Target America: A Sniper Elite Novel by Scott McEwen Read Free Book Online Page B

SEALs.
    Crosswhite was taller, a few years older, handsome with dark hair and a devil-may-care smile. “Remember,” he said, “this motherfucker’s been down twice for child molestation, so if he puts up any fight at all, don’t hesitate to waste his ass.”
    They were dressed for combat pretty much the same as when they’d operated with Special Forces, only instead of camouflage, they were dressed all in black with FBI stenciled on their body armor front and back. They carried no identification, and they always wore leather tactical gloves. They’d made a pact with each other on the first day: if either man was ever wounded badly enough that he needed a hospital, the other would put a bullet through his head.
    Neither wanted to end up in prison.
    The adrenaline rush they experienced in their new line of work was as important to them as the cash, most of which they blew in Vegas anyhow. For them, life outside of Special Ops just moved too slowly, and they scarcely knew how to function among regular people with no concept of the things they had done and seen during their time in combat.
    “I find myself unable to adjust,” Crosswhite had said dryly, by way of explanation, on the morning he’d first pitched his idea to Tuckerman.
    “Yeah, well look at me,” Tuckerman had replied, gesturing at his vomit-stained shirt, the two of them sitting in a buffet breakfast joint on the northern end of the Vegas Strip. “I’m not exactly the poster child for assimilation.”
    They waited until the men in the Hummer came back out and drove off before dismounting the van and moving quickly into the shadows alongside the house. The night vision monoculars attached to their IBH helmets allowed them to see everything with perfect clarity. The two moved stealthily around to the back of the house, where they would use a double length of commercial detonating cord to blow the reinforced steel door off its hinges. Their main armament were suppressed M4s, with suppressed .45 caliber Sig Sauer pistols for backup, all of it equipped with laser sighting. They hadn’t yet acquired fragmentation grenades, but their load-out did consist of six flash-bangs apiece. The body armor was of Special Forces quality and would stop an AK-47 round point-blank. They were not loaded out for speed or agility. They were loaded out for hard-hitting, break-your-fucking-head-open combat, and they were prepared to do whatever it took to get what they came for.
    To their way of the thinking, the drug dealers they took down—and had so far twice ended up killing—were no different from any otherenemy they’d ever encountered in combat. In many cases, they were probably worse. Take Terrance Booker, for example, a twice-convicted child molester and meth dealer. How many lives had this joker helped destroy during his thirty-five years on the planet? The figure likely stretched into the thousands.
    Tuckerman opened the storm door, and Crosswhite duct taped the det cord across the hinges, lighting the fused end of the blasting cap and ducking back around the corner of the house, each man wearing earplugs, goggles, and a black balaclava to cover his face.
    Ten seconds later, the det cord exploded with a sharp blast, and Crosswhite jumped out to kick the door into the house, where it fell with a crash against the kitchen floor. A woman started screaming immediately from the living room, and Crosswhite shouted “FBI!” at the top of his voice as they bounded inside.
    “FBI!” Tuckerman echoed as they moved into the living room. Two men sat looking stunned on the couch in front of the television. “FBI! Everybody down on the fucking floor—now!”
    Crosswhite shoved the woman into a chair and told her to shut the fuck up as the two men threw themselves onto the floor with their hands over the backs of their heads.
    Neither one of them was Terrance Booker.
    “Where the fuck is Booker?” demanded Crosswhite.
    “Upstairs, man,” said one of the men on the