Savage Son (James Reece #3) - Jack Carr Page 0,132
brain. The thrashing animal was not accustomed to being on its back, which made an accurate shot difficult even at contact distance. To prevent a pistol stoppage from the mess that the animal’s hair, skin, and bones were about to cause, Reece braced his thumb on the back plate and fired one round into its head. Ignoring the instantaneous ringing in his ears from the close shot, Reece pushed clear and struggled to get the awkward snowshoes back under him while attempting to clear his self-induced malfunction from the contact shot.
Before he could rack the slide, the second dog hit him in the ribs, sending the SIG into the snow.
Fuck! How many dogs do these guys have?
As Reece reoriented toward his newest threat, he had another chilling thought: Where is his handler?
Reece adjusted to the new, larger dog and tried to rip the snowshoes off his feet. The dog lunged, its sharp teeth finding purchase near Reece’s collar bone, ripping with its head but coming away with only bits of jacket.
With one snowshoe now free, Reece swung it at his new aggressor, the terrain and the animal’s power keeping the SEAL on his knees as it charged in again. Grabbing for anything he could, Reece pushed one arm into the dog’s muscular chest and wrapped his hand around its left leg. Feeling the teeth sink into his shoulder, Reece remembered the weakest part of a multipurpose canine. He grabbed the animal’s front legs and snapped them apart like a wish bone, breaking the dog’s base. Its primal bark instantaneously became a painful whimper.
Rolling around as he would a human on the jiu-jitsu mats, Reece clinched its head and wrapped his arm around its neck, putting it in an anaconda choke. The dog thrashed and pawed in desperation before depleting the last measure of its strength and going limp in Reece’s arms.
Falling to his back, Reece sucked in precious oxygen. He took stock of his injuries while noting how much longer it took to choke out a dog than a human.
The handler! I need to find my SIG.
Reece scrambled to his feet, the one snowshoe still attached to his foot making standing a tougher proposition than usual. Scanning the immediate area, Reece froze. A sound he knew all too well permeated the ringing in his ears: the sound of an action cycling on a bolt gun. He turned toward it and found himself looking at a huge man in skins and furs. He was holding a .300 Winchester Magnum. It was at his hip, pointing directly at Reece.
CHAPTER 81
REECE WATCHED AS THE bear of a man ran the bolt, sending a cartridge into the snow. His face remained expressionless as he cycled the action once more, ejecting another round. He then moved the rifle to his shoulder.
Click.
Reece inadvertently flinched at what had just become the loudest sound in the world: a firing pin going forward on an empty chamber.
The beast smiled as he turned the rifle around and, holding it by its barrel, swung it like a bat, letting it fly off into the snowy tundra.
Reece dropped back to a knee, fumbling with the clasp on the snowshoe in a desperate attempt to free his foot, the monster slowing his approach as if to give Reece time.
The snowshoe free, Reece went for the blade at his belt but was stopped by a spinning back kick, which sent him careening into the ground, hitting his lower back on a rock hidden just beneath the fresh coat of snow.
Who is this guy? A spinning back kick coming with such speed from a man of that size was not a good sign.
He’s comfortable here, Reece thought, getting back to his feet and shooting in for a double leg takedown.
His opponent sprawled, then spun to take Reece’s back, lifting him up until his hips were over his head, slamming him down like a rag doll.
Reece’s face met the snow, which luckily softened the impact.
Sambo, Reece thought. Russian military.
His opponent backed off, allowing Reece to start to stand.
He’s toying with me.
The Russian then moved in with an agility Reece had not seen in years, taking Reece back down with a scissor sweep, then recovering in the mount position.
Reece covered his face in a vain attempt to block the blows that rained down from above. He heard the Russian laugh, saying something in his native tongue that Reece couldn’t understand.
An image of Raife’s head in a glass container next to his sister’s appeared in Reece’s mind.