Sniper Elite: One-Way Trip

CHAPTER 40

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.”

An hour later Gil sat down on his bunk and called his wife using a borrowed satellite phone. “Hey, beautiful. It’s me. Sorry to wake you.”

“I wasn’t sleepin’,” Marie said. “I was layin’ here waitin’ for you to call.”

“What are you talkin’ about? I didn’t decide to call you till half an hour ago.”

“Well,” she said, letting out a girlish yawn, “I woke up half an hour ago feelin’ like you were gonna call me. So I’ve been waitin’.”

Gil wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. He didn’t believe in premonitions, good or bad, but it was an odd coincidence. “Everybody okay — mom, Oso, the horses?”

“Yep. Everybody’s good. What’s happening?”

“I’m going off the reservation, baby. I may end up getting in some real trouble for it, too.”

She said, “Which means you’re goin’ after Sandra. What’s ‘off the reservation’ mean — that you don’t have nobody’s permission?”

He felt a sudden lump in his throat, unable to help putting himself in John Brux’s boots. “I have her husband’s permission.”

“Then that’s plenty. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t need nobody else’s.”

“But I do,” he croaked. “I need yours.”

“You have it,” she said softly. “Of course you have it. You’re going in against the odds this time, aren’t you?”

“Very much.”

“Then the real reason you’re callin’ me is to give me the chance to say good-bye. Is that right?”

He lowered his head. “Maybe,” he whispered, his voice suddenly raw.

“I’m grateful to you for that. I know how difficult it is… and it’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever done.”

His guilt was too great. He couldn’t speak.

“Gil, listen to me,” she said. “I ain’t never loved nobody on this earth the way I love you… but I’ve always known this day was comin’. I’ve known it because I know you. I’ve been preparin’ for it. And the idea of not gettin’ to say good-bye was always what scared me most. You need to know you’re the finest man there is,” she said to him. “The best this country’s got to offer that woman… and I’ll tell you somethin’ else, my husband. It makes me proud knowin’ you’re goin’ in to get her back without the damn Navy’s say-so…”