That was the essence of infantry combat. Oh, he might fire further than normal, he might use more camouflage. But he was, really, just an infantryman with a few more tricks in his bag.

The big difference with the sniper over the regular infantryman was in how he chose his targets. The infantryman tended to concentrate on the men in front of him, similar in interests and actions, the riflemen and machine gunners that were trying to kill him by direct fire.

Snipers, though, had another duty. Their purpose was to find and eliminate priority targets. Snipers were the reason that infantry platoon leaders had one of the shortest life expectancies of any position in combat. The enemy sniper sought out the leaders to disrupt the management of the battlefield.

With the Chechens this was especially important. Their leadership was very personality based and extremely hierarchical. Take out the leaders and the followers tended to not only lose morale but have no f.u.c.king clue what they should be doing. The Chechens, also, derived their mimetic combat background from societies that specialized in hit and run. If the first rush didn't work, they tended to retreat. Especially if they didn't have anyone behind them driving them on.

Finding the leaders, therefore, was the primary job of the Keldara snipers. And getting the big leaders, the senior commanders, ah, that was the money shot.

Pavel had been scanning the battlefield, keeping an eye on how things were going, for the entire battle.

And he knew that the Chechens were at the trenchline, that they'd committed their reserve. He'd called both in. But he also knew that somewhere down there was the man driving them on. The main leader.

The man the large brigade had gathered around for a thousand personal reasons but all related to his personality, his ability, his command skills. His charisma.

He finally found it. A cl.u.s.ter of people behind the lines. Radio antennas.

One man was in the center of that. Oh, not the precise center but a sort of psychological center of gravity that was felt more than a.n.a.lyzed. The man that people were looking at. A big man, graying hair, very serene expression.

Pavel hadn't even realized he'd fired until he saw that expression change as the round hit the center of the man's white mustache which suddenly became crimson as brains splashed onto the ground behind him.

Again, Mike felt it, like a shock rippling through the enemy. It was time.

He keyed his throat mike and strode out of the bunker, ignoring the rounds that cracked around him.

"ARISE KELDARA!" he shouted, firing one handed at a Chechen that had, somehow, made it through the fire and was about to jump into Adams' position. The Chechen flew back in a spray of blood. "UP YOSIF! UP OLEG! FORWARD VIL! UNTO THE BREACH, TIGERS OF THE MOUNTAINS!.

FORWARD THE AXE AND THE FLAME! KILLALL OF THESE MOTHERf.u.c.kERS! LET.

NOTONE ESCAPE!"

Shota was very unhappy. He had this beautiful rocket launcher and he hadn't been allowed to use it.

One Chechen had even gotten to his position, which was just forward of the command bunker and to the right. Shota had picked him up by the leg and beaten him on the side of the position until he stopped squealing. They were all over the place andstill he hadn't been allowed to shoot.

But when the Kildar called, he scrambled to his feet, grabbing the launcher and jumping out of the hole in the ground.

There were Chechenseverywhere . He couldn't figure out where to fire.

"Target! Guy in the red shirt!" Yakov shouted, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him. "Fire!"

Oh, that waseasy . The guy was barely fifty meters in front of the trenches.

Shota didn't even bother to use the sights.

Adamsducked as a ma.s.sive explosion went off to the front of his position then picked up the M-60, cradling the remaining links in his arm.

"Oleg, see you in a bit," he said, frowning.

"I'll give you cover, yes?" Oleg said, hopping up one-legged onto a firing stoop so that he could see over the palisades of the position. He began firing, sweeping the M-60 back and forth, still going continuously.

The position was filling up with bra.s.s and links. They both must have fired over a thousand roundseach and the weaponsstill weren't giving a hiccup. "Take some of my ammo."

"Okay,"Adams said, clambering out of the position he had occupied for so many hours. The Chechens were still trying to move forward but they were looking...weak. They were hardly firing; apparently most of them had expended their ammo and weren't in any mental condition to reload or scrounge if necessary.

The explosion had shaken them and another to the left that almost knockedAdams into the trench again was worse.

Eamon Ferani, loaded down with ammo boxes, clambered up beside him and grinned.

"The Kildar wishes us to advance, Master Chief," the boy said. He drew an axe and waved it. "I will cover your sides, yes?"

"Oh, f.u.c.k yeah,"Adams said, lifting the belt up a bit more and raising the machine-gun to his shoulder.

He clamped down on the trigger and started striding forward, sweeping the weapon from side to side. It was like shooting a G.o.d-d.a.m.ned fire hose. "OH, f.u.c.k YEAH! I GOT ME ONE OFTHESE YOU ISLAMIC b.a.s.t.a.r.dS!".

Over his screaming, and the continuous clatter of the gun, he thought he heard wings beating. It sounded like a giant bird, bigger than any bird, ever...

"THE DRAGON IS ON YOU, YOU b.a.s.t.a.r.dS!"

As she swept around to the east, Kacey triggered the speakers. A sound like satanic chanting filled the valley, resounding from mountainside to mountainside. Then she dipped down to come in right at ground level.

There wasn't any need for special flying and there wasn't much chance of missing the target. The Chechens were all over the ridge. Kacey targeted one group towards the rear and just let fly with everything.

57mm rockets dropped into the Chechen command group as thousands of 7.62 rounds scowered the ground. The whole group fell, blown to bits by rockets, churned to red mush by the fire of the gatlings.

She swept around to point up the hill, flying through the dust and smoke of her barrage, and fired everything again, ripping a ten meter wide hole through the middle of the Chechen formation as she swept up the ridge, engine at overload, drums, guitars and voices screaming into the void.

Mike had lost it. At some level he knew that and didn't care.

He leapt the trench, running ahead of the Keldara, M4 tracking right and left and automatically engaging targets of opportunity, round after round cracking straight through a screaming mouth, behind fierce-slitted eyes, rounds cracking past him, ducking and weaving as some part of his mind antic.i.p.ated shots.

Combat psychologists had determined that there were four broad states to humans in relation to combat, mostly definable by heartbeat and blood pressure. The lowest, white, was a steady state. This was a person unstressed by combat and the hormones and endorphins released by it. Heartbeat was steady and low, blood-pressure the same. Above that was yellow, generally found in persons who were aware that combat might occur at any time but were still more or less steady state. Heartbeat was slightly elevated as was blood-pressure. Above that were the ascending orange and red, red being Shakespeare's famous quote regarding summoning up "the actions of a tiger." Heartbeat was generally in the high hundreds, blood-pressure well over two hundred and while fine motor control was reduced the fighter was acting at what most warriors considered maximum capability. Time was distorted, hearing was distorted, the world was an unreal state. The tiger was on the back of the deer and rending.

But above red was black. Most combatants, entering the black range, lost effect. At the black range the heart was pumping so fast oxygen to the brain was reduced due to poor pumping action, blood pressure was so high that the fighter was seeing either a red cloud or the true tunnel vision of the brain slowly blacking out.

But some warriors, the most highly trained, could enter into black and function. By definition, they were some of the most deadly persons on earth. In black, the fighter's reactions were superhuman, their automatic training processes working at a level beyond gestalt, their shots so fast that even on single shot they sounded like a machine gun and every one was going to hit a target. A fighter who could ride the wave of the black could, would, never miss.

Mike was in the black. Time was slowed for him to such an extent he could see the bullets flying from the Chechens AKs, seeming to glide through the air towards him. He could see his own and know before they hit that they were on target. He felt as if he was moving in mola.s.ses and yet the Chechens, screaming towards him, were moving slower. The ejected cartridges from the M4 were as big as beer barrels, flying past him as slowly as snails would could they but fly.

The empty magazine, dropped, unnoticed and another was seated before the first living Chechen in view could target him and still Mike ran on, brow lowered like the gall'ed rock...

"Mike!"Adams bellowed, turning the M-60, still on continuous fire, to the side so that hisstupid boss wouldn't run right into his cone of fire. "G.o.dd.a.m.nit ! Where the f.u.c.k do you think you're going?"

"ARISE KELDARA!" Oleg bellowed. "YOUR KILDAR LEADS!" He targeted a group of Chechens to the side of the Kildar who was pushing into a wedge of dead bodies, firing rounds so fast it sounded as if he was on full auto, but one Chechen after another was flying back with single holes, right through the f.u.c.king X ring. Oleg cursed the mortar that had taken his leg. He should be at his Kildar's side!

"FORWARD THE AXE AND FLAME! ARISE TIGERS!".

Mike had reached the Chechen line but the fighters in front of him were having a hard time even lifting their weapons with dead bodies falling around and on them.

Some detached portion of him watched as the b.u.t.t of the M4 shattered on a Chechen face, the head of the Chechen slumping sideways as the hard driven steel crumpled not only his face bones but his skull.

The barrel bent across the side of another's head, wrapping into a half U at the impact and brains splashed, slow as dropping feathers, out of the shattered skull.

The axe came up. The axe of the Kildar and Mike struck down and across, shattering a skull, up to slash through a neck, down to take off an arm.

The air was filled with a mist of blood, the sacrifices falling slowly, so slowly.

Vil was up and on the Chechens, screaming as he dropped to a knee and fired. Two Chechens, older ones, were maneuvering in to fire on the Kildar and he dropped both with two aimed bursts. But the Kildar wasn't slowing down and moving forward by fire and maneuverobviously wasn't going to let him catch up.

"d.a.m.n him!" Vil shouted. "What's the point of trainingus ifhe's going to forget it?"

Lasko was so in his element he thought he might just have to kill himself. Never could he have another day like this.

He was a very good shot. Good enough that with his scope dialed to more or less the windage and distance, he had no problem instinctually adjusting.

He was covering the Master Chief's back, sweeping the field and spotting Chechen fighters that were targeting the machine-gunner and terminating them. He wasn't stressed, was in fact in "white", his heartbeat slow and regular. He was coldly finding and terminating his definition of priority targets.

But the pile of bra.s.s gathering around him told the whole story. Lasko truly was "one shot, one kill."

Count the bra.s.s, take maybe three percent off, and thatwas his count. There was ahuge pile of bra.s.s building up. He was going to beatHathc.o.c.k's record, probably sometime in the next fifteen minutes. And that was the killer app in the sniper world.

The last round of the mag blew a head open, he dropped that one, took a full one from Pyotar, loaded and went back to sniping.

There was, in Lasko's world,nothing better than a field full of Chechens and a full magazine.

Adamsstill had his finger clamped on the trigger, holding the M-60 at his hip and sweeping it slowly back and forth like a fireman hosing down a fire.

Eamon was yanking belts out of the boxes and linking them together as fast as he could, while simultaneously holding them off the ground and keeping up with the Master Chief.

But as fast asAdams advanced he couldn't catch the Kildar.

"G.o.d's d.a.m.nit,"Adams shouted. "Ghost! Slow the f.u.c.k down!"

Somewhere there was an ending to the Chechens. If Mike had a thought in his head it was that he was going to carve his way to that ending and then turn around and carve his way back.

"Oh, f.u.c.k," Pavel said, lifting his head away from the scope. He'd been covering the Kildar's back, since he'd apparently forgotten the idea, and only glanced up for a moment to get a general look. What he saw was not the best vision he'd ever seen.

"Vanner! Vanner!"

Patrick Vanner was having oneh.e.l.l of a time. He was a Marine brat, both his mother and father were former Marines, the latter a retired infantry gunnery sergeant.

But despite all his years in the Marines, and his service with the Kildar, he'd never gotten a chance to fire a shot in anger. He'd never known if he had that special quality that let men excel when the bullets were flying around them.

No question now. He had moved forward, following the Keldara and targeting "leakers", guys who for one reason or another got through the Keldara line. Most of them were slipping around the side, which could be bad if they got in behind the Keldara. But theyweren't because Patrick Adam Vanner was by G.o.d terminating their mujaheddin a.s.ses!

A Chechen dropped, three rounds in the sweet spot in the upper chest, when his headphone buzzed.

"Vanner! Vanner! This is Pavel. The Kildar is about to be shot by his own helicopter!"

Kacey wasn't quite in black but shewas seeing red. Lots of red. A good bit of it was on her windshield.

She'd dropped down to where the belly of the Hind was very nearly sc.r.a.ping the ground and flown, hay-diddle-diddle, straight up the middle of the Chechen formation, guns blazing.

The result was flying Chechen body parts and some of them had flown high enough to impact the windscreen. So Kacey wasdefinitely seeing red.

She could see the formation breaking up ahead, though, and there were good guys up there. So she let up on her trigger and started to bank up and away.

The last few rounds from the helo cracked into the back of Chechens and she could, for some reason, watch as the last tracer lazed its way into a gap in the formation.

A gap filled by a blood soaked Keldara, holding a hatchet in his hand and charging forward in a berserker rage.

She flew up and away on automatic, watching as the tracer tracked in to strike the axe-head, through it and into the center of the screaming fighter's chest.

"Dragon! Dragon! Pull up! You're about to..."

"Blue on blue," Kacey muttered, banking towards a cl.u.s.ter of Chechens that seemed to be trying to reform. "f.u.c.k me."

"...kill the Kildar!"