Wulf lay among the desert boulders high up on a ridge, coiled tight around his long sniper rifle.
Beside him, Dieter peered through a spotting scope and called the distance and wind speed. Wulf dialed them into his ballistics computer mounted with his telescopic sight.
When Rae had outdistanced them in the desert, driving down paths that would have broken their vehicles’ axles, they had climbed to this vantage point to scout her location. When they had seen the other SUVs converge on her truck, they brought out the weapons.
Crosshairs intersected the target’s round head through the black tunnel of the telescopic gun sight. Hair ruffled on the target’s head, and the head jolted back as the target discharged a handgun at the fleeing figure that Wulf knew was Rae but would not allow himself to consider the implications.
His hands must not shake.
Just like the hundreds of thousands of shots before this one, Wulf’s body quieted. His heart rate slowed. He exhaled. He timed his heartbeat while squeezing the trigger just to the break point. The shadow in the scope bobbed with Wulf’s coasting pulse.
In the hesitation between two heartbeats, he moved his finger on the trigger, and the round left the rifle.
The target’s head popped with a dark spray and fell out of the circle of the scope’s view.
Wulf nudged the rifle sideways to view the second target.
Dieter called the distance and wind speed.
Wulf fine-tuned the ballistics computer, timed his shot, and watched through the scope as that target exploded in a fine spray of blood and bone.
He surveyed the surviving targets through his scope. None held rifles. All fled back to their vehicles. The SUVs spun out, driving away from the fleeing figure and the mountains.
“Two kills confirmed,” Dieter said.
Wulf scanned the desert through the black tunnel of the scope, looking for targets or Rae. “Is she down?”
Dieter said, “No. She’s running. Come on. Let’s go.”
“You saw her?”
“She ran, Wulfram. She didn’t freeze and wait to be shot. She punched the guy who was holding her, and she made it to the hills.”
Wulf lifted his head and stared at the wide desert, cut into wedges by the black mountain shadows and sunlight that glared through the valleys.
Rae hadn’t stood shock-still in panic, waiting to be hit.
Dieter said, “Come on. Let’s go find her.”
Wulf’s hands were steady as he jerked the heavy sniping rifle off the ground and sprinted back to the SUVs with his men.
Flashes of exploding heads filled his mind, but he concentrated on finding Rae.
Wulf and Dieter vaulted into the rear seat of the SUV and broke yet more gear out of the black duffel bags while Friedhelm took the driver’s seat, jammed the vehicle into gear, and bounced over the desert toward the darkening mountains and the setting sun.
She must be alive. She must be.
Wulf did not allow other thoughts, other blood-soaked images, to intrude on his most desperate belief.