"Uh..." Guerrin said. "Thetoting you'd like help with, that would be, oh, mortars, baseplates... That sort of thing?"

"Well, we have to have weapons for self protection," Mother Lenka said, still blue eyes wide and innocent in the face of the blatant lie. "And there may be poor, injured Chechens to bring back."

Guerrin had seen what Captain Bathlick had left of the Chechen position. If there was anyone alive over there he was a leg. But she had a point. I mean, a mission ofmercy ? EvenState couldn't find fault with that.

"I can see that logic," Guerrin said, trying not to grin. The woman could charm the scales off a snake. "I'll round up some guys. Third Platoon looks a little worn out."

"Why thank you, Captain," Mother Lenka said, smiling. She dipped into one of her ammo pouched and pulled out a bottle. "Have a beer. But eat something with it. You Americans are weak drinkers."

"Presents from the Mothers," Sawn said, dropping a package in Kiril's position.

Kiril had gotten the bodies arranged to his satisfaction, cleaned his SAW and reloaded it. He'd left one of the bodies, one of the less b.l.o.o.d.y ones, in the position. It gave him something to sit on.

"Blessings be upon the Mothers," Kiril said, opening the wooden box.

There were three meat rolls, beef and cabbage wrapped in bread, a small loaf of oatmeal cake, rich with honey and washed in egg and, blessed be, a bottle of beer stamped with Mother Lenka'spersonal rune.

He'd only had Mother Lenka's beer on two other occasions; it was saved for holidays. The meat rolls were hot and the beer still cold, courtesy of the straw both were packed in.

"Blessings indeed," Sawn said. He had a load of other boxes in his arms. "I have to drop these off before I can eat. So I'm out of here."

"Go," Kiril said, his mouth already stuffed with meat-roll. He cracked the top on Mother Lenka's brew and took a sip. Given that he'd been out of beer for days and hadn't eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, it was one of the best meals he'd ever had. "Go with blessings."

Mike opened up the box then looked over at the commo and intel section.

It was like friends told him about kids. They weren't getting into trouble until they were quiet. Before the food got dropped off they'd been happy-talking. Happy to be alive after the Keldara had beaten off the attack. Now they were quiet, and they weren't eating.

"What?" Mike said. "Whatever it is, I'm going to find out sooner or later."

Vanner looked up from the BFT pad and shrugged.

"Check the updated casualty report," he said. "Female."

Mike pulled out his own pad and keyed the casualty reports. He didn't need to sort it, the name leapt off the screen.

Mahona, Gretchen, Private, Crew-Chief. KIA.

Crew-chief."Game as h.e.l.l. Took some with her, I think, but she got hit by one of the 12.7s."

Mike put the pad away then put his hand to his forehead, eyes closed. His jaw worked as he tried to get control but his mind was filled with the sound of laughter, flashing legs and the war in his head was one of chocolate mousse.

He could not do this right now. He couldnot . He had to bottle it away. And there was one other thing hehad to do. n.o.body else could do it. n.o.body.

He wiped his eyes and took a deep breath as he stood.

"Keep the food warm. I've got to go over to Sawn's positions."

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Pierson said as CNN broke in with a "special report from Chechnya."

Ever since the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, every higher headquarters kept at least one TV tuned to one or more of the satellite news channels. Not only was it a necessity to see what lie was being perpetrated by the Main-Stream Media today, quite often you could pick up intelligence that was otherwise unnoticed or unavailable.

And sometimes, you found out when an op had been blown sky high.

"This is Jack Sperman with CNN,"the newscaster said."We are receiving reports of a major battle going on in Chechnya at this moment. The region where the battle is taking place is called the Pansiki Gorge, an area long used by Chechen militants as a refuge in their resistance to Russian occupiers. Much of the area belongs to the country of Georgia but Georgia has been unable to stop the Chechens from using it. They have apparently sent a small force in for reasons at this time unknown and the force has been cut off and surrounded by the Chechen freedom-fighters who are vowing to destroy them. We now take you to live video feed from the Al-Jazeera satellite news service..."

The video was of an Al-Jazeera reporter interviewing a big guy wearing the der rigueur bandana of "freedom-fighters" everywhere. They were both speaking Arabic but there was a continuous translation overlaid on the voice track.

"Commander Bukara," the reporter said, "your first attack was beaten off. What are you going to do, now?"

"That was only a probe," Bukara said. "We were just finding where their positions are. Now that we know, we will attack in force and destroy the infidels, removing their stain. These are the lands of Islam and we refuse to let foreign crusaders, pagans and pigs, from setting foot here!"

"You say they are pagans, yes?"

"Pagan eaters of pig flesh. They are worshippers of false G.o.ds and will recant or die as the Prophet decreed!"

"You are confident, then?"

"Very. They are few and number and my men, after a long battle that left many of them dead, now have them trapped. They are faithless, as well, leaving their wounded and dead behind. We have treated the wounded with care and the dead shall be buried with full Islamic ceremony, although they are pagans and thus doomed to h.e.l.l. It shall not be said, though, that we are barbarians."

"You are acting in the best traditions of Islam, Commander. When do you plan to attack..."

"Somebody better tell the president," Pierson said with a sigh.

"Kildar, this is Tiger Two."

"Go."

Mike was just looking off into the distance. Telling Kiril had been harder than just about anything he'd ever done. But it wasn't that that had a black place where his soul used to be.

"We're sending you a video on feed two," Pierson said. "Al-Jazeera had some reporters covering the Chechen forces in the area. They've apparently caught up to your battle. Bukara is spouting bulls.h.i.t but I thought you'd find it humorous."

"f.u.c.k," Mike said, picking up his personal pad and hitting the control for feed two. Sure enough...

Motherf.u.c.ker. He could recognize their emplacements in the background. Just what he f.u.c.king needed.

He stood up and walked to the front of the bunker and looking down the hill then picked up his binoculars. Steadying his arm on the wall of the bunker he dialed in the digital zoom and spotted the group. Bukara had to be the guy waving his arms.

"Is the president seeing this?" Mike said.

"Mike, it's satellite TV," Pierson replied. "It's being carried live on CNN, Fox, Al-Jazeera and Skynet.

Yeah, he knows. h.e.l.l, the wholeworld knows."

"Mr. President," the Secret Service agent said, hand to his earmike, "Sir, sorry to interrupt dinner, but Colonel Pierson says you might want to turn on Fox News."

"Sorry about this, honey," the president said to the First Lady, smiling slightly. He gestured with his chin and another Secret Service agent clicked the TV in the dining room on.

"...Kill the Keldara pagans. Then we shall go to their homes and scour them. Their valley is a rightful part of Islamic lands, stolen from us long ago. Today is the day of reckoning against these infidel invaders..."

"Get me Colonel Pierson," the president said, his face hard. "Now."

"That's Michael isn't it?" the First Lady said, worriedly. "Honey..."

"Not now, Amanda," the President said. "Notnow ."

"f.u.c.k."

Mike considered the group through his binoculars then hit the range finder. Two thousand seven hundred and ninety eight meters. Winds... pretty touchy. Mostly from the side but shifting... On the other hand it was downhill all the way...

"Hey, Nielson," Mike said, touching his throat mike and checking the time. "You'd better call higher and tell them if anybody's eating dinner they might want to turn off the video feed."

"Mike..."

Mike switched frequencies.

"Lasko, you'dbetter still have the Robar."

Lasko peered through the NightForce NSX scope of the Robar .50 caliber sniper rifle and considered the shot.

The target was barely a dot even at twenty-two times magnification. The winds were fifteen knots at his position but seemed higher in the air in between. Probably closer to seventeen. He leaned over and looked through the spotting scope then hit the built in inclinometer. Two hundred and sixty three meters below his position. And nearly three thousand meters. The height difference was the only thing that made the shot even vaguely possible.

The ballistics of a round is a simple function of gravity. Anything dropped in a gravity well has the force of gravity pulling it down. Once the bullet leaves the barrel of the weapon, it is continuously falling towards the ground and just as continuously accelerating, gravity being like that.

Thus the "parabolic" function of anything thrown in a gravity well, from a football to a CD chucked at your sister's head to...a bullet fired at a target nearly a mile and a half away.

In addition, rounds slow due to air resistance. Winds push them around. A bullet fired from a gun pointed perfectly at a target even a hundred meters away tends to miss. Much less a mile and a half. Mile and a half just simply wasn't doable. Impossible. Unthinkable.

Lasko knew all this. He'd been a superb "instinctive" shot before the Kildar came along. Since then he'd studied and practiced constantly. The computations of advanced ballistics sometimes took him a while, he had, after all, barely been able to do multiplication before the Kildar, but he had technology to help out there. This shot, though...

Tricky, tricky. Winds...

Normally, Sion would be doing this but Pyotar had no clue how to really spot. So Lasko dialed back the zoom on the spotting scope, checking the winds. Winds seen through a scope at that distance made a "haze" effect similar to the mirage you got on hot days. You couldsee them rippling by and with practice could figure out direction and probable speed. The wind nearest the target was going to have the most effect because the bullet was going to be going slowest there. h.e.l.l, it might be going slowly enough to not have any effect on the target at all.

He checked six points going back, making notes on a pad at each point, then zoomed the scope back to the target. The f.u.c.ker was still talking and standing nice and still for the cameras.

He pulled out his own BFT device, which had a program for long-range shooting calculations built into it.

Plugging the distance, elevation change and wind variables he hit the enter key. The device in less than a second gave him numbers for elevation of the barrel and deflection off target. It also gave him the speed the round was going to be traveling which, fortunately, was more than high enough.

Looking through the scope he snorted. He'd adjusted his scope to the maximum hold-over, was at the bottom of the stadia on the vertical and still needed two mils. He shifted the rifle up and snorted again.

About two mils was going to have to do. And the bullet was going to be breaking the sound barrier on the way. That, right there, was going to make this shot more luck than either scienceor art.

He also was firing with the scope at nearly maximum horizontal. The rifle pointed upwards and sideways at, apparently, thin air. Insane to even try... Oh, well. If he missed n.o.body was going to notice. Except the Keldara and, in a way, they were the only ones that mattered.

Shifting the rifle he found the target again and wrapped his arm into the strap, getting a good solid seat. If he thought about the impossibility of the shot for even a second he might not take it at all. So he just took a slight breath and squeeeezed...

"Colonel, we need to ensure that there isno discussion of our interaction with this," the president said.

"Yes, Mr. President," Pierson said. He was sweating. He'dnever had an op go this far south in his life.

The whole f.u.c.kingworld was watching one of the blackest of black ops on satellite TV. Motherf.u.c.ker!

He shook his head as one of the commo lieutenants looked over at him, waving. "President!" he mouthed.

"I KNOW," the guy suddenly screamed. "Tell him to turn off the feed! NOW! Or at least get the First Lady out of the f.u.c.kING ROOM!"

The bullet was a Hornady A-MAX, the round of choice for long-distance shooters. The sharp polymer cap over a more or less hollow center gave it excellent ballistic ability because it could knife through the atmosphere and maintain a solid spin over long distances. And the hollow point, well, that meant the round nearly exploded on contact with a target.

It started off at 854 meters per second and in a perfect spin, courtesy of high quality manufacture in both the bullet and the rifle. But by the time the 750 grain round reached target it was going barely above the speed of sound and pointed nearly straight downwards. The edges of the sound barrier had caused it to begin "wobbling" and now it was tumbling as well.

It was that angle and wobble that did it as much as anything. The round entered Commander Bukara's chest going at slightlybelow the speed of sound, falling at a 75 degree angle and very nearly sideways, transmitting in one brief moment 1804 foot pounds of energy or nearly six times as much as the most powerful .45 pistol round.

At that point, hydrostatic shock took over.

The President watched, wide-eyed, as the man on the screen seemed to explode. His torso separated from his abdomen in a spray of blood and intestines. One arm was ripped off, spinning through the air and hitting the Al-Jazeera reporter hard enough to knock him off his feet.

He just sat there for a moment, his mouth open, as the view from the camera became one of the ground, sideways, then started shaking and moving as the cameraman, smart man, crawled away. It suddenly terminated, showing an empty chair. From the sounds, the newscaster was throwing up into a wastebasket under the desk.

"Can we let the First Lady back in, now, Mr. President?" the Secret Service agent by the door asked.

"Sure," the president replied.

His wife still had her fork in her hand. When the Service got the word that the First Lady needed to "exit the room" they didn't mess around. This wasn't Hollywood. When the Service got the word to move a principle, they stopped being polite; the principle moved at the highest speed the Detail could run with him or her in their arms. Her feet hadnot hit the floor.

"Whathappened ?" she asked, angrily.

The president looked at the fork and shook his head.