Chapter 25
25
Four blocks from the target, the transport stopped and the rear door opened.
Gunnar jumped out, rifle at the ready.
“See you soon,” I said to Rachel, then turned to follow Gunnar.
“Henriksson,” she said.
I turned back to her. “Yeah p>
“Take care of yourself p>
“You too p>
Then I jumped out, slammed the door shut, and the transport drove on.
A Humvee was already parked nearby. Five regular infantry stood in the street, waiting for the order to move.
I took a second to get my bearings as the convoy of transports and Humvees moved on.
Kabul was a dense metropolis of over 4 million people. Most of the fighting in the city had taken place well over a decade ago, after which the war had transferred to the surrounding hills and deserts. Since then, life had mostly returned to the way it was before the American invasion.
But that didn’t mean danger wasn’t around every corner. The Taliban still had plenty of operatives in Kabul, so I kept my eyes and ears open.
We were currently standing on a street filled with cinderblock buildings. The level of poverty was bad by Swedish standards, but there were still plenty of cars driving down the road – and a lot of pedestrians. As soon as they saw us, they turned around and walked in the opposite direction.
Couldn’t say I blamed them. When NATO troops came knocking, it usually wasn’t good for the person whose door they knocked on.
The apartment building we’d been dropped off at belonged to a ‘friendly,’ a local who had pledged cooperation with the Americans. The infantry guys had a translator who spoke the landlord’s language – Dari Persian. If it had been Pashto, Gunnar could have talked to him instead.
Once the interpreter got the landlord to open the stairwell, Gunnar and I ran up the steps to the roof of the four-story building.
I set up shop while Gunnar guarded the stairs. Within 30 seconds, I had my rifle out and was scanning the sidewalks and buildings around the Humvees and transports.
The convoy had come to a halt outside a crumbling building. The pockmarked walls looked like they had sustained damage from the invasion a decade ago and had never been repaired.
There were still people living in the building, though. I could see curtains in some of the windows. Squatters, maybe, or people too poor to afford anything else.
…or maybe terrorists who had taken over the slums for their own purposes.
My fellow NATO soldiers were creeping along the front of the building towards the main entrance.
“Henriksson, you there?” a familiar voice crackled over the radio.
I smiled.
“Copy, Bauer.” I figured it would be unprofessional to call her Rachel. “You set up p>
“Yes. The five-story red building to the northeast p>
I swung my scope towards the red building and saw her helmet over the edge of the roof’s retaining wall. Her rifle was angled down slightly towards the slums several blocks away.
“I see you p>
She was a good 400 feet closer to the target building than I was.
I swung my gun back over to the slums. “Why don’t you handle the street and I’ll watch the windows p>
“Copy that p>
I slowly panned my scope over the front of the building, moving from window to window, looking for anything suspicious.
“Nothing on the street. They’re preparing to go in p>
I resisted looking at the soldiers and kept scanning the windows for any sign of –
There.
Movement on the third floor.
A shadowy figure pulled back a curtain. A man.
There was something in his hand –
“Grenade,” I said calmly and pulled the trigger.
CRACK!
The suppressor on my rifle – what most civilians thought of as a ‘silencer’ – cut down on the sound and recoil, but the gunshot still echoed back at me from the surrounding buildings.
A split second later, blood spattered the curtains as the figure collapsed backwards into the room.
As I worked the bolt and ejected the spent shell, an explosion blasted out of the window.
BOOM!
“Nice shot,” Rachel said.
Chaos erupted down in the slums as gunfire chattered out of every street-level door and window. From this far away, it sounded like firecrackers popping off under a heavy blanket.
The NATO soldiers took cover behind the Humvees and returned fire.
“Target-rich environment,” Rachel said. “I could use a hand p>
“Copy that,” I answered and swung my scope down to street level.
I had just settled on a robed figure in a doorway –
When his chest exploded.
At the same instant, I heard the crack of a single gunshot and the echoes amongst the buildings.
“Nice shot yourself,” I said.
“Thanks p>
I looked for another target.
There – a man peeking over a windowsill, an AK-47 in his hands.
I pulled the trigger –
CRACK!
The wall behind him splattered red as he collapsed out of sight.
As I ejected the shell and chambered my next round, I heard another distant shot –
crack
Followed by echoes from the buildings around me.
When I panned my scope over to a doorway, I saw a body slumped on the ground that hadn’t been there before.
“We should have a competition,” I said. “Loser buys the first round p>
“You’re on – wait – oh SHIT – ”
I heard gunfire over the radio, louder than the muffled shots on the street.
“Bauer?! Rachel!” I yelled.
“Bogies on the roof!” Rachel shouted over the radio. “My spotter’s down, my spotter’s down p>
I swung my rifle towards the red building.
Rachel was crouched down behind a heavy-duty air conditioning unit. She’d dropped her rifle and now held a pistol in her hands.
Ingmar lay on the opposite side of the roof, his legs spasming as he bled out.
Two men in robes and turbans were coming out of the rooftop stairwell 30 feet from Rachel.
I aimed –
CRACK!
One of the men collapsed backwards in a cloud of red.
The other guy looked around in shock, not sure where the shot had come from.
By then I’d ejected the shell, chambered the next round, and aimed at his chest.
CRACK!
He collapsed backwards next to his companion.
“Thank you,” Rachel gasped.
“Don’t thank me yet – you probably have more coming p>
I swung my scope over to the open door of Rachel’s rooftop stairwell.
It was empty – but probably not for long.
“Gunnar!” I shouted without taking my eye off the doorway.
“What the fuck’s going on over there, brother?” he yelled back in Swedish.
“Watch our six – we might have visitors p>
“Got it p>
“Henriksson,” Rachel said over the radio, “help the soldiers. I can handle this p>
“I know you can,” I said. “But the whole point is, you don’t have to. There’s somebody who cares about you who’s got your back p>
There was a pause like she was taken aback by that.
Then she said, “I really appreciate that, I do – but the guys on the ground are the priority p>
I kept watching the dark stairwell on her roof as I answered.
“There’s 20 Special Forces guys down there, and at least that many regulars. They’ve got each other. Right now, you’ve only got me. So you’re – ”
A burst of gunfire from inside the stairwell briefly lit up the darkened interior.
I saw a figure with an assault rifle and pulled my trigger –
CRACK!
The gunman inside the stairwell toppled out of the doorway and collapsed face-first onto the roof.
“…the new priority,” I said as I ejected the shell and chambered a new one.