The Sniper and the Wolf

14

Kovalenko would have preferred to stay and finish his enemy while he held the advantage of rifle over pistol. But the real reason the Wolf had struck the truce with Dragunov was that one of Gil’s blindly fired .40 caliber rounds had penetrated the back of his right thigh and passed clean through, leaving him with a four-inch-long hole through the femoral biceps muscle. It was late in the day now, and he occupied a cottage on the outskirts of Palermo near the northwestern tip of Sicily, waiting for Vitsin and the rest of his men to arrive from Rome. Kovalenko knew that by now Dragunov or someone else from the GRU would be covering the Messina ferry crossing, so he’d called Vitsin and changed the plan, warning him to watch for the Spetsnaz major as they came ashore. The Wolf’s wounds were clean and stuffed with cotton wadding to stanch the blood. The bullet had passed dangerously close to the sciatic nerve, so he counted himself lucky not to need major surgery.

He stood in the kitchen looking down at the bodies of a dead goat farmer and his wife, whom he’d shot in the middle of their breakfast. He took a seat and broke open a couple of cold biscuits, smearing them with marmalade and pouring himself a cup of cold coffee from a tin pot.

Vitsin and the other five Chechen operatives arrived a short time later, sharing the news about their failure to kill Dragunov at the Messina crossing.

Kovalenko was annoyed by their failure, but Dragunov had an uncanny knack for survival, so he wasn’t entirely surprised. “Who the hell is the other guy?” he wondered aloud. “I saw him on the bridge of the Palinouros but didn’t recognize the face.”

“It has to be that American operative Gil Shannon,” Vitsin said. “The US Navy sniper. Before we left Rome, our CIA contact told us he was spotted at our embassy in Paris.”

Kovalenko knew a lot about Shannon. He grunted. “So the GRU is working with the old guard of the CIA.” He thought back to the gunfight by the road, remembering how the red laser beam had shone in the dark, and he realized that it was Gil who’d had the immediate presence of mind to toss a handful of dust into the air. “The dot must have reflected off the car,” he muttered.

“What dot?”

Kovalenko told them how Dragunov had rammed Lesnichy with the car and how Gil had used the laser beam to accurately place his shots. “That’s how Anatoly got himself killed — and very nearly me.”

“We have to get back to Georgia,” remarked the bald man named Anton, who had failed to kill Dragunov and Gil in Messina.

“Da! As soon as possible,” seconded one of the others.

“At first I thought so too,” Vitsin said, “but now I disagree.”

Kovalenko eyed him, waiting for an explanation.

“Dragunov will follow us wherever we go,” Vitsin went on. “If we escape back to Georgia, the bastard will surely appear when we least expect him — like he did in Malta. And back in Georgia, he will have the close logistical support of the Russian army. So I say it’s best to deal with him here on Sicily, where both sides are equal.”

“But Dragunov is only one man,” Anton protested. “There will be others.”

Kovalenko spoke up. “True, there will be others — but not like Dragunov. He knows me better than anyone, and like Vitsin says, he’s a cagey whoreson.”

“And what about the American?” asked another.

“Well,” Kovalenko said thoughtfully, “someone in the CIA obviously sent him to France, which either means our American friends are not as well informed as they say, or they’re lying to us.”

Vitsin straightened in his chair. “Regardless, there’s no reason to assume Shannon won’t accompany Dragunov to Georgia — especially if the Americans know we plan to hit the pipeline.”

“That, too, is correct.” Kovalenko sat quietly for a moment, trying to see ten moves ahead into his chess match with Dragunov. “In the end, the Americans will do whatever is necessary to protect their oil profits — short of war. And Moscow will do whatever is necessary to avoid provoking them — within reason. So, my friends, the decision is thrust upon us: we deal with Dragunov and Shannon here on Sicilian soil… then we go back and help Umarov hit the pipeline.”