Now Swanson laid the crosshairs of his rifle on the dark figure.

“I see the target,” said Martinez. He quickly glanced at the logbook. “Four hundred eleven meters to the doorway.”

“Wind?” Swanson asked softly.

Martinez looked at the smoke drifting over the hut. “Two minutes left.”

Swanson fine-tuned until Ali bin Assam filled the scope. “I’m holding center mass.”

“Roger. On scope.”

The terrorist looked up at the brightening sky and seemed pleased with the coming of morning. The new day held the promise that he would soon be safe in the tunneled sanctuary of Pakistan’s forbidding Tora Bora mountains. He raised his big arms and stretched, his back bending.

“On target,” said Swanson as he took up the slack on the trigger.

“Fire when ready.”

Swanson exhaled and gently pulled straight back on the trigger, and the long rifle fired. The 7.62mm bullet tore through Ali just left of center, ripped through vital organs and arteries, and took out a chunk of the heart. He staggered back and collapsed against a dirty wall as blood poured out of him.

The guard stared down in surprise at his fallen leader, and Swanson turned the rifle on him, jacked in a new round, and hammered the gunman with a chest shot. The body crumpled to the ground, where it quivered briefly like a piece of Jell-O.

“Two hits,” Martinez confirmed. “Two targets down.”

To make sure, Kyle Swanson put another round into Ali’s head.

The shots echoed across the little valley, but no other fighters emerged from the huts, and no return fire came searching for the snipers. In this harsh land of easy death, no one wanted to get involved in whatever had just happened, and they all stayed inside except for the little boy, who had abandoned his goats and taken off running. They let him go.