Ghost Sniper

41

“I don’t understand why we didn’t take a plane to Zhangjiajie,” Lena said from the passenger seat of a stolen Land Rover as they rode north along the scenic S10 highway in Hunan Province. They had just crossed the eighth-highest suspension bridge in the world, spanning 1,080 feet above the Lishui River. Of the world’s one hundred highest bridges, forty-two of them were located in China.

“I wanted to see some of the country,” Gil said with a glance at the rearview mirror. “Look at those mountain ranges. They make Montana look like West Virginia.”

Lena, who had never been to the United States and thus could not appreciate the comparison, sat staring at the side-view mirror, watching the black Mercedes-Benz directly behind them. Three Russians had followed them from Chongqing, despite Nahn’s supposed efforts to throw them off the scent.

“A plane would have been a thousand times safer,” she said. “How long have you known we were being followed?”

“Since we left the hotel.”

“And you said nothing?”

“I didn’t want to worry you.” He put his foot on the brake pedal, slowing abruptly to agitate the Russian driver behind him as he’d done a half dozen times since leaving Chongqing three hours earlier. “I like knowing exactly where they are. I also like knowing they’re probably racking their brains trying to figure out what the hell we’re doing in China.”

“Pffft! I’m still trying to figure out what the hell we’re doing in China.”

“We’re jumping the Dragon Wall.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “You know that Victor Kovats was killed jumping the Wall, right?”

“Who’s Victor Kovatch?”

“Kovats. He was the Hungarian wing suit champion.”

“Oh, the Hungarian champion!” Gil chuckled sarcastically. “I’ll bet he had to be pretty good to be the Hungarian champ.”

She suppressed a smile, both amused and offended by his American air of superiority. “You should know the best wing suit fliers in the world are from Europe.”

He laughed. “And they’re apparently splattered all over China.”

She laughed, too, in spite of herself, slapping him on the shoulder. “You Americans think you’re so great!”

For reasons Gil could not quite pin down — competitive reasons, perhaps? — Lena brought out the conceit in him. “Well,” he said, “how many Europeans have HALO’d into Iran from the back of a Turkish 727?”

An experienced parachutist, Lena knew that a HALO jump was a High-Altitude, Low-Opening parachute jump employed by Special Forces to infiltrate enemy territory. Her jaw hung open. “You did that?”

He did not answer the question directly. “So who’s got bigger balls now? Me or Kovatch?”

“Kovats,” she said quietly, her ardor beginning to smolder. She slid her hand along the inside of his thigh. “Why were you in Iran?”

He thought briefly about his plans for the future — should there be a future, considering the insanity factor of the jump he planned to make — and decided to share a classified secret: “I was sent in to assassinate a bomb maker and his pregnant wife.”

She sat back with a gasp. “You murdered a pregnant woman?”

He shook his head. “I shot her, but I didn’t kill her. I killed her husband and her father, though. Then I kidnapped her back to Afghanistan, and she gave birth to a baby boy that same night. The kid’ll probably grow up to become a damn terrorist, thanks to me. Last year, I killed the CIA man who ordered me to shoot her without telling me she was pregnant.” He took his eyes off the road just long enough to meet her gaze. “How do you like me now?”

She put her hand on his knee. “No wonder you can’t go back to your old life.”

“How could anyone go back?” he muttered, thinking of Marie. “The things I’ve done…”

Her voice felt thick to her as she spoke. “You and I were destined to meet, Gil.”

“Dunno about that.” He was eyeing the mirror again, wishing he could kill the Russians now instead of having to wait, but it was necessary to the plan. “Maybe we were — if you believe that kinda crap.”

An hour later, they were approaching Zhangjiajie, the city nearest to Tianmen Mountain National Park in northwestern Hunan Province. Tianmen Mountain was often called the Dragon Wall because of the winding, serpentine road that led up to the almost five-thousand-foot-high summit from which wing-suit fliers from all over the world launched themselves into the sky like Wile E. Coyote.

Victor Kovats had died there on October 8, 2013, during the World Wingsuit League Championships. His parachute had failed to deploy just shy of the landing pad, and he impacted the trees at nearly a hundred miles an hour.

When they arrived at their hotel, Gil parked in front and got out, smiling at the Russians as they drove slowly past and signaling for the driver to roll down his window.

The blond Russian stopped the car, staring with his dead blue eyes as he put down the window, waiting to hear what Gil had to say.

Gil saw the Bratva tattoos on the Russian’s neck. “You can park right over there and just bring our bags up to the room,” he wisecracked.

Without giving any indication that he’d understood, the Russian put up the window and pulled past the hotel.

Lena was afraid of the Russians outside of Switzerland. “Why do you antagonize them?”

“It was necessary,” he said, opening the back of the black Land Rover Defender to remove their bags.

An Asian man on a bicycle emerged from around the corner of the building and pedaled past in the same direction as the Russians. Lena recognized him at once as Nahn. “Hey, that’s—” She turned to Gil. “He got here ahead of us! You wanted him to see which car they were in!”

Gil gave her wink. “Never fuck with the United States Navy.”

She laughed and shook her head. “My God, you’re arrogant.”

“Only around you, baby.” He pulled her carry-on from the back of the truck and handed it to her. “Here. It won’t kill you to carry one up yourself.”

She laughed again, taking the bag. “Fuck you, Gil.”