Field of Fire

by Marc Cameron

  Cold gray eyes flicked toward the sound of creaking wood—someone heavy plodding down the hallway in bare feet. It would be Kravchuk, up to take a piss. Zolner had warned him about keeping company with prostitutes. The man’s prostate could no longer last two hours, let alone an entire night. Zolner hated the thought of training a new spotter. Sitting in a sniper hide with someone who had to urinate every other moment was impractical. Zolner eyed the Grach 9mm pistol on the varnished pine night table beside his bed. As if on cue, Kravchuk’s graveled voice carried in from the hall on a series of coughs. A smart man, he did not want to be mistaken for an enemy and shot through the wall.

  “It’s just me boss, going to the toilet.”

  As large as the bed was, it was almost too short for Zolner. At a brawny six feet eight, his heels came within inches of the footboard.

  Zolner threw back the covers and swung long, powerful legs off the bed. He’d showered the night before, putting on a fresh set of wool underwear so he could be ready to move at a moment’s notice.

  Igoshin had thought to ingratiate himself by telling Zolner all about the dark and dangerous man who’d beaten him up with the fire poker. Quinn, that was his name. According to the babbling Russian, the blond woman traveling with him was FBI, which was curious. In Zolner’s experience, American policemen traveled in packs, and then called in even more reinforcements at the slightest provocation. These two were hunting Dr. Volodin, so FBI or not, that made them a problem.

  Foolishly believing that he and Zolner were operating on the same team, Igoshin bragged that he’d sabotaged Quinn’s airplane, swearing through broken lips and a swollen face that it had to have crashed somewhere in the bush not long after takeoff. Zolner had allowed the buffoon to remain alive only because he might remember some significant information during the night. In Zolner’s world one did not ingratiate himself by getting beaten by the enemy. Weakness was to be weeded out, never tolerated. Wolves did not accept excuses from one of their own if it was injured and unable to hunt. Useless members of the pack became a valuable food source and were simply eaten for the good of all.

  Zolner planned to question Igoshin once more before he left and then put the useless man out of his misery. He hadn’t decided yet what he would do with the old couple—if they were even still alive. Yakibov, the former Spetsnaz soldier, had made it clear that he considered the woman a spoil of war. Zolner thought his spotter to be a sadistic bastard, but Yakibov appeared to have even Kravchuk beaten in that regard.

  Seated on the edge of the soft mattress with both feet on the floor, Zolner rubbed a large hand over the bristles of his salt-and-pepper crew cut, then down across his face, feeling the stubble and the small scar that ran across the bottom of his chin. He had few external scars, and the man who had given him that one had paid dearly for the privilege.

  Rolling off the bed to drop facedown to the cool wooden floor, he pushed himself into a plank position. His dear mother had told him when he was very young that her grandfather had done fifty push ups each morning before anything else, even over the long and tortuous months of the Battle for Stalingrad. Zolner had followed in his great-grandfather’s footsteps, finding a routine of morning exercise got his blood moving and made him immediately more alert.

  Zolner performed each pushup with the same exactness that he did everything. Afterward, he took himself through a series of stretches, some seated, some standing, always paying particular attention to his breathing. Some would have called what he did yoga.

  Kravchuk’s cough in the hallway drew his attention toward the door.

  “Boss?”

  “What is it?” Zolner said, bending at the waste to touch the flat of his palms to the ground. His thick chest pressed against his thighs.

  Kravchuk coughed again, a habit even more problematic than the overactive bladder. “Davydov has the plane ready to go at first light . . .”

  “And?” Zolner said. With Kravchuk, there was always an “and” of late. The man could never get to the point without a lengthy preamble. Zolner expected his pilot to have the plane ready to go the instant he wanted to leave. There was no reason to inform him of that fact.

  Kravchuk coughed again. “That guy, Igoshin, he has been begging to talk to you. He says it is important.”

  “Of course he does,” Zolner said. Igoshin had surely spent the fevered night mulling over dozens of scenarios where he could trade information for his pitiful life.

  * * *

  Zolner’s hunting boots were waterproof and quiet, making little noise on the polished wood as he trotted down the stairs and into the lodge’s great room fifteen minutes after he’d finished his morning stretches. He carried his rifle loosely in his left hand. It was pleasing to see that Kravchuk had a fire going in the stone hearth, adding a small element of cheer to the otherwise dreary mood in the log interior.

  Zolner’s camouflage clothing and freshly shaved face combined with his rigid posture to give him the look of an officer in some elite unit. In truth, he’d never been a part of the actual military, working instead on contract for specific generals and colonels who could get their hands on enough money to meet his price.

  Zolner folded out the aluminum legs of the bipod and set the rifle on the long wooden table so the weapon rested upright, protecting the three-thousand-dollar 12-52X56 Valdada scope. Both the rifle and the attached suppressor were covered in a white and gray “Yeti” Kryptek camouflage pattern, perfect for winter stalking.

  Kravchuk slid a bowl of cooked oats across the table—as was expected of him first thing in the morning.

  Igoshin slumped where Zolner had left him, in a large leather chair beside the fire, panting heavily, a bag of frozen vegetables pressed to the bloody mess that had once been his face. He’d been dozing, or maybe half unconscious considering the extent of his head injuries, but he glanced up at the noise of the bowl sliding on wood and tried to push himself to his feet.

  “Please,” Zolner said, “stay where you are.”

  Igoshin fell back with a low groan, vegetables to his face.

  Henderson, the lodge owner, sat tied to one of his high-backed wooden dining chairs. His wrists were red and torn from struggling against the ropes. His shirt torn, Henderson’s head lolled in a state of near insanity, half teetering between consciousness and complete madness. His eyes were swollen shut from crying. Blood and spittle drooled down his grizzled chin, smearing the pale flesh of his shuddering chest. He’d no doubt heard the incessant screeching from his wife as Yakibov demonstrated the special techniques a disgraced Spetsnaz soldier had at his disposal for the treatment of a female war prize.

  Kravchuk must have told Yakibov that Zolner was up, because he dragged the shattered woman in by her hair before Zolner even had time to take a bite of his oats. Zolner nodded to another of the high-backed chairs and Yakibov shoved her into it.

  “We’re not complete animals,” Zolner said, wiping a bit of milk from his lips with a paper napkin. “Allow the poor woman to sit by her husband.”

  Yakibov grunted, sliding the chair and the women across the room. Zolner wondered if he’d even taken the time to sleep.

  Mrs. Henderson’s eyes were open but catatonic, staring a thousands meters into the distance, unfocused. There was nothing left of the fiery spark they’d held when Zolner and his men first arrived. It was unlikely she recognized her own husband or even knew where she was anymore.

  Everyone sat in silence as Zolner finished his oats, picking up the bowl to drink the last of the milk. Without warning, he slammed his fist on the table, rattling the bowl and causing Igoshin to nearly jump out of his skin across the room. Mr. Henderson’s eyes opened, but he was too exhausted to flinch. Mrs. Henderson just continued to stare.

  “So,” Zolner said. “You wanted to speak with me?” He remained at the table, his back to Igoshin. One hand rested on the cheek piece of his rifle while he flipped up the bolt with the other, inspecting the chamber.

  “I had hoped you would se
nd word to Colonel Rostov,” the wounded Russian said. “Inform him I am here so he can send an extraction team to take me home.”

  Zolner moved slowly around the table so the rifle was between him and the squirming Russian. “What do you think of my weapon?” he said, looking up at Igoshin with the full force and effect of his gray eyes.

  Igoshin opened his mouth as if to speak, but produced only mumbles. When he finally rallied his words they came in nervous stops and starts. “I . . . it . . . I . . . it is exquisite.”

  “I think so as well,” Zolner said. He patted the stock as if it were a beloved friend. “She is chambered in 375 CheyTac and built especially for me.” He ran a hand from the muzzle up the fluted barrel toward the action. “Aluminum stock, adjustable for pull and cheek height, she weighs nineteen pounds without the Valdada scope.” He gave a chuckling nod, as if both men shared a secret. “Some people of weak constitution might say that a rifle that pushes a 300 grain bullet at over 3000 feet per second needs to be heavier.” He gave a disdainful flip of his hand as if shaking off a thought he felt was unclean. “But I am a man, and men are not bothered by a small amount of recoil.”

  “Of course not,” Igoshin muttered.

  Across the great room, standing beside the catatonic Mrs. Henderson, Yakibov smiled.

  Zolner released the CheyTac’s box magazine into his hand, then used it to gesture toward Igoshin as he spoke. “Colonel Rostov informed me that one of the men in your team was trained as a sniper. Decorated in battle.”

  Igoshin moved the frozen vegetables away from his swollen face. His nose was split across the bridge and hung more off than on. “That was me,” he said, nodding his head emphatically, apparently thinking the two had found some common ground. “The colonel was speaking of me.”

  “Well, that is good news,” Zolner said. Kravchuk passed him a plastic container of ammunition and he began to press rounds into the magazine one at a time. Loaded with a projectile of a solid copper nickel alloy, the rounds were huge, each nearly as long as his ring finger. Zolner pushed seven of them into place with a series of resounding clicks. “I consider myself fortunate when I am able to speak with another professional shooter.” Zolner looked up. “May I see your rifle?”

  Igoshin hung his head. “I no longer have it,” he whispered.

  “I did not quite hear you.” Zolner pressed the loaded magazine back into the rifle, driving it home with a firm smack. The bag of frozen vegetables slipped from Igoshin’s hands with the sudden noise.

  “The dark man took it,” Igoshin said.

  “Quinn?” Zolner said. “I see. This dark man must have been highly trained in order to shoot two of Colonel Rostov’s men and beat you to death. It takes an especially skilled man to steal the one thing that a professional sniper would never allow himself to lose.”

  “He—”

  Zolner pounded the table again. “The one thing!” he roared, glaring at Igoshin with dead gray eyes.

  “He is—” Igoshin repeated himself.

  “You have already told me about him,” Zolner said. He gave a nod to Yakibov and Kravchuk. “In fact you’ve proven yourself quite a talker. I want to know what you told this man about me.”

  “I told him nothing,” Igoshin said. “I . . . I swear it. He is surely dead in any case.”

  “People like this Quinn are cockroaches,” Zolner said. “I will assume they infest my life until I feel them crack under the heel of my boot.” He sat at the table and swung the rifle around so it was pointed directly at Igoshin, fifteen feet away. The buffoon began to hyperventilate, casting battered eyes around the room looking for any ally, any route of escape.

  “I ask you again, my friend.” Zolner kept his voice low, almost consoling. “What do this dark man and the FBI agent know of me?”

  “There was an Eskimo girl with them,” Igoshin said. “She had heard stories about you. She told everyone who listened that you are a ghost, a great hunter who steals her people away when they are out on the ice.”

  Zolner smiled as if this pleased him. “These Natives, they fear me, then?”

  Igoshin nodded so emphatically it looked as though his head might fly off the end of his neck. The movement must have put him in great pain considering the injuries to his face, but it didn’t stop him. “You scare the shit out of them, sir. They are terrified of your hunting skill.”

  “That is good to hear,” Zolner said.

  “They have a name for you,” Igoshin said, caught up in the act of pleasing his captor, oblivious to the futility. “They call you Worst of the Moon.”

  Zolner’s smile was genuine this time. “Worst of the Moon,” he said, considering each word. “I like that very much.” The smile vanished from his face, and he leaned forward against the rifle’s stock, working the bolt to feed a round into the chamber. The action was butter-smooth and hardly made a sound. He flicked his free hand, motioning his men to drag the Hendersons’ chairs so they were seated directly in front of the table, lined up shoulder to shoulder between the muzzle of the CheyTac and Igoshin’s heaving chest.

  Zolner put his eye to the scope. The view was extremely blurry, as he knew it would be. At this close range, a blurry reference was sufficient. The bullet would rise as it flew from the barrel so he lifted the butt of his rifle slightly, placing the center of the crosshairs on the fuzzy patch of cloth three inches above Mr. Henderson’s elbow.

  Rising from his chair, Zolner stepped back to study his targets, hands together, thumbs to his lips, as an artist might consider a work in progress.

  “The question remains,” Zolner said at length. He moved around the table to reposition Mrs. Henderson’s chair so her right shoulder touched her husband’s left arm. If the woman knew what was about to happen, she gave no indication. “How did this Eskimo girl know I was coming? How did she know she should be afraid of me?”

  Igoshin appeared to sink into the stuffing of the chair, defeated.

  “How long until sunrise?” Zolner said taking his seat back behind the CheyTac.

  Kravchuk looked at his watch. “Fifty-one minutes, boss,” he said.

  “Very well. I am almost finished here. Inform Davydov I wish to be in the air before sunrise—as soon as it is light enough to see the ground as we fly.”

  Zolner peered over the top of the scope at the dejected Igoshin. “I will shoot only once.” His eyes shifted to the Hendersons, his voice a piercing whisper. “Think of it—bone, lung, heart, lung, bone, bone, lung, heart, lung, bone . . .”

  Igoshin pressed his eyes together, beginning to weep.

  “It is possible that it will strike a rib or even a spine and stop somewhere along the way.” Zolner settled in with his cheek pressed firmly against the stock. “But you and I both know that is highly unlikely.” At this distance, he didn’t have to worry about his breathing—but he did anyway. Every shot must be perfect. His mother had taught him that.

  Chapter 36

  New York

  Petyr Volodin loved the pop and whir of the thin plastic jump rope as it snapped against tile and sped past his ears. Knees bent, ankles loose, the balls of his feet barely left the floor. He breathed through his nose, keeping his heart rate slow. Sweat rolled down a hairless chest, soaking the waistband of his gray sweatpants.

  The clientele at Ortega’s ran the gamut of prospective fighters. Street kids got a break on a locker and lessons for a flat forty bucks a month. Petyr paid half again that just for the locker—but that’s all he needed. It was the steady stream of corporate warrior types who paid the rent. These were the executive fighters—the mortgage brokers, investment bankers, and accountants. They didn’t fight to find a career. Hell, virtually everyone who stepped in the cage got a trophy, win or lose. But there was something about the smell of spit buckets and liniment, the taste of sweat and blood that added some missing element to their mundane lives.

  There were plenty of other fight gyms around Manhattan, but the men and women who ventured into Ortega’s in East Harl
em seemed to believe that working out in a gritty gym would give them a competitive edge over guys who trained at more glitzy, upscale places.

  Petyr liked East Harlem because it was one of the few places left in the world where he could still get a little respect. The guys at Ortega’s had no idea his tattoos were fake. Here, he was a bona fide ex-con from some brutal Russian gulag they’d seen on the Discovery Channel, one of the Thieves, an Eastern Bloc badass, the real deal. This was one of the few places he could still grab a workout with no shirt on and not have to worry about some guy with a spider tattooed on his neck shivving him in the liver.

  Petyr often used the time he spent skipping rope to try and sort out difficult problems—like these stupid tats. Damned Nikka and her bright ideas. Mr. Anikin wanted him dead. The guys who showed up to kill him at his apartment had made that obvious. Beating them to death had been self-defense, but who was going to believe that? Now he had a murder rap to figure out piled on top of everything. He made a mental note to give Nikka an extra smack when he saw her again, for talking him into getting the ink. And then there was the shit at Cheekie’s. What was that all about anyway? He couldn’t quite get his head wrapped around the big southern dude and his mean-ass little friend with the battered face. They’d apparently taken over the place from Gug. They acted like cops, but seemed more interested in his father than him—until he’d popped off to the steamy little sweetmeat dancing on the stage. Then they’d gotten all up on him, focusing their self-righteous rage at his behavior. Petyr sped up his rope work, letting the whir and slap console him as he pondered over the situation. Last he checked, Cheekie’s was a titty bar where you were supposed to go to watch naked girls dance. Kicking him in the nuts like that was a bitch move. They’d caught him by surprise, that’s all. Given the chance at a fair fight, he’d mop the ring with either one of those guys. And then their bootylicious girlfriend would be all alone and with no protection from whatever pimp racket they had going. Then Petyr the Wolf would show her what a real man was like.