of cover in the valley below. There was no time to make a more thorough assessment; they were moments away from overrunning Raife’s position.
He had a pair of range-finding binoculars in his pack, but he wasn’t going to waste precious seconds retrieving it. Reece estimated the camouflage-clad shooters to be about three hundred yards away so he dialed the scope’s magnification to six-power and found a solid prone position. He held for two mils of elevation on the optic’s Christmas-tree-shaped reticle and sent a 77-grain round into his first target, which toppled to the ground from a dead run. The suppressor mounted to his rifle didn’t mask the supersonic crack of the bullet, but it did disguise the muzzle blast, making his location difficult to pinpoint. The shot caused immediate confusion among the members of the assault element, and the firing came to a precipitous halt. Reece heard Raife’s pistol boom in response. He was still in the fight. Reece fired another round into the fallen man to keep him down for good, then shifted left to acquire a new shooting position.
Firing resumed from below, a long burst echoing across the valley. Reece spotted the source, a proned-out figure just uphill from the one he’d just put down. His first round fell short, sending a visible geyser of dirt skyward. He made a slight correction and fired three more times at a steady cadence. Reece watched the man writhe violently through the scope as his body fought against the unseen force that had shattered bones and severed organs.
The last man saw the fate of his teammates and took cover behind a boulder, sneaking single shots in Reece’s direction before disappearing once again. Reece cranked the scope up to its full magnification and shifted his body to a more stable position. He put his weight on the rifle’s magazine, digging it into the ground like a monopod for stability. The shooter’s exposures from cover were random, a bit like a game of Whac-A-Mole, but there were only so many options. Reece exhaled, put his finger on the trigger, and took up most of its weight as he waited for the target to appear. He saw the muzzle first and knew that the head would follow. The AR’s sear broke from its tension just as the shooter’s head was moving clear of the boulder. Reece saw chunks of brain matter take flight and heard the smack of the bullet’s impact a moment later.
CHAPTER 42
DIMITRY’S ARM HURT LIKE hell but it bled very little. The bullet had hit his forearm just below the elbow, rendering the arm all but useless.
Who in the hell could shoot a pistol like that?
He held his weapon awkwardly in his left hand now, but his job was to command, not necessarily to shoot. He had kept one man back with him to make up the base element as the maneuver element pushed toward Raife Hastings.
Dimitry watched as the assault team bounded to within one hundred yards of the target. They had him flanked. It would all be over in a matter of minutes. Dimitry saw one man go down. He would have to be left behind, since they had no ability to carry his body out on foot. None of his men carried identification though the tattoos would give them away as bratva if killed or captured. By that time, the rest of the team would be across the Canadian border and possibly already in the air, bound for safe houses on the other side of the Atlantic.
Observing the final assault through binoculars, part of him wished he’d stayed in the army, but the officer bullshit outweighed the fighting by too heavy a margin.
There was no sign of movement behind the log where he’d last seen Hastings take cover.
Maybe he was already dead?
His eyes saw another man fall as a shot echoed across the canyon.
What in the hell?
Dimitry lowered his binoculars and scanned the ridges for a shooter.
A pistol reverberated in the canyon and another three rounds tore across the open bowl from the new rifle in the fight, the sonic report bouncing around the terrain like a pinball. Whoever was shooting had to be to Dimitry’s left. He barked at the Russian next to him and told him to change magazines. He flipped his own weapon upside down and held it between his knees so that he could change its magazine left-handed. That painfully slow process complete, he motioned to his comrade to follow him.