Weapons of Mass Destruction by Margaret Vandenburg Read Free Book Online

climbed out of his Stryker to consult with Lieutenant Radetzky. Tactical Operations barked orders into their headsets. Phipps looked excited. Radetzky looked like he always looked. Calm. In control.
    “Confirm coordinates after every block,” Captain Phipps said.
    “Yessir,” Lieutenant Radetzky said. He turned to his men. “Split into squads. Keep pace.”
    All along the perimeter of East Manhattan, captains gave the signal and companies slipped into Fallujah. Their stealth, in spite of all their gear, was remarkable. The Marine Corps’s most cherished motto—swift, silent, and deadly—was particularly well suited to urban operations. They disappeared into the city, which seemed to lie in wait for them.
    Radetzky’s platoon was armed with a secret weapon. Sinclair headed up a sniper team tasked with covering maneuvers on the ground. Deploying snipers in searchand-destroy missions was highly unorthodox. Conventional wisdom said they slowed things down, leaving troops more vulnerable to ambushes. But conventional wisdom was as outdated in Iraq as conventional warfare. Perched on high, snipers could pick off insurgents moving from one bunker to the next. They were the eyes and ears of the platoon, providing security and intelligence in equal measure. Sinclair was in constant radio contact with Radetzky, who adjusted his strategies accordingly.
    Sinclair’s team snuck up the stairwell of an apartment complex overlooking several blocks of ritzy single-family homes. The rest of the platoon split up, preparing to clear a pair of compounds under his watchful eye. Lieutenant Radetzky led one squad, Wolf the other. McCarthy’s bunkmate Percy served double duty, backing up both squads with a shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapon. SMAWs could level bunkers and smoke insurgents out of structures too well-fortified to storm. In theory, they were portable weapons systems. In practice, Percy was the only one strong enough to carry the damned thing. There were several other college football stars in the company. They looked like featherweight wrestlers next to Percy, who was posted behind a garden wall. Radetzky waited until everyone confirmed their positions. He never rushed their maneuvers. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
    “Prepare to advance,” Radetzky announced into his headset.
    “I’m blind from eight o’clock to eleven,” Percy said.
    “You got that, Sinclair?” Radetzky said.
    “Got it covered,” Sinclair said.
    “We’re right behind you,” Wolf said.
    The two squads rushed single-file across the patios of adjacent compounds. Johnson followed Wolf’s team, his camera at the ready. If a swift kick or two didn’t pop the front door, they blew the lock. On extended campaigns, this tactic saved a lot of wear and tear on point men. Otherwise they had to batter down door after door, all because civilians lacked the common courtesy to welcome them into their homes. You tried to liberate a country, and they locked their doors in your face. Go figure.
    Two men appeared on the roof of one of the compounds. Sinclair zeroed in on them, preparing to fire, and then relaxed his trigger finger. It was Trapp and McCarthy. They made a quick search of the area, checking for weapons caches, before disappearing back down the stairwell. Neither of them looked in Sinclair’s direction for fear of giving away his position. But they could feel his eyes watching their backs. An umbilical cord of energy connected good snipers with their platoons.
    The squads moved on to the next set of compounds. No one anticipated much resistance on the perimeter of the city, but you never knew. Unpredictability was the insurgency’s most lethal weapon. The desert was wired with booby traps and IEDs. Urban combat was even more full of surprises. Every room in every single house was a potential jack-in-the-box. The sheer number bred boredom and complacency. Door after door popped open, hundreds and then thousands of them revealing nothing.