The Hunters

66

McNutt pulled up to where Anna was cradling Borovsky’s body. McNutt only had a few rounds left in the automatic. He would have to get a weapon from the Russians.

Anna looked at him with certainty, her face unmarked by tears.

‘There’s no blood on his teeth,’ she said in Russian. ‘I don’t think he has any major internal injuries.’

McNutt shrugged helplessly. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t speak Russian.’

‘He…’ Anna said in halting, heavily accented English. ‘No dead.’

McNutt could see that Borovsky was breathing, albeit raggedly. The gunman looked back to where the train had stopped in front of their old compartment car and where the villagers were swarming over the crashed and toppled Black Robe motorcycles he had dealt with. The horsemen had dismounted and had effectively circled their wagons using abandoned bikes. McNutt turned back to Anna and started talking rapidly.

She looked confused, but then a hand touched her cheek. She looked down to see Borovsky gazing up at her.

‘The forest does not grieve for the loss of a single tree,’ he said.

‘Quiet,’ she laughed in relief. ‘You’re not going to die. Not yet.’

McNutt did a somewhat elaborate mime to convey what he wanted to tell her.

‘Leave him,’ he said, pressing both palms toward the ground. Then he pointed at the train, made a cradling gesture. ‘The villagers will take care of him.’ He pointed at himself and Anna. ‘We have to take out that bastard.’ He indicated the armored car, crashed his fists together, then threw open his fingers, trying to convey that the vehicle must be destroyed.

‘He makes a good point,’ the colonel grinned, grimacing. ‘Go. I will be fine.’

Her face cleared, and she nodded at McNutt. She laid Borovsky’s head down tenderly, then grabbed an AK-47 and approached McNutt’s motorcycle.

‘Let us go,’ she said in English.

He nodded, unholstered the only specialized weapon he still possessed, and took the AK-47 from her.

‘You drive,’ McNutt said.

Cobb laughed. Not at the Black Robes. The Black Robes were deadly, dedicated, and unafraid. But as soon as he crossed the grove, he had them at a very distinct disadvantage. In order to give chase, the Black Robes would have to follow a winding trail through the dense forest or trample through the thick underbrush. The gaps in the trees would give them only brief opportunities to take clear shots.

That is, if Cobb could navigate the H-4 through those same narrow gaps.

If the rotors clipped the nearby branches, the Black Robes would be the least of his worries.

Shots popped. Even over the hum of the engines, Cobb heard them whiz by. The air was buzzing with projectiles. And up here, an accidental hit would kill him as surely as a purposeful one. Any loss of control would surely send him careening into the trees. He rose above the canopy, but the fierce wind made it virtually impossible to control the light H-4 at that altitude. Cobb wasn’t susceptible to vertigo or motion sickness, but the rush of air against his face made him wish he had goggles.

Dumb oversight, he told himself.

He dropped back into the forest, the Black Robes still in pursuit.

The first casualty was the lead motorcycle. Determined to be the ones responsible for taking out the aircraft, the driver took the motorcycle off of the beaten path and plowed through the forest in a beeline toward Cobb. Gnarled roots and exposed rocks nearly bounced the rider from the sidecar as low branches and saplings sliced into the driver’s cheeks and forehead.

As the gunman took aim, the front wheel of the IMZ-Ural found an unseen tree stump, causing the motorcycle to jerk erratically. The jolt tossed the gunman violently toward the outside of the car, spinning his body wildly at the driver. In a split-second of panic, the gunman accidentally squeezed the trigger on his Uzi submachine gun, decapitating the driver with several close-range shots to his face.

Like the Headless Horseman, the driver’s body refused to release the accelerator. Unfortunately for the gunman in the sidecar, the effect turned the motorcycle into an unguided missile. Overwhelmed with shock, the gunman simply watched in horror as the corpse rammed the sidecar into an oncoming tree at full speed. The impact crushed the sidecar and its occupant as the bike ripped in two.

Cobb watched the action from above and was dumbstruck by the sight of a headless Black Robe careening through the wilderness on what was left of his IMZ-Ural.

That leaves two more bikes, he thought.

Cobb spun the H-4 back around and charged forward. Suddenly, the ground dropped out from beneath him, and he found himself hovering nearly one hundred feet above a wide creek. The ravine had caught him by surprise, and he hoped it would do the same to the Black Robes. Cobb kept the H-4 over the edge of the chasm just long enough to make a show for the second motorcycle.

Sensing that they had closed the gap between themselves and their target, the second driver eagerly sped down the straightaway toward Cobb. As the second gunman took aim, Cobb fought the whirling updrafts and down-currents that raged over the stream.

It only bought him a few seconds, but it was all he needed.

Only yards from the cliff, the Black Robe driver realized his mistake. He slammed the brakes while cranking the wheel as hard as he could. The sidecar rose as the bike tilted on two wheels. As it dropped to the ground only inches from the edge, the engine stalled. Both the driver and the sidecar gunman breathed a quick sigh of relief.

But their reprieve wouldn’t last long.

They turned at the sound of the H-4, which Cobb was now advancing toward them as fast as the craft could carry him. His gun drawn, Cobb fired two shots, yet neither of the Black Robes was hit. It took them a moment to realize why, and by then it was too late.

Cobb hadn’t aimed at them; he had fired at the third motorcycle behind them. As the Black Robes on the stalled bike turned back, they saw the third driver slumped over the handlebars. And the gunman’s head was lolled back, a gaping hole where his throat should have been.

Meanwhile, the bike was heading right at them.

Before they could start the motorcycle again or even jump clear of the path, the last Black Robes were pushed over the cliff by the third IMZ-Ural. Cobb watched as four bodies — two dead, two screaming — tumbled down the rocky embankment.

The eventual explosion was music to his ears.

As the BRDM rounded the last bend before the straightaway, Sidorov opened the hatch. The heavy metal door clanked back, and Sidorov rose to his feet in the vehicle’s roof opening. Ahead of him was the American in his skeletal flying machine. The man held a pitiful firearm in his hand — something from the American West, which suited this mad cowboy.

The American would pay for his transgression.

Sidorov brought up the six-foot-long tube to his shoulder, using the optical sight to home in on Cobb. His target was making a lazy curve in the sky, coming lower to align with his team. No matter. The TGB-29V’s three-foot-long, thermobaric, anti-personnel warhead would blow him out of the sky even if it only detonated near him. The Russian pulled the shoulder brace tight against his body. He wrapped his hand around the pistol grip trigger mechanism.

The rocket engine would start, and the missile would leave the barrel at almost a thousand feet per second. The eight fins on the rear of the projectile would deploy, stabilizing the warhead. It would reach its effective range of sixteen hundred feet without delay or obstruction. The sixty-five-millimeter explosive would detonate, killing any living thing in its vicinity.

Sidorov had Cobb dead to rights in his optical sight.

He smiled and gripped the trigger.