The Sniper and the Wolf

32

Midori’s dark eyes watched the giant plasma screen in front of her as Anatoly climbed out on the west side of the house, her shoulder-length black hair falling forward as she leaned in slightly. “A second man just climbed out the same window.”

“Roger,” Gil replied in her left ear.

In her right ear, she heard Dragunov rub his thumb over the mike in acknowledgment, realizing he wanted to remain completely silent now that two of the Spetsnaz were outside the house with him.

“Make sure you’re giving Ivan second-by-second updates,” Gil reminded her.

“Neither Chechen is moving,” she answered, her eyes fixed on the infrared heat signatures. “They’re facing north and south — both holding at the corners.”

The first man stepped cautiously past the corner of the house and held his position, scanning the terrain over the open sights of an AS Val, a Russian-made silenced automatic rifle in 9 mm.

“Gil, you’ve got line of sight on the first target. Can you see him?”

“Negative,” he said. “It’s all ink down there. You don’t have a giant spotlight on that satellite, do you?”

She smiled, running her fingers over the keyboard. “I’m going to see if I can help you another way. Adjust your aim as best you can, then hold position.”

“Roger.”

She watched as he adjusted the aim of the rifle barrel toward the corner of the house.

“That’s what feels best to me,” he said, “but I can’t really see the house.”

“Copy that,” she said. “You’re a few degrees off. Stand by.”

“Roger that.”

She heard the doubt in his tone, but that only made her all the more determined, quickly bringing up a trajectory overlay normally used for aiming artillery rounds and placing it over the video feed. She then right-clicked on the Spetsnaz man and — zooming in for the best resolution — drew a straight line to the bolt on Gil’s rifle.

“Gil, adjust three degrees left.”

She watched as he overadjusted slightly, keeping her eye on a separate screen to make sure the target hadn’t moved. “Now half a degree back to the right.”

Gil adjusted a fraction of a degree, and the barrel came perfectly in line with the line she had drawn across the screen. “Your horizontal aim is perfect,” she said. “How do you think you are on the vertical?”

“Feels good. I’ve been holding this angle all day.”

“In that case, you should be clear to fire.”

Gil didn’t hesitate. She saw the rifle buck against his shoulder and the heat signature of the gasses expelled from the end of the suppressor. In the other screen, the Spetsnaz man flew backward off his feet, writhing on the ground for a moment and then falling still.

“Target down!” she said as the second Spetsnaz man turned and moved toward his downed compatriot. “Ivan! If you move fast around the north side, you can take the second man from behind!”

Dragunov didn’t hesitate, either. She watched him take off around the front of the house, rounding the far corner as Anatoly was pulling Zargan into the lee of the building. He fired twice, with both hands gripping the 1911 before him. Anatoly sprawled forward onto his face, and Dragunov danced away again, sprinting back around the front of the house to return to the safety of the blind side.

“Better than a video game!” his gravelly voice growled excitedly in her right ear.

Midori grinned. “Nice shooting, boys. Two tangos down. Gil, Ivan is back in position.”

“You’re a natural, Midori. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Pope was there watching over your shoulder.”

She glanced over her left shoulder to see Pope smiling at her from the corner, propped up in a hospital chair, flanked on either side by General Couture and White House Chief of Staff Brooks. A pair of navy male nurses sat nearby, monitoring Pope’s vital signs. They had arrived ten minutes before the sun set on Sicily.

“Look there,” Pope said quietly, pointing up at a second bank of monitors.

She looked up at a wider angle of the surrounding countryside. A car with a light bar on the roof was coming quickly up the road. “Master Chief, there’s a patrol car approaching fast a quarter mile from the east. I’m guessing they must have heard Ivan’s pistol shots.”

“Marvelous,” Gil replied.