The Survivor

CHAPTER 25

Drop the weapon, Mitch. And don’t get your hands anywhere near that throat mike.”

Charlie Wicker slid forward in the tree stand and sighted through his scope. Rapp had modified his radio to constantly transmit on the frequency Gould had been excluded from. For good reason, it seemed.

Up to that moment, Wicker shared Coleman’s take on this op. Gould had crossed Mitch Rapp as bad as anyone ever could and was still breathing. If Wicker had been in the Frenchman’s position, he’d have fallen to his knees, thanked Jesus, and slunk away to the far corners of the earth in case Rapp ever changed his mind. This psycho just didn’t get it.

“We’re copying this, Mitch.” Coleman’s voice over the comm.

Through his scope, Wicker had a good view of the knoll they’d abandoned. The wind was blowing gently along it, causing the tall grass to wave rhythmically. About halfway up, something caught his eye. A patch that wasn’t swaying to the same music as the rest.

“I have movement,” he said into his throat mike.

It was the reason they’d surrendered the high ground for this tactical and literal hole. Anyone planning an assault on Obrecht’s property would want to take advantage of that knoll, but Gould’s anxiousness to put them up there had made Rapp suspicious. He’d expected a betrayal and that was exactly what he was getting.

A camo-covered arm came into view at the bottom of his scope image and then disappeared again.

“Confirmed. One man closing on our former position. I’m guessing there are more just out of sight.”

“Can you hit him?” Coleman responded.

If he had his Barrett, it would be no problem. That kind of artillery was impossible to handle in the stand, though. That left him with his M39. An excellent weapon but not exactly built for these kinds of ranges.

“Real low percentage, Scott.”

Scott Coleman glanced skyward, but couldn’t see the man in the tree above. When Wicker said low percentage, it meant “virtually impossible for the best shooters on the planet.” In the years they’d worked together, though, the diminutive SEAL had rarely missed.

“You’re my only failure, Mitch. I thought I’d forget about it as time went on but it just got worse.”

Coleman ignored Gould’s voice over the radio and activated his throat mike again. “What have you got, Bruno?”

“The guards are playing it cool, but they’ve all pulled back behind the wall. I have no targets.”

“Stan. You’re just in time to be the icing on my cake.”

Coleman confirmed McGraw’s report with the video being beamed from Dumond’s drone. There was no more time to screw around.

“Wick. Take the shot. If you can’t hit him, get close enough to put the fear of God into him.”

When those mercs made it to the top of the knoll and found no one, it wouldn’t take them long to locate his team’s tracks and descend on them. On the other hand, if they lost the element of surprise and found themselves under fire by an unseen sniper, they might retreat. Mercenaries tended to like to push things only so far. It was hard to cash checks with half your head missing.

The familiar puff of Wicker’s silenced rifle sounded and Coleman glanced pointlessly up into the tree again. “Report.”

“I think I winged him,” Wicker said, sounding genuinely surprised. “Yeah. Confirmed. I have blood on the grass. He’s still moving, though. Do you want me to try to finish him?”

“Negative. Let him bleed.”

A wounded soldier was almost always more damaging than a dead one. If the injury was serious, he might panic or start screaming in pain — two things that could quickly demoralize the most battle-hardened unit. Even if he held it together, his comrades would have to evaluate how bad he was and whether they were going to leave him or attempt a rescue.

“No new targets and the wounded man has taken cover,” Wicker said. “They’re good. No question of that.”

Coleman nodded silently. It’s exactly how his team would have reacted. Go still, evaluate the situation, and try to ID the sniper.

“If you get another reasonable target, take the shot. Hurt him bad but try not to kill him. Let’s give them something other than us to deal with.”

“Roger that.”

“Bruno?”

“Still nothing.”

Coleman returned to his pack and unstrapped the SMAW rocket launcher secured to its side. This particular unit fired a prototype thermobaric projectile that had been heavy as hell to carry but was guaranteed to make an impression. Its developer at Raytheon had actually laughed out loud when he’d been asked if it could penetrate a reinforced cinder-block wall.

Gould was still talking, but Coleman tuned him out and activated his mike again. “Mitch, Stan. If you can hear this, get ready. Things are about to get a lot less subtle.”