hit them hard and fast. Speed and audacity are the only cards we have to play. If either of us goes down, the other must press on without him. Agreed?"
Smith nodded. He did not like any of this, but the other man was right. In this situation, any delay - for any reason, even helping an injured friend - would be fatal. They were so heavily outnumbered that their only chance of escape was to fight their way through anyone in front of them and then keep on moving.
Holding the empty magazine in his left hand and gripping the 1VIP5 in his right, he rose slowly to one knee, getting ready to rush across the tumbledown fence and the open ground beyond it. Beside him, Peter did the same.
Another burst of random gunfire broke out behind them. It faded, leaving only silence.
"Here we go," Peter hissed. "Get ready. Set. Now?"
Both men hurled the empty clips as hard as they could, flinging them high into the air and off to the right. The curved metal magazines landed with a rustle and a clatter - suddenly loud in the night.
Instantly Smith jumped up and ran forward. He dived straight over the split-rail fence, hit the ground rolling, and bounced back up on his feet with Peter just a few yards away.
Smith heard startled shouts from behind them and off to the right, but the enemy had spotted them too late. Still running flat out, he and Peter charged up the gentle slope and over the top of the low rise.
Smith spun immediately to the right, submachine gun gripped in both hands, searching for targets in the weird green half-light supplied by his night-vision gear. There! He saw a shape moving beneath the low-hanging branches of a birch tree less than ten yards away. It was a man, who had been lying prone peering over the crest, turning frantically toward them - trying to bring his own weapon, an Uzi, to bear.
Reacting faster, Jon swung his own MP5 on-target and squeezed the trigger, sending three 9mm rounds into the enemy gunman at point-blank range. All three slammed home with tremendous force. The impact hurled the man backward. He slid to the ground and lay splayed against the chalk-white trunk of the birch tree.
They glided on, following the embankment as it angled northeast and separating as they moved so that no single enemy burst could hit them both. The slope on this side was a mix of birch trees, scrub pines, and clumps of brush, all broken up by tiny patches of open ground. Confused by the sudden burst of shooting, the four mercenaries deployed as "beaters" to drive them into the ambush were firing wildly now - flaying the wrong side of the rise. Bullets ricocheting off trees tumbled high overhead, buzzing angrily like bees.
Smith moved cautiously into a small clearing and caught a sudden flicker of movement out of the corner of his right eye. He spun around and saw the blackened barrel of an M16 assault rifle poking out from behind a vine-covered tree stump. It was traversing in his direction! He threw himself down just as the hidden gunman fired. One 5.56mm round grazed his left shoulder, tearing a bloody gash through cloth and skin. Two more rifle bullets tore long furrows through the earth close by.
Jon rolled away, desperately trying to shake the enemy rifleman's aim. More rounds followed him, again slashing at the ground only inches away from his head. Still rolling, he looked for cover - any kind of cover-within reach. There was nothing. He was trapped out in the open.
And then Peter appeared behind him and opened fire, methodically hammering the tree stump with controlled bursts. Pieces of bark and shredded vine flew away through the air. The hidden rifleman screamed once, a piercing shriek, and then fell silent.
"Are you all right, Jon?" Peter called softly.
Smith checked himself over. The graze on his shoulder was bleeding and it would hurt like hell soon enough. But miraculously that was the only wound he had taken.
"I'm okay," he reported, still breathing hard as he recovered from the shock of nearly being gunned down so easily. Moving out into that clearing had been a big mistake, he realized - the kind of screwup raw recruits made in training. He shook his head once, angry with himself for the error.
"Then go make sure that bastard's really down and dead. I'll cover you," Peter said urgently. "But do it