I, Judas the 5th Gospel by Bob Mayer Read Free Book Online Page B

problem. Not only are the Indians insisting we give them the four nuclear warheads, there’s the issue of what happens when Pakistan realizes we did it.”
    “Not an issue,” Brunswick said succinctly. “Let’s get this straight, gentlemen. We just decided to kill a bunch of people at the Mission. Yes, we’re doing it by using the US Military and through cut-outs, but the job is being put together fast and there will be loose ends. It will eventually be tracked back to us. But you know what? I don’t give a damn. Because reality dictates these things are the least of our problems. This Intruder is going to destroy Earth in less than three days. If we fail, then none of this matters. If we succeed, then we’re the saviors of mankind. There is no third option or path to worry about.” He looked at Thornton. “Pressure our people on the NSC to convince the President to send the nukes to India. Let’s get this thing rolling.”
    “And if diverting it doesn’t work?” Pierce asked.
    “Then it will be destroyed with the Final Option,” Brunswick said. “As it enters the atmosphere, every ICBM we have, along with the Russians’, British, and French, will be fired from every launch platform.”
    “You just said that wouldn’t work,” Pierce pointed out. “It would just give us multiple strikes instead of one large strike, but the cumulative effect would be the same.”
    “It’s better than doing nothing,” Brunswick said. “We’d rather go down fighting back with everything we can.”
     
    Afghanistan: The Commando

    Cold wind whistled through the peaks carrying blinding snow with it. Captain Gates sat on top of his rucksack as still as the scant rocks he’d scavenged to build the small shelter two weeks ago. Mixed in with the wind, he could hear the rattle in the breathing of Sergeant Mumphries, the man with whom he’d shared this sparse location for fifteen days. They were located on the steep side of a mountain at twelve thousand feet, and it was approximately an hour before midnight.
    Spotting something moving in the distance through intermittent breaks in the snow, Gates put down the night vision goggles with which he’d been observing the mountain trail they were above. In their place, he picked up a bulky .50 caliber Barrett 82A1 sniper rifle. The mountain straddled the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and according to his global positioning receiver, they were less than fifty meters away from being in the wrong country. Actually, Afghanistan wasn’t exactly the right country either. None of the other men on Gates’ team were happy to be here. The twelve men of his A-Team were deployed in six teams of two along passes on the border. It was a nasty place, and operating in the high mountains was not only difficult but dangerous. And not just because the Taliban and the various tribes that used these trails held no love for Americans, but also the altitude and weather, as Mumphries’ cough indicated.
    Gates pressed his cheek against the stock of the sniper rifle, his shooting eye closed and resting on the rubber, his other eye open. It was a position he could hold for a very long time. He couldn’t see anything through the snow as the wind picked up once more. He closed his non-shooting eye as he turned on the thermal sight bolted on top of the rifle. He slowly opened his left eye and blinked, as it was flooded with a spectrum of colors. Ignoring the cold snow, the sight picked up heat images. He could see six red figures moving up the trail.
    Gates wrapped his left hand around the stock, forefinger inside the trigger guard. The heavy barrel was supported by a bipod. His right hand was on the scope, adjusting the sensitivity. He’d zeroed in the thermal sight just before infiltration. He’d fired the weapon in many different situations so he knew how the bullet would perform with the drop in altitude to the trail below. His nostrils flared as he sniffed. The wind would have to be taken into account.