Read Online The Crisis by David Poyer - Free Book Online Page A

he adjusted his windage, hoping he wasn’t overcorrecting.
    â€œEight hundred fifty meters.”
    â€œCheck again. When you have time, use it.”
    He breathed out, took his eye away, put it back to the eyepiece. “Eight fifty.”
    â€œWith the laser?”
    â€œFuck the laser. That’s a solid range.”
    â€œAll right. Check your windage again. The wind never stops changing.” He bit back a retort and checked again. Right to left again, and the nearly invisible moiré pattern eddied more swiftly now. He blinked sweat away and corrected. Kaulukukui and Dooley squatted, hands dangling. “You guys look like baboons,” he said.
    â€œYou look like a baboon’s prick.”
    â€œYou suck baboons’ pricks.”
    â€œYeah, but not on Sunday.”
    â€œShut up. Watch this,” the master chief said.
    He reached in past Obie’s shoulder to flick a toggle on the scope. It emitted a faint whine powering up.
    Teddy blinked. Like magic, the tremor had disappeared. The only motion now was that of the boiling air escalatoring smoothly and silently across the field of view. He checked left, then right, to make sure none of the goatherds were wandering around downrange. Just blank rock, sand, the shrunken shadows of near-noon. He took up the slack in the trigger. Found the second stage. Centered the sights above the eight dot and below the nine. Breathed out and applied pressure, ready to stop if the scope wavered.
    But it was rock solid, and the recoil slammed his shoulder like no M16 ever had. The suppressor damped the report, but no way it could silence metal ripping air at three thousand feet a second. The supersonic crack tolled back from rocks and hillsides. He’d stopped blinking when he fired years ago, so he could track the wavering comet of the bullet’s trace all the way.
    It struck in the bottom half of the fluorescent spot and the rock split apart, exploding into flying fragments and an ocher cloud that hung suspended for a moment, as if contemplating being released from the matrix in which it had spent the last million years. Then uncurled like a blossoming bud and drifted off downwind.
    He rolled away from the rifle. The other SEALs looked impressed. “DRT,” Dooley murmured. Dead right there.
    â€œIf they run, they’ll just die tired,” Kaulukukui said.
    â€œA little farther than you figured,” Skilley pronounced. “But better under than over, if you’re going for a head shot.”
    â€œI could do some work with this,” Teddy said. “This one mine?”
    â€œOn the way. Two, maybe three weeks. With a national stock number, hard case, sling, and butt and handguard weight set.”
    â€œAnd this hot shit ammo?” said the Hawaiian.
    â€œThat’s different.” Skilley laid the plastic case beside Oberg. “So far, the only agency approved to use this has three initials. You won’t find itin the supply system. You’d have to depend on what you . . . found lying around.”
    The case disappeared into Teddy’s cargo pocket as he stood. They looked around again, at the blazing sun overhead, the still-climbing column of black smoke far away. Then turned, and began the trek downhill to the waiting convoy.
Nabil
    T HE little boy turns but his sister’s not there. Her hand was in his a second ago. Now the air’s filled with the black shapes of women but they’re not her. Motors snarl from all around. He coughs, digging dust out of his eyes.
    â€œZeynaab. Zeynaab!”
    But nobody answers; in all the screaming he can’t even hear himself. A truck roars past so close the hot wind nearly knocks him down. Stones from the tires sting his cheek. Then shots snap. Somebody’s shooting! He knows now to fall to the ground, like the people around him. He covers his head and squinches his eyes shut, like on cool nights when he pulls the blanket over his head.
    The