Spycatcher s-1

by Matthew Dunn

  Roger shouted, “Two confirmed kills, but the bastards are flanking me! I’m dead if I hold my position!”

  Will immediately stopped. “Get out of there, Roger.”

  “Not until you have your man in your sights.”

  Will kicked the ground in frustration. He looked ahead at the elevating ground. He looked back in the direction of the lodge and Roger’s dire position. He cursed and pointed his gun at the sky. He fired all the bullets that remained in his magazine. The noise from his gun echoed and bounced around the lake valley.

  “If that was you”-Roger was almost screaming over the sound of his own machine gun-“then you definitely got their attention! The four men on my right flank are leaving me alone! You’ve given me a chance! But those four hostiles are coming for you!”

  Will placed a new clip into his rifle and sprinted onward. Fresh snow started to fall in gentle flurries, and he fervently hoped that it was not going to become heavier and destroy any chances he had of finding tracks. He ran for another two kilometers, and all the time he could hear gunfire coming from the area around the lodge.

  When the gunfire stopped, so did Will, momentarily. He jabbed a finger against his earpiece and waited. He sighed with relief as he heard Roger’s voice.

  “All hostiles by the lodge are dead. You’ve still got four on your tail, though, and there’s no sign of the snipers. But I’m coming for you.”

  “I’m about two point five kilometers away from you. Head toward the mountain.”

  Fresh wind blew into Will’s face. He looked at the sky and its darkening clouds and shook his head. He wondered if the assault on the house had been in vain. He wondered if the bravery and sacrifice of Julian, Ben, and Laith would ultimately be meaningless. He wondered if Roger would be able to stay alive. And he wondered if today would be the day his own life came to a pointless end.

  He forced his legs into action and pumped them harder to accelerate over the thick snow and rising ground. His breathing came loud, and his lungs ached from the icy air. He ran faster until he’d covered another two kilometers, still constantly scanning his surroundings.

  Then he saw them.

  They were two distant dots at first, but when he looked through his rifle’s scope, he saw a man and a woman running up the lower slopes of the mountain. He adjusted the scope to intensify and magnify the image. He saw that the woman was Lana. The man had his back to him and was pulling Lana’s arm.

  Will clasped his fingers to his throat mike and shouted, “I have a visual! One man and Lana! At the base of the mountain!”

  The noise of a rifle shot boomed through the valley behind him. Will called, “Roger?”

  A few seconds later, Roger spoke. His voice sounded weak. “Hold on, Will. . busy.”

  More gunfire could be heard, and it sounded like it was coming from Roger’s weapon.

  Then Roger spoke again. “One sniper confirmed dead. But he shot me first.”

  “How bad?”

  “Not critical. But it tore out a chunk of my calf muscle. Short of dragging myself along the ground, I’m immobile.”

  “I’m coming to get you.”

  “No, you’re not, Will.” The man’s voice was raspy but firm. “You’re going to get them.”

  Will stomped the ground in frustration. “All right. Stay where you are. Stay in radio communication. Shoot anything that comes near you.”

  He quickly glanced through his scope again and estimated that his quarry was approximately fifteen hundred meters ahead of him. He inhaled deeply and ran forward. After ten minutes he knew he was now at the base of the mountain. He saw footprints and felt an immediate sense of hope.

  “Can you see me from your position?” he asked Roger.

  Roger’s words were strained. “No. The trees are too dense. But”-he paused-“I’m using the dead sniper’s rifle scope to look around the area between us both. I’m getting brief glimpses of the men on your trail, but they’re so brief that I’m not getting any chance for clear shots. The men are about one kilometer behind you. I still can’t see the other sniper, though.”

  “Understood.”

  A loud crack sounded by Will’s ear, and he was instantly thrown sideways. He put a hand to his head and felt blood and shards of wood. Looking at the tree next to him, he saw that a high-velocity bullet had hit it and sent splinters straight into his face. He pulled himself into a crouch and glanced behind him. He knew that the bullet had come from the sniper. He was now within deadly range of that man’s weapon.

  “Roger, the sniper’s onto me.”

  Roger coughed. “The one I killed was wearing an arctic camouflage suit. That’s why I didn’t spot him until it was too late. You’ve got to take your man out, or he’ll easily kill you before you get halfway up the mountain.”

  Will looked in the direction of Lana and her captor, then back in the direction of the valley, and knew that Roger was right. He quickly examined the bullet mark on the tree again and decided that the man must have made the shot from the east. He decided that the shooter was on his own and away from his colleagues to the south. He had to be close to make a meaningful shot through the wooded area around them. Will calculated that his assailant had no reason to deviate from his easterly position, given that the very last thing he would expect was for his target to turn back and try to hunt him down. Will strapped his carbine to his chest, pulled out his combat knife, and commenced his hunt.

  He jogged downhill, and despite zigzagging to make his route unpredictable, he knew he was still an easy target for the sniper. He wanted it that way. His only plan was to expose the sniper by encouraging him to shoot at him, since he didn’t have time for a more sophisticated and patient tactic. But he knew that the chances of his being shot were great, and he knew that if the high-velocity bullet hit him anywhere in the upper thigh or above the waist, he would most likely die from the wound. He resisted the urge to sprint and instead kept his pace steady.

  He reached a small clearing, stopped, and looked around. He listened but heard nothing. Snowflakes caressed his face. He moved ahead into denser forest and then caught the very slightest of movements in his peripheral vision. He turned to face the direction of the movement but saw nothing, and he wondered if his eyes were deceiving him. He moved again just as a very loud crack sounded close by, followed by a rush of air close to his head. He saw a flash of light and realized that it belonged to a rifle scope. Behind the scope was a man whose white combat clothing made him barely visible against the backdrop of snow. The man was pointing his rifle at him. The man was only forty meters away.

  Will dived sideways just as another shot was fired. He immediately got up and sprinted at the sniper while the man was frantically trying to chamber another round into his weapon. The man slammed the bolt action of his rifle forward as Will came to within a few meters of him. He raised his weapon, but Will hurled himself forward and crashed into the sniper. Legs and arms lashed out violently at Will’s head and body, and he was pushed back a little with the force. Smashing the butt of his rifle into Will’s head, the sniper tried to break away. Will shook his head in pain and knew that the man needed a few meters of distance from him in order to shoot. He did not hesitate. He pulled himself to his feet, kept his head low, gripped his knife tightly, and charged at the man. When he reached him, he raised his upper body, grabbed the back of the man’s neck, and punched the knife into his stomach. Despite the thick padding of the arctic camouflage, the knife easily sliced through clothing and flesh until its blade was fully inside the man’s body. Will held him like that for a moment and then wrenched the knife upward so that the sniper’s entire stomach was ripped open. He pulled out his knife and watched the sniper’s pure white suit become saturated with his blood. He let the man fall backward, unstrapped his assault rifle, and shot him twice in the head.

  Will breathed heavily and spoke into his throat mike. “The second sniper’s dead.”

  Roger’s reply was instant. “You’ve got no time to st
and still. I can see that the four-man team has fanned out, meaning they’ve lost your position. But they’re close to you.”

  “Are you sure that you can’t pick any of them off with your rifle?”

  Roger said nothing for a moment. Then: “I’ve tied the rifle to a tree to try to enable a steady shot. And I’ve tied myself to the same tree.”

  Will closed his eyes, sighed, and spoke softly. “How much blood have you lost, Roger?”

  “Enough to make my arms and legs shake and make shooting near-impossible. Not enough to stop talking to you.” He coughed. “A little blood loss doesn’t bother me. I’ll do what I can. Just focus on what you have to do.”

  Will opened his eyes, rubbed a bruise on the side of his head, and winced in pain from the touch. He gulped in air and ran back toward the mountain and Lana and the man who was dragging her up its slopes. Snow still fell serenely, at odds with what was happening here. Will ran faster than he thought he was capable of until he reached the point where he’d last seen his quarry. He looked through his small rifle scope but saw nothing ahead, so he urgently scoured the ground for the footprints he’d seen earlier. He found them, now under a powdering of fresh snow, and sprinted onward. His feet trampled over the route that Lana and the man had taken.

  The ground rose sharply, causing Will to slow. He looked left and right, trying to find any evidence of a mountain track to aid his ascent, but everything around him was wild and inhospitable.

  Five or six bullets hit snow-covered ground in rapid succession to his left. They were wide of their mark, and Will knew that they’d come from an automatic weapon. But he also knew that he’d been momentarily spotted by at least one of the hostiles behind him. He looked down at the footprints and saw that they followed an almost straight route up the mountain. Will thought for a moment. He made a decision and ran to the right of the tracks as fast as the severity of the grade would allow him to. After traveling for three hundred meters, he stopped, breathing heavily. He turned, sat down on the snowy slope, calmed his breathing, and scoured the area below him through his rifle scope. Everywhere was beautiful, with the Saranac Lakes in the distance, the hills around them, a carpet of pure white snow covering all ground and trees. Will ignored the beauty of his surroundings and focused on finding the man who had shot at him so that he could kill him.

  He spoke to Roger and gave the CIA man his approximate location. “One of the hostiles is close to me. Can you see anything?”

  Roger took a moment to respond, and Will knew that he would be searching for signs of life through the powerful lens of his sniper rifle. His words came quick and quiet. “I saw something, just briefly, to your southwest and approaching the base of the mountain.”

  Will swung his rifle in that direction, moving it so that it was looking between trees, at ground, at streams.

  “Movement again.” Roger’s words were barely audible. “Same location. He must be about nine hundred meters from your position.”

  Will breathed deeply. Then he saw the man and stopped breathing. The man was walking quickly and carried his rifle in one hand. His head and upper body were bent down. He was clearly moving to another position to try to shoot Will. And he was clearly oblivious to the fact that Will could now see him.

  Will relaxed his body, moved the crosshairs of his scope slightly in front of the moving man’s head, and waited for the right moment. The distance between himself and the hostile was at least twice the effective range of the Colt M4A1, and Will knew that he would have only one chance of hitting the man. If he missed, the man would sprint for cover and vanish. His quarry appeared and disappeared through trees and was heading toward a large outcropping of mountain rock. Will decided that he had to shoot the man before he reached it. He breathed in fully, then partially breathed out before holding his breath. He waited. He shot.

  The man slumped to the ground. Will’s bullet had struck him in the center of his head.

  Will stood and turned back to face the steep incline of the mountain. “He’s down.”

  “Good, but the others will know where you are now.” Roger’s voice sounded very weak. “It’s now or never. Save Lana. Get Megiddo.”

  Will exhaled. “Roger, you and your men have gone beyond what I asked of you. You don’t need to stay where you are. I’m sure your injury is worse than you told me. Crawl back to the lodge. There are probably medical supplies in there.”

  “There’s one bullet in my gun, and I’m not going anywhere until I have the chance to use it.”

  Will nodded and ran farther up the mountain, occasionally stumbling as his feet hit snow-hidden rocks and branches. Its summit grew closer until he knew that he was only a few hundred meters from the mountaintop. The wind became stronger and brought with it ice-cold air.

  He narrowed his eyes and tried to look at everything before and around him. He heard Lana’s words.

  One day you’ll be here for me.

  He squinted through the rifle scope; he moved his gun left and right; he ran; he walked; he crawled; he did everything he could to remain a hunter rather than a corpse.

  He ran again and stopped suddenly. He crouched, raising his weapon. He could see them. The man still had his back to Will and was dragging Lana with him. Will focused the crosshairs of his scope on the man’s back. At this range the shot would be easy.

  He thought about his father. He thought about the savagery inflicted on him by the man he now had in his crosshairs. He thought how easy it would be to quickly incapacitate the man with one shot and then to kill him in a slower, more satisfying way.

  He held his breath.

  He thought about the thousands of lives that could be lost if the shot killed Megiddo and his secret. He thought about Lana and how she would suffer at Megiddo’s hand if Will’s shot did not kill him instantly.

  He lowered his rifle.

  Roger’s voice sounded quietly in his earpiece. “The three hostiles are now together and seven hundred meters from the summit.”

  “Roger, I’m very close to my quarry, but I need time.” Will took one step forward. “Try to make a shot. Try to draw the three men away from me.”

  Roger sighed. “They’re nearly three kilometers away from my position. But I’ll try.”

  Will looked through his scope again, but Lana and her captor were gone from sight. He cursed. He moved farther up the mountain.

  He knew that the sound of the high-velocity shot had come from a distance, but its noise still echoed around the valley and over the contours of adjacent mountains. Will instantly dropped low, spinning around. He listened for nearly ten seconds before he heard Roger’s voice.

  The CIA man’s words sounded labored. “I got him in the head. He’s dead.”

  Roger had just killed one of the three Iranian men following Will. The distance of the shot, the adjustments required to compensate for elevation and weather, and the fact that Roger was injured made the shot remarkable.

  Roger spoke again. “Damn it. The other two went to ground for a moment, but now they’ve continued pursuing you. I’m sorry, Will. I thought they’d turn and come back to kill me. Either way, that was my last bullet.”

  Will cursed. “Okay. Keep trying to track their movements. Stay in radio communication. That’s all that matters now.”

  Another rifle shot rang out from the distance. Will frowned. “I thought you were out of bullets.”

  “That wasn’t me, but one of the two Iranian hostiles following you is down.”

  There was another rifle shot.

  “I’ve shot the two men coming after you.” The voice belonged to Laith. “The snipers put me on my ass for a while. But I’m back in it now.” He coughed. “I’m off the island and positioned by the lakeside.”

  Will nodded. “I’m glad you’re back in the land of the living. Get to Roger and help him.”

  Will sprinted up the mountainside for nearly a hundred meters before seeing something that looked out of place. He dived to the ground, brought his rifle up hi
gh, and raised himself to a crouch.

  Lana was before him.

  She was on her knees, her head was slumped. Ropes had been lashed around her throat, upper body, and legs, fixing her to a tree. Her hands were tied across her chest to form the shape of a cross.

  He looked all around her and through the large flakes of snow that still fell slowly. They were on the summit, and with the exception of the tree that held Lana, the mountaintop was bare of life. He looked at her, his heart pounding as thoughts raced through his mind. He knew she could be bait for a trap. She could be a means to delay him, allowing Megiddo time to escape down the other side of the mountain. Megiddo must have been aware that Will was following him up the mountain. Whatever was happening, he could not leave her like this.

  Will walked carefully forward, scanning to the left and right of Lana with his gun. He reached her, squatted, and lifted her head. Her eyes were closed. She was unconscious.

  He looked at the hands crossed over her chest. Drawing out his knife, he began cutting carefully through the cords that bound them. He pulled his knife upward, slicing through the last of her wrist cords. The movement forced her hands toward him. He looked down and for the tiniest moment frowned.

  Lana’s unbound arms involuntarily released two hidden grenades. The devices fell toward the ground, and in that fraction of a second Will cursed his own stupidity. Megiddo had tied her up in such a way as to kill both her and Will the moment her cords were cut.

  The immense noise and light momentarily destroyed everything. There was no thought, no pain, no sight, nothing.

  He opened his eyes. Or maybe they were open already. He thought he saw white. He sensed that he was suspended in nothing but white. He did not know if he saw or sensed anything real. But white was all around him.

  Seconds, minutes, or hours passed. He had no way of knowing anything about time.