Sniper Elite: One-Way Trip

CHAPTER 62

Gil grabbed Steelyard under one arm. Crosswhite grabbed him under the other, and the two of them dragged him as fast as they could through the trees toward the pass where the horse carcass lay.

Steelyard was hit bad in the gut, a portion of his intestine hanging out of his lower back. “Leave me!” he shouted in agony. “I’m finished.”

They ignored him, increasing their pace. Gil was pumping blood from a leg wound, and he could feel that his lung had begun to collapse. He could see that Crosswhite was in great pain, too, realizing now that he’d been hurt more badly upon landing than he’d previously let on.

“Is that hip fractured?” he asked, panting heavily against the collapsing lung.

“Bet your ass it is,” Crosswhite grunted. “Don’t know how the fuck I’m still standing. Won’t have to worry about it much longer, though. Whattaya think — this far enough?”

Gil stole a glance over his shoulder. “Good a place as any. Those fuckin’ trucks’ll be up our ass any time now.”

They stopped and set Steelyard down against the last tree between them and the wide open spaces.

“Get the fuck outta here!” the older man said. “I’ll hold ’em off.”

“I hear ya, John Wayne.” Crosswhite put his HK .45 in the older man’s hand. “Hey, Gil, you think this is what Custer felt like?”

Gil laughed and got down on his belly beside the tree, taking shots at the enemy with an AK-47. His night-vision monocular was dead; he had no idea why. He supposed it had been struck by a bullet, but there was no time to check. He didn’t know if the strobe on his helmet was still functional or not, but it hardly mattered now. They’d be dead long before their evac arrived… if it was even coming.

Crosswhite got down on the other side of the tree to fire his M4.

A group of eight men broke from the almond orchard, firing on the run. Gil hurled a grenade at them, blowing them off their feet. A couple of them bounced back up, but Steelyard was up on his knee, firing the pistol. He put one down, and Crosswhite killed the other. A wild firefight broke out between them, and the enemy now occupied the orchard. Steelyard took a round to the shoulder and fell over backward. There was nothing that Gil or Crosswhite could do for him but keep as low as they could and pour on the fire.

“Truck!” Gil shouted, shifting his fire as the driver hit the brakes fifty yards away. Men leapt out of the back. One with an RPG took a knee and fired. The rocket struck the ground behind them, and both men felt the shrapnel rip into them. Steelyard’s body bounced off the tree and flopped over onto Gil’s legs. Two more men dashed from behind the truck with RPGs and took aim.

“Reloading!” Crosswhite shouted.

“Fuck — me, too!”

Crosswhite let out a maniacal burst of laughter as he raced to beat the grenadiers. His laughter swept through Gil like a stiff morning breeze. “The only easy day was yes — ter—”

Their world was engulfed by the unholy, all-consuming roar of multiple Pratt & Whitney engines, F-15 Strike Eagles flying snake and nape over the valley, dumping their combined payloads of napalm and thousand-pounders danger close to the trio’s position, obliterating the attacking forces to the front of their line.

Gil and Crosswhite were lifted from the ground, the air sucked from their lungs by the vacuum created by the exploding napalm, the blood vessels in their eyes ruptured by the thudding shock waves that hammered the earth, knocking them senseless.

In the fiery glow that shone through the blood in his eyes, Gil was crawling away from the heat on his hands and knees, feeling the burn of his shrapnel wounds, the scorching fire biting at the seat of his ass… and the twisting of his trachea from the tension pneumothorax. Crosswhite leapt to his feet, caught fire, and dropped back to the ground, screaming and rolling to put out the flames. Gil threw himself onto Crosswhite’s head to protect his face, beating his uniform with his hands. Neither man thinking, driven by instinct alone to escape the heat, they half crawled, half dragged each other away, but it was no use. They couldn’t see where they were going, and they couldn’t breathe because of the petroleum fumes that filled their lungs.