Andrew Peterson - First to Kill

Leonard had quickness on his side. In truth, he could run downstream along the southern rim of the canyon as long as he stayed back from the lip. Nathan wondered if Leonard would have time to retrieve the money before he even got there. Three million bucks in cash, just sitting out here, in the middle of nowhere. It seemed bizarre and hardly believable, but Leonard’s presence confirmed it. He was here to collect his cash, his lifetime’s worth of savings.

Nathan smiled, feeling a certain satisfaction at denying the murderer his money, but the smile vanished. Keep focused , he told himself. Keep your head in the game . As he dropped down to crawl through a section of low underbrush, he wondered how close Harv was to the chopper. They’d parted company… what? Twenty minutes ago? He should’ve looked at his watch. That omission had been careless. Maybe he was more injured than he cared to admit. He knew blood loss would soon take its toll in the form of shivers, nausea, and shock. He needed to end this battle. And end it soon. The early symptoms of shock were already evident. He had trouble concentrating and felt a little chilled. How long until his symptoms became crippling? Half an hour? Less? He doubted he’d last the two hours he’d asked for.

Approaching the horseshoe bend in the canyon, Nathan slowed his pace even more. He had to. The going was tough and he had to be careful not to disturb any of the tall stalks as he wove his way through. The good thing was that the growth was so dense here, he couldn’t see the canyon’s southern rim at all. Which meant he couldn’t be seen either. Step after step, he moved with slow precision, always watching where he placed his boots. A snapped twig or a patch of quicksand could ruin his day. He hoped he wouldn’t flush any birds either. Leonard could be twenty feet away and he wouldn’t be able to see him, but he would be able to hear him.

But Leonard’s presence wasn’t what he heard right then.

What he heard warmed his soul-the distinctive whooping drone of a helicopter’s blades biting into the afternoon air. Harv was flying Grangeland out of here. Way to go, old friend .

“McBride, you copy?”

He made Bridgestone wait.

“McBride, you there?”

A little longer…

“McBride?”

“I’m here. That’s Harv, flying out of here with Grangeland. It’s just you, me, and the mountain lion now.”

“Good.”

“Don’t be so pleased. There’s a catch, Bridgestone. You see, time is not on your side. In two hours, Harv is going to call in the cavalry and you can kiss your millions good-bye. You can’t know how much that breaks my heart.”

“Like you said, McBride, we’ve got a couple hours to settle things.”

Nathan yawned audibly. “I’m a little tired and I’ve lost a lot of blood. Maybe I’ll take a little R and R. One eye on the money, of course.”

“You former Marine or Army?”

“Marine.”

“Sniper?”

“Sniper.”

“How many?”

“Including your brothers, fifty-nine. Guess that makes you number sixty, a nice, round number. Is the money really worth your life? Is flipping burgers or stuffing envelopes beneath you? Who says you can’t start over and earn an honest living?”

“Not my style.”

“Being dead is?”

“I’m not dead, McBride, far from it.”

“Soon enough, Bridgestone, soon enough.” He resumed his trek downstream to the east. After another hundred yards, the undergrowth thinned and Nathan could once again see the southern rim of the canyon. He figured he needed to advance another two or three hundred yards before looking for the right spot to set up.

It took fifteen minutes to cover the last leg. He’d seen the rock spire several times through openings in the underbrush. At one point, he had to divert away from the creek, nearly to the canyon’s wall to keep inside the cover of growth. Up ahead, a wide thumb of greenbelt would take him back to the sandy wash where a large copse of mature oaks and thick brush dominated the creek’s bank for several hundred yards. Perfect. He knew he’d find what he was looking for out there. Crawling on his belly, he inched his way forward through the labyrinth of tree trunks, slowly closing the distance to the creek’s bank. His arm stung like hell and he resisted the urge to look at the wound. No upside to doing that.

Up ahead at the creek’s bank, the canopy of oak branches screened him from the canyon’s rim, but gave him little cover from a lower perspective. He doubted Leonard would descend into the canyon and give up the high ground. Advancing toward the creek, he kept studying the canyon’s southern rim, looking for potential shooting positions. From what he’d seen so far, there were at least half-a-dozen really good candidates up there.

He wondered how long Leonard would last before desperation set in. Would he risk his life and try to recover the cash as time ran out? He might as well commit suicide, because Nathan wasn’t going to let him come within fifty yards of that rock spire without nailing him.

When he closed to within thirty yards of the creek, he spotted what he needed directly ahead, a huge fallen oak whose roots had been undermined by a flash flood. The exposed root ball was perfect. It towered over the sand in a chaotic tangle of worm-like tendrils, clods of earth, and river stones. The main structure of the tree fanned out toward Nathan’s position at a 45-degree angle from the creek. Its trunk looked to be almost four feet in diameter, with large branches jutting out from its central structure.

As Nathan studied the tree, a plan came to him, fully formed.

He crawled to its prone form and shucked off his ghillie suit and backpack. The trees flanking the fallen oak gave him spotty cover at best, so he made slow, deliberate movements to avoid catching Leonard’s eye. He shouldered his weapon and slowly swept the canyon’s southern rim from west to east, ending at the rock spire. Nothing at all. No movement. Was Leonard up there? If so, where would he be? Would he pick the most obvious position, the deepest recess offering the darkest shadow? Probably not. A trained Army Ranger wouldn’t choose a predictable location. He’d pick an unlikely spot, with marginal cover. But he would pick a location from which he could relocate after shooting.

Okay , Nathan thought, let’s assign names to the four most likely shooting positions upthere . He started with the closest place to the spire, a long bowl-shaped dip in the rim with a sandy surface flanked by low ledges of fallen limestone. He’d call that spot Ledges. The next place moving west was a shadowed crevice with a thirty-foot long fallen slab of rock in front of it. That would be a good location because the slab of rock looked to be about three feet high, suitable for bench resting a rifle. He called that location Bench. The next good candidate was a missing piece of striated limestone shaped like a coffee cup. He named it Coffee. The final location was a leaning chunk of limestone that formed a triangular-shaped opening with deep shadow. He’d call that spot Shadow.

Nathan didn’t favor Shadow as much as the others because it didn’t allow a large radius of fire. If Leonard chose Shadow, he’d have to sacrifice nearly half the canyon in order to stay concealed. It also didn’t offer an easy way to relocate because it wasn’t at the very top of the canyon’s rim.

He studied each location through the rifle’s scope again. Ledges. Bench. Coffee. Shadow. He favored Bench because along with its length of nearly thirty feet, it offered Leonard the easiest relocation capability. He put Ledges in second place, followed by Coffee. He thought the least likely spot would be Shadow.