He looked down behind him and Bruce swung ever so slightly to see what he was looking at and a big smile crossed his face. Not only was there this .50 cal machine gun in the tower but there was also a mortar mounted on the floor to the right of the machine gun. Behind it was a wrack of high explosive rounds and the stupid soldier who had been looking through the binoculars had turned and was twisting all the points arming them for impact! Now normally this was only done as you dropped each mortar into the tube to fire it but Bruce had seen some guys arm them upfront in order to speed up the firing rate. Did they know he was across the way from them or was this just a case of nerves he thought, but came to the conclusion that it was just stupidity.

Bruce looked over the scope again and tried to determine if the wind had come up and would be a factor knowing that he was shooting over a deep gully. There was no wind to speak of but Bruce knew that the rising currents up either side of the gully ridges will lift the bullet ever so slightly. He was confident that should he aim for center of mass at 500m this would not cause a miss. Bruce got himself steadied behind the rifle and started breathing correctly as he readied himself to fire. Using only his thumb and forefinger he flicked the bolt closed with a soft, but reassuring clunk.

Bruce watched as the man popped out the ops room to shout orders to the other men and judged how long he stood there then waited as he moved back inside and out of eyesight. The clang clang of the two men striking the metal tower with their heavy hammers continued as he allowed himself a peek at the tower to see the man at the mortars now looking through his binoculars again while the soldier behind the .50 looked bored. Back he swung to the door of the ops room and waited. After only a few minutes the man appeared again and raised his hand to shout to someone. Bruce breathed easily and with his trigger finger on the trigger slowly squeased his hand and fired in unison with the clanging hammer.

Bam, the Lapua pushed reassuringly against his shoulder! As he continued to watch the man through the scope his shooting hands thumb and forefinger working in practiced unison as they pulled the bolt open, dropping the spend cartridge out next to him and then flicked it closed again chambering the next round with a soft click. He swung up to the guard tower and watch as the two soldiers up there jumped then started to scour his embankment. He slipped back into the practiced, almost second natured way of breathing and sighted then fired.

For a moment Bruce thought he had better fire again but suddenly there was a blinding flash and a loud boom as the whole tower blew up. He say black pieces of something spin up into the air and back down to earth and quite honestly could not tell if they were human remains or bits of machine gun and mortar but where the tower had just stood there was now the smoking remains of a small square room that had once been the base of the guard tower. With the move that had become second nature through all the hours of training, he chambered yet another round as he swung back to the place where his first target had been standing to see the man sprawled out in the dirt.

The clanging of the men's hammers had hidden his first shot reasonably well and then the giant explosion came so soon after the second that no one had been able to pin point it's source. Using his left hand Bruce twisted at the zoom ring on the scope and zoomed out so that he could observe more of the quad and the goings on. Now there were two men kneeling next to the shot man while others were running around and the two that had been hammering away at the metal of the tower had dived in under the helicopter. A plumper, older man exited the operations room or whatever it was and held something to his ear. Bruce zoomed in quickly and saw that it was a satellite phone and swore under his breath as he had hoped that he had disrupted all their communications.

As he swung the rifle around slowly traversing the whole scene across the gully from him something caught his eye. It was a movement way back in the shadows of one of the upper rooms where the front half had collapsed into the ocean when the explosives had gone off. Bruce closed his eyes for a second then with his right eye firmly behind the scope squinted back into the shadows and could vaguely make out the shape of someone lying behind another sniper rifle like his which was, in turn, inspecting his side of the gully. At that moment he was looking off to Bruce's left but Bruce was sure that sooner or later this sniper would get to his hiding spot and if his rifle was the same as his that powerful scope would pick him out so with ease of practice his two fingers again opened the bolt action so that he could verify that he had chambered a round, all the time watching the sniper.

The soldier suddenly turned his head and Bruce sucked in a breath, there were two men up there! The sniper had a spotter to his right and even further back in the shadows. That person was behind a spotting scope and not a rifle and fortunately he too was looking off to the left of Bruce's spot. Traversing back to the sniper Bruce watched as the sniper re-positioned himself to start looking more in his direction and then he squeezed his hand. Again, as the rifle recoiled against Bruce's shoulder his fingers worked the bolt and almost before the bullet hit the sniper he had the spotter in his sights. The spotter must have picked up the muzzle blast even though the Lapua had a flash breaker on it and was staring straight back at Bruce when he squeezed off the next round.

He must have been a bit hasty with that shot because he watched as the round hit the concrete floor just in front of the target showering sparks all over the show. Bruce need not have been concerned though as that man also toppled over after receiving a ricochet bullet and concrete fragments to the face and torso.