by Dan Simmons
“They both hit the cut,” said Syd, working hard to keep her binoculars steady. “One about a meter to the right and the other about a meter and a half high and to the right of the light boulder.”
“Got it,” said Dar, making final adjustments. “Close enough for government work. Now I’m going to keep my eye in the scope, so you tell me as soon as the hood of the Suburban appears.”
“You’ll only have a second or two to—”
“I know,” said Dar. “Don’t speak until it appears. Just say ‘now.’”
Syd was silent, looking through her optics while Dar blinked away fuzziness in his right eye, found the correct eye relief—that is, the perfect distance of about 2½ inches between his eye and the glass of the scope—forced his left eye to stay open, and concentrated on the crosshairs. At this range he would have to lead the truck, and to do that, he had to estimate its speed. The road was bad and the curve was sharp, but Dar doubted if Yaponchik would be driving slowly to save wear and tear on the Suburban’s suspension. If he were Yaponchik, he’d try to take the turn at thirty-some miles per hour. There would be a lot of dust as the Suburban braked to make the curve.
The image in Dar’s scope was blurred by near-vertical, shimmering waves. Dar knew this phenomenon as a “boiling mirage” which was created by heat waves rising across the great distance; it helped him figure wind velocity. If the parallel ripples had been leaning just a bit more to the left, Dar knew that on a day with eighty-degree Fahrenheit weather such as this, the wind would be moving the mirage waves at a speed of three to five miles per hour. Since they were almost vertical, it meant that there was no appreciable wind at that instant. Also, Dar knew instinctively that the higher temperature was going to increase the muzzle velocity of the Light Fifty slugs—already leaving the barrel at a minimum velocity of twenty-eight hundred feet per second—and that meant that each bullet would strike a bit higher than usual on the target. But the day had turned muggy—Dar guessed about 65 percent humidity—and the added moisture made the air denser, which offered more resistance, which would slow the bullet some. Dar added these factors into his elementary equation of the range—1,760 yards was his final estimate, all the while wishing that he had his Leica with the laser range-finder back—times a wind velocity of 1.5 miles per hour, divided by fifteen. He made a half-click adjustment to his elevation sights and waited.
In the second or two left before engagement, Dar realized the absurdity of the situation. At this range, with this ammunition, factoring in for gravity alone meant that his aiming point was more than sixteen feet above the window level of the vehicle. The target would be moving almost at right angles to Dar’s field of fire—which was good—but if Yaponchik was braking to only thirty miles per hour for the sharp curve, Dar would have to lead the moving vehicle by twenty-some feet. Dar had already estimated that he only had about thirty-five feet from the time the Suburban became visible before it would pass his aiming point. He could not track this target, so he would have to “trap” it—which meant that the Suburban and the SLAP rounds had to arrive at the aiming point at the same time. Luckily, the Suburban was one big fucker. All right, factor in the time it would take for Syd to give the warning and—
“Now!” said Syd.
Dar was just at the end of his breathing cycle and now he held his breath and gently squeezed the trigger once. Trying to ignore the recoil while resetting the crosshair of the reticle on precisely the same part of the boulder, he fired again, sighted, fired again, sighted, fired again, sighted—something dark entering his peripheral field of vision now—and fired again.
“Hit!” said Syd.
“Just one?” asked Dar, jumping to his feet and using the Redfield scope on the lighter M40 for his own viewing.
The Chevy Suburban had lurched to the right and embedded its right front quarter panel in the road cut just beyond the boulder that had been Dar’s aiming point. Through the scope, it looked to Dar as if he had missed the cab but put two armor-piercing rounds into or through the massive V-8 engine block. The hood had been blown off and the windshield was a mass of fracture lines. A third slug appeared to have shredded the left rear wheel—and probably the axle beyond, as well, Dar guessed—and there was the shimmer of fire rising from the back of the truck. There had been no massive and instant explosion, but Dar knew that if he had ignited the Suburban’s gargantuan fuel tank, the truck would burn very nicely.
The flames became visible then. Dar kept the scope on the passenger-side door, knowing that the doors on the right of the big truck were wedged against the dirt-and-rock cut.
For a moment Dar was certain that Gregor Yaponchik was going to burn to death—black smoke was already rising into the morning air from the now freely burning back of the vehicle—but then the door opened and Yaponchik stepped out casually. He was carrying a weapon, but the shape did not look right—not even through the mirage shimmer and distortion—to be the suppressed SVD he had been using above the cabin.
“He has a rifle,” said Syd just as Dar dropped to his knees, lay prone, and used the ten-power Ultra scope on the Light Fifty to get a better look.
“Shit,” Dar said very softly. Yaponchik’s face was still a blur through the mirage ripples, but Dar could recognize the make of the rifle by a glimpse of its unusual five-round rotating-spool magazine. “Scharfschutzengewehr Neun-und-sechsig,” he muttered to himself.
“What?” said Syd, lowering her binoculars.
“Austrian-made SSG 69 sniper rifle,” said Dar, watching the Russian walk off the road and down the steep hillside toward the near mile of field that separated them. “Much better than the Russian rifle he was using near the cabin. This baby is accurate to more than eight hundred meters.”
Syd looked at him, and out of the corner of his eye, Dar saw the concern on her face. “But your fifty-caliber has a better range, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” said Dar, standing again and studying the advancing man through his Redfield scope. He was a tiny figure rippled by heat waves.
“You can kill him long before we’re in range of his rifle, right?” said Syd.
“Right,” said Dar. Yaponchik had entered the sunflowers and high grass of the meadow and was walking straight toward them across the broad, brown expanse. Dar began slinging his M40 rifle to a proper support. He emptied his pockets of everything but three magazines of 7.62mm ammo and jumped off the boulder. He began walking down toward the field.
Syd ran after him.
“Go on back to the boulder,” Dar said softly.
“Fuck you,” said Syd, although without heat. “What is this, some sort of machismo bullshit?”
Dar was silent for a second. Then he said, “Yeah, maybe. Or maybe Yaponchik is just coming this way to surrender. He could have run into the woods going west, you know.”
Syd looked at Dar as if he had turned into an alien life-form. “So you think he’s bringing along this SSG 69 or whatever rifle to aid in his surrender? To give you as a victory gift, maybe?”
“No,” said Dar. “I think he wants to get in range so he can kill me.”
“Us,” said Syd.
Dar shook his head, glancing over his shoulder at the Russian walking toward them. Yaponchik was about fourteen hundred yards away now. “Go on back to the rocks, please, Syd.”
“I said fuck that,” repeated Syd. “Shall I get the AK-47?”
“It’s useless at these ranges,” said Dar.
Syd shook her head. “If I knew how to adjust the sights on that fifty-caliber up there, I’d blow Yaponchik’s head off. He killed Tom Santana.”
“I know,” said Dar softly. He turned and continued down the slope to the field, pausing only when he realized that Syd was still coming with him.
“Please, Syd.”
“No, Dar.”
Dar sighed. “All right. Will you be my spotter?”
“What do I do?”
“Just what you did up on the rock. Stay about three paces behind me and to my
left. Keep him in your glasses. Let me know where my shots are hitting.”
Syd nodded grimly and the two slid down the steep and pebbly slope to the beginning of the meadow. Dar lifted his old M40 and gauged distance through the Redfield reticles. His guess at Yaponchik’s height had been about five eleven, so that would put his current range at twelve hundred yards and closing.
He and Syd began walking through the high grass. The brown stalks slapped softly against their legs and left seeds on the cotton of their trousers. Dar reached a point about fifty yards from their boulder and stopped.
“We’ll let him come to us,” he said softly.
Syd was watching the Russian through her glasses. “That’s a nasty-looking weapon,” she said.
Dar nodded. “The Steyr Company developed it for the Austrian Army,” he said. “Synthetic polymer stock… It has a customized butt made adjustable with spacers.”
“I always wanted one of those,” said Syd.
Dar glanced at her, astounded at her grace under pressure. “I think he’s mounted a Kahles ZF 69 sight on it,” he said at last.
“Is that important?” asked Syd.
“Only because the ZF 69 sight is graduated for very accurate firing out to eight hundred meters,” said Dar. “So we might expect him to take his first shots about then.”
“What’s his range now?” asked Syd, looking through her binoculars again.
“About a thousand meters.” Dar raised his M40, slung it tight, and began clicking the elevation settings.
“He’s coming slow enough,” said Syd. “He’s sure as hell in no hurry.”
“It’s a nice day,” said Dar, seeing Yaponchik’s face clearly for the first time.
At that moment Yaponchik lifted his SSG 69 to port arms and then raised it to sight through the oversized scope. He was still walking.
“Turn sideways,” said Dar. He glanced behind him. “No, not to the left… I have to stand this way because I shoot right-eyed and right-handed, but you turn the other way, so your right side is to him.”
Syd did so, but said, “What the hell is this, some eighteenth-century duel? Is the idea that my ribs are going to stop the black-powder pistol ball?”
Dar had nothing to say to that. Yaponchik had stopped and was ranging them. Dar checked the reticles in his sight and figured the range at about one thousand yards.
Syd said, “Tell me that your rifle is a far superior piece of American engineering than his, Dar.”
“My rifle is a Vietnam-era piece of shit compared to his,” admitted Dar. “But I’m used to it.”
“OK,” said Syd in a tone that said all banter was over for the day. “Ready to spot you.”
Dar adjusted his eye to the sight again. He could see Yaponchik’s face at this range. It should not be possible, he knew, not from a thousand yards, but he could swear that he could see the Russian’s cold, blue eyes.
Yaponchik’s muzzle flashed.
There came a ripping sound from the grass five yards in front of Dar. A puff of dust rose. An instant later two loud cracks echoed across the wide field—the sonic boom of the bullet and then the second part of a double clap, the unsuppressed sound of the rifle firing. Dar watched as the older man smoothly operated the bolt action. Dar could actually see the spool magazine rotate as the next bullet was chambered. How many rounds did a Steyr SSG 69 spool magazine hold? Five or ten? Dar knew that he would find out. He watched as Yaponchik removed the spent cartridge by hand and carefully set it in his trouser pocket just below his black body armor.
Dar suddenly realized that he was not wearing his own vest. Fuck it, he thought, and sighted.
The Russian began walking forward again.
Dar waited. Shooting at a moving target smaller than a Chevy Suburban was rarely a good idea at such a range. When Yaponchik stopped and raised his rifle again, Dar stopped his breathing and squeezed the trigger.
“I didn’t see it hit,” said Syd from her place behind him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see the—”
“Did you see a puff of dust anywhere ahead of him?” asked Dar as he worked the bolt action, retrieved the cartridge, and set it in his blouse pocket.
“No.”
“Then I was high,” said Dar. Yaponchik’s muzzle flashed again.
Dar heard the whine of the slug passing his right ear before the double-crack of the shot itself. Dar had to admit that Yaponchik was ranging him fairly well. And the Russian did not require a head shot since Dar had no vest.
Dar banished the thought and concentrated on vision and calculation.
Yaponchik fired again. The bullet struck halfway between Dar and Syd, throwing pebbles and dust four feet in the air. Dar kept his stance, blinked away shimmers, and lowered his aim slightly. He had to be impressed by the professional fluidity with which Yaponchik worked the bolt action, pocketed the cartridge out of old habit, and resumed his perfect sniper stance without lifting his face from the ZF 69 sight.
Dar fired. The recoil made him lose Yaponchik for a second.
“Short—” cried Syd.
“How much?”
But Syd was already providing the information. “About a meter short. Right on line, though.”
Dar nodded and lifted his sights. He heard rather than saw the wind come up as the grass rustled and his torn blouse lifted slightly in the breeze. He adjusted his sight two clicks to the left.
Yaponchik had already squeezed the trigger. Only one bullet left in that magazine, thought Dar. I hope.
The slug threw up a geyser of dust a foot in front of Syd. She did not flinch. Luckily there had been no rock for the bullet to ricochet from.
Dar heard and felt the breeze strengthen slightly, saw the rippling mirage lines tilt a little farther to the left and then a little more, not quite horizontal but close to it. He estimated the wind at six and a half miles per hour, gave his elevation screw another half click left, reached his exhale spot on his breathing cycle, held his breath, and fired.
“Hit!” cried Syd. “I think…”
Dar did not have to think. He knew it had not been a clean head shot—he could still see Yaponchik’s face and cold blue eyes staring—but there had been a spray of red mist.
The instant seemed to drag on for long minutes, although only a second or two elapsed. Dar had time to action the cartridge out and chamber the next round, his eye never leaving the sight, before Yaponchik fell.
Unlike the movies in which humans are thrown violently backward for many yards from even a pistol shot, Dar had never seen a shooting victim do anything more dramatic than crumple. That was what Yaponchik did now, still holding his sniper rifle at port arms.
“Neck, I think,” said Syd, her voice thick.
“I saw it,” said Dar. “Right at the base of the throat. Just above the vest-line.”
They began walking toward the downed man, Syd removing her 9mm semiautomatic from its holster, when Dar suddenly stopped.
“What?” said Syd, sounding slightly alarmed.
“Nothing,” said Dar. He had slung his M40 over his shoulder. Out of curiosity, he extended his right hand. Then his left. There was no shaking whatsoever. “Nothing,” he said again, feeling a great hollowness rise within him and threaten to carry him away. “Nothing.”
They began walking again. Yaponchik’s crumpled form did not stir.
Syd and Dar were only thirty yards away and could actually see the red spray of arterial blood on the grass and the Russian’s head tilted back at an impossible angle when the skies above them filled with noise.
Both stopped and looked up.
Two of the helicopters had Marine markings and the third one had “FBI” lettered on the side. The FBI chopper landed between them and Yaponchik’s body.
Dar turned, ripped the Velcro off Syd’s vest, lifted the Kevlar over her head, and held her in his arms. All around them, the grasses swayed wildly from the madness of the rotors’ blast.
“I love you, Dar,” said Syd, her words lost in the eng
ine roar, but perfectly understandable.
“Yes,” Dar said, and kissed her softly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Z IS FOR ZOOLOGICAL”
IT WAS TEN days later, a Sunday morning, when Dar’s condo phone rang at 5:30 A.M.
“Shit,” muttered Dar sleepily.
“Ditto,” said Syd, propping herself up on one elbow.
“Excuse me,” said Dar, grunting slightly with pain as the stitches in his side stretched. He reached across Syd’s bare breasts to get the phone, and felt clumsy as he lay on his belly to answer it. He had never learned to sleep on his stomach, but the slowly healing wound just below his backside gave him little choice. Syd claimed that she did not mind when Dar forgot in the night, rolled over on his back or side, and awoke shouting and cursing.
The bullet in his side had been no problem. The emergency-room medic had given Dar a local anesthetic and dug the slug out in fifteen seconds. “Hardly worth coming inside for,” the medic had said. “Should have just used the drive-through.”
Oddly enough, it was his ear that still gave him the most problems. There was still some plastic surgery in the future for that.
Lying on his stomach, using the wrong ear, he answered the phone. “Dar Minor here.”
“Lawrence Stewart here,” came Larry’s happy voice. “Dar, you’ve got to see this.”
“No, I don’t,” said Dar.
Trudy got on the line. It sounded like their cell phone. “Yes, you do, Dar. Trust us. This is going to be a tricky reconstruction job. Bring both your regular camera and your digital.”
Dar sighed. Syd pulled the blanket over her head and sighed even more heavily. “Where are you?” said Dar. If it was more than ten miles away, they could forget it.
“The San Diego Zoo,” said Lawrence, obviously pulling the phone back.
