The stupid war. That was what made Fadeyushka the angriest. Not the man whose footsteps coming closer he could hear, but the damn politicians and radicals who'd screamed words that had made people take up guns against each other. Neighbor against neighbor. Fadeyushka didn't hate anymore. The last half a year had seen to that. He just wanted to go home and work the land.
A boot came down on either side of his head. Fadeyushka noted that neither had any mud on them. The man had not even tried to follow him through the swamp. He'd probably driven down a road around the swamp to the railroad tracks and waited.
The muzzle of the gun came from the top of Fadeyushka's vision and centered between his eyes.
"It was quite a shot, was it not?" The man asked. "The railroad line gives me the best long-range field of fire in this area. I tried getting the first couple of men to stay on the line, but they always ran into the swamp, so I turned it around. I started them into the swamp and made them think the rail line was their salvation. That way I could get the shot I wanted. Excellent."
Fadeyushka wasn't listening. He was praying, preparing to meet his God.
"You thought I told the truth when I said some had made it. That was necessary," the man continued. "Hope is fuel and you needed it to make it here. But none have ever escaped me. There would be no point to that."
The man heard the whispered prayer and strangely, given his actions so far today, waited until Fadeyushka had finished.
"Are you ready?" the man asked.
Fadeyushka nodded, his eyes still closed.
The man studied Fadeyushka's torn fatigues, looking for any marking. "Muslim or Christian?"
Fadeyushka opened his eyes, hope flickering. "Does it matter?"
The man smiled. "It might."
Fadeyushka figured he had a fifty-fifty chance, but that brief flicker of hope went out with the pain from his wounds. The man had already shot him several times. He had lost too much blood. It would not matter now if the man let him go. "Christian."
The man nodded. "Muslim would have been better, but Christian will work."
"For what?"
The flame from the tip of the suppressor singed the entry wound the bullet made as it went into Fadeyushka's skull. The back of the head made quite a mess on the tracks as the bullet exited.
The man pulled a small SATPhone out of his pocket, a most sophisticated and expensive device, and punched in memory 1. It was answered immediately and he could hear the whine of a turbine engine in the background and the stutter of helicopter blades.
"I am ready," he said in French, one of half a dozen languages he spoke. There was a very slight chance the satellite communication might get intercepted, and French would confuse anyone listening.
After getting an acknowledgment, he put the phone back in his pocket. He pulled two harnesses out of his backpack. One he buckled around the body, making sure it was secure. The second he buckled around himself. Then he squatted, rifle across his thighs, and waited, motionless. He stared at the body, looking into the lifeless eyes. Soon the sound of the helicopter echoed across the countryside.
He looked up as a Bell Jet Ranger, painted with IFOR markings, came in low over the rails. He put his hand over his eyes as the chopper came to a hover overhead. He reached up, grabbing the rope that was hooked to the lift on the left skid. There was a plastic case attached to the end of the rope, along with a large snap link. He pushed the snap link through the snap on the front of his harness, then the one on the front of the harness on the body. Making sure both were secure, he grabbed the small controller attached to the rope just above the snap link. He pressed a button, notifying the pilot he was ready.
The helicopter lifted, the rope unreeling from the lift until fifty feet were played out, then the man hit the stop. He was jerked off the ground, the body of Fadeyushka slamming against him. They went straight up for thirty feet, then the chopper pulled them to the east.
The man didn't flinch as Fadeyushka's body pressed up against his. He stared into the dead eyes with mild interest, feeling the other man's blood soak into his own clothes. There was the smell of feces and urine that even the wind rushing by couldn't completely get rid of. The man had killed enough to know that the body voided itself upon death, the autonomic nervous system no longer functioning. The man not only had killed often, he had made a study of death, so that he knew about it not only from the practical side, but also the theoretical.
The helicopter came to a hover over the small hillock where the bodies tied to the tree were. Slowly the pilot descended until the man's feet touched the ground. He quickly unhooked himself, the plastic case and Fadeyushka's body from the rig, hitting the wind button. The rope quickly wound up onto the lift. The chopper moved to the east and landed in a small clearing, blades turning, waiting.
The man threw Fadeyushka over his shoulder. With his free hand he picked up the plastic case. He carried the body to the center of the clearing. Then he threw the body down, dead eyes staring up to the clear sky. He opened the plastic case and pulled out the sniper rifle inside. It was the one he had used on the bodies tied to the trees about the clearing, a twin to the one he had carried. He laid the rifle across Fadeyushka's chest.
The man stood there for several seconds, loath to leave the gun. It was a standard Soviet Bloc SVD sniper rifle, one of many thousands circulating around the area, but this one he had worked on for a long time, fine-tuning.
With one last glance, he walked away toward the sound of the waiting chopper.
Chapter Four
Despite the downsizing of the army, it appeared to Thorpe that Fort Bragg was growing as he drove onto post. There were sprawling new compounds for the Third and Seventh Special Forces Groups among the pine trees off Yadkin Road.
Located to the west of Interstate 95 and the town of Fayetteville in the south-central part of North Carolina, Fort Bragg was home to the army's Special Forces and the 82nd Airborne Division. Covering over 148,000 acres of North Carolina pine forest, the post was the tip of the spear for the army's rapid deployment forces. Nearby Pope Air Force Base was the point from which that tip was launched.
The post was founded in 1918 as the army geared up for World War I. Before the days of political correctness, it was named after the Confederate General Braxton Bragg. The first military parachute jump was made at Fort Bragg in 1923 from an artillery observation balloon, and ever since it had been the home of the Airborne.
As he drove onto the post using Bragg Boulevard, Thorpe was hit with an assortment of memories, some good, some bad. He'd been many places in his time in the army, but in many ways Bragg had been the start point.
It was where he and Lisa had first been together after getting married. Tommy had been born in the post hospital. Thorpe forced his mind away from those memories.
Thorpe knew that Delta Force had moved from its old green-fenced compound near the ROTC summer camp area to a highly secure, modern facility specifically built for them a few miles out in the range area. He'd heard that they had various weapons ranges inside the fence that surrounded the compound, along with full-size aircraft fuselages, trains, buses and other training aids.
During his active duty time in Special Forces, Thorpe had served a tour of duty in the new ACFAC, Academic Facility for Special Forces, that had been built across the street from the old Puzzle Palace, the former headquarters for army Special Operations that now held the headquarters for the JFK School for Special Warfare.