Sniper Elite: One-Way Trip

CHAPTER 21

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 vision 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.