COMPOUND 57. SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
The trick to the Claymores was patience. And that last blast had truly taxed Wright’s discipline, waiting for the rebels to get close enough while he was taking fire, while rounds peppered the ground around him, sparking off boulders.
But he had waited, aware of the Claymore’s optimum effective range, the sweet point between lethality and area coverage of 160 feet with a hit probability of over 40 percent on a man-size target, though fragments could travel as far as seven hundred feet.
The rest he handled with the M249, keeping his fire low and limited to short bursts.
A fourth wave of rebels emerged on the hillside, screaming and firing their Kalashnikovs, advancing toward him like a maddened horde.
John Wright, fresh out of Claymores, knew that it would take a miracle to survive another minute.
But as he steeled himself to face the same fate as his ancestors, while cutting down as many of those bearded devils as possible, the miracle happened.
* * *
What in Allah’s name is happening? Pasha thought, as his fourth wave of men, ten of his best warriors, was decimated. But not by American mines or that lone soldier firing his light machine gun from the mouth of the boulder pass.
His men were not falling on their backs from taking rounds to their chests. Instead, they succumbed to large-caliber shots shrieking down the hill.
Someone had flanked them—someone on higher ground and armed with a much louder and much more powerful weapon.
That’s a fifty-cal, he thought, its dismembering rounds wreaking havoc on his men, turning his warriors into a mangled mess of bloody parts bursting in the forest.
* * *
Wright was confused. His men were supposed to be on their way to the LZ. But someone had joined in this fight—someone unseen and also unyielding, obliterating that last wave with a brutality matching the Claymore carnage.
And though he was confused, his veteran sense could discern at least three weapons being fired against the enemy from their left flank. A Browning M2 certainly dominated the well-orchestrated action, but in between the synchronized beat of the heavy machine gun he saw the surgical strikes from individual .50-caliber shots, probably from a sniper.
To Wright, the single shots tearing off heads and chests resembled disruptive silent notes to the unchained melody of the Browning. And although he also could not hear the third weapon, he could see the impacts from a smaller-caliber weapon than his own M249, perhaps from a suppressed UZI or MP5.
Wright was indeed confused, but he was also out of ammo. Firing his final machine gun rounds, still feeling groggy from the headshot and the IED shock wave, he managed to stand.
And as he did so, he had the sudden desire to make a run for the landing zone.