of the Belgians, which I had with me, and shove them, one by one, down Nabeel’s throat. But bottom line on Nabeel al-Samad was that he’d come to the end of his usefulness.
Well, the moment that we would have liked to avoid had come, and it was time to say good-bye to Nabeel.
Zamo said, “I’ll tie and gag him.”
We all nodded and left the hut. A second later, I heard the cough of the muzzle silencer, and Zamo stepped out of the hut, bolting another round in the chamber.
No one said anything as Zamo slung Nabeel’s AK-47 over his shoulder and we moved on.
Kate noticed that the gorge was littered with plastic water bottles and similar evidence that a lot of people had been there, and we concluded that this was a meeting place, like an amphitheater, maybe where The Panther rallied his troops. If so, his cave couldn’t be far off.
We climbed out of the gorge and continued on. I had point now, but Zamo was close behind me, scanning the terrain to our front, sides, and rear.
We were about a hundred yards from the base of the high hill where the cave was supposed to be, and I felt Zamo’s hand press down on my shoulder. I dropped to one knee and glanced back to see him focusing on something up the slope of the hill.
He passed his sniper rifle to me and pointed, like a bird dog. I followed his outstretched arm and scanned the hill. About halfway up, sitting on a rock, was a man in dark cammies with what looked like a rifle across his knees. As I focused in, the man raised the rifle and began scanning the ground below him. I caught a brief flash of his nightscope lens as it swept past us, and Zamo and I hit the ground and rolled behind a flat rock.
As I passed the rifle back to Zamo, Kate and Brenner inched forward, and I said, “Sniper.”
They both nodded and kept completely still.
Zamo was now refocused on the sniper, and Brenner inched closer to him.
Zamo said, “We can’t move without that guy seeing us.”
Meaning, permission to fire.
We all understand that if Zamo took that guy out, there’d be another dead sentry who was not reporting in. On the other hand, there seemed to be no way around that.
Brenner thought a moment, then said to Zamo, “Take him out.”
Zamo seemed pleased with the assignment.
Zamo knew, and we all knew, that he had literally one shot at this. The sound of his shot would be muffled by the silencer, but the bullet, if it missed the target, would hit rock and even the most clueless sniper would know that he’d been shot at and missed. And by the time Zamo chambered another round and re-aimed, the enemy sniper would be behind a rock and raising the alarm. Then he’d start shooting back.
It looked to me like the sniper was maybe five or six hundred meters up the side of the hill, still within the nine-hundred-meter effective range of Zamo’s scope and rifle. But it wasn’t an easy shot because it was a night shot, and because rising or falling terrain distorts your perception of the target’s distance.
We all sat as still as the rocks around us while Zamo steadied his aim from a kneeling position. There wasn’t a rock around that was high enough for him to use to steady his rifle, so he was aiming freehand, and I could see he was having a problem with his injured left arm, which couldn’t hold its position long. In fact, Zamo lowered the rifle, then sighted again, then lowered it again.
Jeez. Come on, guy. You can do it. And do it fast before that bastard starts scanning the terrain again.
Zamo took a deep breath, then actually stood, took another breath, held it, then fired.
He dropped to one knee and chambered another round.
Brenner was the one to ask, “Hit?”
Zamo glanced back at him as though he couldn’t understand the question. Finally, he said, “Yeah. Hit.” Like, why bother to fire if you’re going to miss?
Well, Zamo was feeling good about himself, and I was feeling that we were very lucky and that The Panther was not.
I suggested, “We really need to move it before The Panther hears all this silence.”
Everyone agreed and we dispensed with stealth and caution and double-timed it up the trail that curved around the base of the high hill with the sail on top. We kept an