The Sniper and the Wolf

71

When Gil came across the ruptured bodies of Anzor Basayev and the other two security men, he recognized Basayev’s face from the mission dossier he’d been shown in Moscow, making a mental note to tell someone back in the world that at least one high-priority target had been taken out. A short time later, he picked up what he hoped was Kovalenko’s trail, and it didn’t take long to determine that he was tracking two men. He stopped to study the separate boot prints, seeing that one of the men had cut a notch into the heel of his left boot, and this was all Gil needed to confirm that the Wolf was still alive. Many soldiers who spent a lot of time operating alone — such as snipers — chose to notch the soles of their boots to help guard against walking in circles or tracking themselves. Gil had never employed the technique himself, thinking he could always notch his boot if and when the circumstances called for it. Otherwise the notch might end up being used to track him, the way he was using it to track Kovalenko now.

With the sun nearing its apex, he moved out.

The bolt-action TAC-338 was slung across his back. Chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum, it was a far superior weapon to the semiauto Dragunov SVD, and the scope was far superior as well: a Nightforce 8-32 x 56 mm. For the first time since mission start, he felt like he was adequately equipped, which was ironic, considering his physical condition. His belly wounds were festering but not particularly painful. The shrapnel wounds from the grenade, however, were hurting like hell and suppurated constantly, making it so that his left sleeve and trouser legs clung annoyingly to his skin.

He estimated that, if need be, he could function in this condition for perhaps another thirty-six hours with the help of the dextroamphetamines. By that time, he would be robbing Peter to pay Paul for each additional hour in the field, growing steadily less effective. Once infection set in and fever took hold, he would have to change his priorities.

Sucking down the last of Dragunov’s water on the move, he discarded the water bladder and dug into Mason’s rucksack for a pair of high-energy bars, wanting to get some food in his belly before reestablishing contact with the enemy. He wondered idly who had arranged for the Obsidian helos, but the answer was obvious. Pope was watching from above. Always Pope — like the omniscient eye of God.

He imagined everyone back in DC throwing a fit the second they realized he was jumping off the helo to go “rogue” again. How he’d come to hate that word. The simple truth was that he loved to fight, and he no longer made any apology for it. His love for combat had already cost him his marriage, so what was left to lose — other than his life? And that was why he’d gotten off the helo — that and because fuck Sasha Kovalenko. Kovalenko liked to fight, too, and he was damn good at it. Gil realized that he liked being well met, and in the last forty-eight hours, he’d come to understand that combat was a lot like the game of chess: the only real way to improve was to compete against someone better than you.

He set a brisk pace down the mountain, wanting to catch Kovalenko before dark. There was a forest camp to the south near the Georgian border. The camp was controlled by an Umarov ally named Ali Abu Mukhammad. Gil had seen it on a map in the mission dossier, and he remembered it was only a few clicks west of the bridge where he and Dragunov had originally planned on hitting Kovalenko. If the man Kovalenko was traveling with was Dokka Umarov, it was almost a sure bet they were headed to Mukhammad’s camp.

The titanium implant in his foot began to give him trouble after the few hundred yards of the downhill grind, so Gil slowed his pace. If the foot gave out on him, he was finished.

He was down on one knee beside a brook, cupping the ice-cold water to his mouth, when an enemy patrol of perhaps a half dozen happened by on the far side, partially obscured by the dense undergrowth that grew at the lower elevation — two different species of rhododendron that kept their leaves year-round. He waited for the patrol to pass, but then a Chechen emerged from a gap in the thicket to his right, no more than fifteen feet away on the opposite bank. Gil dropped flat to the ground and froze like a lizard.

The Chechen knelt and dipped a canteen into the water.

Gil was partially hidden behind a rhododendron, but not well enough to conceal him from a direct look. The rifle was beneath him, attached to the three-point sling, and at such close range, he didn’t dare move to draw the pistol.

Another Chechen emerged and knelt beside the first, dipping his canteen as well. Within a half minute, there was a regular canteen-filling convention taking place, with six Chechens kneeling shoulder to shoulder at the water’s edge. They were talking in regular voices, entirely unconcerned about their security. Two were smoking cigarettes. This was their territory, and they obviously felt safe. Whether or not they had any knowledge of the battle that had taken place a full click to the north was anybody’s guess.

The best clue was that they were all filling two canteens apiece, indicating they had possibly spent the earlier part of day operating in the high country, where water was scarce. It might have even meant they’d been traveling parallel to Gil during his descent, but from the ill-disciplined manner in which they carried on, he doubted it. There was no urgency about them; no sense of vigilance.

As they began standing up to put away their canteens, one of them glanced in Gil’s direction, looked away — then did a double take, shouting a warning to his compatriots, pointing with the canteen in his hand instead of grabbing for his AK-47.

Gil ripped a ready-grenade from his harness, the pin pulling automatically as he tore it loose and biffed it into the shallow water. The Chechens who saw the grenade dove for cover; those who didn’t were grabbing for their rifles when it exploded.

Two of them were blown apart as Gil rolled to his side, laying down a hail of fire from the AN-94. He killed two more, but the remaining two jumped up and fled through the gap in the rhododendron. He sprang to his feet and gave chase, not wanting to risk them warning Umarov’s camp. The Chechens crashed through the undergrowth a few meters ahead of him, just out of view as they followed a narrow deer trail, hoping to get away from Gil and whoever might be with him. They would have surely recognized his Spetsnaz camouflage, and the Spetsnaz were known to operate in wolf packs.

Gil fired at them through the undergrowth. One of them cried out, and Gil heard him go down. He leapt over the body in the trail a second later and bound unexpectedly into a glade; a small clearing in the forest. The other Chechen had vanished into thin air. Gil went immediately to ground and tuned his ears for the slightest hint of movement.