Another gunshot filled the air.
So close to the fired rifle, the sound of the gunshots was loud enough to sting the ears of the American with the call sign Cowboy Bravo. He was barely ten feet behind the target, the iron sights of the MP5 lined up to put a triangle of rounds through his spine when the command was given, which should be any second now.
‘Cowboy Gamma, this is Cowboy Daddy,’ a voice spat through his earpiece. ‘Shots have been fired. Gimme me a fuckin’ sitrep. Over. ’
‘He missed,’ Cowboy Gamma replied. ‘Goddamn missed with all three shots. Mr and Mrs VIP have realised what’s happening and are on the ground. Bodyguards are securing them. Over.’
‘ Shit,’ Cowboy Daddy said back. ‘I thought this guy was supposed to be good. Cowboy Bravo, hold your position. Do not shoot, repeat, do not shoot the asshole. We can’t kill our target until he kills his own. Out.’
Victor lost sight of Kasakov and his wife. They both hit the deck soon after the third shot had drilled a hole in the dacha’s brickwork. At least three bodyguards were now on scene, shielding their protectees until it was safe to get them out of the area. They were looking Victor’s way as the hillside was the most logical place for a sniper to be positioned, but he was too far away to be spotted. In return, Victor couldn’t see even a square inch of Kasakov.
He grabbed the MP7 and sprinted forward in the dacha’s direction.
Cowboy Bravo whispered into his throat-mic, ‘This is Cowboy Bravo. The target has ditched the rifle and is on the move towards the mansion with an SMG. Looks like he’s going to do this from up close and personal. Over.’
‘Roger that,’ Cowboy Daddy replied. ‘Follow him and maintain a visual. Out.’
The American rounded the two trees where the target had been lying, and gave chase down the steep front of the highpoint. The target was running fast, heading west down the hillside, maybe fifteen yards ahead, darting through the undergrowth, crushing shrubs and bending and snapping slim branches as he ran.
The hillside was relatively steep with jutting protrusions of rock and jagged steps covered in a thick layer of soil and detritus. Thin-trunked trees rose into the sky all around him. Between them shrubs and other plant life competed for the light filtering through the canopy. Moss spread across tree trunks, fallen branches and rocky areas. Victor sprinted as fast as he could without stumbling, dodging trees, ducking branches, jumping rocks.
He spotted a fallen tree up ahead — saw it was perfect — and manoeuvred towards where it lay. He leaped up and over it, dropped down on the other side, spun around and into a firing position.
As he expected, a shape was running through the trees behind him, sixteen yards out, following Victor’s path, hard to see at first, half-hidden by trees, blending well into the surrounding vegetation due to a ghillie suit, but unmistakably a man with an MP5SD.
The sudden turn took Victor’s pursuer completely by surprise.
Automatic gunfire echoed through the forest.
The man in the ghillie suit danced momentarily as he was struck by a burst of 4.7 mm high-velocity rounds, then fell out of sight, leaving a mist of blood hanging in the air.
Victor’s gaze swept from left to right, knowing there would be more of them. He saw another blur of movement through the undergrowth. Another man in a ghillie suit, twenty yards away at Victor’s ten o’clock. The underbrush was thick and tall around him. Like the first man, the fact he was running gave Victor the chance to distinguish him from the surrounding vegetation. The second man had a half-second extra to react over the other guy and was dropping low as Victor fired, 4.6 mm bullets missing and blowing bark from a nearby tree.
The man shot back. There was virtually no noise or muzzle flash due to the fat integrated suppressor of the MP5SD. Bullets zipped over Victor’s head. He crouched lower, maximising the cover of the fallen tree. He shot back, again missing, but this time hitting close enough to convince the shooter to back off into harder cover.
Victor had his left forearm resting on the horizontal tree trunk, gaze fixed along the MP7’s sights at the area in which the gunman had disappeared. If he backtracked up the hill, Victor would see him, but if he moved laterally, the gunman could stay hidden in the mass of shrubs and tall plants. The trees there were thin but plentiful. Victor’s eyes flicked towards any swaying limb or falling leaf.
He knew he was fortunate to still be alive. If the guy Victor had shot hadn’t disturbed the birds in the trees above the highpoint and stopped them singing, Victor would have put a. 338 Lapua Magnum through Kasakov’s skull as planned, and in return would have been shot where he lay. After noticing the sudden quiet Victor understood he was no longer alone and that he still breathed was a clear sign whoever disturbed the birds was waiting for Kasakov to die before acting.
One down. Another close by. Victor didn’t know how many there were in total, but there had to be at least one more he hadn’t encountered keeping a visual on Kasakov to confirm when he was dead. Which meant that one was now behind Victor, but maybe almost seven hundred yards away. He could forget about him for the moment.
Three bullets plugged holes in the fallen tree just beneath his arm. He didn’t see the muzzle flash — the MP5SD’s suppressor substantially reduced it. He couldn’t see the shooter either. The ghillie suit guy was so well camouflaged he was almost invisible. Victor shot a burst back, ejected shell cases ricocheting off the tree trunk, and got his head down behind it. He pushed a hand through the plant life and scooped up some damp soil. He rubbed it over his face and neck, closing his eyes to make sure his eyelids weren’t missed out.
He knew his attackers weren’t Mossad. Kidon assassins would have just grabbed him while he slept and taken him someplace dark and quiet to slice every last shred of information from him. They obviously weren’t Kasakov’s men either. Any other enemies Victor had wouldn’t have been waiting for him to kill Kasakov first. There was only one person who would want both Kasakov and Victor dead.
He emptied his mind of the thought. He had to concentrate. Adrenalin was flooding Victor’s veins and he breathed slow and steady to control its effects. He needed his pulse lower than his body wanted it. A rapid heart rate would help him run faster, but it wasn’t going to keep his aim steady.
More bullets slammed into the tree trunk shielding him. Splinters of wood and pieces of bark were blasted into the air and rained down over him. He stayed where he was, knowing subsonic 9 mm rounds had no chance of penetrating through the thick trunk. Even his supersonic armour-piercing rounds wouldn’t, but the MP7 easily out-ranged an MP5SD. The problem was that contacts in this kind of terrain were almost exclusively from very close range. With the trees and undergrowth restricting line of sight to sub thirty yards, Victor couldn’t make his fire superiority pay off. The virtually silent weapon of his attacker, with its almost eliminated muzzle flash, was far better suited to the fight than Victor’s own gun.
He shuffled to his left until he was close enough to the stump of the fallen tree to pop his head and gun around the side and out of cover. His gaze scanned the area where he’d last seen his enemy, but before he could spot the shooter, rounds were coming his way, slicing through foliage, thudding into the ground. He rolled back into cover.
The gunman was firing from an elevated position, twenty-five yards out, and was perfectly camouflaged. Any time Victor emerged out of cover he would take longer to acquire his target than his enemy would. And in Victor’s experience, whoever shot second in a firefight died first. If he was going to make it out of this, he needed to take away at least one of his attacker’s advantages before the third shooter got involved.