“Acknowledged, Island Alpha.”
Wordlessly, the four-man Special Forces unit broke down into two smaller segments, the sniper/observer team rushing for the cannon scarred balustrade that overlooked Merdeka Square, while the security team moved to secure the rooftop access doors.
Once again, the lethal mystique of the sniper came into play. A single, skilled marksman, dealing precision death from a distance could paralyze a far larger body of troops. Even a blooded combat veteran, inured to the possibility of random death on the battlefield, might freeze when confronted with the thought of having a single, specific bullet aimed at him with cold blooded determination.
The tactical snipers on the embassy walls had initiated this paralysis; now the Sky Island marksmen would set the final seal upon it. They were armed with the “Big Fifty”, the Barrett M82A1 .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle
With an unhurried swiftness, the Green Beret Snipers deployed, extending the bipod of their massive primary weapon and finding a brace point and firing position. Uncapping the lenses of the thermographic rifle sight and observer’s scope, they set out a row of massive reload clips and their range tables. In less than a minute, gunner and spotter were behind their scopes and hunting targets.
Quillain flipped up his visor and lifted his own NiteBrite binoculars, then panned them across the city. Intermittent flashbulb bursts of mortar and missile fire flared, answered by occasional sputtering tracer streams from anti-aircraft guns. The defensive gunfire was thinning out rapidly, however. The concentrated flak suppression program being put down by the RPVs, SPEED Cobra’s and mortar crews was making the firing of an anti-aircraft gun a very dead-end proposition.
Off to the southwest of their position, across the broad open space of the square, the ruins of the Indonesian Defense Ministry sent up a dense plume of smoke. A steady popping of rifle fire came from the US Embassy compound in the southeastern corner, along with the occasional rip of a machine gun or thud of a grenade. Mostly it was outgoing from the compound walls; the FAST Marines were maintaining a furious fire, hosing down the local environment.
As yet, there was no sign of coordinated activity from the rebel forces surrounding the embassy. The shock paralysis of the attack was still in effect. They didn’t know just who the enemy was or what his intents were, nor from where the next blow might fall. The individual company-level commanders were waiting for orders to come down or for the situation to clarify before taking action.
Stone could recognize the logical but insidious trap the Indonesians were sliding into. When you were under attack, it was always better to do something, anything, constructive immediately rather than to stand around figuring out what would have been best after it was too late.
He swung his glasses back across the square and caught movement at the base of the MONAS monument. A squad of Indonesian infantry crouched behind the base of the towering obelisk, taking shelter from the fire from the embassy. Through his powerful NiteBrite glasses, Stone could see one of the soldiers had something lifted in front of his face: a radio. Apparently, the squad leader was trying to establish contact with his superiors, intent on asking just what in the hell he was supposed to do now.
Stone wasn’t the only one to spot the infantry squad.
C-R-A-A-A-C-K!
Even standing ten feet away from the weapon, the muzzle blast of the Barrett Big Fifty was a stinging physical slap.
The Barrett fired the Browning .50 caliber machine gun round, a venerable projectile designed shortly after the First World War that, by sheer accident, turned out to be the most accurate long-range cartridge ever created in the history of ballistics.
The Browning .50 hadn’t been meant for use as a sniper’s round. Originally, it had been intended to knock out tanks and shoot down airplanes. When used against the far more fragile human body, the effect could only be called spectacular.
The Indonesian squad leader exploded under the impact of the massive, hypervelocity slug. In Stone’s thermographic binoculars, he dissolved into a spray of hazy green mist that engulfed the remainder of his squad.
“Boy howdy, that’s doing the job,” Stone commented mildly.
“Yeah,” the lead Beret sniper replied, not lifting his eye from the sighting module. “I’m using one of the new Norwegian HE loads. It ramps things up.”
C-R-A-A-A-C-K!
Half a mile away, another target at the base of the obelisk dissolved. Some of the Indonesians dropped their weapons and fled wildly, preferring the random death that might be encountered in a dash across the open ground of the square to the certainty of being crushed under the pointing finger of God. Others just crouched, frozen, incapable of action as the sniper methodically emptied his magazine. Either way, none of these soldiers would be a factor for the remainder of this fight.
Stone was satisfied. “Star Child, Star Child, this is Sea Demon Six at Island Able. It’s as good as it’s going to get. Let’s get these folks out of here.”
*
In the Landing Force Operations Center, Amanda Garrett decided that she was passionately in love with Remotely Piloted Vehicles. Almost half of the Shenandoah’s tilt-rotor drone group had been shot down performing the close recon and flak suppression mission, and yet it would only be a matter for the US taxpayer and Boeing Textron to deal with, not Graves Registration.
She studied the continuously updating symbology on the primary displays and was nominally pleased with what she saw. The Indonesian command-and-control nets were still down. Their ground units were still semi-paralyzed from assault shock and all identified anti-air positions had been nullified by precision guided mortar and missile fire. She decided Stone was right. It wasn’t going to get any better.
“Air One, this is the Captain. Proceed with the primary evacuation phase. Put the
blanket down over the primary LZ and commit the Ospreys.”
Point Man Base
The US Embassy, Jakarta
2331 Hours; Zone Time, October 31, 2008
“This is it! Let’s go!” Christine yelled.
Swapping their headsets for K-Pot helmets, the Systems Operators abandoned the last functional workstations and headed for the door, snatching up their personal weapons as they came. Sergeant MacGuffin and Christine were the last out of the Point Man Base operations room, MacGuffin trailing a detonator wire behind him.
Detcord had already been looped around the tactical scanners and relay radios. As the Sergeant connected the firing leads to a hand clacker firing unit, Christine took a last wistful look into the cluttered reception hall. It had been an odd first independent command but it had been hers.
“Fire in the hole!” MacGuffin yelled and Christine ducked back behind the wall.
The clacker clacked and a linear explosion lashed around the interior of the room, shutting Point Man Base down permanently.
As they trotted out of the embassy building, the thud and roar of the night washed over them and they were engulfed in the stench of burning buildings and gun smoke.
“Sarge, rejoin the main party and make sure all chalks are ready to load. I’m taking a final look from the wall.”
“Okay, ma’am. Watch your … Well, you just watch it!”
“Always do.”
Christine scrambled up the ladder to the parapet gangway stretching across the forward wall of the embassy.
The FAST Marines and the Embassy security force were strung out along the walls like the defenders of a medieval castle. A thickening layer of ejected gun brass glinted on the parapet decking. Around her was the continuous, deliberate, bap, bap, bap, of aimed, suppressive fire.
Peering through their night sights, they overwatched Merdeka Square and the faces of the surrounding buildings, sending rounds in at any hunt of movement or even into places where movement might be. They were burning through ammunition at a terrific rate, but it was critical to keep hostile heads down for the next few minutes.
