"That's all the hostages," Noonan said. "Total of six subjects, then. How are they armed, Rifle One?"
"Submachine guns, look like Uzis or the Czech copy of it. They are leaning toward the door now."
"Okay, I got it," Chavez said, holding his own binoculars. "Riflemen, take aim on subject Dortmund."
"On target," Weber managed to say first. Johnston swiveled to take aim a fraction of a second later, and then he froze still.
The human eye is especially sensitive to movement at night. When Johnston moved clockwise to adjust the aim of his rifle, Petra Dortmund thought she might have seen something. It stopped her in her tracks, though she didn't know what it was that had- stopped her. She stared right at Johnston, but the ghillie suit just looked like a clump of something, grass, leaves, or dirt, she couldn't tell in the semidarkness of green light reflecting off the pine trees: There was no man-shape to it, and the outline of the rifle was lost in the clutter well over a hundred meters away from her. Even so, she continued to look, without moving her gun hand, a look of curiosity on her face, not even visible alarm. Through Johnston's gunsight, the sergeant's open left eye could see the red strobe flashes from the helicopter's flying lights blinking on the ground around him while the right eye saw the crosshair reticle centered just above and between Petra Dortmund's eyes. His finger was on the trigger now, just barely enough to -feel it there, about as much as one could do with so light a trigger pull. The moment lasted into several seconds, and his peripheral vision watched her gun hand most of all. If it moved too much, then…
But it didn't. She resumed walking to the helicopter, to Johnston's relief, not knowing that two sniper rifles followed her head every centimeter of the way. The next important part came when she got to the chopper. If she went around the right side, Johnston would lose her, leaving her to Weber's rifle alone. If she went left, then Dieter would lose her to his rifle alone. She seemed to be favoring… yes, Dortmund walked to the left side of the aircraft..
"Rifle Two-Two off target," Weber reported at once. "I have no shot at this time."
"On target, Rifle Two-One is on target," Johnston assured Chavez. Hmm, let Little Man in first, honey, he thought as loudly as he could.
Petra Dortmund did just that, pushing Dengler in the left side door ahead of her, probably figuring to sit in the middle herself; so as to be less vulnerable to a shot from outside. A good-theoretical. call, Homer Johnston thought, but off the mark in this case. Tough luck, bitch.
The comfort of the familiar surroundings of the helicopter was lost on Gerhard Dengler at the moment. He strapped himself in under the aim of Petra's pistol, commanding himself to relax and be brave; as men did at such a time. Then he looked forward and felt hope. The pilot was the usual man, -but the copilot was not. Whoever he was, he was fiddling with instruments as the flight crew did, but it wasn't him, though the shape of head and hair color were much the same, and both wore the white shirts with blue epaulets that private pilots tended- to adopt as their.uniforms. Their eyes met, and Dengler looked down and out of the aircraft, afraid that he'd give something away.
Goodman, Eddie Price thought. His pistol was in the map pocket in the left-side door of the aircraft, well-hidden under a pile of flight charts, but easy to reach with his left hand. He'd get it, then turn quickly, bring it up and fire if it came to that. Hidden in his left ear, the radio receiver, which looked like a hearing aid if one saw it, kept him posted, though it was a little hard to hear over the engine and rotor sounds of the Sikorsky. Now Petra's pistol was aimed at himself, or the pilot, as she moved it back and forth.
"Riflemen, do you have your targets?" Chavez-asked. "Rifle Two-One, affirmative, target in sight."
"Rifle Two-Two, negative, I have something in the way. Recommend switch to subject Furchtner."
"Okay, Rifle Two-Two, switch to Furchtner. Rifle Two-One, Dortmund is all yours."
"Roger that, lead," Johnston confirmed. "Rifle TwoOne has subject Dortmund all dialed in." The sergeant reshot the range with his laser. One hundred forty-four meters. At this range, his bullet would drop less than an inch from the muzzle, and his "battle-sight" setting of two hundred fifty meters was a little high. He altered his crosshairs hold to just below the target's left eye. Physics would do the rest. His rifle had target-type double-set triggers. Pulling the rear trigger reduced the break-pull on the front one to a hard wish, and he was already making that wish. The helicopter would not be allowed to take off. Of more immediate concern, they couldn't allow the subjects to close the leftside door. His 7-mm match bullet Would probably penetrate the polycarbonate window in the door, but the passage would deflect his round unpredictably, maybe causing a miss, perhaps causing the death or wounding of a hostage. He couldn't let that happen.
Chavez was well out of the action now, commanding instead of leading, something he'd practiced but didn't like very much. It was easier to be there with a gun in your hands than to stand back and tell people what to do by remote. control. But he had no choice. Okay, he thought, we have Number One in the chopper and a gun on her. Number Two was in the open, two-thirds of the way to the chopper, and a gun on him. Two more bad guys were approaching the halfway point, with Mike Pierce and Steve Lincoln within forty meters, and the last two subjects still in the house, with Louis Loiselle and George Tomlinson in the bushes right and left of them. Unless the bad guys had set up overwatch in the house, one or more additional subjects to come out after the rest had made it to the chopper… very unlikely, Chavez decided, and in any case all the hostages were either in the open or soon would be and rescuing them was the mission, not necessarily killing the bad guys, he reminded himself. It wasn't a game and it wasn't a sport, and his plan, already briefed to Team-2's members, was holding up. The key to it now was the final team of subjects.
Rosenthal saw the snipers. It was to be expected, though it had occurred to no one. He was the head gardener. The lawn was his, and the odd piles of material left and right of the helicopter were things that didn't belong, things that he would have known about. He'd seen the TV shows and movies. This was a terrorist incident, and the police would respond somehow. Men with guns would be out there, and there were two things on his lawn that hadn't been there in the morning. His eyes lingered on Weber's position, then fixed on it. There was his salvation or his death. There was no telling now, and that fact caused his stomach to contract into a tight, acid-laden ball.
"Here they come," George Tomlinson announced, when he saw two legs step out of the house… women's legs, followed by a man's, then two more sets of women's… and then a man's. "One subject and two hostages out. Two more hostages to go…"
Furchtner was almost there, heading to the right side of the helicopter, to the comfort of Dieter Weber. But then he stopped, seeing inside the open right-side door to where Gerhardt Dengler was sitting, and decided to go to the other side.
"Okay, Team, stand by," Chavez ordered, trying to keep all four groups juggled in the same control, sweeping his binoculars over the field. As soon as the last were in the open…
"You; get inside, facing back." Furchtner pushed Brownie toward the aircraft.
"Off target, Rifle Two-Two is off the subject," Weber announced rather loudly over the radio circuit.
"Re-target on the next group," Chavez ordered.
"Done," Weber said. "I'm on the lead subject, group three."
"Rifle Two-One, report!"
"Rifle Two-One tight on Subject Dortmund," Homer Johnston replied at once.
"Ready here!" Loiselle reported next from the bushes at the back of the house. "We have the fourth group now."