Sniper Elite: One-Way Trip: A Novel - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Scott McEwen is the #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of Chris Kyle’s autobiography, American Sniper, which was made into the highest grossing war film of all time, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper. He is the coauthor, with Thomas Koloniar, of the national bestselling Sniper Elite series: One-Way Trip, Target America, and The Sniper and the Wolf. A trial attorney in San Diego, California, McEwen works with and provides support for several military charitable organizations, including The Navy SEAL Foundation.

Thomas Koloniar is the author of the post-apocalyptic novel Cannibal Reign. He is the coauthor, with Scott McEwen, of the national bestselling Sniper Elite series: One-Way Trip, Target America, and The Sniper and the Wolf. A former police officer from Akron, Ohio, he lives in Mexico.

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Sniper Elite: One-Way Trip

2

AFGHANISTAN,

Nangarhar Province

Warrant Officer Sandra Brux sat beside her copilot Warrant Officer Billy Mitchell in the open doorway of their UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter smoking cigarettes and shooting the shit. Sandra was twenty-nine years old with dark hair and blue eyes, an excellent helicopter pilot beginning her third tour in the Middle East. They watched as a six-man team of US Army Rangers ran through a training exercise, rehearsing a night raid “snatch ’n’ grab” presently set for the following week. Sandra and Mitchell were both Night Stalkers, pilots of the elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), which routinely operated with both Army and Naval Special Forces. Known throughout the Spec-Ops community as the best of the best, they were the go-to badasses in the air for the go-to badasses on the ground, and Sandra was the first female pilot to be made a member.

The Rangers were maneuvering through a flimsy plywood village mock-up, working out the timing of their attack. The rehearsal site was considered “secure” as it was located fifty miles from the lines (to the extent that “lines” even existed in this godforsaken place). The snatch ’n’ grab was to be carried out against a Muslim cleric named Aasif Kohistani living in a small village in the north of Nangarhar Province. Kohistani was the leader of an Islamist political party called the Hezb-e Islami Khalis (the HIK). The HIK was gaining political influence in the Afghan parliament, and recent intelligence reports indicated that Kohistani was now working with the Taliban to consolidate his growing military power in and around Nangarhar Province in the face of the scheduled American drawdown.

Obviously, American forces would not be able to make their scheduled drawdown work if the HIK and Taliban forces began a resurgence, so it was necessary to remove Kohistani from the picture, lest he become as strong as the already troublesome Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who lead the Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin faction (HIG) based out of the Shok Valley of the Hindu Kush. Both the HIK and the HIG had made significant gains in parliamentary influence over the past year, and both were violently opposed to Afghan-US relations.

Sandra flicked away the smoking butt of her cigarette and lay back on the deck of the helicopter to close her eyes, smiling pleasantly to herself. She and the Ranger team leader, Captain Sean Bordeaux, had secretly hooked up the night before back at the air base outside of Jalalabad. It had been a much-needed tryst for both of them, each of their military spouses being stationed on the other side of the world. Six months was a long time for anyone to go without, but the nature of their respective jobs was extremely stressful, and this stress had long been exacerbated by the uncommonly strong attraction between them—which was no one’s fault but that of Mother Nature. The sexual tension between them was now dispelled, however, and both of them were thinking much more clearly, able to focus their full attention on their respective missions.

“Hey, have you heard from Beth?” Sandra asked.

Mitchell sat squinting into the morning sun, watching as the Rangers retook their positions to begin another “infiltration” of the village. He and Sandra were the only security for the training op. He drew pensively from his cigarette, thinking of his wife who was due to give birth in less than a week.

“Last night,” he answered. “She said she could pop any minute. Could be happening right now, for all I know. How come you and John don’t have any kids?”

She lifted her head to look at him. “Do I look like I’m ready to have kids?”

He laughed. “Well, I guess it’s a little different with you guys.”

“You can say that,” she said, rising up onto her elbows. “I mean, we only see each other about four months of the year. Sometimes, I wonder why we even—”

Machine gun fire raked the front of the Black Hawk, and bullets went whining off into the air.

“What the fuck!” Mitchell said, grabbing up his M4. “Enemy front!”

“Incoming!” one of the Rangers screamed from the far side of the ersatz village.

The first couple of mortars struck the ground, their telltale crumping sounds ripping through the air. Two more rounds quickly fell, and the flimsy buildings blew apart like houses made from playing cards. The nearest pair of Rangers leapt back to their feet and came sprinting toward the Black Hawk. Another round dropped just in front of them and they vanished.

“Jesus Christ!” Sandra scrambled into the cockpit. “Where the fuck did they come from? We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

“We gotta get this bitch off the ground.” Mitchell was climbing into the gunner’s compartment behind her. “We’re a sitting fucking duck here!”

The four remaining Rangers were still a hundred yards off across the village, running hard for the chopper as Sandra flipped the switches in the cockpit and the rotors began to turn. “We’ll be airborne in sixty seconds.”

“We don’t have sixty—!”

A mortar struck the tail section of the helicopter, lifting the hind end of the bird into the air and causing it to slew wildly around. Mitchell was slammed against the bulkhead, splitting his head open, and Sandra was thrown from her seat to the other side of the cockpit. The sound of small arms fire filled the air. Bullets snapped through the fuselage as she tried to call for support over the radio.

“It’s fucked!” Mitchell grabbed for her arm. “We gotta dismount!” A round struck him in the chest and he dropped dead to the deck.

Captain Bordeaux leapt into the bird, grabbing Sandra’s collar and hauling her from the aircraft against a hail of gunfire. They were both hit and fell out the open door. The other three remaining Rangers took cover as best they could near the fuselage, but it seemed they were surrounded on all sides, and the cover among the rocks was sparse at best.

“Did you get off a call for help?” Bordeaux asked, firing a few rounds into a coppice of trees to keep the enemy’s head down.

“They took out the radio first thing,” Sandra said, gasping against the pain in her thigh where she’d taken a round from an AK-47. “I think it’s up against the bone, Sean. Fuck me! It hurts like a holy bastard.”

Bordeaux grabbed up Mitchell’s M4 and jammed it into her hands as he half-carried, half-dragged her toward the rocks where his men were digging in as best they could with the butts of their carbines. “We’re in some deep shit here, guys. No cover and nowhere to run.”

One of the other men went right to work applying a pressure tourniquet to Sandra’s leg. Shock was setting in fast and she’d already begun to fade.

“We’d better think of something fast,” one of the other Rangers said. “When they correct fire on those mortars, we’re dead.”

“They could’ve done that already,” Bordeaux said. “They’re maneuvering to take us alive.”

“Or her,” said a sergeant named Tornero.

“Or her, yeah.” Bordeaux spat in disgust. Their radioman had been blasted to hell, and it would be at least another hour, maybe two, before anyone tried to raise them and thought to send...