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The two hours of her watch crawled by. By the time she gently nudged each team member awake with the toe of her boot, her fingers were numb with cold. Once everyone was up and preparing to get into their gear, Sierra went back to her ruck. She silently thanked Mace for making her get several pairs of warm gloves. His experience operating out here on the Highlands was proving invaluable. Tugging on a pair, she saddled up and was ready with the rest of the team when Mace led them back into the sparse tree line of the jungle, heading toward the village of Caverna. He’d told her it was six miles away, set out in a rocky area.
As they approached the village, NVGs on, Sierra couldn’t see anything. The wind was howling off and on like a mean banshee. She was freezing, her teeth chattering. Wishing she’d bought more alpaca sweaters; she was relieved when Mace gave them the signal to halt near another group of rocks that had been dumped indiscriminately by volcanic action maybe eons ago. She felt slightly warmer. How she wished she could be embraced by Mace, absorbing the heat from his male body, feeling the safety she automatically felt in his arms. The tension of the team amped up. She could sense it, although no one was speaking. They wore their radio headbands, in constant touch with one another. Mace had ordered them not to speak. Clicks on a radio would do, instead. Voices carried. Clicks did not.
Her neck prickled. It was a warning. She saw Mace down on one knee, M-4 in his hands, watching something in the distance. Narrowing her eyes, Sierra thought she saw movement far ahead of them. In the area of the caves. Was it an animal? A human? She couldn’t make it out. Whatever it was, it wasn’t good because she was getting a red flag warning. She felt more than saw Nate come up beside her. His attention was on the same area. She wanted to ask what it was but remained silent. Mace turned, telling her to get the sniper rifle out and ready.
Pulling the AW Super Magnum rifle, Sierra was now in sniper mode. Mace had gotten them all from the edge of the jungle to a stone fortress of rocks almost three-quarters of a mile from the cave entrances. It was still dark, the stars seeming so close, winking in the black velvet sky. She had the .338 Lapua bullets loaded into her mag cartridge and slapped it into the the AW. Having been trained well on the Lapua rounds during Marine Corps school, Sierra was comfortable with the AW even using the specialized bullet. Each mag held five of them. Setting the rifle up up on the bipods sticking out a third of the way down from the end of its barrel, she adjusted her 32X Night Force scope, laying on her belly on the hard ground, the barrel covered in its camouflage netting, matching the terrain. She felt Mace come and lay down next to her as she set up. Right now, as she glanced through her scope, she saw no movement whatsoever. It was 0500 and soon, dawn would crawl up over the eastern horizon.
“How’s the set up going?” he asked. “Do you need help with anything?”
She felt the warmth of his bulk about six inches from her. It felt comforting to her, reminding her of how she and Jeb had worked as a sniper/spotter team. Mace had the spotting scope in his hands. “Okay. Just cross-checking everything, making sure it’s online and working properly.” she said softly.
“Want some spotter help?” he whispered back.
“Always.” Her hands flew over the rifle, intimately familiar with it in every respect. The AW was used by the British SAS as a primary sniper rifle. She had switched to it as soon as Accuracy International had created the weapon. It withstood any extremes of temperature and climate challenges. She settled in, left arm across her body, right hand on the stock. She adjusted the cheek piece, making sure the contact of her face with it was complete. Sighting down the scope, she saw a lot of movement. The scope brought everything up close and clear. “I worry about this wind. It’s a bitch.”
“Yeah,” Mace grunted, “a sniper’s nightmare.”
“Will it stop soon?”
“The gusts get less and less as it gets toward dawn. Doesn’t help you dial in very much, but it’s just something you have to contend with. A gust could knock off a good shot and it’s a miss, not a hit.”
She began to dial in, taking into consideration the temperature, the wind direction, how strong it was, clicking her long, nimble fingers over the rifle’s three drums incrementally. “I’ve got a target.” She grimaced. “Damn, there’s another man right next to Belov…. They’re talking, he’s whispering something into his ear…”
Mace rasped, “We had no idea Belov would be here. If I had options, I’d want the bastard down in the jungle. The only problem with that is, we’d be too close and with few escape routes. At least up here, if you can drop him, we can make a run for it. He’s got at least six or seven men with him, and we’re outnumbered. We want to hit him and then fade into the jungle. We don’t want a firefight.”
“I hear you.” She raised up enough to grab push the knit cap further off her brow. She didn’t want it to get in the way of sighting through her scope. She settled back down; she’d already tamed her air into the pony tail that lay out of the way between her shoulder blades. Watching through the scope, she said, “Belov is out in front of the cave, now, and he’s waving his arms, looks like he’s yelling at the Indians bringing in the sacks of cocaine leaves. That other man is right beside him. He keeps whispering something that he doesn’t want overhead, into Belov’s ear… Acquiring target…”
“Take him out,” Mace ground out.
If she shot and nailed Belov, his men would figure out which way the shot had come from. Even though she had the rifle’s muzzle suppressor screwed on the front of its barrel, Belov would be lifted off his feet and flung backward. And, from that one motion, his men would know the direction the shot had been fired from. And then come after them like a nest of angry hornets. Sierra felt the urgency, the danger, and the slim chance she had to nail the bastard. There! He’d moved slightly and was now in the open. No Indian would be harmed. Her finger caressed the trigger.
“Target acquired….”, and she squeezed off the shot.
The AW rifle jerked once, the recoil jamming deeply into her shoulder. The power of the bullet being sent to take out Belov, nearly a mile away, the energy of it, rippled through her entire body like ripples on the surface of water. Her body took a huge amount of energy from the shot. Mace pulled his night-vision spotter scope away from his eye.
“Belov’s down,” he confirmed. “He’s dead.”
“I saw one of his men with an RPG,” she warned.
Instantly, they leapt into motion. Mace helped her put the AW back into its sheath, helping her get the ruck over her shoulders, the weapon snapped into place on the back of it.
Suddenly, several shots in a row rang out, echoing across the escarpment toward their position. Sparks flew as the rounds struck nearby rocks as the pair scrambled to bug out and disappear back into the jungle.
Mace snapped orders. “Nate, Cale, take the lead. Sierra, follow them. I’m going to hang back to make sure they don’t get onto us or the trail we’re taking.”
Nate tapped Sierra’s shoulder sharply. He made a gesture for her to follow him. Instantly, she was moving like a shadow into the cold night. She followed the combat medic until they were fading like ghosts back into the scraggly refuge of the clinging timberline of the jungle. The trail canted downward. Nate ran hard. She was stumbling here and there. Both wanted to put as much distance between them and Belov’s team as possible. She continued to run in second position, Cale a good twenty feet behind her. Once in the jungle, they started a fast trot down the little-used feeder trail. Wordlessly, she followed, soaring with the knowledge she’d taken out Belov. Her job was done. They must have trotted a half mile up and down hills before Nate held up his fist, signaling her to halt. She skidded to a stop, nearly falling as the mud slid her forward. Cale’s hand shot out and he grabbed onto her left arm, bringing her to a stop, keeping her on her feet.
“Hurry!” Cale rasped, breathing hard. “We’re still in range of the RPG they’ve got.”
Fear shot through Sierra. In her earpiece she heard Mace order Cale to come back and join him; that the crew from the cave was heading their way at top speed. He’d need help.
Cale said, “Keep up with Nate,” and he sprinted along the trail, disappearing quickly, heading back to where Mace was holding rear-guard position. Errantly fired weapons roared, shattering the area, their bullets whizzing wildly around as they ripped by her and Nate. Fear was an old friend; an emotion she never allowed to control or overwhelm her. Now, as never before, Sierra had to run for her life. Literally.
CHAPTER 12
Mace had abad feeling as he watched nine men rushing toward them. There was a mile between them. The team had swiftly moved away from the rock fortress, still in the grayness of dawn, crouched, running like shadows toward the jungle. He scoured the area. Every shadow became a person as he watched for movement, ones that might indicate a Russian operator sneaking up on them. He had no idea why his internal alarm was sounding. But he knew from long experience in the field that it was a warning klaxon and he damned well better listen to it. Cale appeared at a hard run, rifle up, alert and scanning ahead. Belov’s team always carried RPG weapons with them and Mace knew that. RPGs reached a helluva lot further than a bullet and sprayed jagged shrapnel damage upon impact. Never mind the deadly pressure waves that came with it. Cale was hauling hard, the rocks slippery, and he was slowing down as he hit the muddy trail that led to the edge of the jungle. Kilmer waived him to stop when he heard the whoosh of the RPG being fired.
Sonofabitch!
