Swanson took a final range measurement, just a flicker of an invisible radar beam and spoke into the small microphone on his headset. “Set your detonators at one hundred meters. On my count of three, send the first volley into the crowd and then hit your assigned buildings with the second shot, again on my count. We want both salvos to arrive as a package. After that, we move into the camp and fire at will. There will be no survivors.”
Captain Newman had assigned each commando a specific segment of the crowd of worshippers, so as to maximize the damage rather than having all of the rockets bursting in one place. The terrorists were no longer men, as far as any of the Marines were concerned: Just targets. Kyle aimed at the center of the cluster, and counted it off, “Three…Two…One!”
The six RPGs spoke with a loud, rippling bark and the rockets leaped from their shoulder-mounted tubes, whining instantly toward the gathered men below. The few who looked up saw six rocket trails etching smoke in the night sky and then the missiles exploded in a hellish roar. The odd-numbered rockets carried high-explosive warheads that ripped through unprotected skin and internal organs, while the even-numbered ones were thermobarics which erupted just above the crowd to spew a fine mist of underoxidized fuel that detonated in air bursts which sucked the air out of lungs and created massive fireballs that consumed bodies.
As the explosions ricocheted up the mountains, the Tridents were already firing the second rounds, ripping the other RPGs at the few buildings and blowing the fragile structures apart. Flames from the fuel-air explosions swept around corners and into doorways and windows and potential hiding places, vacuuming life out of every human it touched.
Kyle was moving before the roar ceased and relentlessly led the other Tridents in a mad scramble toward the shattered campsite. He estimated about 90 percent of the fifty-two man terrorist force was already dead, and was glad that no return fire was coming back toward the Marines.