“Taking off sounds easy enough, but what about the rest?”
“We can worry about that later,” said Farrington. “But we’re not going anywhere with that sniper.”
“How bad could it be if we surrendered to the base garrison? The sniper has to vanish once they arrive. Right?” said Hoffman. “Just saying.”
“Sure. They’ll put us on the next C-17 flight back to the States,” said Farrington, smirking. “Everything will be fine.”
Farrington was right. They had to take out the sniper. More accurately — Hoffman had to take out the sniper.
“I have an idea,” said Hoffman.
Chapter 54
Dihya Castillo lay on the tarmac in a wide pool of her own blood, still alive. The second bullet fired by the sniper had struck the concealed ballistic plate she’d chosen to wear under her clothes, and ricocheted into the night. Castillo had played dead to keep Farrington from attempting a pointless rescue. She was as good as dead. No reason to get them both killed.
The first bullet had torn through her right thigh and exited her left pelvis, no doubt making a mess of everything in between. The pain had been excruciating at first, but started to fade quickly. She’d be gone in a few minutes, satisfied that she’d played a small part in turning the fight around. Castillo had no idea what went down behind the aircraft, her view of the ramp area blocked by the C-17’s massive wheel wells, but she’d watched Farrington methodically fire one burst after another while moving toward the ramp until everything went quiet.
The engines whined louder. A few seconds later, the aircraft above her started to edge forward. She raised her head a few inches to calculate the path of the C-17’s rear wheels. Even mortally wounded, the thought of getting crushed under those tires breathed a little life into her. Fuck. It didn’t look good. She hadn’t crawled far enough under the aircraft before she took the first bullet.
The supersonic crack of a bullet drew her attention away from the slowly approaching tires. If she had her rifle, she’d put an end to that fucker. She’d located the sniper’s nest a few shots after the one that hit her body armor. The sniper wasn’t in the air ops tower, the most obvious location to a non-sniper. He or she had set up on the roof of a two-story hangar building.
She watched the structure, catching a flash. A moment later, the crack echoed across the concrete. Another flash-crack immediately followed, and the engine whine lowered, returning to idle. The pilot was dead. She found herself with mixed emotions when the wheels ground to a halt several feet from her. She was glad not to be crushed to a pulp but bummed that Farrington and the survivors wouldn’t escape. A few more gunshots echoed across the tarmac; then a long silence ensued.
She closed her eyes, thinking she’d let go and slip away when a hollow, metallic sound brought her back. Another clunk, and she opened her eyes. Two dark objects skittered to a stop about thirty feet away from the C-17’s fuselage, exploding in a billow of thick smoke.
Interesting.
The chemical cloud expanded and drifted straight for the aircraft, following the gentle Atlantic breeze she’d first felt when she stepped onto the tarmac.
When it had thickened enough to obscure her view of the sniper’s building, a figure descended the crew door stairs, carrying a scoped rifle. She recognized him through the haze.
“Jared,” she said, barely able to raise her voice over the engines. “Hoffman!”
He crouched, scanning in her direction. She raised her right hand a few inches, catching his attention. Hoffman got to her quickly, kneeling down to grab her.
“No. No. I’m gone, Jared,” she protested.
“I need to get you away from these wheels,” said Hoffman. “Farrington is leaving. Somebody has to survive this mess.”
He pulled her well past the stairwell, laying her on her back behind Andre Luison’s bloodied body.
“You can keep me company,” he said, lying down next to her with his rifle.
The aircraft rumbled to life behind them, once again moving.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Taking care of the sniper,” said Hoffman. “They’ll be too busy trying to put that beast out of business to notice me.”
The smoke grenades had already started to dissipate. They’d be exposed to the sniper again in a moment.
“How do you get out of here?” she asked, a bullet cracking overhead.
“I don’t. I take my chances with the RAF,” he said, opening his rifle’s scope covers.
She knew what that meant. He’d be shipped back to the U.S. on another fake flight, his body dumped over the Atlantic.
“I know where the sniper is. I can take the shot,” said Castillo. “Set me up behind your rifle and get out of here.”
Hoffman stared at her through the thinning smoke, a thin smile barely visible. “I don’t know. That’s at least a thousand feet. Tough shot.”
“I know it’s an intimidating range for you,” she said. “But I can handle it.”
He laughed for a moment. “Hard to argue with you on this one.”
“Then get moving,” said Castillo. “Farrington doesn’t look like he’s waiting around.”
Hoffman turned her on her stomach and set her up behind the rifle, which lay across Luison’s back. He slid an extra ten-round 7.62mm magazine next to her left arm.
“I won’t need that,” she said.
“Of course you won’t,” he said, kissing her on the forehead.
“What was that for?” she said.
“Always wanted to do that,” he said. “Thank you for this.”
She turned her head to say something, but he was gone, his form scarcely visible running through the last of the smoke screen.
She refocused on her task.
The smoke had cleared enough for her to see the outline of the left corner of the two-story building. The sniper fired every several seconds, trying to put the C-17 out of commission. The muzzle flashes were drawing her right to the shooter. By the time the smoke thinned a little more, she had a good sight picture. Castillo centered the crosshairs on what little she could see of the well-concealed target, noticing a spotter to the right. Her second target.
She made a few quick calculations. The wind was coming directly at her, so she made no initial adjustments. She took Hoffman’s word for the distance. He wouldn’t have come out here without a reasonable idea. Castillo would use the scope’s tick marks to compensate for the range.
With the crosshairs fixed on the sniper, she made an infinitesimally small adjustment to the rifle’s position and started to take the slack out of the two-stage trigger. When the rifle bucked into her shoulder, she knew it was a hit without even seeing it.
She quickly reacquired the corner, the spotter fumbling to replace the sniper. When the spotter’s dark figure stopped moving, she pressed the trigger again. The scope’s field of vision wavered from the shot, but settled just in time to see the target jerk back out of sight.
Her focus came back to the tarmac and the screaming engines. She never looked back to see if Jared had made it. Instead, she expended every last bit of her energy to flip onto her back. Dihya Castillo stared skyward, seeing more stars in the last minute she remained alive than she’d seen in her entire life. Nearly two thousand miles from the nearest continent, Ascension Island was the ultimate “dark sky” location. Millions of stars appeared to her, then faded away.
Chapter 55