“Bushman Two to Bounty Hunter,” he reported on the radio when the sergeant finished giving orders, got back into the car and left by himself. “They just doubled the guard out here.” He heard two clicks.
Swanson did not consider the move unusual with the arrival of a VIP who was expected at any moment. Perry would be able to take down two men as easily as one. “Are they doing anything?” he asked.
“Nope. As soon as the sergeant drove off, both of these blokes relaxed. Rifles leaning against the building and the smoking lamp is lit.”
Anneli had clapped her palms over the pads to keep them close to her ears. “Kyle, I’m picking up a lot of noise in the camp. Something about moving the mortars.”
Kyle chewed his lip in concentration, analyzing the changing situation. Again, by itself, such a reorientation was not alarming. Maybe the general was going to inspect the individual firing pits, and the officers wanted everything shipshape. The soldiers would appear to be more efficient, active and professional if they were doing something more than just standing at attention. Each of the big 120mm weapons needed a five-man crew, because the weapon weighed about 500 pounds and rested on a bipod and a huge metal baseplate shaped like a saucer. It was more powerful than a U.S. 105mm howitzer and just as difficult to move from one place to another. To manhandle the mortars to face a different direction would require a lot of work and give the look of a busy base.
“Bushman One to Bounty Hunter.” It was Baldwin. “Any instruction?”
“Negative, Bushman One.”
Kyle glanced over to the border crossing. It was closing early tonight, and he watched as an eight-wheeled BTR-80 armored personnel carrier arrived at the gate after a short trip from the motor pool. The thirty-ton fighting machine with multiple machine guns and cannon was a serious addition to the overnight watch. The rumbling amphibious vehicle had a bit of trouble getting situated on the road before it settled down with its slanted nose facing south. More showing off for the general… or something else? Swanson was satisfied, at least for the moment, that it was pointed away from the snipers.
At five minutes after six o’clock, the distinctive thump of spinning rotor blades clattered in the sky and a Mi-17 helicopter began its descent into Fire Base 8351. The chopper had a camouflage green paint pattern that blended its silhouette against the darkness, but the landing lights glowed brightly, so it was easily spotted long before it actually lowered onto the concrete pad and cut power. The few officers in the welcoming party held their hats and turned their faces away from the brief storm of rotor wash.
The snipers were rocks as the moment of truth approached. All emotion had been put aside, and their bodies were draped into prone positions, with their big rifles now part of them, extensions of their physical being. They were back far enough in the hides so that their weapons did not extend beyond the foliage, and squares of camo cloth were beneath the barrels to suppress telltale blossoms of dirt when the shots were fired. The two shooters breathed easily and watched. Kyle clicked on the computerized scope of Excalibur and was instantly rewarded with adjusting lists of numbers that told him everything from the temperature and humidity to the effects of gravity and the rifling spin on the .50-caliber bullet at that precise distance. He read the figures and adjusted slightly, then turned it off again. Too much information could be a distraction.
The chopper blades slowed and swirled to a halt, leaving a gap of silence around the base, almost as if a curtain was being raised at a theater to start the performance. A side hatch opened outward and fell to become a staircase as crewmen in flight suits jumped out and chocked the wheels, locked the stairs into place and raised a collapsible handrail, then hustled away. Next out was a military photographer with cameras strapped around his neck. He moved a short distance away to record the moment, as if this purely routine visit had some historical significance. Such pictures would be autographed and sent back to the officers and men as souvenirs.
A skinny aide with a briefcase scooted down the stairs, followed by a grim-faced, corpulent colonel whose bulk almost filled the open hatchway. He was obviously in charge of security, and nodded to the welcoming committee while taking his time to look around the illuminated area. The lights blinded him to anything in the gloom beyond. The gathered officers waited at attention until he was satisfied.
This was not part of the plan. The snipers’ scheme was to wait until the general was standing almost immobile in the receiving line, an estimated thirty minutes from now, glad-handing and saying hello to his troops. At that moment, General Mizov would be a steady target. However, Kyle Swanson knew a good thing when he saw it.
“Bushman One. I’m going to take the shot when the general steps into the hatchway. You do the fat guy. Anneli, get your ears packed and be ready to move. Bushman Two, get ready.”
In the next hide, Baldwin wiped everything but the face of the arrogant security chief from his mind. The florid skin filled his scope so much that the SAS sergeant could have counted the blackheads on the man’s nose. He adjusted down to the body. The British sniper had been thinking exactly as Swanson; there would never be a better target picture. Situations change. His heartbeat was slow and the finger eased about a pound of pressure onto the trigger and held it as the colonel turned to the open hatch and called inside. All was clear. It was safe.
Victor Mizon, wearing the new gold-braid shoulder boards that proclaimed him to be a two-star general, poked his head forward, then came to his full height of five-feet-eleven. The face was identical to the file photograph that Kyle had received. Unlike his security officer, the general was in excellent physical condition, and smiled broadly at the committee that was obviously eager to greet him. After all, it was his fiftieth birthday. He deserved spotlights and salutes tonight, for Mizon had advanced a long way since the miserable days when he was a common lieutenant at this sorry little post isolated in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow, he would enter Moscow and be installed as a first-deputy head of the entire Border Service. For an instant, it was as if the general was standing in a picture frame, unmoving and stark in the bright light against the darkness inside the helicopter. Standing still, fully erect, holding the handrail, looking out over the fire base.
Swanson shot him dead so fast that the general did not even feel the big bullet tear into his heart, nor hear the loud roar of Excalibur shake the forest like a giant’s bellow. The handrail helped support his weight for a moment, and just as he took the fatal bullet, Baldwin fired the second one, and the big colonel jerked, staggered backward and fell hard against a wheel of the helicopter with blood pumping from his ruptured belly.
The troops at the fire base remained frozen in position, their arms still cocked in salutes, unwilling to believe what their eyes told them was true. General Mizon lay crumpled at the top of the stairs and the fat colonel was bowled over beneath the chopper and the double-thunder blasts from two big rifles raped the orderly parade formation. Moving simultaneously, everyone scattered for cover.
Swanson, Anneli and Baldwin were already sliding backward out of the hides and pulling things together. Kyle brought up a portable satellite radio from his web gear and hit the transmit button to the helicopter waiting on the far side of the lake. “Bounty Hunter to Vampire. Bounty Hunter to Vampire.”