Robert Ludlum's The Utopia Experiment - By Kyle Mills Page 0,52

well before it reached them, but the force of the blast sent boulders careening down the slope in a cloud of reddish dust. Grant, maybe thirty meters east of her, was in the path of the worst of it. He leapt from the shallow groove but was almost immediately engulfed by the dust.

“Shit!” Randi said in a harsh whisper, trying to will him to reappear. Luck wasn’t on their side, though, and when the air cleared she saw the dazed man struggling to reach his rifle with a leg pinned beneath a rock that probably weighed the better part of half a ton.

A shot hit the ground ten meters in front of the trapped soldier and she swore again. With too many bullets in him to go farther, the Afghan had dug in and was going to keep fighting until he bled out.

The next round was closer—four meters short and three right. It wasn’t going to take long for him to zero in.

“Deuce—are you all right?” she said, touching her throat mike.

“Fine. But Billy’s pinned and my angle on this asshole is crap.”

“I need you to keep him busy for me. On my mark. One, two, three.”

She darted from cover as Deuce let loose a series of controlled bursts upslope. It had been a hastily conceived plan and worked even worse than she expected. The Afghan either didn’t care if he took another bullet or recognized the strength of his position. He’d been ready for her to try to get to her injured comrade and a round burned through the air just in front of her face.

There was no going back, though. She let her momentum carry her, charging toward the debris left by the grenade as a round impacted the butt of the rifle on her back, spun her around, and dropped her to the ground.

Deuce’s weapon had gone silent in an effort to conserve ammunition and the Afghan used the opportunity to squeeze off another round. Randi tensed, but realized she was no longer the target when the bullet impacted less than a meter short of Billy Grant’s right arm. He immediately abandoned his effort to reach his rifle and instead grabbed his blood-soaked thigh in a futile effort to free himself.

There was no question that the Afghan was going to hit him—if not with the next shot, then with the one after that. Randi was only ten meters from her trapped man, but that was ten meters too far in the present situation. And what would she do even if she could reach him? There was no way to free him that didn’t involve at least a shovel and maybe a winch.

The next round was even closer and Grant scooted toward the boulder trapping him, contorting his broken leg into a grotesque shape in an effort to get as close as possible.

“Randi!” she heard Deuce say over her earpiece. “The new toy. Can you use it?”

“It got hit when I was running and I’m not sure I can even lift my head without it getting blown off,” she said, wiggling out of her body armor and holding it up high enough for Grant to see. He looked like he was on the verge of passing out from the pain but managed a dazed nod.

She threw the heavy vest in his direction and it cartwheeled through the air, landing just behind him. He had barely pulled it in front of his chest when a bullet hit dead center, knocking him back with enough force to elicit an audible grunt. He was still alive, though. The multiple layers had absorbed the majority of the impact.

“Deuce!” Randi shouted. “Get me the hell out of here!”

Grant scooted toward the boulder again and tried to make himself as small as possible behind her vest, but there was still plenty of him exposed. And even if that weren’t true, the situation was quickly becoming a disastrous stalemate—a race to see who bled to death first.

“Randi,” she heard Deuce say in her earpiece. “I’m going to draw this guy’s fire. When I do, run.”

“Wait! I didn’t mean—”

He ignored her and sprinted from cover as the Afghan opened up on him. Randi bolted from her position with equal speed, running east before dropping to her stomach at the edge of the debris field.

Deuce made it to safety, but his effectiveness would be right around zero unless he could find a way to get to a more strategic piece of ground. She, on the other hand,