“Sixty seconds,” the copilot said.
White felt the nose of the Pave Hawk dip as the chopper dropped to a mere thirty feet from the ground as it worked its way down a small valley, the scenery outside whipping by too fast for him to make out any details. Suddenly, the helicopter lost speed, and the pilot brought it down to within four feet of the ground. White unbuckled his safety harness and jumped out of the chopper, landing hard on the semipaved road below, his knees and ankles protesting the impact. He crouched down to reduce his size as a target and waved at the crew chief.
The Pave Hawk gained altitude, and the pilot turned the chopper 180 degrees on a dime. The noise was so loud it briefly numbed White’s senses and thoughts. The moment it was safe to do so, he sprinted toward the steep rocky hill on the west side of the road as the helicopter disappeared behind the hill on the opposite side.
White moved as fast as he could, but the extra ammunition he carried and the high-angle climb slowed him down considerably. Out of breath, his legs burning, White took cover behind a large rock a third of the way up the hill. He brought the M240B to bear and scanned the area for threats.
Relieved he wasn’t in immediate danger, he was about to continue his climb when his radio came to life with a flash of static. “SCAR-One, this is Victor-Two. Radio check, over.”
“You’re five by five, Victor-Two,” White replied, recognizing the voice of the copilot. “Are you in position?”
“We’re standing by, SCAR-One. Just let us know when. Victor-Two out.”
One hundred meters down, the road wound its way through the rocky-sided valley until a seventy-degree bend in the road forced any sane drivers to slow down in order to keep their tires on the road. White hadn’t seen any vehicles yet, but that sharp bend was why he had decided this was the best place to ambush the ISIS vehicles.
The bend was the perfect kill zone. Still, one hundred meters was too close for comfort. He needed to go higher. He probed the surrounding area and noticed an outcrop of palmlike trees nestled among boulders halfway between his position and the top of the hill.
Perfect.
White advised the copilot of his exact grid location, then flipped out the bipod of the M240B. He settled into his firing position, his chin resting on the buttstock of the machine gun. He could hear the Pave Hawk hovering on the other side of the valley, but he was confident that the sound of the ISIS vehicles would keep their occupants from hearing the chopper.
There was nobody else around, only a languid breeze, and, like everything in or near Mosul in August, it was boiling hot. White’s already sweat-drenched uniform clung to his body like an unavoidable second skin. He felt a drop of sweat trickle into his eye and wiped his forehead with his sleeve before taking a drink from his canteen.
The distance from his concealed firing position to the bend in the road was about 175 meters. The elevation would give him an additional advantage against the ISIS fighters. The plan was for him to ambush the lead vehicle. He had thought about using the AT4 first, but he’d be in trouble if he missed. The most crucial part of the plan was to stop the convoy long enough for the Pave Hawk’s door gunner to engage the technicals with the minigun. At a firing rate of four thousand rounds per minute, the minigun could chew through the technicals easily, but since the helicopter was their only way out of the danger zone, White wanted to minimize its exposure to ISIS fire as much as possible.
White hadn’t been in position for more than three minutes when he spotted dust and grit whirling in the distance. He pulled his binoculars to his face and fixed his sight on the dust trails. What he saw made his jaw tighten.
The three technicals he’d expected were indeed coming his way. What surprised White wasn’t the fact that one of them was mounting a .30-caliber machine gun; what made him cringe was that the two other technicals were equipped with DShk heavy machine guns. Sometimes called Dushka—which meant “sweetie”—the DShk was capable of firing 12.7 x 108 mm rounds at an effective range of two thousand meters. The DShk had a stellar reputation for blowing coalition helicopters out of the sky. To make matters worse, White counted at least five men per vehicle, discounting the drivers. He was about to face a lot of firepower. Surprise and accuracy were going to play a major role in the upcoming engagement.
“Victor-Two, this is SCAR-One, over.”
“Go ahead for Victor-Two.”
“Three technicals approaching my position from the north. Traveling speed is approximately fifty miles per hour. The lead vehicle is equipped with what seems to be a .30-caliber machine gun. Vehicles two and three have DShk heavy machine guns mounted on tripods. How copy?”