Liberty

CHAPTER SIX

“Came to the right place? Bones, we just got shot at. Again.”

“Hey bro, if they’re shooting at you, you must be doing something right. I don’t think the guy is that far away, because the shot came from the direction of the river and it’s only about fifty yards.”

“He could be in a boat.”

“We’re SEALS. That should work in our favor. One of us needs to try to find a boat to borrow, and the other needs to locate the guy.”

“I’m game for locating the guy, but short of exposing myself to more fire, I’m a little shaky on how we’re gonna do that.”

“As much humor as you exposing yourself would provide, I see your point.”

“Wait, I have an idea on how to do it. You go back that way towards the shadows, wrap around down to the river and see if you can find a boat. Make your way upstream. If you can’t find one, just do it on foot.”

“Sounds like a plan. Stay away from bullets.”

With that, Bones disappeared and Dane set his mind to the task at hand. He had noticed two things that would make his plan possible. First, the van was unlocked. He eased the door open and leaned across the seat, hoping his actions weren’t visible to the shooter. Then he slipped the gearshift into neutral.

The second assist for the plan came from the slight downward angle of the road. All he had to do was anchor his legs and push on the door frame and the van started moving. Silently apologizing to the owner of the van for what he was about to do, he jumped in the driver’s seat. He kept his hands on the wheel but leaned over enough that a clean shot at him from the river side would be close to impossible.

The van began to pick up speed. The arc where the original shot could have come from spanned around a hundred yards of the river front, so he’d be out of the potential kill zone in just a few seconds. Unless of course, the shooter had moved.

Dane had taken some rudimentary sniper training and knew the basic doctrine. Normally after firing a shot, a soldier would immediately move. There were exceptions, though, and one of them involved an urban warfare situation where you didn’t have a good choice of vantage points and moving would compromise any further shots. If this guy was a soldier, Dane figured he’d have stayed put. And if he was a civilian, the unexpected move with the van should be enough to throw him off.

In any case, seventy five yards away, the road started to rise. By a hundred-fifty feet, his speed had slowed to a crawl and Dane jumped out. He made the trees by the river in three seconds, and for the first time since leaving the warehouse he felt like the hunter as opposed to the hunted.

He gave his eyes sixty seconds to adjust to the darkness. Then he scanned what he could see of the river. No boats were obvious except a couple of lights far in the distance where the angle wasn’t right for the shot. He slowly made his way back along the riverbank, moving with what he hoped was maximum stealth.

Bones was the real master of silent tracking, something he liked to claim all his people had but which Dane knew was Bones’ own natural talent. While Dane would endeavor to make as little noise as possible, Bones took it one step further and made noise that blended in with the ambient sounds. More than one veteran instructor had undoubtedly needed a fresh pair of underwear after Bones had stalked and disabled him without a sound. In any case, Dane could move quietly enough to get by.

His main concern was the possibility that the sniper had slipped on a set of night vision goggles. The trees would protect him up to a point, but he might walk right past the guy and be dead without ever hearing the shot. His only defense was silence.

Minutes passed where he would only cover a few steps. He stopped often, using all of his senses to seek his quarry. Smell was the unsung ally during this sort of work, and even the taste of the air underwent subtle changes with each human presence. Dane didn’t pick up anything, though. Eventually he found himself downstream of the warehouse, just beyond the range of where the shot could have originated.

He considered the possibilities. The shooter could have used a boat and long since left the area. The shooter could have started near where Dane stood now and left while Dane worked his way downstream. Or, he could have passed the shooter without realizing it, both of them so silent that neither picked up the other. Although he couldn’t have explained why, Dane’s gut told him this last one was how it went down.

Which meant the shooter still lurked out there somewhere.

Dane heard a change in the rhythmic sound of the river lapping against the bank, and whirled. He made out what seemed like a boat, then a dark form rose from the shadows of the water onto the bank.

“Bones,” he whispered.

“That’s me. Had to haul my butt half a mile downstream and then row this piece of junk back here so I didn’t give myself away by turning on the outboard. Plus, the outboard is about as powerful as a two-gerbil wheel on a starvation diet. Any luck on your end?”

Dane explained what he’d done.

“Nice move with the van. Hey by the way, what color was it?”

“White, why?”

“Because it’s headed back down this way.”

Dane turned and could see it coming back down the hill that had slowed him earlier before he jumped out. It came to a stop before the warehouse, about fifty yards away.

He and Bones looked at each other and shook their heads. Bones said, “No way that just happened from momentum. Someone launched it. Probably the shooter trying to draw us out.”

“That means the shooter has to be back upstream near where I left the van.”

They both stayed in the dark along the edge of the river until they were even with the road where the van was stopped. They bolted to the front of the van, keeping it between them and where they figured the shooter was.

“Look!”

Bones pointed over the top of the van. Dane couldn’t see that high, but risked a peek around the edge. Beyond where he’d jumped out of the van, a figure in black stood, the outline of what was probably a rifle hanging from one hand. The figure raised the other hand and flicked it sideways before turning and starting to move away at a run.

“Was that a wave at us? That is not cool.” Bones started to move, but Dane grabbed his arm.

“There’s no point. I can tell from here he’s moving fast enough that we have no hope of making up more than a hundred yard gap.”

Bones scowled before nodding. “Maybe you’re right, but you’re wrong about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“That person we just saw? Men don’t move like that. The shooter is a woman.”