//------------------------------//
// Prologue: Contact 
// Story: New Land Old Enemies 
// by Silent Scout 
//------------------------------//

Name: MSG. Adam “Shifty” Smith
Date: August 16, 2015
Location: Afghanistan
Time: 1630

Another day another convoy to look after, man this is boring.  I mean its not like they are stupid enough to attack our supply convoys when they are this close to our military base, right?  Then again after what happened on that day I wouldn’t put it past them to take any chances they can at getting their revenge.  Providing overwatch for a convoy isn’t a bad job for a sniper but it can get pretty boring when the only things you see are just different shades of brown because of all the sand.  I’m just glad I can do this while being indoors at a table with, an old friend of mine from when we were kids, 1SG Steve “Joker” Whitmore spotting for me.

Why they gave me a .50 cal to do this though I don’t know nor do I care because there isn’t anything that can get away from me when I have this monster of a rifle and for my secondary I opted for a suppressed socom pistol just in case they got a little close or if we needed to find a new location.  Steve on the other hand had his Chey Tac Intervention and a M16 with an ACOG scope and forward grip for his secondary.  I peek over at Steve, who is just carelessly looking through the spotter’s scope, and ask “How the hell do you plan on sneaking around without at least one suppressed weapon if shit goes south?”  Bringing his head away from the scope he gives me a wide grin and pulls out his combat knife and says “Well thats what this baby here is for,” then points it at me “and you’re going to be taking the lead anyways if it does.  I don’t want to be stuck with snipers and pistols if for any reason the enemy decides to storm the building we are in, even if we have a few guys watching the floors below us.”

A tap on my shoulder brought me back out of my thoughts as I heard Steve say, “Look alive the convoy will be here in ten minutes and we need to be extra cautious right about now.”  I gave him a quick nod as I then looked back down my scope to look at the surrounding buildings for possible contacts that might want to harm the convoy.  Sure enough sitting in an alley facing down the road out of sight of the approaching convoy is a small four door car with what appears to be two people inside.  Upon seeing this possibly threat I point it out to Steve to see if he could possibly make out what the two people in the car were doing but he couldn’t quite tell either.  Not wanting to take any chances that they could be up to no good I took aim at where the engine would be and made said a quick message to the convoy.  Placing my hand on my throat so as to make myself easier to hear I said “Thumper this is overwatch do you read?  I have possible contacts sitting in an idle vehicle, be on the lookout for possible ambush over.”  To which I heard the quick reply of “I read you loud and clear thanks for the heads up we’ll keep our eyes and ears open.”

After the conversation I steadied my aim and slowly pulled the trigger firing a round straight into the car’s engine, effectively destroying the car, and thats when it happened.  The two in the car flung the doors open and bolted for the nearest build carrying AK-47s in their arms while other doors and windows started opening up.  Only one word came to mind, FUCK.  I call back over the mic, “contacts on route I suggest taking another path to base” and got the immediate reply of “Negative can’t make it around the blocked off paths, they knew we were coming.”  Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit, thats not good.  I look over to Steve who I see quickly setting up his rifle and taking aim along side me and start firing into the building with the known contacts lying in wait.  Ripping my eyes back to the scope of my rifle I begin taking aim at one target who thought he was being clever by hiding partially behind a wall, but what does that matter to a .50 cal round, I tell you nothing.  I quickly let loose a round that destroys his cover and paints the opposite wall red with his blood and quickly change targets quickly adding more and more kills to the numbers.

Out of the corner of my eye I see the flash of a muzzle then the loud report of a sniper being fired forcing me to quickly duck for cover hoping that I wasn’t the one being shot at.  I grab the mic again and yell “Enemy sniper is hiding in the buildings, look out.  We will locate and remove the threat.”  At this point I can hear the convoy open up on some of the waiting enemies in the buildings, but what I wasn’t expecting was there to be a tank leading the convoy shooting its main weapon.  Whatever was in that convoy must be really important but that wasn’t something for me to be thinking about at this time as I quickly got back to my rifle to begin my search for the other sniper.

It doesn’t take me long to locate the sniper and just before I take the shot I hear Steve’s rifle fire as I then see the target drop like a sack of potatoes.  I look back over to Steve to see him staring back at me with a smug grin on his face as he says “Well looks like I get to collect my eighth “boars tooth” and add it to my collection.”  No sooner had he said this when all of a sudden, the scope to his rifle shattered: everything seemed to slow down as I saw him fall back away from the table.  Shortly afterwards hear the loud report of a second sniper rifle going off.  I sat there frozen where I was looking at Steve hoping that he will just sit back up laughing like nothing happened, but nothing happened.  Slowly I inch my way to him, making sure that I stay out of windows, my blood turned to ice as I am then able to see that right where Steve’s right eye should be was a dark hole with blood flowing out.

Looking back over to his rifle I see that the sniper round, which due to the extra glass added to the inside of the scope for a better magnification, had busted out the top side of the scope and would have only given Steve a black eye, but only if he was looking through the scope at the time but he wasn’t.  Instead because he had taken his head away from the scope to look over at me, was the only reason he was now lying here with his lifeless eye looking back at me.  I force myself to look away and yell over the mic, “Jokers been hit, overwatch is changing location.”  Quickly grabbing our gear while keeping my head down so as not to be shot by the second sniper, it takes me no time at all due to all the adrenaline pumping through my system.  No sooner had I collected all the gear and was beginning to pick up Steve did I hear someone yell over the mic “RPG!”  I spun around just in time to see a white hot blinding explosion engulf me and the room then nothing, an impenetrable darkness.