| |
“And whether we shall meet again, I know not.
Therefore our everlasting farewell take:
For ever, and for ever, farewell,
If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;
If not, why then, this parting was well made.”
— William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Bartlett
“Six, this is Eagle. Come in.”
Bartlett snapped out of a light doze when Lazzari’s voice crackled over the radio. At first he thought—hoped—it was Donnie Adams, calling him back. He’d left four messages, and so far, nothing. Then his brain caught up to the message.
“Six, Eagle. Do you read?”
Cocooned in a warm sleeping bag, he focused on the luminous dial of his Breitling Chronomat and read the time: 12:35 a.m. He’d slept for over two hours.
The campfire had died to the thinnest of orange, smoking embers, rendering the men no more than bundled shapes in the dark. On the other side of the campfire, Luksa and MacKenzie stirred.
“Six, this is Eagle. Copy?”
Camping near the water had been a mistake; fog veiled the riverbed in a chilly shroud. Bartlett fumbled with the handset, which was slick with condensation. “Go for Six.”
“I have a tango. I think it’s one of them.”
Bartlett sat upright. “Roger, Eagle. One tango only? Can you give me a position?”
“Uh, approximately two klicks south of your pos. Eastern slope of the mountain I’m on. About... half a klick upslope from the river bottom.”
“Can you ID?” Bartlett glared at the Motorola logo, willing the radio to tell him what he wanted to hear.
Luksa was up, propped on one elbow. Mack gave no indication, but Bartlett sensed he was awake, as well.
“Negative, Six. Has a limp, could be injured. I, uh, have a limited window here. Battery low and target moving. I need to take a shot now.”
“Eagle,” Bartlett snapped, “do not engage. Repeat, do not engage.” The last thing he needed was another civilian decorating the landscape with the remains of .50-caliber finger painting.
“Six, I...” Lazzari paused.
“We’ll check it out. You sit tight. Six out.”
Luksa and Mack were already shoving their feet into boots. Good men, they didn’t need orders.
“Lazzari sounds cranky,” Luksa said.
“He’s pissed he missed the shot yesterday,” Bartlett told him. “Hustle it up, before he loses his mind. I want to get eyes on who this is before he cuts loose with that elephant gun.”
~~~
Dominic
MOVING, THE GHOSTLY image in Lazzari’s thermal sight looked more like an amoeba under a microscope than a human form. A number of challenges presented themselves when night-shooting through a thermal scope. Besides distances being hard to estimate, things like tree branches were invisible, increasing the odds of a deflection.
Lazzari’s lips twitched. With a Barrett, not so much. The thumb-sized bullet took more to deflect it than the average round.
The figure moved with a halting, uneven gait. Definitely hobbled, probably injured. The FLIR was amazing. When the target paused, the image coalesced into a tiny human shape. With most thermals, anything beyond spitting distance was a blob of white.
Lazzari clicked the safety off and caressed the trigger with the pressure of a fly landing on a pillow. All it would take was one... tiny... squeeze.
“Shit and fuck,” Lazzari muttered. The battery indicator started flashing a warning. All his zooming in and out earlier had burned up a lot of juice. He had a minute, maybe two, before the scope died and he lost sight of the target.
The figure paused and rubbed his knee. Lazzari steadied the crosshairs on the biggest section of white in the scope. Bartlett’s gonna be pissed, but screw him. I want this shithead.
The dirty secret he kept to himself: he loved the hell out of shooting people at long range. In the Sandbox, Lazzari had served with some hard-asses, snipers as cold as Arctic pack ice who could drop a dozen hajis like punching a time clock then have a beer and a smoke later as if coming home from a shift at the factory.
His buddies joined up for love of country. The Stars and Stripes, apple pie, and all that “America, the Beautiful” shit. Not Dominic. Mama Lazzari’s youngest had enlisted to get away from the North End docks and the ripe dumpster stink of the alley under his tenement window.
When he discovered how much he liked blowing the turbans off the camel-suckers in Iraq, Lazzari knew he never wanted to do anything else. And he did it well, until the REMFs rotated him back to the US.
Opportunities to ply his chosen trade were few and far between. Any chance to shoot with the long gun, he wanted. And he wanted this one, here and now, for extra special reasons. As much as he’d ever wanted anything. He ached for it the way a reformed smoker craved a hit of nicotine when he walked into a smoky bar.
“Fuck it,” Lazzari muttered. His finger pressed ever so gently against the trigger, and he let out half a breath. Then squeezed.
~~~
Sam
I MASSAGED MY ACHING knee, which did nothing for the pain, but it made me feel proactive and in charge. Pain was weakness leaving the body, and I had a lot of weakness on its way out. Without Jade, the night seemed colder, less enchanting, as if all the life had drained away. All my aches and pains—
Bam!
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit reached out with an open palm and bitch-slapped me upside the head. I sprawled in the dirt, my ears playing a high-pitched whine at full volume.
How? What?
I remembered a flash of heat—my left ear was warm—followed by a concussion, then... pretty stars overhead. A tree branch exploded in a shower of splinters, followed a heartbeat later by the boom of a rifle.
Ah. Sniper.
I squirmed deeper into the underbrush, burrowing like a mole, blind and panting. Gravel scraped my chest, and dust filled my sinuses. Where could I hide? The guy was on an IR or thermal scope; he could be pinning me with his crosshairs right now, and I wouldn’t know it until a missile-sized bullet blew me apart.
Another round smacked the far side of a tree on my left. It shivered, mortally wounded, and pine needles drizzled over me. Damn, that’s a big gun.
The first round had passed so close to my left ear, the pressure wave alone had knocked me silly and flash-burned my ear. Based on the slight sound delay, the shooter was close, within two to four hundred yards. Elevation unknown. Was he still at the top of the ridge, or had he moved down? The last three rounds had felt more probing than targeted, like he wanted to flush me from cover.
No, thanks. I think I’ll stay right here, becoming one with Mother Earth.
Except I couldn’t, could I? His buddies would be hot-footing it in my direction, vectored in by the guy upslope. Out in the open, pinned down by a sniper, I was like a Ranger-shaped piñata just waiting for Bartlett and his crew to surround me and beat me to a pulp. Marlon lay in the mineshaft, defenseless. He had weapons—the M4 was there, not in my hands, where I needed it—but I doubted he was conscious enough to defend himself. I had to move, get back to the mineshaft, and fort up with Marlon.
How many rounds did the sniper fire? Four? And how many in a Barrett clip? I... couldn’t remember. Five or ten? And did they make extended magazines? My brain refused to focus on the problem. Counting rounds was pointless, anyway. I had to make a run for it, gimpy knee and all.
Another bullet whip-cracked through the branches, this one behind me, and high. I moved.
~~~
Jade
JADE FROZE AT THE FIRST shot, lifting her head to test the air. She wasn’t the target; that was obvious instantly. The trail Jade traveled lay deep in a rocky split, resembling the arroyo she’d followed with Sam and Marlon earlier. Anybody shooting at her would have to be right on top of her, at cursing range, and that shot had come from a distant rifle.
Who was shooting? And at whom?
Another dull boom started Jade moving again. She’d climbed about halfway to the top since leaving Sam. By her best guess, she had another hour to reach the summit, longer if the trail vanished and she was forced to ad lib a route in the darkness.
Growing up in rural Mississippi, Jade had heard hunters firing all manner of weapons from distances near and far. That sound had come from somewhere to her right. After the third report, she decided it was a high-caliber rifle. It lacked the flat crack of a .223 or similar cartridge.
It wasn’t hard to guess who was shooting. Lazzari.
Of all Tommy’s pals, Dominic creeped her out the most. Sandy hair and light-brown eyes, with a jock’s physique, the sniper should’ve been a chick magnet. Whenever she was in a room, Dominic’s eyes followed her like the eyes in a painting in a bad horror movie.
Jade shivered. She’d lied to Sam when she said movement would keep her warm. Sweat patched her light T-shirt, and whenever a mild breeze funneled down the narrow split, it chilled her to the bone. She touched the Glock in her waistband.
One way or another, she wanted this little ordeal to be over. No way did she plan to hike another two days to get out of the mountains. Not when there was a faster way.
Boom!
The shot echoed, and Jade moved faster.
~~~
Bartlett
“GODDAMN IT, EAGLE,” Bartlett snarled into the radio. “What did I tell you about engaging? What part of ‘do not engage’ failed to penetrate that thick skull of yours?”
No answer.
“Fuckin’ Lazzari.” What a clusterfuck this mission is turning out to be. Bragg, Fuentes, Naranjo: dead. Two civilians: dead. Donnie: out of touch, unreachable. Lazzari: off the fucking reservation, busting caps in the middle of the night at a target he can barely fucking see! “Goddamn it!” Bartlett squeezed the radio tight enough to crack the plastic. He cocked his arm, one breath from smashing the handset into a rock.
Mack and Dan stared at him, as immobile as granite statues. Bartlett couldn’t see their expressions, but he could imagine them. Has Reeder Bartlett lost it? they had to be thinking. Can we count on him?
Bartlett took a breath and tried a chuckle. It came out shaky but serviceable. “Sorry, boys, don’t mind me. A little pissed is all. You all ready to move? Good. Let’s haul ass, see what we can find.”
Nods in his direction were tiny motions in the night. His two team members pivoted and fell into line, paralleling the stream with their weapons at the ready.
Bartlett waited for a long count of ten, getting his breathing under control. That was the only thing he felt he could get under control; everything else was crumbling like sandcastles on the beach.
Is it time to run? Bartlett examined that thought seriously for the first time ever. He’d always been in charge, never fearing arrest, always one step ahead of everyone else. Don’t all crooks feel that way?
“Heh.” Bartlett’s lips pulled into a thin smile. Sure enough, he’d busted enough guys who thought they had the tiger by the scruff of the neck, only to learn that tigers didn’t give a shit what they thought.
I should turn around. Head the other direction and hike out of here. Two, three days, I can catch a bus to Galveston. Dump the hidden cash from the Sugarland accounts into an offshore, gas up the boat, and head out to sea.
Bartlett remained in place, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, for a full five minutes, scanning the foggy darkness for an answer. Dawn. I’ll wait until dawn. This isn’t resolved by then, I’m outta here. Fuck the guys. They can take care of themselves.
Jaw set, Bartlett shouldered his pack and moved out, striding forward with an outward façade of resolute leadership. As commander, he had to set the right example. Otherwise, the troops might sense betrayal, and performance would be degraded.
~~~
Dominic
LAZZARI WAITED, EYE glued to the scope. The gray field of view was his entire world. He’d zoomed out enough to ensure he didn’t miss any movement when it happened. The first shot had whiffed—that much he knew. Even a touch from a .50-cal would wreck a human body, and this guy had squirreled away so fast, he couldn’t have been hurt.
Probing shots had done nothing to root him out. Yet. The guy couldn’t stay hidden forever. Then again, Lazzari couldn’t stay on the scope much longer; his battery indicator had already been flashing way longer than he’d expected it to last.
He fired again, bracketing the area where his target had gone to ground—
There!
A blob of white blurred through the lower left corner of his scope. Lazzari shifted the rifle instinctively. Centered, he led the target and squeezed. The rifle hammered his shoulder with a solid thump.
God, I love this shit.