High on Orton Scar, a man going by the name of Patrick Bardwell lay behind the scope of his rifle, motionless in the long grass.
He’d been there since before dawn, tabbing in until he was within sight of habitation and low-crawling into final position on his belly, moving a few inches at a time, towing the gun laboriously alongside him in a canvas drag bag.
Then he’d waited, patient, for a moment that never came, and so witnessed without emotion the massacre as it unfolded in the fields below.
Bardwell had never completed formal education beyond the basics at fifteen but he’d spent a good deal of his professional life waiting for action, in one corner of the world or another. When not undergoing constant training, he’d passed his free hours immersed in books and learning.
So, he knew that massacre was the right word to describe what he’d seen: indiscriminate slaughter, especially with cruelty.
Bardwell calculated he was roughly a thousand metres from the scene and, because of the topography, approximately sixty metres above it. Far enough that he couldn’t hear the cries of the lambs, despite the stillness of the morning air. What little breeze there was had come nominally out of the east, carrying any sounds off west of him. And for that, at least, he’d been grateful.
In ideal circumstances, Bardwell would have had a spotter with a laser range-finder to call the distances for him, but the circumstances weren’t ideal. So, he’d based his computations on features of the landscape, carefully noted during recon, drip-filtered through a lifetime of experience like water through rock.
Before the girl had appeared, Bardwell had considered taking out the dog himself. A tricky shot, but not impossible, and it presented some technical challenges that interested him. He’d got as far as sliding his right index finger inside the guard to caress the curve of the trigger itself, knowing exactly how much pressure was required for it to break.
He had allowed for the elevation. The sights were calibrated and set to eight hundred metres, but the extra was well within the capabilities of both man and weapon. At this distance, it was simple mathematics to work out the hold-off without adjusting the scope, to neutralise the target without compromising his position. He might even still be able to remain on station and complete his original mission.
And then the girl had walked into view, passing so close that he still couldn’t be sure she hadn’t seen him. She’d glanced over a few times, but had seemed nervy anyway. And when he’d recognised the rifle slung over her shoulder, he’d understood why.
There was something horribly familiar about the sight of her, bone thin, almost childlike, carrying a Kalashnikov. It brought back all kinds of memories, none of them good.
He had faith that the all-engulfing ghillie suit would keep him hidden from all but the most sustained search. He’d made it himself with care and minute attention to detail, using a pair of khaki coveralls as a base and building on it, layer by layer with narrow strips of camouflage material, long enough to sweep the ground when he was lying prone.
He’d added the final weave of real vegetation only after he’d arrived at his location to keep it alive for as long as possible, given the same treatment to a floppy wide-brimmed bush hat with a veil of cam netting to cover his face and a short train at the back that melded with the rest of the suit. Bardwell knew that from anything above a few metres away he was well-nigh invisible. At one time his life had depended upon it.
So he’d done nothing to take the offensive as he’d watched the girl walk down the hill towards the village, carrying her gun slung on its webbing strap. She’d had to get much closer to the field, of course, before she’d seen what was going on there.
And when she did so, she swung the rifle up to her shoulder with a practised ease that surprised him. It had only taken her a moment to work out that the distance was too great and she’d begun to run, awkward and ungainly, into the dip of the neighbouring field, then up to meet the wall, swift as any advancing soldier.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she’d levelled the rifle over the top of the old stones and bent her head to the sights.
Bardwell tracked the dog again, saw it pause, turn its head in the direction of the intruder. Blood coated its muzzle and dripped from its open jaws. Now it had the taste, would it change to human prey?
The corrected aiming point he’d selected on the crosshairs of the scope’s reticle pattern lined up perfectly on the killer’s chest.
But before he could fire she had beaten him to it. He jerked in conditioned response as the sound of the shot reached him. When he had eyes on the target again, it was to see the predator’s dying throes, one foreleg just visible above the softly waving grasses.
By the time Bardwell shifted the scope focus back to the girl, her own legs had folded under her. She’d slid down with her back against the wall, hand pressed to her mouth. It was only then, through the magnification of the scope, he realised that he knew her.
He’d never have suspected such a meek little mouse would have such talent. One shot, one kill. It was the sniper’s holy grail and she’d achieved it with a certain amount of luck, he acknowledged, but also with open sights and a careless facility that intrigued Bardwell as much as it somehow terrified him.
If the way she’d upped and fled was anything to go by, it had frightened her just as badly.
After she’d gone he’d remained to watch the couple appear. They’d played out the expected range of emotions, of course, from shock and outrage to an impotent kind of fear. The arrival of the farmer with his shotgun complicated things nicely. If it was taken at face value, then Bardwell reckoned his own purpose might be concealed a little longer.
He hadn’t expected the police, not for something like this, but he’d noted their response time and their actions in every detail. The foot soldiers behaved as foot soldiers always did, methodical, uninspired, doing the job drummed into them by constant repetition. He allowed the minutest smile to twitch his lips as the right word came to him: plodding.
He’d been watching as one of the policemen discovered the ejected shell casing at the base of the wall where the girl had stood. To Bardwell’s amazement, the man sleighted the casing into his tunic like nothing had happened.
And under his camouflage, Bardwell smiled to himself. Looks like I’m not her only guardian angel, he thought, although why the policeman should have done such a thing he’d no idea. But it intrigued him further still.
And the redhead, she was different from the others. She’d looked beyond the obvious and put it all together, quickly, precisely, even pinpointing with surprising accuracy where the shooter must have fired from. Bardwell watched her go through it for the benefit of the fair-haired man who’d come later. The one who’d arrived with temper visible in every line of him, but who’d soon become caught up in what the woman had found.
The woman and the girl. The girl and the woman. Whether they were aware of it or not, invisible threads now connected them—to each other and to him. Bardwell could feel them tugging at his mind, distracting him from a plan that, while simple, would need all his concentration and resolve to see it through. He couldn’t afford to let a couple of mere women divert him.
But both would have to be somehow accounted for, he knew, before his work here was done.