Kill Zone by Jack Coughlin & Donald A. Davis

Author:Jack Coughlin & Donald A. Davis [Coughlin Jack; Davis Donald A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781429928175
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Published: 2007-09-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

DARKNESS CAME SLOWLY, A gauzy haze of dust-laden, fading light streaks. Even when the final fiery edge of the sun disappeared, the temperatures stayed stuck in the nineties. Within a few hours, Swanson would be freezing his butt off. It would not really be cold by the thermometer, but a thirty-degree drop after sweltering in 110-plus heat would bring a good dose of the chills. When the sun took away its warmth, the sweat that had oozed from him all day and drenched his clothes would feel like ice when the nightly winds blew. The mission was to have been a quick in-and-out, so he had only the clothes on his back. Fuck it. Nothing he could do, and that missing sun was his clock.

It had to shift away and benignly bathe places like the south of France and Miami Beach and Waikiki and Bondi Beach before returning to Syria, but it would not really be gone very long. The sniper had to be out of the hide, do his job, and be long gone before that orange beast once again started to eat this chunk of sky.

He had finished the logbook, done the surveillance, eaten some more crackers and water, and pissed into a hole in the dirt beneath him. A Syrian army contingent had shown up at the helo crash site, done some cursory investigation, loaded up the bodies, and taken them away. Swanson felt pangs of guilt while he watched. What were they going to do with the bodies? Give them back? Deep in his gut, he had a sense of failure and was angry with himself. The saying that Marines don’t leave their own casualties behind was not just a catch-phrase. Dead or alive, everybody comes home.

Then reason took over. He did not have the resources to change this situation, and if he survived, he could report what had happened. And importantly, there was still one Marine who was alive and needed his attention, so all Swanson could do was bid a silent goodbye to the dead rescue team of Marines and hope the pinheads in Washington fought to bring them back.

The wrecked helicopters, stripped of all value, were left where they fell, just more bones in the desert, a macabre tourist attraction for snooping American satellites to photograph from space. Two new soldiers were dropped off to replace the guard post sentries Swanson had killed, and the army convoy left.

Swanson waited without anxiety as life began to slow down with the approach of action. His focus would narrow and he would see things differently, at a slower speed, more of a black-and-white film in a neighborhood theater than as a jerky, quick-cut television story. The metamorphosis would continue, like he was changing into someone new, and the sounds would amplify, the smells would become more intense, his eyesight would sharpen, and his reactions would quicken. Each breath would be slow. He had been an observer all day. Now he was becoming a sniper.

The village activity settled into an easier pace for the evening prayers and meal.

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