The Nowhere Man

55 Almost There

BIG EXPLOSION AND FIREFIGHT DOWNSTAIRS.

HOLD HIM.

SOUNDS LIKE FALLUJAH DOWN THERE. WE HAVE NO WEAPONS.

GET SOME. PIN HIM DOWN.

COPY THAT. NEED BACKUP ASAP.

I’M BRINGING ALL THE BACKUP YOU’LL NEED.

ETA?

ALMOST THERE.

R WE CLEARED FOR KILL IF NECESSARY?

There was a pause, the longest pause Candy could remember Van Sciver ever taking. At last his text appeared.

YES.

The helicopter had lifted off by the time Evan ran around the corner of the chalet. On aggressive tilt, it forged into the eddies of snow. He aimed the AK, but the body of the helo had already vanished into the white, its lights out of reach. Panting, he watched until they, too, disappeared.

The guard in the watchtower was leaning over the railing, gazing at the wake of the helicopter through the scope of the rifle. Evan jogged up from the side, shouldering into the wooden supports, and fired directly up. The snow blunted his view, but he heard the wet thump of impact, and a moment later the rifle plummeted down from the heavens, lodging in the snowbank in front of him.

No dogs, no guards, no doctor, no David, no Dex.

Just two snipers in the hills.

And two Orphans in the house.

Evan stepped forward, snatched up the gun, and examined his haul.

An AR-10 in 7.62, clearly a designated marksman rifle. Evan could get almost seven hundred meters from it, but, given the snow, five hundred would be pushing it.

Not that he was complaining about the snow. Right now it was protecting him from the dedicated sniper rifles in the mountains; with a range up to fifteen hundred meters, they’d have a massive advantage once the air cleared.

Which it looked to be doing right now, the billows lessening in intensity, the snowfall growing more sparse by the minute.

A movement at the front door of the chalet hooked his attention — Candy and Orphan M spilling into view on the porch. Their heads tilted up, locking on Evan. They regarded one another across the distance.

He’d have no time to set up a shot on the rifle. They were beyond effective firing range of the AK-47, but Evan lifted it and gave them a greeting anyway. The rounds pulverized the stone porch, driving them back inside.

They’d have to regroup, scavenge weapons from the wreckage of the ballroom.

He’d better use the head start well.

Slinging the AR-10 over a shoulder, he jammed a new mag into the AK and bolted for the tree cover of the south slope. The snow thinned before his eyes, the gleam of the afternoon sun cutting through the haze.

At that instant something lasered into the ground a few feet from his boots, the spray peppering the right side of his body. A moment later a supersonic crack announced the shot.

Evan cut sharply. With a quick glance, he registered a glint of reflected light past the bulge two-thirds up the mountain, a fine long-distance overwatch position. The sound of another shot rolled across the valley, but he’d heard no impact, the round having sailed wider than the previous one. He dove over a fallen log, skidding into the safe embrace of the densely packed tree trunks, and sat, panting. He gave a moment of thanks for the south sniper’s mediocrity; the north sniper would’ve tunneled a hole through Evan’s rib cage.

He stood up, took stock of the weapons, and sprinted into the pines. He had to take out the south sniper and get over the brink before nightfall. Candy and M would be on his heels soon enough.

Rather than cut directly upslope as the sniper might anticipate, he sliced horizontally around the base of the woods to pop out on the far side of the bulge. It was slow going, his boots sinking into the snow, but he managed to hold a steady pace.

When he reached a ravine, he held several paces back from the last row of trees. Keeping to the shadows, he scanned the mountainside through the AR-10’s scope. Greens and browns streaked together, and then he scanned past a spot of flesh.

He rotated the scope back.

Sure enough, the sniper was taking a position higher on the bulge, angling down onto the patch of pines directly up from where he’d last spotted Evan. The sniper crawled over an outcrop, at one point rising to full height.

The average man is one meter from crown to crotch, a useful measurement for optically determining distance to target. To gauge the sniper’s position, Evan fitted him between the horizontal lines of the stadia. Five hundred meters out. The man pushed on upslope, diminishing another notch. Five twenty-five.

Evan consulted the range card taped to the butt stock. The laminated square of paper noted the specific ballistics for the hand load of the rifle. How much the bullet dropped per hundred yards. Range solutions. The exterior trajectory of the projectile.

Bracing the rifle on a flat patch of shale, he dialed an elevation into the scope to correct the aim for the ballistic arc at 525 meters. When he focused again, the sniper was gone.

Closing his right eye, Evan pressed his left to the rubber cup and sighted on a thicket of trees next to the outcrop.

Nothing. The guy had vanished.

A whip-poor-will called from the treetops, the agitated warble scoring Evan’s mounting uneasiness.

He’d set up for an ambush. Not a firefight. Under close scrutiny he’d be visible through the patchwork of branches and leaves. But if he repositioned now, his movement could draw the sniper’s eye.

The sniper had been focused eastward; he had no reason to search in Evan’s direction. Unless something else had grabbed his focus. Something that had made him seek cover from anyone along the very sight line on which Evan had situated himself.

Very slowly, Evan shifted from his belly onto his side and peered down through the woods to the valley floor. Way below, a few slivers of the chalet were visible between the trunks. Something darted across one of the slim gaps, trailing blond hair.

Candy McClure. A moment later there was a second flash, lower to the ground.

The Orphans had drawn the sniper’s attention. The shooter had reoriented to face this way.

Which meant that he was facing Evan.

Evan’s stomach clenched. Rolling back into position, he placed his eye on the scope in time to see a muzzle flare between two of the tree trunks in the thicket. An instant later the shale at his side kicked up, rocks embedding in the trunks behind him forcefully enough to sway the tips of the pines overhead.

Twelve inches to the left and he’d be missing an arm. He had to squeeze off a shot fast before the sniper got off a second round.

Evan zeroed in on the afterglow of that muzzle flare in the shadows of the thicket. He aimed a hair to the right on the assumption that the sniper was right-handed and lying on the left side of the rifle.

He pulled the trigger.

He never saw the impact, but a pink haze drifted out from the darkness between the trunks.

Evan hopped to his feet and charged upslope.

The shots had announced his presence to Candy and M — and, worse, to the north sniper, who had proved himself to be a serious shooter. Evan had to get to the south sniper’s rifle if he hoped to go head-to-head with him.

He figured the north sniper was already on the move, circling the rim of the valley, crashing through the woods to get within range. And Candy and M were no doubt moving up the mountain at him from below.

Driving up the incline, Evan pistoned between rocks, skimmed through trees, ignoring the pain that was firing the muscles of his legs. His bobbing torso felt exposed, hung out like a paper target. Wind whipped his ears, a whoosh to match the adrenaline surge in his veins. Every step seemed to take an eternity. And yet he hadn’t drawn fire.

The outcrop loomed ahead. For a time it seemed his legs were churning uselessly, bringing him no closer. At last the stone came within reach. Bracing for a bullet to the back, he hurled himself over the stone, rolling into the thicket of pines. He expected hard ground but landed on something soft and yielding.

The body of the south sniper.

Evan’s shot had squarely hit the mark. It occurred to him that he’d never seen the sniper’s face. And never would.

He rolled the body away from the big gun. A Sako TRG-42 in .338 Lapua Mag. A professional-grade platform, still set up for a shot. Evan swung into place next to it.

The crosshairs perfectly marked the spot on the shale where he’d been moments before. Tilting the gun downslope, he scanned across the treetops. Flickering in and out of cover, Candy charged up the mountain, Orphan M at her heels. They’d harvested AKs from the ballroom bloodbath.

Two quick shots and it would be down to Evan and the north sniper, squaring off in the snowy bowl of the valley.

Snugging his cheek to the stock, Evan led Candy slightly, the crosshairs marking the air inches in front of her face. She vanished behind a dense copse of pines, but he kept the rifle on its trajectory, timing her progress, waiting for a break in the trees.

It came, and he was ready for it.

Candy reared into the scope. His finger tightened on the trigger. The crosshairs found their mark.

An instant before he could fire, the air exploded around him. He heard the meaty smack beneath his ear, felt a wrecking ball strike his shoulder, and then all he saw were pine needles and branches blurring by. The earth rushed up to greet him. Dirt in his mouth. Splinters in his cheek. Ice in his ear.

And his own blood puddling on the ground beneath him.