Alex Berenson - The Shadow Patrol

“Drop it!” Wells yelled.

Alders answered with another three-shot burst. Wells raised the Makarov, fired two shots blindly. Six gone now from the pistol’s ten-shot clip. But he needed to keep Alders and Francesca down. Wells had them pinned and facing the wrong way. They wouldn’t want to go over the ridgeline and expose themselves to the soldiers in the village unless they had to. But if Francesca could get himself and his rifle turned around, he’d have a serious firepower edge.

“Last chance!”

No answer. Wells raised himself to his knees, shifted the Makarov to his left hand. With his right, he reached into his gown for a grenade.

ALDERS WAS HIT BAD, Francesca saw. The right side of his gown was already inked with blood. His big front teeth were chomping at his lower lip as he tried to keep quiet. Francesca had no idea how Wells had tracked them here. The answer hardly mattered, not now.

Down in the village, the Strykers had taken cover. If Weston had any sense, he would delay as long as he could, give Francesca a chance to work this mess out for himself. But eventually he would have to send a couple squads up here to search the ridgeline. Francesca needed to be gone by then. He would have a tough time explaining why he was up here carrying a Russian sniper rifle.

He had to take out Wells and get back into the Arghandab. Let Weston and Rodriguez run his corpse over with a Stryker until it was unrecognizable. Meanwhile Francesca would get back to the grape hut and call in a medevac for Alders, tell some story about how he’d gotten pegged while he was out taking a piss. It wasn’t a great plan. It left Young alive. But Young had no evidence and wouldn’t be big on talking anyway, not after he saw his buddy Wells get creamed.

“You win,” Francesca said. He squeezed Alders’s hand. “We surrender.” Wells was too close for Francesca to tell Alders what he planned. Even a whisper would carry. He’d just have to hope Alders got it. Alders winked. Good enough. Alders turned and pushed himself up with his good hand. Francesca grabbed the Dragunov and got ready to launch himself over the ridgeline. He would spin and stand and fire through the mulberry bushes. He wouldn’t have much of an angle and he’d be shooting uphill. But he had a sniper rifle against a pistol and that should be enough.

ALDERS STOOD UP unsteadily from the streambed, every breath a struggle. His right arm dangled uselessly. He wasn’t holding the AK. Francesca was still hidden. Wells was on his knees, holding the grenade low and close against his body so Alders couldn’t see it. As grenades went, the RGO-78 wasn’t great, a modern version of an old Russian design. It weighed about a pound and looked like an oversize green egg with a ridge in the middle. If Wells could drop it within five meters of Francesca, it would be lethal.

“Francesca!” Wells yelled. “Now!”

“He’s coming,” Alders said. “I promise—”

Alders was talking too much, covering, and then Wells heard Francesca scrambling at the edge of the streambed. Wells put the grenade to his teeth and pulled the pin and released the handle and tossed it up, aiming for the ridgeline. The grenade arced high, end over end, desperate and beautiful as a field goal try with no time left. Wells knew as soon as he threw it that he’d left it short.

“Grenade,” Alders yelled. “Grenade!”

Alders dove. Wells went down, too. These RGOs kicked fragments thirty meters.

Boom. The explosion echoed off the hills, louder than a single grenade had any right to be. Alders cursed and Francesca screamed and Wells crawled down the streambed on hands and knees, the stones scraping the burn on his leg. Alders came to his knees and raised his trembling left hand. Shrapnel had cut open his arms, and the front of his gown was black with blood. His mouth was a hole in his beard. He would be dead in an hour unless one of the Stryker medics down the hill could stanch the bleeding.

“Yield,” Alders said. In English. Reminding Wells that he was an American. An American soldier. In his eyes, Wells saw the truth of the surrender. No trick this time. Suddenly the Makarov weighed a thousand pounds. Wells had never killed an American.

“Tell me the truth. Why you were here.”

“You know why.”

“Say it and I’ll let you live.”

“Coleman Young. Please.”

Alders had given up any claim to mercy with the false surrender. He’d given up any claim when he’d come here to murder Young. Wells raised the pistol.

“You said—”

I lied, Wells thought. He squeezed the trigger. Twice. In the chest. Alders slid against the side of the streambed and his dead eyes accused Wells.

In the silence, Wells could hear Francesca’s ragged breathing.

“Alders,” Francesca said from just beneath the ridgeline. Wells couldn’t see him or the Dragunov.

“Francesca. Tell me who you’re working for.”

“You gonna let me live, too?” Francesca giggled. “That what you’ll do for me?”

“I’ll do you a bigger favor. Kill you now. No trial, you don’t spend fifty years in Leavenworth. Go out like a man. Your parents, your buddies, they never know you’re a traitor.”

Wells reached into his gown for his second grenade. Would Francesca move left or right along the ridgeline to protect himself from more grenades? Or would he stay close to the streambed for the most direct shot with his rifle? Yes. He’d stay close, try to end this now. Wells grabbed his second grenade from the gown. His last grenade. His extra Makarov magazines were back in his bag, too. He was down to two rounds.

“Fair enough,” Francesca said.

Wells pulled the pin on the grenade. If he left it short, the ridgeline would protect Francesca. If he put too much on it, it would slide down the hill. Wells didn’t throw it. He rolled it down the dry streambed, hard. Then he jumped out of the streambed and dove down behind a rock and waited for the explosion.

It came too soon. The grenade had blown before falling off the ridgeline. Even as the echo died, Francesca yelled, “Missed.” Wells raised his head and saw Francesca standing up, spinning, holding a rifle chest-high, where he could get an angle and fire up the streambed. Francesca snapped off three quick shots before he realized Wells had moved. But Wells had no angle either, and with only two rounds left, he couldn’t afford to miss. He waited, expecting Francesca to hide under the ridgeline again.

Instead, Francesca stepped forward. He went to one knee in the streambed next to Alders’s body. He swung the Dragunov slowly left to right, covering the trees and rocks on both sides of the streambed. From where he waited, he couldn’t see Wells. But Wells still had no angle on him, and they were only about twenty-five meters from each other, and Wells would have to give up his cover to move.

“Americans dressed like Afghans killing each other with Russian guns,” Francesca said. “How about that?” Wells had the crazy thought that Francesca sounded like Keith Jackson calling college football. “I know you’ve only got a couple rounds left in that peashooter, Johnny. Make ’em count.”

Wells reached out, felt the edge of a rock with his fingertips. He reached for it, couldn’t get to it. He inched down, quietly. Let Francesca talk. The Dragunov swung side to side, never stopping. Francesca was waiting for any move, any sound.

“I heard Alders surrender. How do you shoot a man, he’s got his hands in the air, he’s begging for his life? Tell me that.”

Wells got his hand around the rock, found it was the size of a baseball. Just right.

“Tell you what, Johnny. I’ll tell you who I’m working with. And when you meet him in hell, you tell him the Shadow sent you there. And be sure to ask him about the missiles, will you?”