Target America: A Sniper Elite Novel

by Scott McEwen

  He opened fire through the window, and they scattered in the mist.

  “They’re flanking the house!”

  “Got ’em!” Buck opened fire from the master bedroom.

  A hail of 7.62 mm bullets tore through the house like micrometeorites, shattering windows, lamps, dishes, and mirrors.

  Janet covered her head with her arms, pulling herself into the tub as tightly as she could while chunks of plaster and tile rained down, the occasional round ricocheting off the cast iron surrounding her.

  A short while before, they’d heard the burst from Agent Starks’s MP5 and been left to assume that Marie had been caught out and killed, their hopes of rescue crushed and Janet left without a great deal to live for.

  Hal dove to the floor as a hail of automatic fire tore apart the wall, belly crawling down the hall to meet Buck in the doorway to the master bedroom.

  “They’ll be in the house any second,” the older man said.

  Hal offered his hand to his father. “It’s been an honor, Dad.”

  Buck grabbed his hand. “I couldn’t be prouder of any of you. We’ll stay shoulder to shoulder. Take as many of these godless sons a bitches with us as we can.”

  They crawled toward the top of the stairs to arrive at the landing just as the front door was kicked in. They opened fire and killed a gunman in the doorway. The rest pulled back.

  • • •

  FROM HIS HIDING place behind the horse trailer fifty yards from the front porch, Agent Starks could see and hear the muzzle flashes from numerous automatic rifles. He couldn’t see anyone clear enough to be sure if it was friend or foe, but he knew the chatter of an AK-47 and decided that it was better to do something rather than nothing.

  He opened fire on one of the muzzle flashes near the porch with the captured AK-47, and the gunner went down screaming, his legs shot apart. One of the others returned Starks’s fire, and bullets struck the horse trailer near enough to his head that bits of spall tore into his face. He displaced rapidly, falling back to an old stone well to the west of the house. The night vision goggles he’d taken from the dead guy weren’t doing him much good in the fog, so he assumed that the enemy probably couldn’t see him any better than he could see them.

  The horse trailer continued to take fire for a short time, and the man he’d shot began screaming in a mixture of Arabic and English for the others to help him. The firing trailed off, and the enemy fell back from the house into the mist, shouting back and forth, obviously confused to have taken fire from outside the house.

  Taking a chance, Starks broke cover around the far west side of the house. He put his back to a large propane tank and lowered himself into a crouch. The stone well came under fire a few seconds later, and he rose up to peek in through the window, noticing a three-inch gap below the sash. He stuck the muzzle of the AK-47 beneath it and pushed it up, calling inside, “FBI! Anybody alive in there?”

  “Whattaya make of that?” Buck whispered.

  “Somebody shot that haji out there on the porch, and it wasn’t us,” Hal said.

  “Yeah!” Buck shouted down. “We’re alive!”

  “Am I clear to come inside?” Starks shouted.

  “Come ahead! We’re upstairs!”

  They listened as Starks clamored in through the window and bounded across the living room, having no trouble finding his way to the staircase with the night vision goggles. He trotted up the stairs and took a knee between the two prone men.

  “Agent Spencer Starks.” He offered his hand. “FBI.”

  “Buck Ferguson, First Marines. This is my oldest son, Hal. How many are you?”

  “Just me.” Starks got down on his belly between them. “It’s a cluster fuck down at the crossroads. There’ll be more cops, but probably not until first light.”

  “Don’t they know we’re takin’ fire up here?”

  “They might by now, but that Highway Patrol commander won’t budge before it gets light.”

  Buck groaned. “Gotta be Quentin Miller.”

  “One in the same,” Starks said with chuckle.

  “My boys went to school with that jackass. He’s worthless as tits on a boar hog.”

  “And about as smart!” Janet called from the bathtub.

  Everyone laughed.

  “What’s it look like out there?” Hal asked.

  “Right now, I think they’re pretty confused.” Starks shrugged the MP5s from his back. “They’re trying to figure out who was shooting at them from outside.”

  “Did you see any other Americans out there?” Buck said. “A woman or a couple of men in their twenties?”

  Starks shook his head. “All I saw up close was a dead haji down near the gate with his neck torn out—looked like he’d been killed by a werewolf.”

  “Had to be Oso. Maybe Marie made it after all.”

  “Marie Shannon?”

  “Yeah, she made a break for the Chatham place about an hour and a half ago. We stayed behind to look after her mama. Janet got herself a pretty bad concussion when those Jeezless bastards tried blowin’ up the house.”

  “I don’t know if you heard,” Starks said, “but they’ve tracked the nuke to DC. It’s caused a hell of a lot of confusion in the Bureau’s command structure.”

  A window shattered downstairs, and a few seconds later, they could see flames spreading across the living room floor.

  “Fucking hajis!” Hal hissed, jumping to his feet and starting down the stairs.

  “Hal, get your ass back up here!”

  “Dad, we gotta fight that fire!”

  “And get your ass shot off, boy? That’s exactly what the hell they want. Now, get up here. I already lost two sons!”

  Hal came back up, and Buck slipped into the bathroom. “I’m sorry, Jan, but you’re gonna have to get outta the tub. They lit the house, honey.”

  “Fine by me,” she grumbled, gripping the edge of the tub to pull herself up. “I’ve kindly had enough of this layin’ around. Where’s my Winchester?”

  “Right here by the sink,” he said, helping her out. “But stay down on the floor. We got smoke comin’ up the steps.”

  Buck grabbed the edge of the claw-footed bathtub, jerking it away from the plumbing coming up from the floor, and water began spraying into the room. He smashed the commode away from the wall, and water gushed from the line onto the wood floor. Lastly, he jerked the sink from the wall, and within a minute, a steady flow of water was running from the bathroom into the hall and down the stairs.

  “Good thinking,” Starks said.

  Another hail of gunfire showered through the walls, driving everyone belly down on the wet floor.

  “I don’t think they can afford to keep that up,” Starks said. “The haji I took this rifle from only had two extra magazines.”

  “Assassins on a budget,” Janet said bitterly.

  Buck chortled.

  “Are we gonna make a break for it or not?” she asked. “I don’t much fancy layin’ here in the water until that fire works its way up the wall and steams us to death.” She took Starks by the hand, saying in a low voice, “God bless you for comin’ to help us.”

  “It’s my job, ma’am.”

  “All the same, son. Welcome to the family. You’re a McGuthry now.”

  67

  MONTANA,

  Gil’s Ranch

  Akram stood with Abad and a number of other men watching the house catch fire.

  “They’ll be coming out soon,” Abad said. “Do you want them alive? We can shoot them in the legs if they won’t surrender.” They could still hear the man calling out from the front porch where Agent Starks had shot him down. “He’s going to burn up if we leave him there. He’s too close to the house.”

  “Go and get him if you like.”

  Abad wasn’t about to risk his neck. �
�You know, I don’t think Shannon is here,” he heard himself say.

  Akram looked at him askance. “What are you talking about?”

  “Too many of us are still alive. I think we’ve been tricked somehow.”

  Akram dismissed this out of hand. “That makes no sense.”

  Abad shrugged. “You’re the expert.”

  ———

  • • •

  MARIE AND DUSTY reined their horses to a halt on the easternmost side of the ranch, seeing the orange glow of the house fire through the fog.

  “My God!” she said. “They lit the house!” She dug her heels into the flanks of the horse and took off through the mist.

  Dusty quickly caught her up, diving from his saddle to grab her horse by the bridle and bring it to an abrupt stop. “We can’t go ridin’ in there like a pair of wild Indians, Marie! You wanna get killed?”

  “My mother’s in there!”

  “You don’t know that. Anything coulda happened by now. We gotta do this smart, or we could end up dead.”

  She reached beneath her jacket and drew the Springfield .45. “You’re right,” she said. “I didn’t think. We’ll do it smart.”

  “Okay then.” He released his grip on the bridle, and when he turned for his horse, she dug her heels in again and galloped off.

  “Son of a bitch!” he hissed, jumping into the saddle and shucking the .30-06 from the saddle scabbard. “Why can’t women ever listen to reason?”

  He took off after her, galloping the horse carefully through the dark, waiting for it to stumble or break a leg. Marie quickly drew out of sight, and when he couldn’t hear the galloping of her horse over his own, he reined to a stop and sat in the saddle, as unsure of himself as he had ever been.

  Wild gunfire broke out in the direction of the house, and though it was too far off for it to have anything to do with Marie, it was more than enough to emphasize the gravity of the situation.

  “Damn,” Dusty whispered, feeling the fear well up in his gut. He flicked the reins to start the horse walking. “Come on, Shiloh. I don’t reckon we can turn back now.”

  • • •

  AKRAM AND THREE other men stood covering Buck Ferguson and Agent Starks as the two stepped out onto the front porch with their hands in the air.

  “Don’t shoot!” Buck shouted. Glancing down at the man on the porch who had recently bled out, he stood just behind and to the left of Starks. “We give up!”

  Akram watched them through Duke’s infrared binocular. “Where is Shannon?”

  “He’s upstairs with a bullet in his head,” Buck said. “You killed him in that last salvo of yours. We’re all that’s left.”

  “Go in and check it out,” Akram said to one of his men.

  The man looked at him in alarm. “But the house is on fire!”

  “Check it out!” Akram screamed.

  Buck dropped his hands, jerking the Sig Sauer pistol from the small of Starks’s back. At the same time, Starks brought up one of the MP5s, and they both opened fire as they danced away down the length of the porch.

  One of Akram’s men went down. As for the others, half of them fired wildly at Buck and Starks, while half ducked for cover. The two men jumped off the far end of the porch and disappeared from sight.

  “After them!” Akram screamed, and five men chased them into the fog.

  Around the back of the house, Abad heard the firing, but he ordered his group to hold their positions. The house wasn’t fully engulfed yet, and he couldn’t risk anyone escaping out the back. The heat from the fire on the west side had driven the fog back some twenty feet from the house, so they could see pretty well.

  He heard a rumbling sound behind him and whipped around just in time to be trampled beneath a charging quarter horse. He fumbled to get up, but a hoof whacked him in the side of the head to sprawl him out.

  His men were still jumping for space as Marie reined the horse hard around and shot one of them in the back with the .45, expertly backing the animal to trample Abad a second time, crushing his chest. She fired two more shots, hitting another man before someone cut loose with a burst of automatic fire, killing the horse beneath her.

  She rolled clear as the horse crumpled to the ground, causing her to lose her grip on the pistol.

  A giant of a man grabbed her by the hair and jerked her to her feet. He was drawing back his arm to punch her in the face when Hal burst out the back door to blow him away.

  Marie snatched up the pistol and ran onto the deck, grabbing Janet as she came stumbling out the door, her hair and clothing badly singed and smoking. Hal leapt off the end of the deck, caving in a man’s skull with the barrel of the MP5. A burst of fire from his left dropped Janet to her knees, a single bullet through both buttocks. Hal wheeled and shot the man through his guts, charging forward to sprawl him out with the stock of the submachine gun. He took a bullet through the back, however, and spun to return fire, downing his attacker before going down himself.

  Marie saw him collapse and disappeared with Janet around the western end of the house.

  • • •

  OUT FRONT, BUCK and Starks had taken cover behind the stone well, where they were now pinned down and exchanging fire with the enemy.

  “This doesn’t look too good,” Starks said. “Is there any place behind us we can fall back to?”

  “Nope.” Buck popped up to squeeze off a shot in the direction of the last muzzle flash. “Nothing but open country for two hundred yards until you reach the tree line. Why don’t you try getting away in the fog? I gotta stay here and keep these bastards busy to buy time for Hal and Janet.”

  Starks squeezed off a few more rounds. “We don’t know if they even made it out of the house.”

  Buck fired again. “Ain’t that the bitch of it?”

  “How deep is this well?”

  “About ten feet—been dry for years. Why?”

  “Oh, I dunno,” Starks said. “I figure we can jump down it when we run outta ammo; save everybody the trouble of diggin’ us a grave.”

  They heard Marie behind them in the fog, urging her mother not to give up.

  “Marie, over here!” Buck hissed. “At the well!”

  The women came out of the fog, and both of them collapsed to the ground. “Oh, thank God!” Marie said.

  “Where’s Hal?” Buck asked.

  Marie put her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Buck. I’m so sorry.”

  He put a hand to her face, dying a thousand deaths inside. “It’s not your fault,” he said starkly. “Come on now. We’re gonna lower you girls down the well. Then me and Starks here are gonna draw these sons a bitches away.”

  Marie looked at Agent Starks. “Who are you?”

  “FBI, Mrs. Shannon.”

  “Thank you for coming.” She took his hand.

  “He’s a fine man,” Janet mumbled, struggling to remain conscious.

  The enemy opened fire, and Starks answered it with a burst from the MP5. “Not much time left. We’d best get you two down the well.”

  “No.” Marie shook her head.

  “Marie, don’t argue.” Buck’s voice was peremptory as he fought to control his emotions. “If you girls don’t survive this, then my boys died for nothin’. Now you’re goin’ down the well so we can lead these bastards the hell outta here.” He set the pistol down on the ground. “Okay, you first, honey, so you can catch your mama. Hurry up, now!”

  That’s when the propane cylinder on the western side of the house exploded in a giant fireball, burning back the fog to bathe them all in a brilliant flash of light and driving them flat against the earth with their arms shielding their heads.

  68

  IN THE SKY OVER GIL’S RANCH

  Trussed up in his jump gear, Jack Frost ambled down the aisle to the back of the plane, where Gil stood poised to be th
e first man out the open door. “We’re approaching the DZ!” he shouted into Gil’s ear. “The fog down there makes it tough to see, but it looks like the house is on fire.”

  “On fire?”

  “You wanna do a flyby before we jump?”

  “Fuck no!” Gil shouted, glancing up to make sure the jump light was still red. “I gotta get down there!”

  “Roger that! I’ll let them know up front. I’m the last man out the door, so I’ll see you on the ground!”

  A minute later, the plane banked gently to the northwest, giving Gil a heart-stopping view of his home, which was now completely engulfed in flames. Ten seconds after that, the green light came on, and he threw himself out the door, with the rest of the team following right behind. They couldn’t wait more than a few seconds apiece to deploy their chutes because they were already jumping below five thousand feet. And there was too much fog below to visually time their descent even with the infrared goggles, which provided almost no depth perception even under the best of circumstances.

  69

  MONTANA,

  Gil’s Ranch

  With the house a roaring inferno, Buck found himself staring straight up the muzzle of an AK-47. Agent Starks was flat on his back, out cold with a huge goose egg on his forehead where he’d been struck with a rifle butt. Janet lay unconscious in the lee of the well, and Marie was on her knees with Akram’s knife to her throat.

  “Where is Gil Shannon?” Akram shouted at Buck. “I’ll cut off her head!”

  “He’s not here!” Buck was enraged and ready to hurl himself at the man covering him with the rifle. “He’s with the government, looking for your goddamn bomb! Now let her go before I rip off your head and shit down your neck!” He got to his feet, and the Al Qaeda fighter screamed for him to get back on his knees.

  “Go fuck yourself, heathen!”

  “Buck, don’t!” pled Marie. “Don’t give them a reason to kill you!”

  “I’m sorry, honey, but we’re as good as dead.” He looked at Akram. “Ain’t that right, you filthy cocksucker?”