in the sniper's head: Where would he put himself that both had a clear view of the front door and was deeply sheltered?
He heard Chrissie calling, and from the level of anxiety in her voice realized that she must have been shouting to him for some time. Crawling back to the other end of the Opel, he called, "I'm okay. Stay inside until I come get you."
Scuttling back to the taillights, he sprinted out of cover, hurling himself into the tree line. A volley of shots smacked into the Opel's front end. From the beginning of the attack, he'd counted the shots. After the last flurry, he'd calculated that the sniper needed time to reload. A couple of seconds was all he needed to reach the protection of the trees. Now he went hunting.
In among the pines and oaks, perpetual shadows clung to the thick jigsaw of branches. Here and there, light filtered through in tiny diamonds, winking and glittering as the wind stirred the woods. Bourne, in a semi-crouch, picked his way through the underbrush, taking care not to crunch down on twigs or pinecones. He made no sound. Every five or six paces he stopped, watching and listening as a fox or a stoat will, alert for both prey and enemies.
He caught sight of a small flash of black-and-brown, blurred, winking out almost before it had a chance to register. He headed toward it. Briefly he considered taking to the trees, but was concerned that dislodged debris would give away his position. At some point he changed direction, veering away, circling to come upon the sniper from the side. As he continued, he repeatedly checked behind and above him for any sign of the sniper.
The glint of metal up ahead pushed him onward at a more rapid pace. Peering out from behind the bole of an oak, he could see the right shoulder and hip of the sniper. He knelt behind a dense patch of underbrush, then scuttled around behind him. A narrow gap between two pines afforded him an excellent view of the front door and driveway. Bourne caught a glimpse of Ottavio Moreno on the ground in a pool of blood. Marks was hidden behind the flank of Moreno's Opel. Bourne supposed the sniper was waiting for someone to move. He seemed bent on shooting to death everyone who ventured outside the house. Was he NSA, CI, or a soldier of Severus Domna? Only one way to find out.
Bourne approached slowly and cautiously, but at the last moment the sniper must have sensed him because he drove the wooden stock of his Dragunov SVD back into Bourne's midsection. Then he whirled, swinging the barrel of the Dragunov against Bourne's shoulder. He was a slim, flat-faced man with small black eyes and a pushed-in nose.
He battered Bourne to his knees and then, with another blow of the Dragunov, onto his back. He pressed the rifle's muzzle against Bourne's heart.
"Don't move, don't say a word," he said. "Just hand over the ring."
"What ring?"
The sniper swung the muzzle of the Dragunov into Bourne's jaw, drawing blood. But at the same instant Bourne smashed the sole of his shoe into the man's knee. It bent inward, the bones cracked, and the sniper gasped. Bourne was rolling away even as the sniper squeezed off a shot. The bullet plowed into the ground where Bourne had been lying, splitting an old, rotting board full of long carpenter's nails.
From one knee, the sniper began to wield the Dragunov like a club, swinging it back and forth to keep Bourne at bay while he caught his breath. Finally, with a concerted effort, he staggered to his feet. That was when Bourne lowered his shoulder and drove it into him. They went down. At once, the sniper tried to maneuver Bourne onto the nails sticking wickedly out of the board. Bourne twisted away, and now the two of them struggled for possession of the Dragunov. Until Bourne lifted an elbow, jamming it into the sniper's Adam's apple. He began to choke and Bourne drove a fist into the side of his head. The sniper's body went limp.
Bourne checked his hands but found no ring. Then he went through his pockets. His name was Farid Lever, according to his French passport, but that told Bourne nothing. The passport could be real or a fake, he had no time to scrutinize it. Lever, or whoever the hell he was, had on him five thousand British pounds, two