Sniper Elite: One-Way Trip

CHAPTER 54

Khan slathered an overly generous amount of petroleum jelly over the compress Gil took from his harness and used that to seal the knife wound to his back. There would be no time for sutures.

Gil jumped up and grabbed his M4. “Sandra, call down a one-oh-five strike.” He went to the door and checked up the street to see a mob of men running down the lane toward the house, closing fast at fifty yards. “Make it danger close!”

Sandra, sitting up on the edge of the bed again, keyed the radio. “Big Ten! Big Ten! This is Track Star. Be advised, I am still beneath the strobe. Need one-oh-fives on my position — danger close!”

“Roger that, Track Star. We have them in sight. Take cover.”

“Get down!” Gil shouted at Badira and Khan, grabbing Sandra from the bed and rolling into the corner to shield her with his body.

Seconds later the first 105 mm artillery shell fired from the AC-130J Spectre’s M102 howitzer slammed into the earth so close that it blew a hole in the wall, shattering the oil lamp and killing the lead element of the attacking force just as they were arriving outside the building. Six seconds later another shell struck fifty feet away, blowing seven more men to oblivion. The remainder of the charging column stopped in its tracks, unable to hear the Spectre performing a tight pylon turn 10,000 feet over their heads, firing the howitzer at its maximum rate. Every six seconds a round exploded against the earth as the onboard digital fire-control system walked an unceasing barrage straight up the lane, effectively annihilating the entire attacking force, then going on to pulverize the command post.

Gil activated the infrared strobe he’d attached to the top of his helmet and dashed from the building with Sandra over his shoulder. “Big Ten! This is Track Star Two,” he called out over the emergency band. “Be advised were are mobile. Heading north on horseback for the EZ. Follow my strobe!”

“Roger that, Track Star, we have you in sight. Be advised they’re coming out of their holes. We’ve got multiple heat signatures. You’re totally surrounded except for the gap to the north. We’ll do what we can to keep it open for you. Over.”

“Roger that.”

Khan and Badira dashed from the house and hurried off into the darkness.

“Vayan con Dios,” Gil said after them, kicking open the door to the guard shack and hefting Sandra into the saddle facing backward. He mounted up with her in front of him and told her to wrap her arms around him. “Keep a hand against that bandage for me. Duck your head now. We’re going out the door.”

The stallion was good and spooked because of the artillery barrage, and it started to rear up the second they left the safety of the building, but Gil dug in his heels and reined him hard around. “Hyah!” he shouted. “Move your ass!” The horse bolted north toward the gap in the mountains three thousand meters away.

Gil could see the bursts of orange tracer fire streaking down farther up the valley to the north, the Spectre’s 25 mm Equalizer cannon clearing the way for their escape as HIK fighters flooded in to block the pass. The human body splashed apart like a water balloon when hit by even a short burst of fire from the obscenely accurate weapon that flew so high above the battlefield that you couldn’t even hear it firing at you. To behold such an awesome display of firepower made it easy to feel like they were home free, but Gil realized that the Spectre’s forward-looking infrared eyeball could not see into the many caves surrounding the valley. His only hope was that the Spectre could keep the HIK fighters pinned down in their holes long enough for him and Sandra to slip through the mountain pass to the north, where Forogh and his uncles would be waiting to provide them a defensive perimeter.

In order to perform the complicated extraction maneuver, the Spectre would have to break off its attack and fly a very precise south-north heading. The maneuver would take several minutes to complete and severely limit the aircraft’s ability to provide them covering fire.

The stallion was strong and fast, and he bore their weight easily as Gil forced him on, faster and faster, keeping one eye to the night-vision monocular, watching out for any holes or rocks that might trip the animal up. He thought of his own horse, Tico, back in her stable in Montana. No way would Tico ever be forced to charge headlong into the dark like this at top speed. As he thought of this, a strange feeling overtook him, like a ghost finally catching up to him from behind. He felt suddenly as though he weren’t going to make it back this time, that he had pushed the envelope too far and that the God of War was about to turn his back.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said to the night. “I never trusted you much.”

“Me?” Sandra said into his ear, clinging tightly against him with both of her hands pressed against the occlusive bandage covering his wound, her face nestled into the crook of his neck.

“No, I was talking to myself.”

“I had a really bad feeling the second before you said that.”

He laughed. “Well, that’s not good, ’cause I had it, too.”

“Just don’t let ’em take me back, Gil.”

“Don’t worry.” He wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her tight in the saddle. “John promised to bring those one-oh-fives right down on our heads before he’d let that happen.”