Stephen Hunter - Time to Hunt

He tried to run through the possibilities. Clearly Solaratov was not at one of the three places that Bob had determined. He’d gotten around somehow, and Bob believed him to be below, given the one shot that had ricocheted off the stone that shielded his head. The round had struck from downslope. If Solaratov were above him, it would be all over. The Russian had outthought him by descending into the valley and was now shooting upward. Bob tried to remember what was down there, and recalled a little patch of snow-packed forest. Somewhere the sniper was down there, but without a sound signature to locate him, he was effectively invisible.

Do something .

Sure: but what?

Move, crawl.

He has you.

If you move he kills you.

Checkmate. No moves possible. Caught in the rocks, trapped.

Then he realized that the Russian was but a few hundred yards from the house where the undefended women hid. After he killed Bob, it would take him five minutes to finish the job. Since it would be close-range work, he could leave no witnesses.

It was almost over now.

The Russian could see the man cowering behind the rocks and could sense his fear and rage and the closing in of his possibilities.

He filled with confidence. He had not fired twice but three times. The first shot landed about four feet above his target. That was the new zero. Swagger had not even noticed it. Quickly he dialed in the correction, fired again. He hit him! The next shot barely missed him. But he knew: he had him!

It occurred to him to move ever so slightly, find a better shooting position and try and drive the killing shot home. But he had such an advantage now, why worry about it? Why move, not be able to shoot, just when the man is so helpless, has already been hit, is presumably leaking blood and in great pain.

The rifle rested on the tree trunk; he was comfortable behind it, sure that he was invisible from the ridge. The reticle was steady; he knew the range. It was merely a matter of time, of so little time.

What can he do?

He can do nothing.

Bob tried to clear the rattle from his head.

In the field, what would I do?

Call in artillery.

Call in smoke.

No artillery.

No smoke.

Throw a grenade.

No grenade.

Fire the Claymore.

No Claymore. The Claymore was in the case three thousand feet up the mountain. He wished he had it now.

Call in a chopper.

No chopper.

Call in tactical air.

No tactical air.

But a word caught somewhere in his mind.

Smoke .

No smoke.

It would not go away.

Smoke .

You move under smoke. Under smoke he cannot see you.

There is no smoke.

Why would the word not leave his head? Why would it not go away? Smoke .

What is smoke: gaseous chemicals producing a blur of atmospheric disturbance.

There is no smoke.

Smoke .

There is no—

But there was snow.

Snow, agitated, could hang in the air like smoke. Plenty of snow. Snow all around.

He turned to his right to face a wall of snow. Above him, on a precipice, more snow. The snow that had fallen silently through the night and even now glided down from the heavens.

Solaratov loves snow. He knows snow.

But Bob saw now that above him, several hundred pounds of the stuff rested on the branches of a pine, which had turned it into some kind of upside-down vanilla cone. In fact, several of the trees were above him. The snow fell and caught on them in the gray mountain light. He could almost feel them groaning, yearning for some kind of freedom.

He reached out with his rifle barrel but could touch none of it.

But then the plan formed in his mind.

He edged to his side, making certain to keep his body profile low behind the rocks, so that Solaratov would not get the last shot free. His right hand crept across the parka, unzipped it, and he reached inside and removed the Beretta.

He steeled himself.

It was instinct shooting, unaimed fire, but his reflexes at this arcane pistol skill had always been quite good. He threaded his other wrist through the sling of the Remington M40, to secure it for his move.

He thumbed back the hammer. He looked at each of his targets.

He took a deep breath.

So do it, he thought.

So do it!

Something was happening.

A series of dry popping cracks reached Solaratov’s ears, far away, but definitely coming off the mountain.

What?

He looked hard through the scope, not daring to take it from the trapped man. He thought he saw a flash, the flight of something small through the air, a disturbance in the snow, and quickly came up with the idea of an automatic pistol, but what was he doing, trying to signal men in the area? Who could be in the area?

But in the next second his question was answered. He was shooting into the snow-laden pines above him, striking their trunks and driving the impact vibrations out their limbs, shooting fast so that the vibrations accumulated in their effect, and almost astonishingly, the snow loads of four pines yielded and slid down the mountain toward the supine man, where they hit and exploded into a fine blast of powder, a sheet of density that momentarily took his sight picture away from him.

Where is he?

He put the scope down because he could never find the man in the narrow width of vision, and saw him, rolling down the mountain a good fifty feet from the commotion he’d stirred.

Solaratov brought the rifle up fast, but couldn’t find the man, he was moving so quickly. At last he located him and saw that he had gotten a full fifty meters down the hill.

He picked up the good moving sight picture, fired quickly, remembering to lead on the moving target, but the bullet impacted behind the target, kicking up a huge geyser of snow.

Of course! The range had changed subtly; he was still holding for 654 meters, and the range was probably down to six hundred or so.

By the time he figured this out, the man had come to rest in the rocks below, and was now much better situated behind them, having picked up some maneuverability and the position to shoot back.

Goddamn him! he thought.

With a thud he caught on something, taking his breath away. He had come to rest in a new nest of rocks fifty meters downslope. The snow still hung in the air, and in his desperate fall-run, it had gotten into his parka and down his neck. But in the complete uncoordination of the moment, he made certain he was behind cover. He breathed hard. He hurt everywhere, but felt warmth pouring down the side of his face, and reached up to touch blood.

Had he been hit?

No: the fucking night-vision goggles, totally worthless but forgotten in the crisis, had slipped down his head crookedly, and one strap cut a wicked gash in his ear. The cut stung. He grabbed the things and had an impulse to toss them away. What was the point now?

But maybe Solaratov wasn’t sure where he was now, nestled behind a slightly wider screen of rocks. He looked and saw he had a little more room to move from rock to rock.

Maybe he could even get a shot off.

But at what?

And then he saw that the slope dropped off intensely and, worse, the rocks had run out.

This is it, he thought.

This is as far as I go.

What did I get out of it?

Nothing.

His ear stung.

“They’ve moved,” Sally said. “Now they’re behind the house. You can hear the shots are over there.”

“Are we going to be all right?” asked Nikki.

“Yes, baby,” Julie said, holding her daughter close.

The three were in the cellar of the house, and Sally had spent the past few minutes jamming old chairs, trunks and boxes against the door at the head of the steps, just in case someone came looking for them with bad intentions.