Chapter 3

Ramadi, Iraq, March 2009

The apartment building had been gutted by something — rocket, artillery, she hadn’t asked and nobody had told her — and what remained was five floors of exposed concrete and blown-out window frames and the smell of burned plastic that she was already learning was the smell of this country. She’d been in theater eleven days.

She was on the roof before the team hit the street. That was the protocol and she’d internalized it without being told twice — the sniper owns the high ground before anyone moves below. She’d low-crawled to the northeast corner where a collapsed section of parapet gave her a natural rest and a sight line down the length of the parallel street and set up the Mk 22 with the .300 Norma barrel the way she’d practiced until the movements required no thought.

Bipod down. Glass up. Scope dialed.

The street below was four hundred meters of broken asphalt and doorways and the dark geometry of windows that could mean anything or nothing. Laundry on a line two floors up in the building across. A dog moving along the far wall. A rusted propane tank outside a ground floor door.

She filed it all.

“Sand Viper in position.” She kept her voice flat on the radio. “Overwatch established. Street is cold.”

“Copy Sand Viper.” Gunnery Sergeant Decker’s voice was the same on the radio as it was in the FOB — unhurried, like a man who had done this enough times that urgency was a choice rather than a reflex. “Team moves in ninety.”