Sniper Elite by Scott McEwen Read Free Book Online Page B

chomping at the bit to take this story public,” Webb assured him. “There’s a ton of political points for her to score on this if she can make it look like the president is mishandling it.”
    Shroyer took a stiff belt of the Scotch and set the glass down. “Does she know what kind of precedent a payoff of that size would set—that we’d be putting a bounty on the head of every US soldier from Afghanistan to Korea?”
    â€œI tried that reasoning already, and she’s not buying it. She knows we’ve paid before, and she’s even threatening to expose that. Though don’t ask me how she thinks she can do it.”
    â€œWe’ve never paid a ransom like what these sons of bitches are demanding.” He stood mulling the dilemma over. “Okay. Tell herthis . . . tell her we’ve directed Special Forces to make an evaluation of the—”
    Webb was shaking his head. “Won’t work. She knows about the lack of actionable intel.”
    Shroyer bit back the obscenity that came to his lips, forcing himself to calm down before asking quietly: “Has she seen the video, Cletus?”
    Webb considered his answer. “She told me that it was described to her . . . but I’m sure she was lying. She’s too fired up, too passionate not to have seen it.”
    â€œThat does it!” Shroyer crossed the room again to retake his seat. “Ask for a meeting with Mike Ferrell over at NSA. Drive over there personally, in fact. He’ll like that—us coming to him. Get him to find out who’s leaking this information. Then I want whoever it is locked in a dungeon at the bottom of the Caspian Sea.”
    Webb crossed his legs, wrists dipped over the arms of the chair. “I don’t think we want to get back into bed with NSA over this, I really don’t. It took too long to get that camel’s nose out from under our tent. Besides, I was just on the phone with Bob Pope over at SAD.” Special Activities Division of the CIA, which oversaw SOG. “And from what he tells me, the rape story has spread through the special ops community like a brushfire—from DEVGRU to Delta. In other words, the informant could be anyone.”
    â€œIncluding the nutty Professor Pope,” Shroyer muttered. “Okay, forget NSA.”
    Webb breathed a sigh of relief. “Whoever leaked this information, the message is very clear. The special ops community wants Sandra Brux out of there—now.”
    Shroyer squeezed the bridge of his nose. “If we pay, it’ll be the shakedown of the century.”
    â€œYes, it will, but we’ve got nothing to go on, and we’re running out of time. You saw her condition, the way she’s being treated.”
    Shroyer looked up, clearly troubled. “So what’s happening with CID? General Couture told me there were Taliban bodies at the ambush site. We’re supposed to be getting DNA evidence telling us what villages these murderers came from. The president can’t make a military decision until he knows if this was the work of the Taliban or the goddamn HIK.”
    Webb straightened in the chair. “Because of the drawdown, the CID people in Jalalabad don’t have access to micro-fluidic testing anymore, and even if they did, the indigenous DNA samples they would need for comparison are all kept in Kabul now. Long story short, it’s going to be a few days before we get the results. And even when we do, there’s no guarantee they’ll lead us to any specific village, let alone the one holding Sandra Brux.”
    Shroyer frowned. “The president’s not going to like hearing that. I think he’s seen too many episodes of CSI .”
    â€œI hate to say this,” Webb continued, “but it’s probably better to pay the ransom before the damn video ends up in the hands of Al Jazeera. If that happens, the president’s not going to have