Kronos saw Cochrane and Alfie run from cover toward the house, their guns held high.
This was it.
Assault.
He swung his sniper rifle toward Schreiber’s house. Men emerged from the castle, sprinting, all of them carrying assault rifles. He counted six, then eight, then fifteen. They were expertly moving down the road, taking turns covering each other while others advanced.
They opened fire.
Five hundred yards away, Cochrane and Alfie dived to the ground and returned fire.
Kronos placed his finger on the trigger.
Move!” Will rolled sideways. Bullets ricocheted off the road, inches from their bodies, as Alfie and Will went right. They got to their feet and slammed their bodies flush against the escarpment. From across the valley, a heavy-caliber shot boomed. Then another, followed by a third. “That’s it! We’ve got to get to the last bend while he’s taking them down. Go!”
Will sprinted forward, firing his submachine gun, knowing that he was easily in range of the men’s assault rifles and that his shorter-range bullets stood little chance of hitting them. Twelve men were spread out, four hundred yards ahead of him. One of them collapsed to the ground after a.50-caliber sniper round ripped half his head off his body. Will stopped, aimed, and sent controlled bursts toward the others.
Alfie ran past him as fast as he could, wheezing heavily, shooting as he continued onward, before stopping, throwing himself to the ground, and continuing to shoot at the hostiles. “Move!”
Will sprinted, just as Kronos fired two more shots and dropped two more men. The sound of gunfire was now deafening and almost continuous. Will raced past Alfie, reached the bend, and dived for cover as more bullets raced through the air where he’d just been. He glanced at Alfie, broke cover, and sent a sustained volley of machine gun fire at the remaining nine men. His bullets struck two men, who twisted and fell off the road down the mile-long drop into the valley. “Come on, Alfie! Now! Now!”
Alfie ran, his back screaming in pain from his exertions, toward the bend while Will continued firing long bursts toward their assailants from his exposed position.
Another boom from across the valley. Then two more.
Three men fell to the ground with holes the size of fists in their chests.
Alfie zigzagged toward Will. Just like he’d been taught to do by the regiment, though then he’d been able to move four times quicker. He reached the MI6 officer, who spun around, grabbed his jacket, and pulled them both to the cover of the bend’s escarpment. Bullets slammed into chunks of rock and sent debris flying through the air two feet from their position.
Will swapped magazines, waited a few seconds, then swung out of the bend and fired five-round bursts at the four men, one hundred yards away. One of them flipped backward with a line of machine gun rounds across his upper body. Will sidestepped back into cover as the men returned fire, and glanced at Alfie. “Hundred and fifty yards to the house, three men left out there, let’s wait.”
Kronos inserted a new magazine, breathed in, exhaled half a lungful, held his breath, and squeezed the trigger. One mile away, his bullet ripped through a hostile’s shoulder and exited through his face. He moved the rifle as the last two men started sprinting back toward the house, kept his sight’s crosshairs two feet in front of one of the men, and fired. The round smashed the man’s hipbone and ripped out half of his gut. His colleague was frantically trying to reach the house, moving erratically, keeping low. Kronos pulled the trigger. The.50-caliber projectile removed the lower half of one leg. The man fell prone, his screams audible from this distance, amplified by the valley and echoing over its contours. Kronos watched the man vainly trying to crawl over the remaining fifty yards of road in front of Schreiber’s residence. He ignored him for the moment, focused on the front door, fired twice, and saw his antimateriel rounds knock the entrance partially off its hinges. After putting in a fresh clip, he returned his attention to the injured man, took aim, and turned his brain into pulp.
Will and Alfie stepped away from the bend. One hundred and fifty yards ahead of them was the imposing grand entrance to Schreiber’s mountain residence. For the first few yards, they walked, their guns trained on the broken door, waiting for more men to spew out onto the road. Despite the icy mountain air, Will’s body was covered in sweat. He could barely imagine what state Alfie’s body was in.
“Gotta hope the German’s got that door covered, ’cos we’re screwed if he ain’t.”
Will’s eyes were narrow as he kept the foresight of his MP5 trained on the entrance. Another.50-caliber bullet knocked the broken door flat onto the ground. Will moved his gun. “That’s his answer. Watch the windows. Go, now!”
They jogged forward, gun sights searching for anyone who might fire at them from one of the ten windows on this side of the house.
Fifty yards.
No movement
Hundred yards.
Silence.
One hundred and twenty yards.
The top left window smashed. A man. Rifle. Will and Alfie fired. The hostile tumbled out of the window and thudded onto the ground.
They reached the entrance, Will moved flush against the wall to one side of it, Alfie the other.
Alfie slammed in a new magazine. “There’ll be as many inside. Wish we ’ad them flash bangs, sunshine.”
“Me too. If he wasn’t using it before, Kronos will be switching to thermal now. We’ve got to keep some distance between us and the hostiles so he knows who we are. Take it slow.”
Will spun into the doorway, his MP5 held at eye level. Alfie moved behind him. They entered Schreiber’s residence.
Mr. Schreiber! They’ve reached the house. Get to the back of the living room. I’ve got men outside the room. But for God’s sake, stay down. Somewhere out there is a sniper. He’s clearing a path for Cochrane and Mayne so that they can get here and kill you.”
Schreiber smiled. “Make sure your men stay on the north side of the house, out of sight of the sniper. That way, it should be impossible for my two visitors to reach this room. But if they do, I’ll talk to them and watch them walk away after leaving me untouched.”
Will and Alfie kept low as they moved along the corridor, taking long strides and placing their feet flat on the red-carpeted floor in order not to bounce and move their weapons from their steady horizontal level. The house had been tastefully decorated, with paintings and oil lamps covering the oak-paneled walls, and it was big-the corridor ran for seventy yards. Closed doors lined both sides. As they reached the first door, Alfie rotated and walked backward, ready to shoot anyone who burst out of the rooms. All was silent, though they knew that somewhere in the house would be armed men.
They reached the end of the corridor. Will lay on his front and quickly glanced around the corner. Getting to his feet, he cupped a hand around Alfie’s ear. “Another corridor. Forty yards long. Two closed doors on the left. Big staircase halfway along on the right. No sight of any hostiles.”
They turned the corner. Immediately, the door to the closest room opened and they caught a brief sight of an arm. It threw something toward them-a small object that was now rolling along the carpet.
Grenade.
Will sprinted forward, dropped low, scooped up the grenade, and tossed it back toward the open door. The explosive detonated as it reached the doorway, and shrapnel and blood smashed against the opposite wall.
Will moved forward, checked the room, saw two men’s smashed bodies, and gestured for Alfie to follow him onward. They reached the second door. Will pointed at it and his weapon. Alfie understood the meaning of the gesture. Will raised three fingers, then two, then one. Both men stepped in front of the door and fired a sustained burst of machine gun fire through the wooden entrance. Will kicked the door open. One man was lying over a table with bullet holes in his throat and an eye socket. Another was slumped against a wall, his handgun discarded to one side, clutching his shoulder, his face screwed up in agony. Without hesitating, Will shot him in the chest and head.