Sniper Elite

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Sniper Elite Page 12

by Scott McEwen


  “When the shootin’ starts, you keep your head down unless you want it shot off. Now tell me what your father looks like, and I’ll try to avoid shooting him.”

  The morphine had dropped her inhibitions enough to elicit some cooperation. “He wears glasses. A black mustache.”

  Gil finished his own trench and settled in with the Dragunov SVD pulled into his shoulder. He’d brought twenty 10-round magazines, which had been more than enough for the mission as planned, but in view of these new developments, two hundred rounds was starting to feel a little bit light. He had twenty-five 30-round magazines for the AK-47, but the AK put him on equal terms with the enemy. He would need to make every SVD round count.

  Her father’s men arrived a short time later in two trucks full of men, about twenty in all. A number of them spread into a defensive perimeter around the ambushed caravan while her father and his lieutenants walked the site. Gil studied the man’s movements for a moment, and then scanned the rest of the men, looking for a sniper.

  He found him standing near the tail of the second truck, studying the countryside through a large, powerful pair of binoculars. The shooter carried a Dragunov with a synthetic stock slung across his front, and the optics were far better than Gil’s PSO sight. It was obvious from the way he carried himself that he was one confident son of a bitch. Probably, he’d been nailing rival drug smugglers at long range for quite some time, helping the Sherkat woman’s father to become the local big shot.

  Gil couldn’t afford to let this character live, which meant he had to engage these people now. A sniper duel over open country was anybody’s game, and Gil was not at all inclined to fighting fairly. He placed the T of the reticule on the sniper’s heart and squeezed the trigger just as the grenade hidden in the dead man’s jacket detonated.

  The sniper jerked around toward the sound of the explosion, and Gil’s round grazed his rib cage.

  Shit! Someone had disturbed the body at exactly the worst possible instant.

  He fired again, catching the sniper in the left shoulder to spin him back around. As he fired a third time, another man, running away from the explosion, slammed into the sniper and accidentally took the bullet for him, knocking him from his feet and out of sight behind the truck.

  Gil knew he was in for some shit now. The sniper was not dead. He would be hurting like a bastard, but he was definitely still in the fight, and undoubtedly already moving to take up a firing position, looking to zero in on Gil’s location. He checked his fire, ignoring the other gunmen who scrambled about as he scanned for the sniper.

  The man had disappeared.

  Inside of a minute, fifteen gunmen—including the Sherkat woman’s father—were formed up in a wide skirmish line marching toward his location with their AK-47s shouldered and ready to fire. If Gil began to pick them off now, he probably wouldn’t kill more than two or three of them before the enemy sniper spotted the dust kicked up by the Dragunov and burned him down.

  “Looks like a bad day at Black Rock,” he muttered, glad the woman was doped up, otherwise she would certainly give away their position now, regardless of any danger to herself. The thought occurred to him briefly to use her as a shield, but that was the act of a coward, and even a cornered rat could do better. He could see the enemy had his general position worked out.

  “Typhoon main, do you read? Over?”

  “Roger, actual.”

  “Typhoon main, be advised . . .” He took a moment to choose his last words. “Typhoon main, be advised I am pinned down by ten-plus gunmen . . . up against a sniper of unknown talent. Will advise further if and when able to do so. Over.”

  The reply sounded vaguely anxious. “Actual, are you declaring an emergency? Over.”

  “Negative, main. This’ll be over one way or another long before the cavalry shows up. Typhoon actual, out.” He switched off the radio and studied the target area through the PSO. “Now where the fuck would I be if I were you, asshole?”

  20

  AFGHANISTAN,

  Kabul, SOG Operations

  Agent Lerher set down his cup of coffee with an anxious sigh, glancing irritably around the semicrowded op center. “What the hell does he keep signing off for? How are we supposed to gather real-time intelligence if he’s not feeding us? He knows we can’t see him. Somebody get me some eyes on the goddamn ground.”

  The Air Force liaison officer cleared her throat.

  He turned toward her.

  “Mr. Lerher, I’ve still got Creech on the line,” she said patiently. “They advise there’s a front coming in, but the ceiling is still under five thousand feet. The UAV will be visible if it drops down for a look.”

  Lerher was smoldering. Not being able to watch the operation he’d spent the past three weeks capering over was driving him nuts. He had already been denied seeing the Al-Nazari hit, and now he was about to miss what he guessed was going to be one hell of a shoot-out. He might as well have been back in his hotel room for all of the input he’d been able to offer thus far. He was tempted to order the UAV down from the clouds for a brief overview at the target area, but if it was spotted by any sort of Iranian government entity, that would be enough to put the bloody finger on the United States for Al-Nazari’s assassination. Not that it mattered. Hell, it sounded like their operative was about to buy it anyhow.

  “Captain Metcalf? Do you have any suggestions?”

  Metcalf sat back stroking his chin. “You might consider letting my man do his job,” he said easily. “We didn’t send him in there to provide a play-by-play. We sent him in there to eliminate a target. He’s done that. Now he’s working to bring himself out. If he needs something from you, rest assured, he’ll let you know.”

  Lerher smiled without humor, resenting the presence of top brass in his operations center. “Sounds like a plan, sir.” Technically, Metcalf was there only as an interested observer, but if anything went wrong, or if Lerher made a bad call, the old man would make sure he was held responsible.

  Metcalf gave him a wink.

  To the Navy man, Lerher was just another CIA spook, standing over there with his shirtsleeves all rolled up like he was getting ready to do some actual work. Lerher was probably more reliable than most, but he was sneakier, too. He thought his reliability entitled him to special privileges. That was why Metcalf had chosen to remain in operations for every minute of the mission. It pleased him to watch the younger CIA man swilling coffee like he thought Juan Valdez was going to stop growing the beans. A simple Benzedrine capsule was all that was needed to keep a man sharp during the short haul, and it didn’t keep you running to the damn head every ten minutes.

  He watched Lerher duck out of the room, and chortled to himself, offering a wink to the black Air Force lieutenant.

  She grinned and turned her head before any civilian in the room could notice.

  21

  IRAN,

  Sistan-Baluchistan Province

  Gil needed a break. The fifteen-man skirmish line was drawing to within five hundred yards and spread out roughly a hundred yards across his field of vision. If they closed to within a hundred yards before he started taking them out, he was a goner. Even being dug in as he was, the AK-47 was more than accurate enough for them to pick him off over open sights at that short range. He could see the woman’s father marching boldly forward at the center of the phalanx, shouting orders left and right. He wanted his daughter back even at the risk of all their lives, and though Gil guessed the old man was counting on his sniper to get Gil before Gil got too many of them, it was obvious these people were fucking fearless.

  What Gil would have given at that moment for his Remington modular sniper rifle with the suppressor and just twenty measly rounds of subsonic ammo. Instead, he was stuck with this Russian shoulder cannon that was going to kick up enough dust when he got rockin’ and rollin’ to reveal his location to everyone from Tehran to Abbottabad. The closer the phalanx drew, the farther he would have to sweep the rifle across his field of visio
n to pick the men off, and this would give them even more time to zero his position.

  As if it were a gift sent straight from the God of War himself, a stiff gust of desert wind blew from behind, and Gil did not hesitate to take advantage of it, pivoting the Dragunov toward the gunman on the extreme left of the phalanx to find center mass and squeezing off the round. He pivoted immediately back to the extreme right to find center mass on a second gunman and squeezed off another shot, blowing the unfortunate skirmisher’s guts out his back. The dust from both shots was blown downrange by the gust before it could ever form a cloud.

  Gil took no return fire, and the remaining thirteen men in the phalanx slowed their pace, desperately scanning with their AK-47s. This was the sniper duel he had wanted to avoid. He had to find the enemy shooter now during this brief slowdown in the phalanx’s advance.

  Searching through the PSO, he broke the target area down into small quadrants, looking for the telltale silhouette of a man aiming a rifle. The phalanx would still be more of a hindrance to the enemy sniper’s field of vision than his own. Combine that with the fact the shooter was severely wounded, his reflexes degraded, and Gil hoped he still had the upper hand.

  Someone in the phalanx began to fire at what he must have thought was Gil’s position fifty yards forward of his location and to the left, near a small depression near some rocks. Five others joined in with automatic fire. Gil took advantage of the loud cacophony by eliminating two more men from the far left of the line, wanting to spare the men in the center for as long as possible in the hopes they would continue to clutter the enemy sniper’s field of vision. With the excessive enemy firing, Gil’s dust cloud dissipated before they realized they had even taken fire. He was striking a very delicate balance here, learning on the job, exercising the patience that every sniper tried to master. If he panicked or lost his concentration for a fraction of a second, the game was up.

  With only eleven men left in the skirmish line now at four hundred fifty yards, he was breathing a little easier. Thirty seconds passed and no one fired on him, but he was no closer to finding the enemy shooter.

  The clouds parted somewhere behind him, and a wall of sunlight raced off across the landscape before him. He was backlit—out of time! The sniper’s superior optics would differentiate the minor color differences between Gil’s ACU and the terrain. A hot round tore a chunk of meat from his right shoulder, cutting a furrow down his back, penetrating the right cheek of his ass, and grazing the heel of his boot before impacting the ground. The next round would strike him in the head.

  The wall of sunlight swept over the target area—a silvery glint from an unprotected sniper scope. Gil fired on pure reflex, seeing the enemy sniper perched on the running board of the lead truck, firing between the cab and the troop compartment with nothing to backlight him, no silhouette.

  Gil’s round went straight through the sniper’s scope and blew out the back of his head.

  AK-47 rounds from the phalanx rained down around him like micro-meteorites, but he was in the zone now. Pivoting the rifle right to left, he picked them off one at a time like ducks at a carnival. He did not care about the bullets striking around him any more than he cared when he shot the Sherkat woman’s father straight through the heart. Even as the last man collapsed in the dust, he was on his feet, unslinging the AK-47 and bolting forward. He could not feel his wounds. He felt only the high-octane adrenaline surging through his body. A short burst from the Kalashnikov finished off one of the skirmishers who had survived a shot to the chest.

  Before he knew it, Gil had reached the target area. He found the enemy sniper on his back behind the truck with the left side of his face blown apart. “So, you’re a southpaw, huh?” He kicked him free of the rifle sling, jerking back the bolt on the fancy Dragunov to eject the round that would have killed him—the coveted “boar’s tooth.” Pocketing the round, he jumped into the lead SUV, hit the key, and tore off across the jagged landscape to retrieve the woman.

  “Typhoon main, this is Typhoon actual. Be advised I am wounded and headed for the extraction zone. Repeat. I am wounded and headed for the extraction zone. ETA fifteen minutes. Over.”

  “Roger, Typhoon actual. Stand by.”

  Gil listened as Typhoon main passed the ball to the Night Stalker unit awaiting clearance for dust off: “Warlock, this is Typhoon main. Be advised, you are a go for emergency evac. Repeat. Go for emergency evac.”

  “Roger, main. We are winding up now. ETA ten minutes. Over.”

  “This is Typhoon actual,” Gil called out. “I copy direct. Be advised I am driving a black Nissan SUV. Repeat. I am driving a black Nissan SUV. Over.”

  “Roger that, actual. We are inbound. Over.”

  “Copy that, Warlock. See you when you—”

  Two green and white Iranian police Land Rovers were racing wildly over land to cut him off, both of them coming from the bomb maker’s facility to the south. Gil slammed on the brakes and jumped from the truck, shouldering the AK-47 and running out to meet them. He fired an entire magazine into the lead Rover from fifty yards, killing both men and reloading on the run.

  The second Rover skidded to a halt, and the military police jumped out, using the doors for cover as they fired their pistols in panic.

  Gil dove forward onto his belly, putting a six-round burst through each door and killing them both. He leapt to his feet and ran to where the woman still lay in her trench, bleary eyed and limp.

  “My father?” she asked as he lifted her out.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, grunting against the pain in his ass as he got to his feet. “He didn’t make it.”

  She tried to slap his face, tried to struggle from his arms, but she was too weak.

  “You will go to hell for this,” she moaned.

  “I’ll save you a seat, darlin’.” He put her into the back of the SUV and jumped in behind the wheel, dropping the lever into drive, tromping the accelerator, and throwing dirt. He drove the vehicle hard over the rugged terrain, traveling as fast as he dared, keeping an eye on the GPS device now Velcroed to his wrist. Within ten minutes, he could see the three inbound helicopters of the Night Stalker unit. Both top-cover helos were loaded with missile pods and bristling with machine guns, and no sight had ever been grander.

  The Night Stalkers met him halfway, and he hit the brakes, jumping out to take the Sherkat woman from the backseat and trotting forward through the whirling dust storm as the evac was setting down.

  The crew chief jumped out with an M16 rifle in his hands and ran forward to meet him.

  “Who the hell is she, Master Chief?”

  “She’s pregnant!” Gil shouted over the whine of the turbines.

  The young crew chief was shaking his head. “No can do! We don’t have clearance for indigenous personnel. You’ll have to leave her!”

  Gil walked around him and placed her on the deck of the helo. “She’s ready to pop!”

  “Chief, I can’t do it! We gotta go!”

  Gil drew his .45 and offered it to the crew chief. Still shouting over the turbines: “Then you’ll have to kill ’er, son! This is a black operation! No one can be left alive to say I was here!”

  The crew chief glanced at the woman and then back at Gil. “I ain’t shooting a woman!”

  “Orders!”

  “Goddamnit, Master Chief! You’d better be willing to take full responsibility!”

  Gil holstered the pistol and jumped into the helo.

  Ten seconds later, they were airborne and headed for Afghani airspace.

  22

  LANGLEY

  Deputy Director Cletus Webb was sitting at his desk talking with Robert Pope when Director Shroyer came stalking into the office unannounced. The director was obviously somewhat surprised to see Pope sitting before Webb’s desk, but that didn’t deter him.

  “What the hell happened at the ransom drop, Cletus? And why the hell am I having to come find you again? The old man just reamed my ass over the phone because I did
n’t have a goddamn answer. I looked like a fucking idiot! If Sandra Brux is dead, the president needs to get out in front of this.”

  Webb maintained a placid demeanor. Men like Shroyer and the president were not interested in the complicated logistics of collating reliable intelligence over thousands of miles and multiple time zones. They wanted the information instantaneously. He glanced at Pope. “Bob?”

  Pope looked startled to have been passed the ball. “Oh, well . . . Sandra isn’t dead, George. The body wasn’t hers. That’s what I came over to tell Cletus. The girl was the married daughter of the president of the Central Bank of Afghanistan.” He turned in the chair to face Shroyer more directly, straightening his corduroy jacket and pushing his glasses up onto his nose. “From what we can put together so far, it looks like Jackal was the head of his own kidnapping ring. Turns out nobody in the Afghan government knew the poor girl was even missing because her father kept it quiet. Since he was slow to make the payment, Jackal followed through on his threat to have her beaten to death. Her general appearance, size, and hair color are all very similar to that of Sandra Brux, and with her face beaten to a pulp . . . well, it was the natural assumption for Tom and Jerry to make, given the circumstances. CID has interrogated the men taken into custody, and they all say the girl’s body was to be dumped in downtown Kabul later in the day. All indications are that Jackal had every intention of delivering the ransom in exchange for Sandra—minus his cut.”

  With great effort, Shroyer held his temper. “And now that’s not going to happen. So Tom and Jerry fucked up.”

  Pope shook his head. “No. No, they did everything by the numbers.”

  “I read the transcripts from Creech.” Shroyer said. “Tom and Jerry were told to clear.”

 

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