A few of them did contain snipers, Carl realized, but many of these were 
shooting across the street at each other, and the ones who were firing into the 
street could have been shooting at anyone. Carl saw one fellow with a 
laser-sighted rifle emptying clip after clip into the street, and he reckoned
that this constituted a clear and present danger; so at a moment when their 
forward progress had stalled momentarily, while the Zulus were waiting for an 
especially desperate Coastal/Fist melee to resolve itself ahead of them, Carl 
planted his feet, swung his rifle up to his shoulder, took aim, and fired. In 
the dim fire- and torch-light rising up from the street, he could see powder 
explode from the stone window frame just above the sniper's head. The sniper 
cringed, then began to sweep the street with his laser, looking for the source 
of the bullet.