Will darted a look at Antaeus.
The spymaster was raising his stick.
Will trained his gun back on the man who was now lifting his gun toward Ellie’s head.
“You’re under orders to withdraw. If you don’t, you’ll be—”
“Enough!” Will pulled his trigger, and his bullet sliced through the Russian operative’s eye and exited through the back of his head.
The remaining six operatives immediately sprang into action, five of them dashing for cover while one of them coolly remained still and raised his gun to complete Antaeus’s orders to kill the CIA woman. Will’s chest shot made that man flip backward. When he was on the ground, a second round smashed through his skull.
Ellie was crawling forward, staying low to give Will sight of her captors. But she was still an easy target for them. Will got onto one knee, fired five rounds at the areas of cover the Russians were using to remain hidden from his sniper rifle, ran fifty yards farther along the mountainside, got onto his knee again, and looked through his scope. The different angle put three of the men in his sightline. He took a deep breath, half exhaled, held his breath, and fired three shots in three seconds. Each bullet hit its target; the three men were dead.
He ran again, desperately hoping that the remaining two operatives could no longer see Ellie, then stopped and examined the area around the cabins. It was no good. The men were staying out of sight, and Will knew why: they stood no chance while Will was out of the limited range of their handguns; their best hope lay in forcing him to come nearer to them, to a distance where close-quarter pistols would be far more effective than a rifle.
Ellie was still inching away from the clearing in front of the cabins. No doubt she was waiting for the moment one or both of the men broke cover and shot her in the back. Will had to get to her, and fast, but while the men were still hiding there was one thing he had to do first. Kill Antaeus.
He pointed his gun at the area where Antaeus had been sitting.
The spymaster was no longer there.
Will urgently scoured the distant mountainside for signs of the Russian.
Nothing.
He silently cursed.
After fixing a fresh magazine into his rifle, he ran down the escarpment toward the buildings, leaping over clumps of heath that were renowned for twisting or breaking hikers’ ankles, hearing the gentle whoosh of the sea grow louder as it eased back and forth over the seaweed-strewn coastline’s pebble-and-sand beach, the rich and salty air causing his nose to sting and his lungs to feel that they had acid inside them as he sucked in the brutal air to fuel his exertions.
The cabins were now five hundred yards away, still too distant for the men to pose any threat to him. He slowed down as the incline lessened and he was confronted by round white rocks as high as his waist, haphazardly scattered on the heath as if dropped there from the heavens by playful child gods. Moving at a walking pace between them, he removed the weapon’s scope and raised his rifle to eye level, using the fore and rear sights to try to spot the men.
Nothing.
Then he sensed movement to his right, and he flinched, crouched, twisted, and readied his gun. But it was only a white-tailed eagle, launching itself off the ground with a small writhing rodent in its beak. As the bird rose higher, it was able to glide with only the occasional flap of its majestic wings. Will recalled watching a similar bird of prey circling high above him in a remote part of Russia, while he was putting a brave, dead colleague’s entrails back into his body.
He wondered why that memory had come to him now, of all times.
Was he about to die?
Maybe. On this routine operation. One that he’d believed was beneath him. What an idiot he’d been.
The CIA analyst spoke again, something about him having to surrender to CIA custody because he’d disobeyed orders, but her words barely registered. He turned off his radio and moved beyond the boulders onto flatter land.
He felt each step was drawing him closer to death.
He could see Ellie clearly now with his naked eye. She’d stopped crawling and was staring at Will with a calm expression. Most people in a similar situation would have bolted from the scene in fear. And they’d have been killed in doing so. But Ellie was very different; she knew exactly what she was doing.
Remain motionless.
Put her faith in Will.
Only attempt to escape if Will failed.
Will was two hundred yards away from the cabins. Though it would take a very lucky shot to hit him at this distance, his breathing was fast, and his temples throbbed.
And as he moved farther forward, he kept asking himself, Are you sure you paid that council tax bill? Really sure? Because if you haven’t, you’ll be summoned to court and will be fined a hefty sum that will preclude you buying anything by Hans Dagobert Bruger. He didn’t know why this thought was in his head, but did know that thinking about it was far preferable to thinking about getting to within range of two men who’d kill him without hesitation or remorse.
One hundred yards.
Kill range for an expert shot holding a handgun.
God, was he facing such men? He was. Antaeus only surrounded himself with excellence, so the two men before him were no doubt expert operatives.
He walked toward Ellie, his gun moving left and right to cover the two areas beyond her where he thought the operatives were hiding — small grass-covered mounds that were fifteen yards in front of the largest timber cabin, places where at any moment two men could break cover and put bullets in his heart and brain. He’d never thought he would die in a beautiful place. Instead, he’d always believed it would be in a dingy hotel room, a war zone, or a Third World gutter.
He made a decision. If he died here, his soul would stay nearby, drifting along the rugged coastline and fantasizing about casting a line into one of the rivers as the Atlantic salmon made their run. It was a lonely place, yet stunning. He would be at peace here.
When he reached Ellie, he crouched beside her while keeping his gun fixed on the mounds. Her drawn face was covered in grime, though her eyes were glistening and focused. He made ready to move on, but she grabbed his arm and yanked down on his jacket.
She whispered, “Got a spare handgun?”
Will shook his head.
To his surprise, Ellie smiled, winked, and said, “Then there’s a lot resting on you being able to do your job.” Her expression turned resolute. “Good luck.”
Will moved toward the cabins.
The Russian SVR operative glanced at his colleague twenty yards to his left and nodded to indicate that he was ready. He didn’t need to make the gesture, as both men had served together in numerous Special Forces and intelligence combat situations to the extent that they could read each other’s thoughts in situations like this. They could operate anywhere — land, sea, air, rural, urban — but excelled in the places that could break an otherwise tough man. Though rugged and cold, this place was a walk in the park compared to the weeks-long training exercises and operations they’d done in Siberia and the Arctic Circle.
And it would be a pleasure and a mere formality to deal with the man coming toward them. Though the Russian knew snipers could be useful, he felt nothing but contempt for them. Killing a man from a distance was an easy thing to do; it was not until you’d experienced putting your hands around a man’s throat and watching his eyes nearly pop out, or wrenching a knife upward in his belly while smelling his breath as you held the back of his head close to yours, or seeing a flash of fear in his eyes as you walked quickly toward him and made two shots into his chest, that you really understood what it took to extinguish a human life. Snipers rarely got their hands dirty. They didn’t understand close-quarter combat.