Sniper Elite (16 page)

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.

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 didn'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.”

Pope shrugged. “Unimportant.”

“Unimportant?!” Shroyer flared.

Pope sat scratching the back of his hand, speaking in an almost bored tone of voice. “The analysts here in Langley couldn't see what was happening in that warehouse. Tom and Jerry were sent in with orders to grab Sandra, eliminate her Taliban captors, and secure the money. Strictly speaking, they performed perfectly. They did, indeed, secure a kidnap victim, and every afghani dollar has since been accounted
for by the Central Bank. They also broke up a major kidnapping ring that's been terrorizing the city.” He glanced between the director and the DDO. “This is one of those times when a lab experiment yields an absolutely logical yet entirely unanticipated result.”

Webb cleared his throat, wanting to draw Shroyer's ire away from Pope. “I wanted to get the details from Bob before I came to brief you. I apologize for not being quicker. I had no idea the president was going to be all over this so early in the morning. I thought we had an hour or so to work with. I accept complete responsibility for the lag.”

Shroyer understood Webb's reasoning, but shit ran downhill, and the president had made it all too clear that he was not pleased by the lack of forthcoming information. “So that's it, then? No ransom, no pilot—no nothing.”

Pope kept his face devoid of expression. “Jackal was the only known contact. All we can do is wait for another.”

Shroyer jammed his hands into his pockets. “Which, sure as hell, will come in the form of another unholy rape video—this time all over Al Jazeera. The crazy bastards will probably double their demand as well. I'm going to advise the president that we should go public now. Can either of you think of a reason we should
not
do that?”

Webb looked at Pope.

Pope looked back at the two of them, disliking the need for political considerations. “Well, keep in mind . . . if
we
go public, the HIK has no reason to stay quiet, either. As things stand now, they still have the option of negotiating a financial resolution without the rest of the Muslim world knowing they're out to make a buck. But if we take the story public—turn it into a moral pissing contest—we leave them no choice but to forfeit profit in favor of propaganda. My recommendation is that we allow the situation to develop further. Allow them to make the next move. The ball is squarely in their court
anyhow, and we risk making a mistake by attempting to preempt their next move. It's important we not forget Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.”

Shroyer cut a glance at Webb, who stared back, a faint smile crossing his face.

“Which is?” Shroyer asked blandly.

“Simply stated,” Pope replied, “we can never know anything for certain. For us to anticipate the HIK's next move could put Sandra in even more danger. The chances are good to excellent they're every bit as unsure of what to do next as we are. Let's not force their hand.”

“You're saying it's the HIK now?” Shroyer said. “A second ago it was the Taliban. Exactly who the hell are we dealing with, Bob?”

Pope smiled. “It can get confusing. The entire history of Afghanistan reads the same way. Present intelligence indicates that the HIK has struck some sort of tentative alliance with the Taliban. What I believe is happening—more or less—is they're using the Taliban to do their flunky work.”

Shroyer lowered his head in resignation, taking the other chair in front of Webb's desk. “Well, let's move on, then—since you're here, Bob. I'd like for you to explain what the hell happened with Operation Tiger Claw. As you know, the president gave clearance for a black operation inside of Iran. He did not, however, give his blessing for the abduction of an Iranian national—the potential political ramifications of which I'm sure need no explanation.”

With the bullet wounds to his shoulder, back, and buttocks sutured, all of the appropriate injections administered and pills swallowed, Gil was finally cleared by the base surgeon to attend mission debrief.

Master Chief Steelyard came into the exam room grinning and tossed him a new pair of ACU trousers. “You ready to get the other half of your ass chewed?”

Gil chuckled as he got to his feet.

“What the hell were you thinking bringing that woman back here? Christ, didn't I teach you any better?”

Gil stepped carefully into the trousers and sat back down on the edge of the bed with just his left buttock. “Grab my boots, Chief?”

Steelyard took the boots from the chair and set them on the floor at Gil's feet.