Day three in the hide. Dug deep into the side of a ridgeline overlooking the hard pan of the Chihuahuan desert.

Sam, my spotter, sitting next to me, taps my left arm twice. Movement. Taps once more. Quadrant One. Taps another two times. Two O’Clock. Sam doesn’t talk much.

As we were approximately 100 meters above the valley floor, I quickly searched from out to in through my heavily shielded scope. There they were. Passed Phase Line Omega and are just cresting the furthest edge of the kill zone. A quick look at my old Swisscom drone spotter – skeeters are nowhere to be found. Sweet. A final check of my detailed range card, ready to rock.

Our orders from above were to stop the invasion by any means necessary. Time to get busy doing just that thing.

Now which Target Reference Point are they going to roll over? Got it. TRP number 3. Let’s call in some shock and awe.

We were supported by a towed 105mm arty battery formerly out of Bliss. Should’ve had a fire support team out with us – but beggars can’t be choosers. Besides, this will be fun. I haven’t played Forward Observer since the sandbox.

Three quick clicks on the earbud and the fire mission was on the way. I snuggled the butt of my Barrett M82A1 into my shoulder and waited.

Six High Explosive rounds came screaming in on and around TRP #3. Half fused Super-Quick and half on Delay. So we had both air and ground bursts amongst the three thin-skinned pickups and two vans coming up from old Mexico following the bone-dry trail from the Schroder Arroyo to the old Hangman Ranch.

The carnage was most excellent. So much so, I called in a repeat. Oh damn, one gomer unassed out the back of a van and is trying to get away. Run away! Not.

Disengage the safety; look through the Mark 4 Leupold scope; acquire the target; take a half-breath, hold it, gently squeeze the trigger. Exhale. Ride the recoil. One .50 caliber BMG ball cartridge, courtesy of the Lake City Arsenal via Fort Hood, quickly dispatched the lone mobile invader by traveling through his/her chest back to front. After a quick sweep on the spotting scope, Sam policed up the brass for reloading.

By this time, I was down to using 1980’s vintage 4:1 ball & tracer linked M2 machine gun cartridges on this mission, stripping out the cartridges from their linkages, piling up the tracer rounds and using the remainder to reach out and touch somebody. I ran out of sniper grade rounds over a month ago and haven’t gotten a resupply.

End of mission. Sam sent in our SITREP, an encrypted text message to our Ops Warrant Officer over the TAC-SAT. Someone from the Brigade S2 shop will be around to do the battle damage and intel assessments some time before the buzzards start gathering. Ten will get you twenty that there was some Chinese hardware to be found in and around the remains of the enemy vehicles. Maybe we’ll get a resupply along with the intel weenies. One can hope. We are down to our last case of B Ethiopian Rejected Meals. At one per day, we have six days left. At least we have a lot of water for the bug-juice powder and coffee.