Sniper Elite (28 page)

“Yeah, well, Sandra's presence in that valley fairly well trumps the error.”

“Only if we allow it to,” Hagen said, pressing hard now. “You have to think about this
mathematically
, Cletus. Sandra's dead anyway. You know it, I know it—hell, even
she
knows it! Why let it be a total loss? If she has to die, why not let it be during a rescue attempt? And why
not use that rescue attempt as an excuse to wipe out as many of the enemy as we possibly can? These are the crazy lunatics who are likely to take over Afghanistan after we leave. We can't allow our humanity to cause us to lose sight of the bigger picture here.”

“What the hell is this bigger picture you keep talking about?”

“It's very simple,” Hagen said. “If we smash that valley flat—along with everyone and everything in it—this will be the
last
time we ever have to worry about these crazy people using one of our women to humiliate the United States.”

The mood around the base was pretty somber. News of Sandra's finger amputation and the subsequent troop pullout from the Panjshir Valley had been a double whammy to most everyone's moral. At least with Bazarak surrounded they had felt like
something
was being done for Sandra. Now, though, the overwhelming feeling was that she had been left behind, and that didn't sit well with any of the American forces based in the Afghan Theater of Operations, much less her fellow Night Stalker pilots, the Army Rangers, and Navy SEALs—a number of whom had risked lengthy prison terms in the unauthorized rescue attempt.

There was little or no talk about another unauthorized mission. What little talk there was was nothing more than blowing off steam, and none of it took place in front of the officer corps. The president
himself had made it very clear through General Couture that
any
unauthorized action of
any
kind would be punished to the full extent of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and no one wanted to risk being charged with entering into the planning stages of such a mission.

Opinions of the president's decision to pull out of the valley were equally divided. Half the troops in the ATO at least sympathized with the president for wanting to spare Sandra any additional torture. The other half, however, were busy putting themselves in Sandra's shoes, boasting that it would be better to die on American terms than it would be to die at the whim of a lunatic Muslim cleric. They wanted to attack right now with every available fighting man and wipe the village of Bazarak clean off the map.

Newly released from the hospital, Captain Crosswhite limped into the ready room in the hangar where Gil, Steelyard, and a number of other SEALs—many of whom had taken part in Bank Heist—were sitting around smoking cigarettes and nipping from a pair of illegal whiskey flasks.

Gil flicked the butt of his cigarette into a dented steel trash can and grinned. “I expected you to be on a plane back to Kandahar by now.”

“Shit,” Crosswhite said, reaching to take a cigarette away from a very junior SEAL sitting near the wall. “They don't want me back down there.” He took a long drag from the smoke and gave it back. “I'm
persona non grata
. Soon to be dishonorably discharged—or worse.” He winked at Steelyard. “Like my buddy over there.”

Steelyard chuckled. “If I was ten years younger, I'd be humping the Panjshir Valley as we speak. As I am, I wouldn't do anybody any good. Sucks getting old, boys—remember I told you that.”

There were a number of dutiful chuckles.

Crosswhite took a seat and reached for the flask.

“That a good idea for you right now?” Gil asked.

“Hell, no.” Crosswhite tipped the flask. “Thanks, I needed that. I
just got cornered outside the hospital by John Brux. He said he flew in here to thank me for trying to rescue his wife. I told him he didn't have to thank me for a fuckin' thing. I asked him if he wanted to walk over here with me to thank the rest of you Bank Heist boys, but he asked me to do it for him. He's pretty down at the moment. I guess nobody gave him the news about Sandra's finger until a few hours ago. He says nobody wanted to be the one to tell him.”

“Jesus, can you blame them?” Alpha said.

Crosswhite's face lit up, noticing Alpha for the first time. “Hey, Leper! Your pecker drop off yet?”

The room broke up in laughter and Alpha jumped up, turning in a circle to give them all the finger with both hands. “Right here, motherfuckers!” He grabbed his package. “None of you fucking pussies would have acted any different.”

Even Gil was having trouble suppressing a smile. He caught a glimpse of Forogh signaling to him from outside the ready room and slipped quietly out into the hangar as the jokes about Alpha's Bank Heist meltdown began to fly.

“What's up?” Gil asked guardedly, expecting Forogh to level more complaints about the interrogation.

“I need to talk to you,” the interpreter said. “Alone.”

“Look, Forogh, if it's about the interrogation—”

“No, it's not about that,” Forogh said in a hushed voice.

“All right, come on.” Gil led him out behind the hangar, where the two of them climbed up into the back of a deuce-and-a-half truck.

“Okay, what's eating you?”

Forogh stared at him, as if taking a final moment to make sure of himself. “I have family in Bazarak.”

Gil felt his skin turn to gooseflesh. “How much family—a lot?”

Forogh shrugged. “Many uncles, cousins. They fought with Massoud against the Russians.”

“Do you think you can get in there with the place being under HIK control?”

Forogh nodded. “My uncles will vouch for me. No one in my family knows that I work for American Special Forces.”

In his mind, Gil was suddenly halfway to Bazarak. “Do you think you could get in there and find out where Sandra's being held? Would you be willing to try?”

“Yes,” Forogh said. “I'm worried, though. I don't trust the CIA.”

“Don't worry,” Gil said. “We're not telling SOG. We're keeping this a nice tight little unit. But first I gotta get permission.”

This confused Forogh. “Permission? But you just said to forget about SOG.”

“SOG's not in authority now.” Gil bumped him on the shoulder. “I'm talking about getting permission from a higher source. Give me two hours, then meet me back in the hangar.”

Gil went to his quarters and dug out the iPhone he'd gotten from Joe the night of Operation Tiger Claw. He'd spoken with Joe since and talked him into letting him borrow the hi-tech PDA indefinitely.

He typed out a detailed message and sent it off to Langley, Virginia. Then he lay on his bunk to take a nap. An hour later, he received a lengthy answer to his message and jumped up to go find Major John Brux.

Major John Brux was sitting in the mess hall by himself, picking at a compressed beef patty, when a man he didn't remember ever seeing before sat down across the table from him.

“John Brux, right?” the man said.

Brux looked at him, not really appreciating the intrusion. “Who's asking?”

“My name's Gil Shannon. I'm a good friend of Dan Crosswhite. I also know your wife.”

Brux was a big man with dark eyes and broad shoulders, but his shoulders were uncharacteristically drooped beneath the weight of the burden he was carrying these days. He noticed the trident on Gil's uniform. “Were you on the Bank Heist mission with Crosswhite?”

“Unfortunately, no,” Gil said, sitting back with a sigh. “I was stuck back here nursing a bullet wound to my ass. I'd like to talk to you about something off the record.”

Brux took a look around. The closest people were a pair of civilian intelligence analysts sitting five tables away. “I'm listening.”

Gil lowered his voice and sat forward, keeping his face casual. “If I can get an indigenous operative into Bazarak to mark the exact building where Sandra is being held, do I have your permission to go in there and try to bring her out?”

Brux stole another startled look at the analysts who stared back at him for a curious moment before continuing with their meal. “What are you talking about?”

“Yes or no?”

“No,” Brux said. “Ten men nearly died already. Two of them are facing court-martial. She wouldn't want anyone else taking that kind of a risk. Besides, what could one man do?”

Gil shrugged. “That depends on the man and how big his balls are. More important, it depends on whether or not there's a Spectre gunship watching over him.”

Brux shook his head, thinking Gil must be some kind of a hero type. “No. I appreciate your willingness to try, but no. Sandra's best chance now is for the State Department to negotiate her release.”

“John, no offense, but that's dog shit, and you know it. The HIK has her, and those people are fixing to take over this country after we leave. Weakness and mercy are not the paths to power.”

Brux stared at him, his face clouding over with a mixture of fear and anger. “You think I need to hear shit like that right now?”

Gil went on, keeping is voice low. “I've got a plan to bring your wife out. You in or not?”

Brux watched the analysts getting up to leave, and then lowered his voice. “What the fuck's so special about you, huh? Why should I
trust Sandra's life to some renegade adrenaline junkie with a death wish?”

Gil's eyes twinkled. “Because to me . . . this mission will be just another one . . . way . . . trip.”

Brux sat back in the chair. Very few people on earth knew about Operation One Way Trip, the mission during which he had been the pilot of the MC-130H Combat Talon II aircraft that had extracted Master Chief Gil Shannon from the Chinese coast via the Skyhook Surface-To-Air Recovery (STAR) system first employed by the CIA during the Vietnam War. Brux had never been told Gil's name nor been allowed to see his face for security reasons.

“So that was you,” he said quietly.

“If half a billion screamin' Chinese couldn't kill me, how the fuck are a hundred
hajis
gonna manage it?”

“The HIK has close to a thousand fighting men in the mountains around the Panjshir Valley.”

Gil shrugged. “That's in the mountains around the village. There won't be more than a few hundred in Bazarak.”

“How did you know it was me in the cockpit?” Brux wanted to know. “We were never supposed to know each other's identities.”

“Sandra and I had a talk one night,” Gil said. “We all landed back here after a snatch-and-grab just across the border into Pakistan. She and I had a few laughs . . . she mentioned her husband flew rubber dog shit of out Manila once in a while . . . one question led to another . . . you know how it goes.”

Brux failed to stop the grin that spread across his face. “Damn girl never could keep her mouth shut. Did you know about her and Captain What's His Name?”

“Sean Bordeaux?”

Brux lowered his eyes and nodded.

“Not until just now.”

Brux looked up. “What's that mean?”

“Well, they were tight,” Gil said. “I could see that, but I never thought anything was going on between them. You're telling me you don't have a special friend back in Manila? Nobody to take the edge off?”

Brux shrugged his shoulders. “Do you really think you can get her out of there?”

“I think
we
can get her out of there.”

“Suppose I agree. What do you need me to do?”

“You got any friends in the 24th STS? I mean, friends with balls?” This was the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, the SMU under the auspices of the United States Air Force.

Brux grinned. “Is a frog's asshole watertight?”

Gil reached back to grab his ass. “It was the last time I checked.”

“How many men do we need?”

“Enough to help you fly the Spectre . . . run the guns . . . and operate the STAR system.”

“STAR system?” Brux said in surprise. “On a Spectre? There aren't any C-130s matching that configuration. Never have been, as far as I know. Hell, the Skyhook I flew to pull
you
out was special-rigged for that mission and disassembled that same night.”

“What if I told you there's a CIA Spectre down in Diego Garcia with a custom STAR rig?”

Brux felt chills. “I'd ask how the hell you could know something like that.”

“I didn't know until about ten minutes ago,” Gil said. “I sent a message to a friend of mine asking for ideas, and he came up with the Spectre. I'm going to trust you with something that only two people know about, John, and only because Sandra's life is riding on it. I'm connected back in Langley, very deep, to a guy I've never actually met. If we go through with this, it might well end up costing him
everything, but he's willing to roll the dice . . .
if
you're willing to put it on the line for your wife and fly the fucking plane.”

“From Diego Garcia?”

Gil shook his head. “If you tell me you can find us a crew within twenty-four hours, that fucking plane is going to magically appear out there on the tarmac at zero dark thirty tonight.”

A smile broke out across Brux's his face. “Now I know why you're the one they sent into China. So you're actually a spook.”

“No,” Gil said. “But my old man saved a spook's life once in Vietnam.”

“Okay,” Brux said, pushing all his chips forward. “I'll have a crew here in twelve hours, but listen, tough guy . . . every one of them's going to be AWOL, so we'll need a good place to hide them.”

“Shit, John, this is the Sandbox. There's holes to hide in all over this motherfucker.”