Filed to story: American Sniper: The Last Round (Carl Oliver) Book PDF Free
“You got him,” yelled Timmons, the cop, “you got him.”
“Send those damn boys fast,” said Carl, “he’s set.”
Christ, he wished he had a rifle. It was his shot. It was a shot that kept him alive all these years-to have the motherfucker there, the man who did Donny Fenn, the man who blew out his hip and ended the life he was born to live, to have him right where the Remington wanted to go, right where he could put it. His trigger finger began to constrict and he imagined the buck of the rifle as he fired. He could take the trigger slack all the way down and ship a .308 hollowpoint out there and send that fuck straight to hell, drive his heart and spine all over New Orl-
“Goddamn, where are they, get ’em in there. He’s going to-“
“All elements, move in, Ginger Dragon, go, go, go,” he heard Payne on the radio.
Where were they? There should be a chopper overhead, FBI SWAT guys in black rappelling down it, men moving in from all the hidden parts of the universe, men with guns and purpose, moving swiftly to stop-
“Where are they?”
Carl saw the spurt of flame as Solaratov fired.
“Carl?”
He turned and Payne shot him in the chest from a range of six feet.
Nick yawned and-
He heard the sound of a shot.
It froze him. The universe seemed to halt and his heart turned to stone.
Then the radio exploded.
“My God, Flashlight is down!”
He sat up; swallowed again.
The shot came from close by.
“We are under fire on the podium, Flashlight is hit and down, my God!”
“Alpha Actual, Alpha Actual, all units, Alpha Actual.”
Actual was the code word; it meant somebody was shooting at or had shot the president.
“Medics, vector in those medics, get these people out of here!”
“Medevac, this is Alpha Four, we need you ASAP, the man is down and hit, oh, Christ, oh, Jesus, get him fast, there’s some other people up here hit, oh, Christ!”
“Off the air, Alpha Four, your medevac is vectored in, are you still under fire?”
“Negative, Alpha Six, I think it was two, maybe three shots, I don’t, oh, God, there’s blood all over-“
“This is Base Six, all units are cleared to fire if you have targets, this means you, countersnipers.”
“Where’s that fuckin’ medevac, we have blood everywhere, guys are down.”
Nick listened in horrified fascination.
“Do we have an isolation on the shot?”
“It was a long one, Phil, a sniper, I think it came from someplace out there beyond Rampart, in those fuckin’ houses, maybe that tall one.”
“SWAT people, let’s get going.”
“Negative that, this is Base, goddammit, we’ve got to get that chopper in and get the Man out of here.”
But me, Nick thought. I have to move. I have to move. He was out of the car, hating himself for the five seconds or so he’d lost.
Without willing it, the Smith came up into his hand from the pancake. His big thumb snaked out and pushed the safety up and off.
He ran toward the sound of the shot, which was on the left, the big house at 415 St. Ann.
Payne dragged him into another room. He felt the blood on his chest, warm like urine, so much of it. It felt like the last time.
In the blaze of light, as his head lolled and his limbs went limp, he could see a shooting bench, rigged together of cement blocks and weathered pieces of wood, and on it, there lay a rifle, slightly atilt on a brace of sandbags, a heavy-barreled Remington 700 with a Leupold 10x Ultra scope.
The New Orleans cop was talking urgently into his radio unit.
“Base Six, this is Victor Seven-twenty, I have shot suspect white male with rifle at five-one-four Saint Ann, please send assistance, I say again, Base Six, this is Victor Seven-twenty, I have shot suspect in the attic of five-one-four Saint Ann, please send assistance.”
Then Carl looked at the rifle.
It was his rifle.