If the men below were watching the cabin, they should have seen it. And they should have focused on the idea that the quarry was inside . . .
Fixing on any specific idea was a killer.
Five minutes later, he saw them for the first time. For a moment, he thought there was only one, a man in military camo, complete with head cover, carrying a short black weapon. The gun had a fat snout, as big around as an old silver dollar: a special forces military silencer, a gun they’d bought from the Israelis.
Then he saw more movement ten yards away, a second man. There’d been no flashes from the cameras on the backside of the cabin. He hadn’t expected any, because the approach was so much poorer on that side. There could be a backstop guy on the other side, but it didn’t feel that way. This felt like a hunter-killer team, well coordinated, moving in on a target.
A scraping noise came from the cabin, the sound of a chair being moved. Madison was improvising. The TV channels, barely audible from Jake’s position, changed. When they did, one of the men flicked a hand at the other. The other man scurried across the opening to the cabin, ducked down next to the porch steps.
They waited for a moment. Then the second man crossed the clearing, joining his partner. They both were wearing head and face covering, probably against the possibility of security cameras. Jake was tracking them both in the scope now, clicking the safety off, waiting for the shot. He wanted them on the porch. If he took the first one before they were on the porch, the second man might be able to roll under the cabin before he could get another shot off.
One of the men gave a hand signal, and they moved up the steps, slowly, slowly, ready to crack the front door, or maybe a window.
Window. One of the men slid toward the larger window looking into the cabin, while the other crouched next to the door. He was going to do a peek. Jake put the crosshairs on him, watching the other man with his off-scope eye.
The man at the window did a slow peek, then moved his head back, gave the other some kind of hand signal; the man near the door may or may not have gotten it, but it didn’t make any difference.
Because at that moment, Jake shot the window man in the back.
21
The window man went down and Jake tracked right to the second man as he worked the bolt, but the second man was already moving fast, up in the air, over the porch rail, onto the ground and rolling. Jake snapped a shot at him, had the feeling that the shot was a good one, but the man flipped under the cabin and disappeared.
Jake said into the walkie-talkie, “One down, but we’ve got a loose one, he jumped the railing, he’s under you, watch the back.”
Madison said, “Yes.”
A moment later, a flash went off behind the cabin, one of the game-trail cameras. The loose man had continued under the cabin, putting it between himself and Jake, and was heading for the trees. Jake started moving as soon as he saw the flash, sideways across the hill, running. The walkie-talkie vibrated in his hand and Madison called, “He’s crossing the creek, he’s across the creek . . .”
Jake jacked another shell into the chamber as he ran, saw the second man ten feet from the tree line, hobbling, straining for the trees. Jake pinned the rifle to a tree trunk to steady it, but had no time, no time, and wound up snapping another shot into the brush where the man disappeared.
On the walkie-talkie, Jake said, “There’s one on the porch, I think he’s gone. Be careful, though. I’m tracking the other one.”
“Be careful, be careful . . .”
Now it was a game of cat and mouse. The man in the woods had big problems: he’d probably been hit, though it was impossible to tell how hard. But if he had been, he was bleeding and under pressure to get medical help. His car was three miles away, over tough country, and even if he was able to walk to it, he’d have to keep moving. If he stopped, he might bleed out; and he’d certainly stiffen up.
Jake had problems, too: he couldn’t take a chance that the man might get away. He had to block him. If the other man realized that, he might simply hide, tend to the wound, and hope that Jake would stumble into him. If he killed Jake, he might not have to walk to his car: he might get Jake’s.
Jake paused just long enough to press three more cartridges into the rifle, then began jogging across the hillside. He was making a lot of noise, but he had to get in position to block. Once he was there, he could slow down into a stalking mode.
The walkie-talkie vibrated. He stopped, put the radio to his face, said, “Yes.”
“He’s moving south. He’s going up the west side of the bluffs.”
Jake started moving again, climbing higher on the valley wall. If the other guy was moving, he wouldn’t be able to hear Jake. In his mind’s eye, Jake could see a perfect ambush spot overlooking a deer-food plot with a shallow ravine running along its side.
From there, he should be able to see anybody coming along the top of the bluffs. The spot was two hundred yards away. He windmilled toward it, refusing to let his bad leg slow him, his own breath harsh in his ears. Brush lashed his face, tore at his body and legs, scratching his face. He kept moving, gasping for air, up a last short slope and into the nest at the top.
Billy had stacked tree branches in a two-foot-high triangle, an impromptu ground-blind looking down at the deer plot. Jake eased into it and settled down. Listening, listening . . .
The sound of the slug was unmistakable as it hit George Brenner, a snap-whack so fast as to be inseparable, but distinct from the sound of the shot, which followed a few milliseconds later. Darrell Goodman didn’t think about it; he was too thoroughly trained to think, he simply moved, vaulting the porch railing, scrambling for the cover of the cabin. He felt an ankle go when he hit the ground, and he rolled toward the inviting darkness under the porch, felt the bite of a slug cutting into the same leg with the damaged ankle, never heard the second shot.
The shooter was quick.
He threw his weapon over his back on its sling and scrambled toward the right side of the cabin. The support beams were only eighteen inches over the ground, and in a few uneven places, even closer than that. Animals had been under the porch; he could smell them on his hands, in his face, and still he scrambled and dragged himself, ignoring his leg, out the other side, and then he was running toward the trees, staggering, his left leg weakening, the cabin between him and the assassin.
In the course of the scramble, his brain had processed the cabin as a trap. It provided immediate cover, but that wouldn’t last. He had to get out. If he could make it to the trees . . .
He didn’t think about being hit again. There was a bright flash to his right, and he dodged, thinking it might be a muzzle flash, but then he registered it as too bright, and a second later plunged into the tree line. As he did, there was another snap-whack four inches from his face, as a slug tore into a tree trunk.
Jesus!
He went down, on his belly, slithered into a depression, damp with dew on moldering leaves, and then he stopped.
Listened, trying to suppress his heavy breathing, his heart pounding. He could hear the other man—had to be Winter. Jesus Christ, he’d set them up, he must’ve known about the bug, how long had he known, what had he fed them? He groped into the leg pocket on his injured leg, took out a cell phone, looked at the connection bar. No connection. He was too deep in the valley. He’d had a solid link at the top of the ridge, three hundred yards away. He had to get to a spot where he could link up, had to move quickly.