662. Chapter 662

After Kill Shot

Episode 4.09

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Don't shoot. I don't own Castle. Rating: T for language. Time: See above

Sergeant Javier Esposito carefully scanned the area in front of him, moving from one building to the next with the scope of his .50 caliber Barrett sniper rifle. He spoke quietly to his spotter, hunkered down next to him. "Elephant, you see anything?"

Master Sergeant Oliphant, better known as Elephant, scanned using his spotter's scope. "Not one diddley-damned thing, Espo. You?"

"Nada." Espo looked quickly to the other end of the building's roof they were on. "Mick, are we sure Mohammed the Sniper is out there."

Warrant Officer Reed, the sniper team leader, replied. "No. We know he likes to target OPs like this one and intel says they intercepted a cell phone call from one of his scouts reporting on this one, but for all I know old Mohammed has his feet up at home, screwin' his old lady, and laughing at us sitting here in the damned hot sun. Now get your eyes and your mind back on your fuckin' job."

Mohammed wasn't his name, as far as they knew, but he was a trained sniper, once part of the Iraqi Republican Guards. He liked to shoot up observation posts, like the four story building occupied by a platoon of paratroopers that sat in the Shia area of the town, but overlooked the Sunni area. The building was surrounded on three sides by Shias, with the Sunnis only straight ahead of the US snipers. A Sunni sniper would have no luck setting up a sniper hide in a Shia neighborhood.

"Got movement." Elephant whispered. "Grey four story, straight ahead at four hundred meters."

The snipers were behind a thick parapet on the roof, with holes knocked out every few feet. Espo had to move to a new hole to see the building.

"Why the hell is he shooting from four hundred meters? A Dragunov is good out to eight hundred meters." Espo whispered.

"Don't have to be any sniper. Could be some beautiful woman gonna sun bathe for us on the roof." The spotter replied. "Dammit. Saw something. Maybe an AK sight, maybe a Dragunov sight. Maybe one third of the way from the right of the building."

Espo looked through his scope. At first he saw nothing. Then, "I got someone sticking his head up." A few seconds later. "Just a kid." Espo relaxed.

"The kid's got binoculars." The spotter whispered. "He's a damned spotter. Wait for the sniper."

A voice called from the floor below them. "Drone feed says we got lots of jihadis forming up about two hundred…." The rest of the message was drowned out by an RPG blast and the sound of AKs firing full auto. "Pray and spray, assholes." Espo muttered to himself. "Try to hit anything that way."

Espo then heard the single cracks of the M4 carbines and short bursts of automatic weapons fire from inside their building.

"The sniper's gonna wait until people here start moving and shoot then when we're too fuckin' busy to shoot back at him." Espo yelled to Elephant.

"So?"

"This close, the .50 cal ought to punch right through that wall. The kid keeps looking to his right when he speaks. I'll bet old Mohammed is right next to him. I'm going to try a shot."

"Send it." Elephant said.

Espo guessed at about where the enemy sniper was and fired. There was a massive explosion on the roof of the other building. "What the fuck?" Espo wondered.

The firefight was over in an hour and Espo went with a platoon to check out the building he'd shot into to find out what happened.

"Easy." Said the platoon leader. "The sniper had a couple of RPG teams up here with him. They were going to shoot up our OP with rocket propelled grenades and when everyone was moving, it'd be like shooting ducks in a pond for him. You musta hit an RPG round, a grenade, maybe a suicide vest. All blown to hell now. "

In the rubble, Espo found a smashed Dragunov rifle and half a set of binoculars. He remembered that day for a long time.

….

"You okay, Ryan?" Bell called.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Except for some asshole shooting at me." That drew a burst of fire. Ryan was on the third floor stairwell landing of a building suspected of holding a meth lab for the Gangster Disciples. Bell was on the second floor landing and on the fourth floor landing, someone with an automatic weapon was firing down at them. If the shooter leaned out far enough to hit Ryan, either Ryan or Bell would have a shot at him. So, the shooter stuck his gun over the railing, fired a quick burst, then pulled back before he could be shot.

"Don't worry." Bell called up to Ryan. "The other teams are going up the other stairwells. We'll be out of here in no time."

"Yeah, except I'm in a concrete stairwell on a steel landing with the damned door jammed closed. He leans over far enough, he can hit me with ricochets." That got no reply from Bell. Bell's four months away from pulling the pin after his twenty. Is a guy that close to retirement going to stick his head out far enough to get a shot off for some rookie he hardly knows? Maybe, but I'd better try to get out of this myself. But no ideas came to mind.

Suddenly, they could hear bursts of gunfire coming from the far ends of the building. The other police teams had run into more Gangster Disciples. From the sounds of the shooting, they could be here a while.

"Hey, Ryan." Bell yelled. "We got reinforcements here. We're gonna try to…"

He was cut off by an explosion.

"The meth lab blew up." Ryan yelled. "I can see flames from here. It must be right behind the shooter." As Ryan was yelling, the shooter fired a burst through the door by Ryan and came through. They both fired at the same time. The shooter fired over Ryan's head. Ryan's rounds were dead center.

Ryan kicked the shooter's MAC 10 away and checked him. "Crap. Boobs. This is a woman. I shot a woman." He checked, but she was dead. "Fuck!"

Once outside, Ryan was debriefed by his lieutenant. "It was a righteous shooting, Ryan. You won't have any trouble with the shooting board. It'll be a formality."

He nodded. "Yes, sir. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go to confession."

"Ryan, it was a good shooting."

"Yes, sir. It was, but I still need to go to confession."

…

Officer James Stillwell looked at his new partner as they walked down the hallway of the apartment building. "Okay, Montgomery, this is why we cops all hate domestic abuse cases. Mrs. Halloran has been calling us for years that her useless, drunken husband is beating her up. We get there, she swears she'll come in and file a complaint. We arrest him and then she comes in and says it's all a big mistake, that she fell down. Bullshit. One day he'll kill her and then we'll arrest him and toss his ass in jail."

Officer Roy Montgomery saw a heavy set woman step out of a doorway at the end of the hall.

"Good evening, Mrs. Halloran." Stillwell said. "What's the problem tonight?"

Roy didn't hear the shot, but he felt like someone had hit him in the chest with a baseball bat and he found himself looking up at the ceiling. It took a while to clear his head. When he looked, Mrs. Halloran was standing in her doorway shooting over him. He saw her release a magazine from her weapon and slap another one in and resume firing. Roy turned around. It looked like Stillwell had kicked in another apartment door and taken cover. Every time he tried to take a shot, Mrs. Halloran's shots drove him back.

Roy pulled his .357 magnum from his holster and took careful aim. Aiming for her chest, he hit her in the throat and she fell back into the apartment. Stillwell rushed past him and Roy tried to get up. "Stay, down, rookie. Don't move until we see how bad you are. The shift sergeant and another car are on their way. Paramedics are right behind them." Stillwell disappeared into the apartment, leaving Roy behind.

Before Stillwell came back out, the hallway was full of cops and paramedics. The paramedics found that Roy's protective vest had stopped the bullet.

".22 slug, officer." The paramedic said, holding it up. "We didn't find anything, but we'll take you to the ER to make sure you didn't crack a rib or something."

Roy shook his head. "No, I'm okay." He tried to get up.

"Stay down, Montgomery." Stillwell said, kneeling by Roy. "That's for the docs to decide. Department policy."

"How's Mrs. Halloran."

"Dead." Stillwell looked away. "Her husband and their three kids are inside. She shot them and waited for us."

"Why us?" Roy asked, confused.

Stillwell shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe she blamed us for not doing more. Maybe she'd just had it in for the whole world. We'll never know."

….

Kate swung her legs out of bed and ran for the nursery. Her husband woke up and followed her. He found her in the doorway of the nursery, looking at their daughter.

"She's okay." He whispered.

"I had a dream, a nightmare." She whispered back. "About shootings. Things people told me about."

Castle checked the clock by little Johanna's crib. "It's one AM. Today is the anniversary of your shooting. It still upsets you?"

She nodded. "Not as much as it did, but it does." She nodded towards Johanna. "I hope she never has to…you know."

Castle pulled down her sleep shirt and gently kissed the scar between her breasts. "I love you."

"I know. I love you, too."

He took her hand and led her back to their bedroom.

"I just want to sleep in your arms, babe. Okay?"

"Always."