Back Blast

24

Zack Hightower took his eye out of the scope the instant he saw his target drop. He knew Babbitt wouldn’t be getting back up after taking a 168 grain, 308 caliber high performance boat tail round to his center mass, so Zack began his exfiltration process immediately after confirmation of his kill.

He had no need to scan around the property or to look for more targets. This wasn’t combat. This was a sanctioned termination.

His target was down, and it was time to go.

He unscrewed the silencer from the barrel of his Remington Defense CSR concealable sniper rifle, then he unscrewed the carbon fiber — wrapped barrel from the receiver and slipped it into the oversize gym bag next to him. He collapsed the stock against the receiver, placed the gun and the silencer in the bag and zipped it up, and then moved in a low run back to the staircase. Thirty seconds later he exited the fire escape door of the three-story office building, and he stepped out onto a dark street in an industrial park that had long since emptied out for the night.

Zack was proud of his shot, though he acknowledged to himself 435 yards into a man-sized target was nothing for a man of his skill set to write home about, really. Still, he’d removed a bad actor off the stage, an enemy of U.S. intelligence and a threat to his brothers and sisters in the Agency.

He knew this to be true because his leaders told him it was true. He did not question; he did not second-guess. He did not hesitate.

That was not Zack Hightower’s way.

As he began walking to the north he was surprised to hear gunfire behind him. But not surprised enough to go back and take a look. He assumed Babbitt’s men had discovered the body, they’d freaked out, and then they’d found something or someone in the neighborhood to shoot at.

Good, thought Zack. Nothing like a little fog of war back at the scene to help him get clear of the area.

Court knew he’d been spotted running across the first fairway of the golf course because he’d been shot at already; a short burst from an MP5 had blown lily pads out of a water hazard to his left, and a longer burst kicked up fescue that ran alongside a bunker on his right. He continued running off the turf and up into the natural area that divided the first green from the eighteenth green.

His short-term goal was putting distance between himself and the shooters, because he knew the shortcomings of their weapons. The MP5 was an excellent submachine gun at submachine gun range. Certainly at targets under fifty yards it was first rate, and with careful, judicious marksmanship it was accurate enough at a distance more than four times that. But the Townsend men’s weapons had no advanced sights, and they were firing the HKs in automatic bursts while pursuing their target, and this reduced their accuracy and enhanced Court’s chances for survival, as long as he could keep those chattering guns far back behind him.

He caught a brief respite from the incoming fire when he entered the trees and the darkness there, but he didn’t slow, because he looked back over his shoulder and saw the headlights of the Lincoln Navigator bouncing onto the golf course just to the north of Babbitt’s home. The SUV charged onto the first fairway at high speed, just one hundred yards from Court’s position.

Court’s old Ford Escort was parked in a lot two miles to the north, but he turned to the south, because he knew there was no way he’d make it to safety before the SUV caught up with him. No, his only hope now was to run, to evade the Navigator by moving into and out of the natural obstacles here in the dark golf course, and to find his way back to his car at some point much later in the evening.

Court decided he’d do his best to stay in the dark and get out of the golf course onto one of the main streets, to try and steal a car or find some sort of in extremis hide site.

He rounded a large pond, his tactical brain still acutely aware of the location of the black Lincoln Navigator, which now barreled through the tree line and spun onto the eighteenth fairway, behind him on his right. Court dropped to his knees below the lip of a rise, hoping the vehicle would pass him by and continue to the south. But just as he lay on his stomach, a burst of fire came from the center of the first fairway on his left, and it sent supersonic rounds zinging over his head.

The Navigator must have dropped off at least one man there before racing ahead.

Court had Babbitt’s street and at least one shooter to his left, a vehicle with an unknown number of shooters twenty-five yards to his right and passing to the south, and the one place Court could not go was back to the north, because his car was parked there and he could not lead his opposition in that direction.

Court drew his pistol, leapt to his feet, and ran to his right.

The Navigator passed him on the fairway. Court charged behind it as it roared by, hoping like hell they didn’t see him running out of the rough in his dark clothing. He sprinted deeper into the golf course, racing for the tree line that separated the next fairway from this one, but he heard the SUV on his left slam on its brakes, tearing up the pristine wet turf as it slid to a stop.

He’d been spotted.

Court ran on, across a wide green, towards a thicker grove of pines, and just when he thought he’d make it to the trees without being shot at, the barking fire of two MP5s behind told him men had dismounted from the Lincoln and were well aware of his location.

As he entered the trees, thousands of needles exploded off branches. Bullets ripped through the thick grove, the pounding sound of metal striking wood and the smell of fresh pine prevalent in the cool night air.

A round whined by within a foot of Court’s right ear and he dove forward and rolled at speed down a hill out of the copse of pines, end over end, tumbling down until he landed flat on his face in a sand trap, moist and sticky with nighttime dew.