Time to Hunt Part 52

"I did talk to Air Force. We can get some low-level radars set up on three surrounding mountains by 1200, a.s.suming they can move in by 1000, and we can get good position on any incoming helos. If this Russian plans to exit by helo, we'll nab him."

"This guy's the best in the world at escape and evasion. He's worked mountains before. Swagger knew that. If Swagger doesn't get him, he's gone. It's that simple."

The man on the other end was silent.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n, I hate to be beat by him! I hate hate it," said Bonson to n.o.body in particular. He ripped off his earphones and threw them against the fuselage of the plane; the plastic on one of them cracked and a piece spun off and landed at his feet. He stomped it into the floor, grunting mightily. it," said Bonson to n.o.body in particular. He ripped off his earphones and threw them against the fuselage of the plane; the plastic on one of them cracked and a piece spun off and landed at his feet. He stomped it into the floor, grunting mightily.

The sergeant happened to look away at precisely that moment, as the navigator came back to get some coffee from the thermos in the radio bay, and the two aviators locked eyes. The sergeant rolled his eyes, pointed his finger at his head and rotated it quickly, communicating in the universal language of human gesture a single idea: screwball.

The navigator nodded.

Julie knew at once it was a shot. The supersonic crack was sharp and trailed a wake of echo as it bounced off the sheltering hills.

"Nikki! Get in here! Now!" she screamed. she screamed.

The little girl turned, paused in confusion, and then there was another one, like the snap of a whip, and Nikki ran toward her. Both recognized it from the time they'd been shot at so recently.

"Come on, come on!" yelled Julie, and she grabbed her daughter, pulled her into the house, locked the door.

She heard another shot, from a different location; an answering shot.

Men were trying to kill each other nearby.

"Get downstairs," she said to her daughter. "Now! And don't come up, no matter what, until you hear the police."

The girl ran into the cellar. Julie grabbed a phone, and found at once there was no dial tone. It was dead.

She looked outside and could see nothing except the hugeness of the snow, now lightening as full dawn approached. She heard no more shots.

She ran upstairs, and found Sally groggily wandering down the hall.

"Did you-?"

"Someone's shooting," Julie yelled.

"Jesus," Sally said. "Did you call the police?"

"The line's down or dead or something." "Who-?"

"I don't know. There's two of them. Come on, we have to get into the bas.e.m.e.nt."

The two women ran down the stairs, found the door into the cellar and descended into near darkness.

The cellar windows had been snowed in and only diffuse light showed through them. It was cold.

"Mommy," said Nikki. "I'm scared."

"I'm scared too," said Julie.

"I wish Daddy was here."

"I do too," said Julie.

"Now, you get in the corner," said Sally. "I'll figure out some way to block the door, just in case. I'm sure it's just hunters or something."

"No," said Julie. "They were shooting at each other. They're not hunters. They're snipers."

"I wish Daddy were here," said Nikki again.

Snow showered across Solaratov and his mind came out of its deep pool of concentration to recognize the familiar cloud of debris a high-velocity round delivers when it strikes, and the next split second the whipsong of the rifle crack reached him as it shattered the sound barrier.

Under fire.

The left.

The left.

Another detonation spewed snow into the sky.

Under fire.

He tore himself from the scope, looked to the left to see nothing, because of the shielding rock. But he knew from the sound that the man had to be on the rim of the ridge.

He looked back into the valley to just catch the little girl as she dipped under the porch roof, and in another split second heard the door slam.

d.a.m.n!

They were gone.

Who was shooting at him?

He realized now he was invisible to the shooter, else he'd be dead. The shooter could not see him behind his rock.

He knew too the man now had the rock zeroed, knowing full well that Solaratov would have to come around it to return fire.

He felt no fear. He felt no curiosity. He felt no disappointment, he felt no surprise. His mind did not work that way. Only: Problem? Process. And, solution!

Instead of rising to come around the rock, he backed, low as a lizard, through the snow, trusting that the man's scope would be so powerful that its field of view would be narrow and that the whiteness of his camouflage would also shield him from recognition.

He squirmed backward as low in the snow as a man could be, sliding through the stuff as if he were some kind of arctic snake. He canted his head as he backed, and as he slid out from behind the rock, he saw his antagonist, a disturbance ever so slight along the line of the ridge that could only be a man hunched over a rifle, desperately looking for a target. He studied and was sure he saw it move or squirm or something.

What was the distance? He pivoted on the ground, finding a good angle to the target, splaying his legs, coming into that good, solid p.r.o.ne. Adductor magnus Adductor magnus. In the scope, yes, a man, possibly. In white. Another sniper. Low on the ridge. He watched his crosshairs settle, telling himself not to hurry, not to rush, not to jerk. He couldn't get a clear sight picture and he didn't have time to shoot a laser at the target to get its distance. He pivoted slightly, found a bush coned in snow, which he took to be of three feet girth. By covering it in the scope with mil-dots and racking through the math-the black ma.s.s covered two dots; multiply the a.s.sumed one meter in height by one thousand and divide by two to get the approximation of a thousand yards: say, less than a thousand but more than nine hundred yards he held four dots high. With greater concentration and less art, he steadied himself, pivoted to find the disturbance that had to be the man but was not really clear, felt his finger on the trigger but did not think about it, and let it decide itself, as if it had a brain, what to do next, and then it fired.

A geyser of snow erupted seven feet to the right of Bob, followed by the whipcrack of sound. Windage. The Russian had the range but there was some crosswind and the 7mm hadn't quite the weight to stand up to it. It had drifted ever so slightly. But how could Solaratov have read wind if he were shooting across the raw s.p.a.ce of the valley? He wouldn't make that mistake again. geyser of snow erupted seven feet to the right of Bob, followed by the whipcrack of sound. Windage. The Russian had the range but there was some crosswind and the 7mm hadn't quite the weight to stand up to it. It had drifted ever so slightly. But how could Solaratov have read wind if he were shooting across the raw s.p.a.ce of the valley? He wouldn't make that mistake again.

But quickly he'd understand that, c.o.c.k again and shoot.

Bob squirmed back, feeling himself sliding a little off the edge of the ridge, and in the next split second, another eruption blew a hole in the surface of the planet, a big spout of flung snow and rock frags. It hit exactly where he'd been but just barely was no longer.

Oh, this motherf.u.c.ker is so good. This motherf.u.c.ker won't make another mistake.

Bob slid back farther.

No shots had gone toward the house. For a little while, at least, his wife was safe. He knew she'd have the sense to head to the cellar with Nikki and Sally and lock up and wait.

Meanwhile he had but one choice. That was to low-crawl along the ridge and hope that its tiny incline was enough to shield him from Solaratov's vision. Solaratov would realize he couldn't go up or down, he'd never go toward him; he could only fall back around the mountain until he disappeared around it, and could then get up and move to cover and set up an ambush. Solaratov would go up; elevation was power in this engagement. Whoever reigned on high, reigned, because he'd have the angle into a target where the other man would have nothing.

That was the plan: to get out of this area of dangerous vulnerability, move like h.e.l.l when safe and find a good hide. Solaratov would have to come around the mountain to get him, but he'd come around high. Bob knew he'd get a good shot, maybe only one, but he knew he could make it.

He tried to calculate the differences between his .308 168-grain round and the Russian's 7mm Remington Magnum. The Magnum flew four hundred feet per second faster with almost a thousand pounds more muzzle energy; it shot so much flatter. The Russian, if he were under five hundred yards, could hold just a bit over him and pull the trigger, not worrying about drop. So he'd have to stay at least five hundred yards ahead, because the slight drop, plus the windage, would be his best defense.

He turned back, squirmed to the lip of the ridge, but could see nothing except the quiet house far below and the ridgeline running around the base of the mountain.

But he was coming. The Russian was coming. The Russian was hunting him.

Solaratov studied the situation. He looked across the horseshoe through his Leica binoculars at the ridge where he'd spotted the other shooter and understood the man couldn't go up or down, for both would expose him and he'd be dead in a second. He could only crawl desperately away, round the flank of the mountain, and try and set up in the mountain's next cove, waiting for a shot.

He shot a laser over and the readout told him the range was about 987 meters. He calculated the drop to be about forty-two inches from his five hundred-yard zero, which was four dots high on the mil-dot reticle. Now that he'd solved the distance, he felt confident. But there was one other thing left to do.

He pulled the rifle down, and quickly unscrewed the BOSS nozzle, which controlled barrel vibrations. He reached inside his jacket and removed an AWC suppressor. It was a long black tube of anodized aluminum packed with "baffles," sound-absorbent material, like steel wool, and washers called "wipes;" it would reduce the 460-dB level of the gas exploding out of his muzzle by trapping it and bleeding it off, down to under a hundred db's, approximately the sound of a BB gun. From long distance, in the cone of the suppressor's pattern, that sound would be not merely significantly quieter but also more diffuse. There'd be no signature to reveal his position. Anyone on the receiving end would hear only the crack of the bullet as it broke the sound barrier, but nothing from the rifle's muzzle that could pinpoint a location. That meant he could shoot at his antagonist but his antagonist could not locate him by sound to shoot back. The downside: it changed his zero somewhat. How much? He'd have to reckon visually and make adjustments as he fired. He still felt that with the range finder, the suppressor gave him significant tactical advantage. He carefully screwed the suppressor tight to the muzzle.

He knew one other thing, because he had studied the topographical maps: that once his antagonist got around the mountain, he would be in for a surprise. The elevation was much steeper. There were no ridges as there were here fronting the valley. He'd have no place to hide. He'd be in the open.

Solaratov knew the wise move would be to scamper upward to gain further advantage of height. As he had the initiative at this point, he probably had a good four- or five-minute window of time where he could ascend, slide over one of the lesser hills of Mount McCaleb, and then shoot down upon his antagonist.

But he also knew that is exactly how the man's mind would work; that's how he'd figure it and he himself, once under shelter, would ascend quickly to try and prevent the Russian from gaining the height advantage.

But none of this mattered. The objective was the woman. The higher Solaratov got, the farther from the woman he got. It wasn't about some man-on-man thing, some sniper duel, some engagement of vanity. That was his advantage. The other man-it had to be Swagger-meant nothing to him. Solaratov's ego was uninvested; what had happened all those years back in Vietnam was totally disconnected from today, and that itself was a significant advantage.

Thus Solaratov made his plan: he would drop back a few yards behind the shield of an enfilade and then descend in freedom to the valley floor. He'd have a dangerous period of vulnerability as he went across the valley floor, but with his snow skills and his understanding of the other man's fear, he knew the other man would be busy setting up a hide in the next fold for a man he thought would ascend to fight.

Instead, the Russian would work from the ground and shoot uphill. He'd find cover in a treeline or behind rocks, he'd scope the distance, and he'd put his silent shots onto the antagonist, precise and perfect.

Swagger would not even know where the shots came from. He'd hear nothing. He'd be driven back until he was out of cover, and then he'd die.

Then, thought Solaratov, I'll backtrack, get into the house and do the women. Witnesses. I'll have to kill them all.

Bob squirmed in a last desperate burst of energy and came around the mountain. There is no lower or more degrading mode of transportation than the low crawl, and he had crawled enough in his time. His elbows and knees ached from the endless banging against the rock. Snow had gotten into his mouth and down his neck. Now at last: some kind of safety.

He paused, breathing hard, feeling wet with sweat. At least Solaratov had not gotten above him to fire down on him as he crawled.

His mouth was dry, his body heaved for oxygen that he could not replenish fast enough. His heart hammered like a drum beaten by a madman. His focus rolled in and out. But with a surge of will, he settled down. He pulled himself up the mountain and peeked back over some rocks at the valley he'd left behind.

Nothing.

No sign of Solaratov. The house lay undisturbed far below, in a huge field of undisturbed snow. The rock along the ridgeline where the Russian had set up now appeared deserted.

Bob picked up the rifle and used its scope to scan the mountain above. If he were Solaratov, that's what he would have done: climbed, worked around, always trying to get the elevation.

But he saw nothing; there was no snow in the air, no sign of disturbance. Putting the scope down, he tried to will himself into a kind of blankness, by which his subconscious, peripheral vision might note something his front-on, focused eyes might not, and send him a signal of warning. But he saw nothing; no movement registered on the slopes before him or the flatness beneath. He drew back.

Had Solaratov gone low, tried to get to the house and finish the job? Doubtful; he'd be exposed too long, and at any moment a shot could take him. He rethought it: yes, he has to come after me. His first priority is to eliminate the threat, because he is not on a kamikaze mission, he's no zealot. He's a professional. It only makes sense for him if he can escape; that means he's got an escape route, a fallback route, everything.

He will come.

He will hunt me.

Bob looked up. The slope of the mountain increased until it disappeared into fog, which was really cloud. Solaratov would get up there, come down by some magic and shoot down upon him.

He backed around, looking for a place to set up a hide.

The news was not good.

The ridge on which he perched, like a shelf that traced the jagged contours of the mountain, gave out 250 yards ahead; or, rather, it ran into a ravine, where a gash had been cut in the mountain, a long, ragged scar left by some ancient natural cataclysm. Now it was full of vegetation and rocks, all pristine with snow. But beyond the gap, there was nothing. The mountain slope was smooth and bare, offering no protection at all.

He looked up. It was too steep to climb at this point, though maybe beyond the gap he could engineer some elevation.

He looked down into a sector of valley. The floor was covered with snow-humped trees and brush, all bent into extravagant postures and made smooth under the weight of their white burden. It was a sculpture garden, a winter wonderland, a theme park, beautiful and grotesque and delicate at once, the frail tracery of the lesser branches all bearing their inch of white stuff. It looked quite poetic from six hundred yards up, but if you got caught down there, you'd never be able to move out.

There was really no choice. He had to get to the gash and take up a position in the rocks. He'd get one good shot at Solaratov, who would probably work his way down from above. Solaratov would have the advantage of elevation, but he wouldn't know where to look. He'd have to scout and he'd have to expose himself when he looked.

That's when I get him, Bob thought, wishing he believed it.

Then he noticed: it had begun to snow. Flakes cascaded down again, fluting and canting in the wind, a screen of them, dense and unyielding.

Visibility closed in.

Bob didn't like this a bit.

It was snowing. Solaratov, breathing hard, found a trail inside the scruffy vegetation that edged the mountain, where the overhanging leaves had cut down on snow acc.u.mulation. He almost ran, skirting the flat of the valley, staying off its exposure, staying away from the house for now. He knew that Bob could not see him from any elevation, through the snow-bearing branches. He probably wouldn't even look in the right direction.

Solaratov came around a curve of the valley, edged to the treeline and went hunched behind a fallen log that was somehow suspended by its branches. The snow fell gently around him out of the gray light. There was no sound at all in the world.

He read the land, looking for natural hides where an experienced man would go to ground. It was not a difficult problem, for the mountainside was largely featureless there, with only spa.r.s.e vegetation to distract the eye. In fact the whole little war between them had been distilled to its most nearly abstract: two men in white in a white, cold world in white mountains of extreme elevation, hunting each other, going for whatever little edge of experience and luck they could find. Whoever read the problem better would win: it had nothing to do with courage or, really, even marksmanship. It would come down to this one thing: who was the better pract.i.tioner of the sniper's skills?

He could see a kind of gash in the mountainside ahead of him and realized that his quarry, coming around the edge, would have no choice but to seek refuge at its top.

He picked up his binoculars and scanned. He could see nothing but the rocks under their packing of snow. Visibility was not bad, though blurred by the falling snow.

He's up there. He's got to be.

He triggered a laser to the top of the gash, bounced it off a rock, and read the range in the readout: 654 meters. Known distance. Upward. He did the math quickly and knew where to hold, computing in the uphill angle. He'd shoot from the center of the third mil-dot; that would put him there, crudely but close enough. And he felt his nearness to the mountain would shield the bullet from the predations of the wind; it wouldn't drift laterally.

He hunted patiently, looking for target indicators, for some implication that his prey was alive and hiding, and had not circled behind him. The rocks were everywhere, a kind of garden of stone humped in snow. He looked for disturbances in the snow, for sign of a man who'd crawled, upending the crust of white. But he could not see that for the angle.

What is his sign?

What is the sign?