Chimera

CHAPTER 42

Near the Sniper Post, Base Camp

It had been Achara’s intention to move in closer to the sniper post after each covering volley of shots — the rifle in one hand, the bow and quiver in the other, and the heavy vest dragging on her shoulders; taking advantage of the terrain and the falling snow to gain ten or fifteen yards and a new protective boulder with every advance.

It was a well-intended goal, but the process would have taken her a good half-hour before she got within effective range of the sniper post; the effort almost certainly exhausting her remaining strength long before she reached that point.

But she’d slipped on a rock after her second burst of shots, tumbling down a snow bank; and suddenly found herself sliding helplessly downhill — feet first and on her back — so fast that it was all she could do to keep the rifle, bow and quiver clutched to her chest as she dug her boot heels and shoulders back and forth into the snow, trying as best she could to steer herself away from the rapidly-appearing boulders and trees.

Thirty seconds later — although it seemed to her much longer than that — Achara found herself buried up to her chest in a deep snowdrift, and next to a large boulder; seemingly anchored in place by a mass of compressed ice and snow that had been forced in and under the vest by the long slide.

Pausing only a moment to catch her breath, she set the rifle, bow and quiver of arrows aside; unzipped the assault vest; worked herself first out of the vest and then the snow drift; got to her feet; peeked carefully around the boulder; and discovered, to her amazement, that she had slid to a spot less than a hundred yards away from — and to the left of — the sniper post.

Still breathing hard, but smiling to herself now, she carefully removed the partially-emptied magazine from the M14; fumbled for a fully-loaded one from the vest; discovered that all but two of her remaining magazines had been lost during her long slide; pulled both of them out of the still-secured pouches; discovered that one was jammed with snow and ice; and then shoved the one functional 20-round magazine into the weapon with what sounded to her like a terribly loud click.

She started forward again, and then hesitated, Setting the rifle aside, she reached for the bow; strung it; slid the bow and quiver over her shoulder; and then started to crawl on her left hand and knees toward the now-clearly-visible sniper post, with the heavy rifle clutched and dragging along in her right hand.

She had gone a good twenty yards, intent on flanking the sniper post from the left, when a ball of flame — immediately followed by a concussive explosion — erupted from the muzzle of the M107 rifle in Jack Gavin’s hands.

Realizing that he was almost certainly shooting at Bulatt, Achara scrambled to a nearby boulder, rose up one knee, brought the M14 up to her shoulder, and began firing at the distant sandbag-protected figure; the recoil from each shot slamming the rifle butt painfully into her already-bruised shoulder. As soon as the dark-green figure disappeared behind the sandbags, she rose to her feet and lunged though the almost-knee-deep snow; wincing, but not stopping, as Gavin sent a volley of 5.56mm bullets streaking up and out into the snow-filled sky.

Much closer now — perhaps fifty yards away — she saw Gavin come back up with the M4 carbine. But he was looking away from her, up the hill, in the direction where she’d begun her slide, so she continued to run… forty yards away now… thirty… her lungs starting to burn… twenty…

And then, when he must have seen something out of the corner of his eye and started to turn in her direction, she brought the rifle up to her shoulder and began firing as she continued to run forward; seeing the sandbags exploding around Gavin; seeing him spin away, disappearing again behind the barricade as the carbine flew out of his hand; and then seeing him come back up a second later with a pistol gripped in both hands.

They both fired at almost the same instant, the 7.62mm rifle bullet catching Gavin square in the center of his armored vest and flinging him backwards again at the moment he pulled the trigger of the pistol; causing the 9mm hollow-point bullet to rip a gouge across Achara’s cheek — instead of catching her center-of-face, where he’d aimed — and twisting her sideways as the M14’s bolt locked open on the now-empty magazine.

Catching her balance, and ignoring the wound, Achara threw the empty rifle aside; yanked the bow off her shoulder; grabbed an arrow out of the quiver and notched it as she charged forward with mindless fury; leapt up on top of the sandbag wall; and sent the obsidian-tipped arrow tearing into the side of Gavin’s vest as the severely-injured ex-SASR commando desperately fumbled for his dropped pistol.

He was still grasping for the pistol — and almost had it — when the second arrow slammed into his neck, severing his spinal cord and pinning him to the sandbagged floor.

Scrambling down to the floor of the sniper post, Achara quickly knelt beside Gavin and felt for a pulse, making sure there was none. Then she took the compass out of her tunic pocket, twisted top and bottom in opposite directions, and set the now-transmitting emergency beacon on one of the still-intact sandbags.

Having done that, she picked up Gavin’s M4 carbine, pulled the partially-empty magazine out of the familiar weapon, and loaded it with a full magazine from the nearby assault vest.

Then, after going through the same re-loading steps with Gavin’s pistol, she set both weapons on the floor beside her, leaned back against the sandbag wall and stared out at the distant hillside as she tried to catch her breath; wondering, as she did so, if the man she had come to treasure was still alive.

On the Road leading to the Maze

Half-way up the barely-visible road leading up the southwest entrance to the Maze, Sergei Draganov was alternately driving the rumbling Snow-Cat™ and explaining to Special Agents Henry Lightstone, Larry Paxton, Dwight Stoner and Mike Takahara how he and his brother had never intended to let things get out of control the way they had — and how it had never occurred to anyone that Borya would actually release the ‘mistakes’ from MAX — when the receiver in Takahara’s hand began beeping wildly.

“That’s the second beacon,” the tech agent said, looking up at his fellow agents. “Guess we’d better hurry up and get our butts up there. Ged might actually be serious about being rescued this time.”

Sniper Post, Base Camp

Exhausted and fearful of what might have happened to Bulatt, Achara Kulawnit was still staring up at the distant hillside when the all-too-familiar voice of Marcus Wallis crackled from the walkie-talkie lying on the floor next to the sprawled and bloodied body of Jack Gavin.

“Gecko-One to Gecko-Three.”

Achara started to crawl over to the crackling walkie-talkie, intent on venting her rage at the man she believed had cold-heartedly killed her brother; but she paused when her gloved hand came down on piece of loose cable.

She lifted the cable up, followed it back to a dark rectangular shape that she immediately recognized as a laptop computer, picked it up in both hands, felt the loose battery with her right hand, shoved the battery back into place, and then blinked in surprise when the laptop screen came alive.

Quickly pulling off her night vision goggles, she stared in amazement at a color graphic of the Maze, and a series of multi-colored icons identified with the letters ‘C1’, ‘PB1’, ‘C2’, ‘PB2’, ‘C3’, ‘BP3’, ‘C4’, ‘PB4’, ‘G1’, ‘G2’, ‘G3’ and ‘X1’. Down near the bottom of the screen, she saw that the icons marked ‘G3’ and ‘X1’ were next to each other above a small red square marked ‘BASE,’ and that the ‘X1’ icon was flashing. At the top of the screen, she saw three tabs, labeled ‘MAZE VIEW’, ‘MANUAL TRACKING’ and ‘AUTO-TRACKING.’

“Gecko-One to Gecko-Three,” the walkie-talkie crackled again, the deeply-Australian-accented voice sounding impatient now; and as it did, Achara saw the ‘G1’ icon briefly flash.

Smiling now in understanding, Achara used the mouse pad on the laptop to activate the ‘AUTO-TRACKING’ tab.

Instantly, a white textbox appeared in the center of the screen: weapon disconnected from computer

In the darkness, Achara fumbled around until she found the small flashlight in one of the assault vest pouches. She turned it on, pulled the IR-gel-filter off the front of the lens, swept the narrow beam around the inside of the sniper post, and saw the M107 rifle lying against the sandbag wall.

Keeping her head low, because she could no longer see outside, she picked up the heavy weapon, examined the telescopic sight, saw an empty cable connection, picked up the connector-end of the cable she’d found, screwed it back onto the scope, and then saw the white textbox on the computer screen change to: weapon disconnected from servo

Feeling her heart start to pound, she carefully set the heavy sniper rifle onto the shoebox-sized platform mount that had a large open slot in the middle, moving the weapon around until she felt the entire trigger housing and extended box magazine drop down into place with a solid metallic ‘click’; pushed the opened clamp-lever on the mount forward, feeling the weapon lock into place; heard a series of gears move inside the mechanized platform mount; and then looked over at the screen. The bright white textbox had disappeared, replaced with the flashing words at the top of the screen: select icon target

Smiling grimly now, Achara moved the select-arrow on the screen over to the icon marked ‘G1’ and hit the ENTER key. Instantly, a round circle with a set of cross-hairs in the center appeared — centered on the icon — and a pair of red selection buttons marked ‘FIRE ONE ROUND’ and ‘FIRE TWO ROUNDS’ appeared in the upper right corner of the screen.

“Gecko-One to Gecko-Three, do you copy?” The gravely voice sounding cold and resigned now.

“Yes, Gecko-One, I copy,” Achara snarled into the walkie-talkie microphone, and then clicked the selector arrow on the ‘FIRE TWO ROUNDS’ box.

She heard gears inside the platform mount engage — apparently pressing some kind of rod against the M107’s trigger — and then nothing.

Stunned, Achara stared at a new white textbox in the center of the screen that read: weapon jammed or empty — unjam or reload

Blinking in disbelief, she looked over at the mounted weapon, and saw that the action bar lever was only partially forward — indicating that the inner bolt was locked against an empty magazine. Cursing in Thai now, she quickly unclamped and removed the weapon from the platform mount, and started to remove the empty magazine when Wallis’ voice crackled from the walkie-talkie again.

“Hello, Cave-Two. What did you do, manage a lucky shot on my lad?”

Achara extracted the empty magazine from the heavy rifle, tossed it aside, and looked around for a box of spare magazines.

“A nice thought,” she said, speaking calmly into the walkie-talkie as she spotted a box labeled ‘M107 MAGS — LOADED’ magazines, reached over and pulled one out, “but I’d rather get a lucky one on you.”

“Why would you say something like that, lass?” The gravely voice mocking now.

Achara slid the new magazine in the sniper rifle, pulled the action rod back, released it with a loud ‘clack’, and then pressed the walkie-talkie’s TALK button again.

“Because I think you killed my brother.”

There was a long pause as Achara carefully set the heavy weapon back into the platform mount slot, and slowly pushed the opened side-lever on the mount forward; feeling the weapon lock into place, and hearing the series of gears move inside the mount-structure.

“If it helps any, lass, I didn’t intend for things to work out that way.”

The bright white textbox on the laptop disappeared, replaced with the flashing words at the top of the screen: select icon target

“Then why did you do it?” she asked, speaking softly into the walkie-talkie she held in her left hand as she moved the select arrow on the screen over to the icon marked ‘G1’ and hit the ENTER key. Instantly, a round circle with a set of cross-hairs in the center appeared — centered on the icon — and a pair of red selection buttons marked ‘FIRE ONE ROUND’ and ‘FIRE TWO ROUNDS’ appeared in the upper right corner of the screen.

“Simple answer: your brother and his mates were in the way. Jack and I did what we had to do.”

“Meaning Jack — excuse me — Gecko-Three shot Sergeant Tongproh and the two young Rangers, and you shot my brother?”

“Clever lass. How did you figure that out?”

“I didn’t, Ged did.”

“Ged? You mean your Gunny Sergeant boyfriend?”

“No, I mean Special Agent Gedimin Bulatt, of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.”

“Ah, that lad. Yes, Agent Bulatt and I have some business to attend to up here; after I deal with Mr. Hateley, of course. After that, if you’re still around, perhaps you and I will have a chat.”

“Fine with me,” Achara replied, her eyes deadly cold as she stared at the flashing icon in the middle of the red cross-hairs. “I just want to tell you something truly ironic first; something a person like you might appreciate.”

“Oh, and what would that be?”

“I want you to know that you’re now in the way of something that I intend to do.”

With that, Achara Kulawnit clicked on the ‘FIRE TWO ROUNDS’ and then turned away to protect her eyes and ears as the billowing fireballs from the M107’s muzzle — punctuated by a pair of concussive roars that seemed to echo across the base camp from all directions — sent two. 50-caliber bullet streaking out into the night.