The Case Officer Read Online Free PDF

other sitting on the corner of the
wall at the end of the roof. He decided to take out the peering guy first,
because he might have heard the last victim fall, and because he could pull
back out of sight behind the hip wall at any moment.
    MacMurphy had a clear view of the
sentry’s head peeking out over the wall and took the difficult shot. The bullet
smashed through the sentry’s nose and blew out the back of his head. Mac quickly
moved his sights to the center mass of the fellow sitting on the corner. The
bullet slammed into the sentry high on the chest tearing through his breast
bone and threw him back and down sprawling on the roof.
    Almost too easy. Don’t get
careless . Adrenaline
pumping, he slipped farther down behind the fallen tree and quietly removed
five more rounds of ammunition from his bandoleer, eased four of them into the
magazine of the rifle, and gently slipped the fifth round into the chamber. He
spent the next few minutes quietly scanning the row of buildings to seek out
any new targets through the powerful rifle scope. None were visible, so he
slipped back into the woods and reported in as he made his way closer to the
city on the south side of the compound.
    “Three more down,” he whispered
into the lapel mic. “No more activity visible along the east wall. Heading
south. Over.”
    “Roger, Easy Two, keep up the
good work,” said the gunny.
    Still using the cover of the
drainage ditch, he reached the southeast corner of the compound. The area in
front of him was open for about fifty meters. Next was a line of trees
bordering the golf course, and beyond that the occasional lights of the heart
of the city. To the right, directly across from the compound, were the darkened
buildings of the International Golf and Tennis Club and the red clay tennis
courts.
    He crossed back over the ring
road and darted back into the shadows of the compound wall. He followed the
wall toward the west. At the end of the compound, lay the sprawling, unlit
Somali National University. He scanned the area in front of him and to his
left, looking for possible sentry locations. He knew any main-force troops
would be farther to the rear, but he decided to continue to take out as many of
the sentries as possible to remove the eyes and ears of Aideed’s militia.
    Nothing was visible on the golf
course or around the tennis courts, but his attention was drawn to the
clubhouse and administration buildings of the Golf and Tennis Club as likely
observation posts for sentries.
    He needed to get closer to the
buildings, so he backtracked over the ring road and darted into the tennis
complex. He moved quietly between the chain-link fences separating the courts.
Taking advantage of the shadows created by the wind-netting attached to the
fences, he was able to move within 100 meters of the administration buildings.
He dropped into a prone position behind a bench and surveyed the buildings
through the rifle scope.
    He spotted two more sentries on
the roof of the administrative building and another in a tall minaret about 200
meters farther south. He decided to take out the two closest targets first, so
they wouldn’t hear the sonic snap of a bullet passing overhead, and hoped that
the guy in the minaret wouldn’t see any muzzle flash.
    He easily took out the two closer
targets with perfect center chest shots and immediately raised his elevation to
300 meters and sighted on the minaret. The sentry inside was speaking into a
walkie-talkie. He decided to hold his shot and watched the guy babble into the
handset while frantically looking out over the terrain in front of him.
Convinced that he was reporting something, MacMurphy held his fire until the
target brought the walkie-talkie down, ending his transmission. The target then
turned and looked to his rear. At that point he squeezed off another round. The
bullet smashed into the back of the target’s head, and he went down.  
    MacMurphy chambered another round
and continued to