End Game (Will Robie #5)(9)

After Reel’s shot killed the man, things got interesting.

There were few events that got the adrenaline going faster than knowing that a sniper was in town. Seconds after the dead man slumped forward on the tabletop, his comrades were running and ducking and throwing themselves behind whatever they could find that would stop their fate from being the same as their deceased commander’s.

And with her spotter constantly feeding her data and Reel inputting that data into her optics, she kept firing.

Six trigger pulls later her rounds had found five fleshy entry points. The only one that hadn’t was the one that had impacted the rifle barrel of the targeted man, who had moved his rifle to the front of his chest after Reel had already fired. The round glanced off the barrel and buried itself in the sand.

That was the major problem with sniping at this great distance. The targets had to be stationary. If they moved right after you fired, the round would miss, because it would take the bullet a few seconds to get there. The bullet fired by the Canadian elite special forces member had taken nearly ten seconds to reach its target.

Yet being only a hundred yards away from an enemy carried another set of complications. Reel and her team would be subject to a variety of counterattacks and the threat of being physically overrun. Right now Reel had her spotter and four other soldiers with her. The target they were attacking held a hundred ISIS fighters and an assortment of hand-me-down armored vehicles in which they could counterattack.

Being nearly a mile away gave Reel and her team a lot more latitude. And time for exfiltration, which was a fancy military term for getting the hell out of Dodge.

Her work finished for now, Reel filled out her DOPE and put away her weapon. They drove back to their base, only to be told that they would be heading out on another mission that night. They would support a SEAL team attack on a compound where it was rumored the number two man in ISIS would be, along with three hostages, one of whom was a U.S. Marine captured two weeks prior.

Reel and her team attended the briefing. She snatched some shuteye, and then they geared up and moved out.

Just another night in the neighborhood.

Only it wouldn’t be like any other night for Jessica Reel, ever.





CHAPTER





5


SEAL teams did everything in the fast lane.

The stealth chopper came low and fast over a rise in the sand, its engine and prop wash as quiet as the best and brightest of American engineering could make them.

Ten SEAL Team Six members fast-roped down to the interior of the compound. Moving as one unit, they hit the sole entrance of the building and disappeared inside.

A football field’s length away, Reel, her spotter, and other team members watched the proceedings closely.

Reel lay in the sand behind her sniper rifle. Her optics held on the interior of the courtyard, which could be seen through an opening that had once held a gate.

Four of the other team members had optics on the target zone. They were also commed together and following over their headsets what was happening inside the compound.

A minute later the all clear was given. The mission was a bust. There was no one inside.

As quickly as they had come the SEALs departed. The stealth chopper disappeared over a sandy ridge and was gone.

Reel and her team were packing their gear and about to board two Humvees when explosive rounds hit both vehicles. Secondary explosions came when the hardened fuel tanks were punctured and the gas vapor inside was combusted.

The twin explosions cremated the driver and the grunt riding next to him in one vehicle and burned alive the driver in the second Humvee. The concussive blast ripped limbs off another team member, and he bled out seconds later.

Reel and her spotter rolled to the left and sighted their weapons in the direction from where the rounds had come.

Another explosive hit behind them, sending three more team members to the hereafter, in pieces.

“We’re fucked,” screamed the spotter as incoming fire poured in from behind them as well. “This was a setup!”

Reel already knew this. She spun her weapon around and crab-walked over so it was pointed at their rear flank.

That was when she saw what was coming.

Into her headset she said, “Get air support in here. Now!”

There were three lightly armored Toyota pickup trucks carrying maybe twenty-five fighters in total. Another dozen armed men were hustling behind the cover of the trucks. Mounted in the beds of the Toyotas were .50-cal machine guns.

Fifty-calibers didn’t wound when they hit you; they pretty much vaporized whatever they touched.

Reel looked behind her as another round struck. Two more of her team were dismembered, their helmets spinning through the air before coming to rest as mangled composite a hundred feet away.

And one of them was their communications person.

Reel turned to her spotter. “Use your phone. Call in our coordinates. And we need some—”

The .50s opened up again and the decibel-shattering barrage canceled out whatever else Reel was going to say.

Two rounds hit her spotter, and Reel was instantly covered in blood, brains, and guts. The spotter’s right arm flew through the sky in a long arc before plummeting back to the sand.

Now, with less than a minute having passed, there was just Reel and one other man left alive, a Brit named Hugh Barkley.

Reel waited until the .50s ceased firing to reload and then she sighted through her optics.