Authors: Brad Taylor
The difficulty was compounded here by the fact that we could in no way allow this to end in a gunfight. I couldn’t be responsible for starting a shooting war between Hezbollah and the Druze. We needed to stop the vehicle and close on the men before they had a chance to react, which posed significant challenges. It was Decoy who’d come up with the idea of popping a tire with a suppressed sniper shot.
At a distance of two or three hundred meters away we could potentially disable the vehicle without the occupants knowing what had happened. The suppressor would muffle the sound of the gunshot, and while the bullet would still break the sound barrier with an audible crack, the noise was omnidirectional and would be camouflaged by the exploding tire. From there, a van driven by a Druze friend of Samir’s, with Jennifer in the passenger seat dressed in her stylish black sack, would pull over to help. Once they were engaged in conversation, we’d come boiling out of the van.
That was the plan, anyway.
I saw a sedan with two men approach and said, “Get ready.” The vehicle continued on, then exited the parking lot.
Brett said, “Jesus. Where are those guys?”
The time for the meeting with Hezbollah had come and gone, and we were all getting a little antsy. You always had in your mind’s eye exactly how a plan would go down, but we were attempting to take out thinking human beings with a penchant for survival, and make no mistake, they had their own ideas of what would happen.
Decoy said, “You think they’ve got eyes on Samir right now?”
Meaning, have they already scoped us out and were we now about to be on the receiving end of their own brilliant plan.
“I don’t know. Let’s give it a few more minutes, then break out. If they don’t show, we’ll have Samir call them from his house.”
I keyed my radio. “Knuckles, you still good?”
“Yeah. It’s getting hot as hell, but it won’t affect my shot.”
While I was most assuredly the better sniper, I’d given the task to Knuckles, wanting to be on the assault to contain whatever curveballs
came our way. Of course, he’d say my assessment was most assuredly incorrect, and truthfully, he might be right. Although I would never tell him that.
Samir had come up with a beat-up Dragunov SVD, and Knuckles had test-fired it in the mountains behind Samir’s house. He’d come back and said that it held a little under two minutes of angle in accuracy, meaning he could put a round just inside a two-inch circle at a hundred meters, and it would work for the operation.
The only thing that had remained was finding a place for the exchange of Samir and his niece, then the follow-on ambush. After some searching, we’d decided on the Beirut airport parking lot. The area had enough security to prevent the Hezbollah thugs from trying anything right off the bat, allowing the niece to get in Samir’s car and get away, and was close enough to Hezbollah-land that they’d feel secure. It was only a half mile from the airport to the heart of their territory.
A half mile was all we had to play with. Not a whole lot of time for me to relay the description of the vehicle to Knuckles, then have him take it down from the roof of the warehouse he was lying on.
Brett said, “You still want to parlay with them?”
“Yeah. We might get something more than just rescuing Samir and his niece. Something we can use to track Lucas.”
The end-state of the operation had been the biggest bone of contention, with most of the team wanting to chalk up a win once we had Samir and his niece freed. I thought that was just postponing the problem for Samir. In order to truly get him free, we needed to convince Hezbollah that he had nothing to do with the murder of their leadership, and I was fairly sure the tape we had of Lucas killing the Hezbollah courier would accomplish the goal—if I could get them to watch it. Best case, they lay off Samir, a civil war would be averted, and they’d give us some thread we could use to find Lucas.
Jennifer said, “White four-door sedan approaching with three men and a woman. Moving way too slow.”
It took a moment, but the vehicle eventually came into my little
sliver of view, stopping in front of Samir’s sedan. Something verbal was exchanged, and Samir slowly raised his hands. The men exited, one holding a woman. Samir followed suit, and the woman was released, running to him. He placed his arms around her and whispered something in her ear. Only after she was safely in his car did he walk toward the men, his arms outstretched. He was roughly searched and thrown into the backseat.
“Showtime.” I said.
K
nuckles heard the call
and settled in behind his weapon, staring unfocused at the rooftop to rest his eyes while waiting on the description of the vehicle. After it came, he said, “Anything unique? Any identifying characteristics?”
“Yeah,” Pike said. “Front right quarter panel is dark blue or black. It’s a replacement and stands out. We’re going to roll in five. You ready?”
“Roger. I got the ball.”
Knuckles raised his head to the scope, focusing on the exit from the airport. He’d meticulously constructed his nest to allow the weapon to rest on its own, naturally aiming into the kill zone. He wanted to take out as much human error as possible, leaving the weapon alone to work within its capabilities. Any twitch of muscle, any forcing of aim he worked to diminish. Even his heartbeat. The Dragunov wasn’t the most accurate rifle to begin with, and he couldn’t afford to miss by compounding the built-in error.
He saw a red vehicle exit and immediately dismissed it. Relaxing his left hand on a sock full of sand underneath the buttstock, he raised the scope a smidgeon and focused on the next vehicle. A white sedan.
He scanned for the quarter panel and saw it was dark. A different paint scheme. He felt his pulse quicken and took a long, slow breath like a yoga student, willing his adrenaline away.
“I have the target.”
He heard Pike acknowledge, but wasn’t listening, his mind moving to a different plane.
He squeezed the sock sandbag, forcing the barrel to drop and track on the right front tire. It was counterintuitive, but the farther away he took his shot, the better the chances of success. At this range, the vehicle was moving almost perpendicular to his line of aim, meaning he could aim at the tire head-on. The strike of the round would be a little high as the vehicle traveled forward and the tire gained ground from the time he pulled the trigger until the time the bullet struck, but he wouldn’t have to worry about leading from left to right, like shooting skeet.
The longer he waited, the more the vehicle would be moving parallel to him, and the greater the chance of error. Worst case, he would have to take the shot right in front of his position, where the road curved, leaving him to actually aim ahead of the tire in order to hit it. A recipe for introducing enormous human error.
As the barrel lowered something ticked in his brain. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew he couldn’t ignore it. He relaxed the hand, raising the scope. He focused on the driver. And saw what it was.
“Pike, Pike, the vehicle is not correct. I have one man. A lone driver.”
“Okay, okay. Stand by. Target will be exiting soon.”
“No, I mean it’s the
right
vehicle, but there’s now only the driver. Nobody else. The vehicle fits. How many white sedans with a repaired right front quarter panel could be exiting the airport at this time?”
He heard Pike say something in his earpiece, but ignored it. He knew what had happened. They’d switched vehicles before leaving the airport to confuse any surveillance.
He tracked to the right, swinging the weapon in an arc, reaching the edge of his sandbag nest. He saw nothing but a large panel truck coming down the road, facing him head-on.
Could that be it?
He focused on the cab, seeing two men. He knew the truck had never exited the airport. His mind working in overdrive, he sorted through the data, and remembered the flash of red he had ignored before.
He scanned back to the left and saw nothing. He swung back to the right and saw the panel truck was now in front of his position. Behind it was a red SUV that had been hidden by the panel truck, now revealed by the curve in the road.
He focused on the passengers and saw four, straining now to keep the scope centered on the vehicle as it traveled parallel to his position.
The target.
He heard Pike requesting a SITREP, but didn’t have time to give out a detailed report. The vehicle would be out of range and into the
Dahiyeh
in a matter of seconds.
Rising to a knee, he rapidly dragged a sandbag to the right and slapped the stock of the weapon on top of it, now facing ninety degrees away from where he had planned. He settled behind the weapon and lowered the scope to the rapidly diminishing vehicle, sighting in on the right rear tire.
Due to the curve in front of his position, the road going away wasn’t as ideal as the road coming toward him. He would have to lead the tire some. The question was how much. The longer he waited, the less he would be forced to do so as the road began to wind perpendicular to his line of aim. But the longer he waited, the farther the vehicle moved and the greater the chance it would be outside the accuracy envelope of his beat-up Dragunov. Especially now that he would be introducing human error as he locked the scope onto the tire with muscles alone in his hastily reconstructed sniper nest.
All of these facts flitted through his mind in a nanosecond, none achieving any dominance. They were simply instinctive, like the millions of inputs a hawk receives diving at a mouse. He focused on the task, calming his body down and manipulating the rifle so he was working with it instead of forcing the shot, seating it as best he could into the sandbag.
He settled the crosshairs just inside the rear tire’s rim, giving him the largest cross section to work with as a margin of error for the vehicle’s forward travel. Watching it shrink with each passing second, he took a deep breath and let it out, the air escaping like a pinhole in a balloon. He was conscious of the reticle slightly bouncing in time with the pulse of his blood. Conscious of a steady breeze against his cheek. Conscious of all the outside influences on the path of his bullet, but he trusted his subconscious to adjust, minutely correcting his aim to ensure success. It was a skill cultivated over a lifetime. He caressed the trigger, lightly pulling it to the rear with a feather touch.
His eyesight slightly unfocused on the edges, the tread of the tire in stark relief in the magnification of the scope, he was startled when the weapon bucked in his hands. As he knew he would be.
He settled the scope and saw the vehicle weave, then pull to the shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut and heard Pike shouting into the radio.
In a monotone, he said, “Break, break. Target is neutralized. I say again, target is neutralized. Past my position. Red SUV with four males inside. Original vehicle’s location is unknown.”
“Is it the right vehicle?”
Knuckles smiled, the question hitting home. He’d just made one of the toughest shots he had ever been called upon to do, and even he wasn’t sure if he’d hit the right target.
“I have no idea. That’s your part of the job.”
A
lready outside the airport
, I asked Jennifer if she could see the original white sedan ahead of us. The one thing we could not do was take out two separate vehicles.
“No. He’s not in sight in front of us. Maybe he exited off the roundabout before he reached Knuckles.”
Great. An unknown threat on the loose.
“Okay. Close on the SUV with the same plan, but keep your eyes open for that damn vehicle. Knuckles said it was only one man, but that’s all it would take to turn this into a gunfight. Jennifer, you got the ball for ID. If you don’t recognize Samir, we break out, no questions asked.”
I keyed my radio. “Knuckles, keep an eye out for the white sedan. Give us early warning.”
“Roger. He shows, what then? I can’t threaten. Only shoot.”
I knew the implications, but wanted the warm and fuzzy of his long reach. “You give us early warning and we’ll deal with it. Just be prepared. This goes wrong, drop everyone you don’t recognize.”
“Roger.”
I peeked between the curtain to catch a glimpse of the red SUV, but saw nothing. Jennifer was straining, leaning so far forward the veil on her face had separated, exposing the skin of her neck.
“I see it, I see it. One man out. No ID on Samir.”
I started breaking out kit, along with Decoy and Brett. “Keep looking. We’re almost at point of no return.”
If it was Samir, he’d be in the backseat. Of that much I was sure. The rest were unknowns. Did the guy next to him have a weapon? Was it out ready to go, or holstered? Did they already have it in their mind to kill Samir? Would that make them much more prone to pull the trigger at the slightest sign of resistance? How many men would exit to check out the flat tire? One? Two? Would they be armed as well?
We hadn’t seen any weapons at the airport, but then again, we hadn’t seen any red SUVs either. Too many variables to plan for, but I was working with men who didn’t need much planning. They could assess and execute on the fly, making correct decisions based on the variables presented. But I wasn’t sure that would be enough for success. I was fine with our chances of survival, but wasn’t with Samir’s. I had no doubt we could close on and subdue everyone in the red SUV, killing them if it came to it, but I wasn’t sure we could do it in time to save him.
He knew this, of course, when he’d agreed to the plan. He was prepared to fight for his life, and we’d planned the takedown, but there were just too many variables that we couldn’t predict.
Best case, we assumed the driver would exit the vehicle and check out the tire alone. That was Decoy’s target. Brett would take out the passenger up front, whether he was in the vehicle or not. That left the man in the backseat for me. Possibly wrestling with Samir over a weapon. Possibly shooting Samir outright.
Jennifer was nothing but eye candy on this one. Her whole mission was to simply lull the opposition. She’d sit in the front with her black garb on, wearing sunglasses to hide her eyes, looking like the meek Muslim woman remaining in the vehicle while Samir’s friend, acting as our driver, went to help.