Savage Son (James Reece #3) - Jack Carr Page 0,142

Krai, and its rotors were already beginning to turn.

“Idti! Idti!” Go! Go! Nikolay shouted as the turbines of the Mi-8 spooled up, ushering his boss and his underling toward their extraction platform.

The youngest man on the detail knelt by the helo, weapon pointed out into the unknown.

* * *

Reece knew he had to work quickly. The FAL was not equipped with a suppressor, which meant that its muzzle flash would be visible to the security detail.

Prioritize the threats.

The fore end of the stock was nestled securely on the leather satchel he had carried first through Kamchatka and across the Sea of Okhotsk and then on to the mainland, and then by foot across Siberia. The fire from the still-burning Laplander off-road truck he’d destroyed moments earlier provided just enough illumination for him to use his iron sights. Covered in the mossy green tundra that had once absorbed the most powerful impact event in modern history, his position was located outside the ring of the light. Fire had once provided safety to those who stood within its sphere, warding off tigers, leopards, and bears. Now that light from the burning vehicle was the death knell for those it illuminated.

Six targets. Only five bullets remained.

As the group of four men arrived at the helicopter door, Reece’s finger depressed the trigger.

His first bullet caught a man kneeling by the helo directly between the nose and mouth, showering the rear security in brain particles. Before his AKM could answer, two 7.62x51 rounds from Reece’s rifle took him in the upper chest just above his body armor and sent him crashing into the front of the helo and onto the cold ground.

Seeing men falling around his helicopter, the pilot yanked up on the collective and increased pitch even before his passengers had boarded the aircraft.

Nikolay shouted over the chaos, beckoning the pilot to return the bird to the ground. He’d be executed later for his insolence and cowardice.

Nikolay then watched in horror as the pilot’s body contorted violently, the helo just eight feet off the ground.

* * *

Reece’s last two rounds had entered under the pilot’s right arm, tearing through his body before exiting through the glass on the opposite side of the helicopter. The pilot lurched forward against the stick as a bloody froth erupted from his mouth and nostrils, inadvertently pushing down on the collective and sending the chopper in a violent left spin. The rotors tore up the gravel walkway, the sounds of metal thrashing against the earth permeating the taiga before the giant bird cartwheeled into the dacha.

Nikolay pushed his principal to the ground as the machine collided with the wood structure. He knelt and let loose with a fully automatic burst from the Russian rifle he knew so well.

* * *

Reece waited in the prone position, his rifle now a useless piece of metal without the ammunition to sustain it. He watched the Russian take Zharkov to the ground and fire in the general direction of where he perceived the threat to be. As he brought the AKM into his workspace to change magazines, Reece stood, drew the ancient weapon that had been his constant companion since leaving Medny Island, and sent an arrow into the left eye socket of Zharkov’s head of security.

* * *

Oliver Grey gawked in horror at the wooden shaft protruding from Nikolay’s head, visible in the dancing light that escaped from the burning helicopter and vehicle. Imagining a similar fate for himself, he turned to run, tripping and falling to the rocks.

“Stop, Oliver,” his benefactor commanded, himself rising to his feet and brushing himself off. “Let us meet our tormentor face-to-face, shall we?”

Was this man mad? He couldn’t believe this was a supernatural deity, could he? Those were gunshots, for Christ’s sake. And the object sticking out of Nikolay’s face was an arrow!

Oliver’s attention shifted from the arrow to the darkness outside the ring of fire as one of the shadows began to shift.

* * *

James Reece took a step forward. He’d been covered by the peat moss of the tundra for close to three days, the skins he’d stolen from native villages and others he’d tanned with the brains of animals he’d killed en route, creating an insulated makeshift burrow. His muscles were stiff from the patient act of lying in wait for his prey. He left the FAL where it was. Out of ammunition, now just a vestige of his odyssey, a link to his past. He slipped the tomahawk from its sheath

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