Chapter 24: R-32, 3

Four years ago

Amarillo and Han had to shoulder Davis until they got out of the tunnel and into the first mining chamber. Han had procured three hazmat suits for them. The one Davis was wearing was covered in blood. Amarillo hadn't asked why. They had trouble getting Davis into hers, but they got it done. Now if anyone saw them from a distance they'd think they were just workers.

It was the first time Amarillo had seen the mining chamber. It was littered with corpses. Amarillo hadn't heard gunfire while Han was gone. He'd taken out... Twenty? Amarillo didn't see weapons on most of them. Han had taken out civilians. He'd taken out witnesses. People who would have called for reinforcements. If this place had been on high alert, Amarillo and Davis would have been long dead. They were in no condition for a real fight.

They dragged Davis past a trio of men in their underwear. Amarillo assumed this was where Han had gotten the suits. There was one man still in his suit next to them. He'd been stabbed and the front window panel of his suit was bathed in blood. Amarillo guessed that the man had refused to give up his suit.

They had to climb a steep incline to reach the next chamber. As they got to the ridge of the small ramp they heard men speaking hurriedly in Pashto. Han took a glance over and came back immediately.

“Shit,” Han said, his voice muffled from inside the suit. “Fourteen. AKs and handguns. Prepping for assault.”

Amarillo said, “still got my rifle. Should be fine. Hole up with Davis.” Then he hobbled off into the dark.

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Han had to trust Amarillo. He knew Amarillo was one of the top snipers in the Rangers, hell, he might be tops in the whole damn military. He pulled Davis down into a makeshift tent the locals had been using as a shitter. It smelled awful but then the whole place stank like the dead at that point.

Amarillo had picked a spot where he had almost no cover but a perfect view of the entire room. He was up on a big boulder. The only thing protecting him was shadow. He had to knock down a construction lamp to get his position in total darkness. Otherwise he was a sitting duck. He lay prone and in a sniping position. He waited.

The first two men over the ridge came down into the chamber and shouted for their friends. They saw bodies immediately. They looked around for obvious threats. They found none. They called for their friends to come down. Five more men crawled over the ridge and into the mining area. Then the remaining eight.

They were spread out. They were searching. They shouted to each other about their dead friends. And then, after the last one had cleared the ridge, they began to die.

The first man's head exploded. Then another. A third man took a bullet through the shoulder, which simply exploded due to the force of the sniper rifle's raw velocity. The MK11 Mod 0 sounded like thunder, each shot echoing through the cave. Two more men went down in quick succession. Numbers six and seven fell to the same bullet. The eighth man to die took two shots. The first cut his neck open and would have been quickly fatal, but the man raised his gun towards Amarillo. That forced the sniper's hand and a round through the eye dropped him entirely.

At this point 12 seconds had passed.

The remaining seven men shouted from behind cover, though half of them didn't know where the shots were coming from. This led to kill number nine. He thought he was safe behind a large rock, except his position was totally open to Amarillo. Ten had hidden behind a wooden crate. The crate exploded into splinters as Amarillo drove three bullets into it, piercing the wood easily, and killing the man behind it.

Three of the remaining four quickly came up with a plan. They'd all pop out at once from behind the low rock formation they were behind. One man counted down from five. At three a grenade sailed over the rock formation and landed among them. At two they all scrambled, at one the grenade sent a shockwave of force and shrapnel out killing two men immediately and sending the 13th man to die a slower, more painful death.

Man number 14 held his hands up in surrender.