Matthew Dunn - Sentinel

He saw it again; his finger instinctively started pulling back the trigger, but after a few millimeters the finger released its grip. His body relaxed.

Fifty feet away from him, standing between trees and easily visible, was a huge stag. The antlers of the red deer towered over its magnificent physique. The stag stared at Will, keeping very still. Will lowered his weapon and stared back at the beast. They stayed like that for thirty seconds before the stag moved a few feet toward him and stopped again. Will expected the deer to turn and bolt into the woods, but it remained in front of him, and then it walked even closer, its breath visible out of its large nostrils. The stag lowered its head and moved a hoof back and forth over the snow. For the briefest moment, Will wondered if it was going to charge at him. But then the animal looked up, again fixing his large eyes on Will, came forward, stopped, and tossed his head.

The deer’s ears twitched. It stepped back, turned, and darted off into the woods.

“Remarkable.” The elderly Russian man who owned the house was walking toward him. “The stag came to my grounds a year ago, most likely from the nearby forests. He’s wild and has a doe and two fawns to protect.” The man reached Will. “They’re very shy creatures, and we rarely ever see them. And I’ve never seen a wild stag walk that close to a human being.” He turned to Will. “He’s received the call. You’re all to leave.”

Two days later, the team was a thousand miles east of Moscow, in a lodge nestled high up in the Ural Mountains. A hundred miles farther to the east was the city of Yekaterinburg, the location of the headquarters of Central Operational Strategic Command. The early-morning sun was rising and cast its light over a large lake a half mile below the building and the surrounding mountains overlaid by snow-covered forest. A solitary road snaked alongside the lake until it followed a route up the mountainside, ending at the property.

They had arrived the night before, stowing their vehicle in a garage so that it was out of sight, keeping the lodge’s lights off, and maintaining an all-night vigil even though Sentinel had never used the lodge before and was convinced that it was not compromised. The place belonged to one of his assets, who had moved out of the home to stay temporarily with relatives in Yekaterinburg within twelve hours of Sentinel contacting him. The asset had left ample food in the lodge for the team, although none of them had touched it. They were too focused and tense to be hungry.

Will moved through the property, passing through a kitchen, a small open-plan dining room and lounge where Laith was waiting and holding a QBZ-95G assault rifle, up bare wooden stairs, through one bedroom containing a single bed and nothing else, and into a second room containing Roger and Sentinel.

Sentinel glanced at Will, checked his watch, and nodded. “Barkov should be here in approximately two hours.” He moved next to Roger. “What do you think?”

Roger spoke while looking out a window through the sight of his assault weapon. “I think it’s okay. Good lines of sight, almost continuous coverage of the road, very high ground, and thirty miles from the nearest civilization, so minimal risk of interference from locals.” The CIA SOG officer nodded. “It’s a darn good defensive position, but my God, there’s a lot of land and tree cover around us. Razin could come at us from any direction. And unless Ross spots him with the sniper rifle or Razin’s stupid and takes the road, our target could get very close before we see him.”

Sentinel looked at Will. “Have you spoken to Ross?”

Will nodded. “He’s ready.”

Ross was a mile away on another mountain on the other side of the lake. He had been there for an hour in temperatures that were now nearly minus twenty degrees Celsius.

Will rubbed his face. “Even with Ross watching over us, Razin could do what he did last time: take us with a high-powered sniper rifle and thermal imagery. Maybe he doesn’t need to come close.”

Roger spoke without removing his gaze from the window. “He can’t do that from the rear of the house because the incline of the mountain behind us is too severe and the angles are all wrong to give him a meaningful shot. But if he chooses to adopt that tactic from the area in front of the house, he’ll be in for a hell of a surprise. In the garage, I found enough gasoline to drive a truck for a year. I’ve put some of the fuel into canisters, and then I took smokeless powder from bullets, rags, and whatever else I could lay my hands on to turn those canisters into crude incendiary devices. I have them strapped high up in trees one hundred and fifty feet from the house, and I doused the trees with the rest of the fuel. The canisters have been positioned very precisely so that Ross has a clear shot at all of them. If Razin uses thermal imagery, Ross will shoot every canister and create a ring of fire around us. Our enemy will be blind.”

Sentinel walked up to Will, speaking quietly. “You need to stay very close to Barkov.”

Will responded equally quietly, “I’m the best shot on our team. I should be downstairs.”

Sentinel shook his head; his next words were almost inaudible. “ Nothing must happen to Barkov. I’m trusting you with that task because you are the best shot.”

“I ’ve got a silver Mercedes on the road. It’s about one mile from the lodge, heading toward you.” Ross’s voice was calm.

“Understood.” Sentinel looked at Will while speaking into his throat mic. “The most vulnerable point will be when I greet him at the door. Razin could try and drop us both then.”

Roger replied, “We know.” The Americans were downstairs.

Will glanced around the upstairs room. A small circular table was in its center, a chair on either side of it. Aside from the windows, the only way to access the room was via the adjacent bedroom and the one set of stairs leading up to the place. Razin would either have to jump onto the lodge’s roof from the mountain behind and enter through one of the top-floor windows or access the room from the ground level at the front of the house. Both routes would make him an easy target for Ross’s hidden sniper rifle, but even if Razin did breach the house he would be facing four very dangerous and professional men whose sole objective was to gun him down.

Nevertheless, Will felt edgy and knew the rest of the team felt the same.

Ross spoke. “The Mercedes is point five miles away. One driver, no visible passengers.”

They all knew that meant nothing. Razin could be hidden in the vehicle, pointing a gun at the driver.

Ross paused. “The Mercedes is slowing, but he’s-” There was a sound of static.

Will frowned. “Ross?”

Ross’s voice came back. “Yeah, I can hear you, but these damn mountains are interfering with the signal. I was saying that he’s still moving, now three hundred yards from you.”

Sentinel gripped his handgun. “I’m going downstairs to meet him.” He walked to the door, paused, and turned to face Will. His expression looked earnest. “Thank you for helping me with all of this. I understand why you don’t agree with me, but-” He smiled. “A four-bedroom property’s just come onto the market. It’s on the shore of Lake Windermere. Might suit me, don’t you think?”

Before Will could answer, Sentinel walked quickly out of the room just as Ross spoke.

“He’s a hundred and fifty feet from you. It’s crunch time.”

Will picked up his assault rifle, checked that his handgun was secure under his belt, opened his upper jacket pockets so that his spare magazines were easily accessible, and waited. He heard a car door slam, the bolts to the lodge’s entrance being wrenched open, and voices speaking in Russian.