass. You bag him, call in on the radio and we’ll send air support and choppers. At that point, as long as the press doesn’t know, we don’t give a flying fuck who else does. Better if they do, in fact.”
As they started to digest that, Robash asked, “What do you know about the border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan?”
Wade replied, “Damned little, sir.”
“Me either,” Kyle admitted.
“No problem,” he nodded. “We’ve got people to take care of that. We’ll get you briefed and up to speed. Can you leave in a week?”
The two looked at each other, considering. It wasn’t a question to answer lightly. “Gear’s not a problem,” Kyle said.
Wade grimaced slightly and replied, “Training is going to be a bitch. We’ve got to be briefed, then you and I have to run at least one rehearsal if we’re going to shoot together.”
“That, and I need a refresher on radios. A week’s tight.”
“But doable?” Robash asked. “We’ve got a window we need to exploit.”
“Doable, sir,” Kyle agreed. He felt nervous about committing to such a deadline, but it didn’t seem there was much choice.
Robash smiled. “Good! Once there, look as ratty as you can. Got to look the part. Don’t bother with any more haircuts or shaves,” he said, pointing at their closely cropped heads. “Though it’s not as if you’re going to look shaggy anyway. Still, we work with what we’ve got. Now, let’s talk about training and prep. Hold one.”
Robash drew the cell phone again from where it was clipped inside his BDU shirt, and thumbed buttons as he raised it. “Yes, we’re ready,” he said. He waited for a response. “Roger,” he nodded, and disconnected. Turning back to the two snipers he said, “I took the liberty of bringing the personnel with me.” They all chuckled, though there was a nervous tinge to it. He’d been ready, and wanted them overseas ASAP. This was a serious operation on a tight schedule, not an administrative deployment.
Twenty minutes later the two of them were ensconced in a briefing room manufactured on the spot. It wasn’t hard. The classroom was set up to handle computer projection and had classroom seats, a dry-erase board and a phone. There were much cushier and more secure facilities on post proper, but, as Robash pointed out, “There’s going to be rumors either way. Fewer people will hear them here, and less significance attached to the event.”
Time was short. For two solid days they would be educated as to terrain, the political situations in several regions and villages and the people they’d be dealing with, expected weapons, and languages.
The civilian language instructor came in first. He was portly but seemed to have good muscle tone underneath. He was roundfaced with graying hair, slightly balding, very alert and cheerful. He was lugging a laptop case and several books. “Sergeants,” he said in greeting, holding out a hand. His grip was firm. “I’m Bill Gober. I’m here to tell you about the languages you’ll encounter and give you some basics.”
“Mostly Arabic, right?” Kyle asked, nodding. Gober gave him a look that was faintly annoyed but mostly amused. “No, probably no one you meet will speak Arabic, except maybe some scripture from the Quran. The predominant language of the area is Pashto.”
Kyle looked confused and said, “Never heard of it.” Wade looked taken aback, too.
“Which is why I’m here,” Gober smiled. “Pashto and Dari are the official languages of Afghanistan, and Western Panjabi and Urdu are very common, but there’s about a dozen languages in the area. Even Farsi from Iran is not unusual. But we’ll mostly concentrate on Pashto and its Pakistani variant, Pakhto. They’re both very similar, almost interchangeable, and Dari isn’t much different. I’ve got phrasebooks you can take, CD-ROMs you can study en route, and some audio to familiarize yourselves with the tonal qualities.”
“Okay,” Kyle agreed. “I’m not very good with languages, though.”
Gober said, “Probably you are good enough, you’ve just not been shown the right way. It isn’t hard to learn a few basic vocabulary words. Rather than perfect grammar and style, you need to hear threats when they’re mentioned, or pick up key words. That’s what we’ll focus on. The hardest part is going to be learning the written language, as it’s a variation of the Arabic alphabet, hard enough to read as is, and these languages aren’t very close to Arabic.”
They spent the entire morning and afternoon until two, munching takeout from the chow hall as they familiarized themselves with a hundred basic words. Gober had been correct; reading the street signs was going to be much harder than speaking. The entire language was curlicues and squirming lines and dots.
He gave them one easy-to-remember hint as to structure that had them laughing as he used a querulous voice. “Pashtuns the verb at the end of the sentence put. In this they like Yoda are. Silly it is; but likely you are, Yoda’s speech patterns to remember, and remembering the whole point of this is. It in good health you should use and enjoy.”
At three, Gober rose to depart. “It would be good to have a few more days to practice, but I'm told we have no time. Do make sure you spend a couple of hours a day at it, though.” Wade answered for them, “Will do, sir, and thanks.”
There was one more thing piled on that afternoon: maps. Relief and political maps of the entire Afghan/Pakistani border area in question, with smaller scale maps for some of the towns and border crossings.
“Ideally,” they were told by yet another briefer, a Lieutenant Vargas, “you’ll just drive across one of the existing crossings. There are some manned by U.S. forces that shouldn’t pose a threat. However, if something causes suspicions or closes the border tighter, you’ll have to infiltrate some distance away over the mountains.”
“I can handle mountains,” Kyle said. “Wade?”
“Climb, actually,” Wade joked. “Been there. But I’d rather drive than hump those ridges. They look ugly.”
“Can we get a practice run in? Hills, shooting?”
“You likely won’t have time over there, and we really don’t want to announce your presence,” Vargas said.
“What about here? Out West somewhere? Nevada, say?” Wade suggested.
“That’s possible,” Vargas agreed. “We could fly you out West and hop up into the hills. Be a chance to practice a helo extraction, too, just in case. I’ll talk to the general and set it up. But you’re looking at a day, tops.”
“We’ll take it,” Kyle said, wondering why the government always waited until the last minute, then began a panicky juggle of hurry-up-and-wait. These things really should be planned out. Idly, he wondered which Pentagon whiz kid had come up with this, then decided he probably didn’t want to bother.