He took one step and flew back against a tree, letting out a gust of air as though he’d been kicked in the chest by a kangaroo and crumpled to the ground.
Gil sprang forward, pulling him to cover behind a large rock and ripping open his jacket to see the bullet had penetrated the ceramic breast plate. He tore out the plate and checked behind it to see that the projectile had fragmented and that the Kevlar had stopped the fragments, as the system had been designed.
“Wake up!” Gil smacked his face. “Wake up!”
Dragunov opened his eyes. “Stop hitting me.”
“You’re dead, baby!”
The Russian’s eyes grew wide, and he grabbed his chest. “What does that mean?”
Gil sat him up with a grin. “It means our Chechen friend out there thinks he just killed you.”
65
Pope kept one eye on the satellite feed while he spoke on the phone with Mark Vance, ex — Delta Force operator and CEO of the private military company Obsidian Optio. Obsidian deployed private mercenaries around the world, protecting various governmental and corporate interests. Chief among those interests were some of the world’s most vulnerable petroleum processing facilities. Gil was on Obsidian’s books as an employee but only as cover for a double hit he had carried out on two Al Qaeda terrorists in Morocco the year before.
“You say he’s where?” Vance asked.
“Just over the Georgian border into Russia,” Pope replied. “The Georgians are refusing to violate Russian airspace to pull him and his Spetsnaz partner out. So I need your people to fly in there and get them.”
“What about the Russians?” Vance said. “If the other guy is Spetsnaz, why don’t they pull them out?”
“It’s political,” Pope said. “Putin is making a point that I don’t have time to explain.”
“Well, Christ, Bob, we can’t violate Russian airspace.”
“You’ve got your own helos in Georgia that you’re using to patrol the BTC pipeline,” Pope said. “All you have to do is send a couple of them north for an hour or so and pull my guys out. Keep them close to the ground, and Russian radar will never even know they’re there.”
“Bob, that’s just not something we can do,” Vance insisted. “We can’t violate a country’s airspace like that.”
“You violated Brazilian airspace six months ago when your op to eliminate Joaquín Silva went bad.”
“That wasn’t us!” Vance said, obviously shocked by Pope’s knowledge of the operation. “And I resent the implication, Bob! Goddamnit! We’re on a telephone here!”
“It was you,” Pope said, his voice rising, “and I have the proof. Now, are you going to help me out, or I am going to share that proof with Brasília? I understand you’re about to sign one hell of an account with Telemar communications.” Telemar Participações, a $48 billion Brazilian telecommunications company, was the country’s third largest corporation. “It’d be a shame,” Pope said, “if the Brazilian government prevented that deal from going through.”
“Damn you, that’s blackmail!” Vance growled.
“It’s business,” Pope said icily. “And in case you haven’t gotten the news yet, I’ve just been appointed director of the CIA. So if you plan on continuing to do business with me, you’d better find a couple of pilots who know something about flying snake-and-nape, because I’ve got two men in the Valley of the Shadow badly in need of extraction!”
Vance was quiet for a long moment. “So you’re the head motherfucker in charge now,” he grumbled.
“That’s right,” Pope said. “And I understand you’ve got a Killer Egg stashed east of Tbilisi. You’d better send that along in support of the evac. It’s likely to be a hot EZ.” Killer Egg was the nickname for a Boeing AH-6 Little Bird helicopter, heavily armed with rockets and Gatling guns.
“You know entirely too much about our operations,” Vance said. “How many of your people do you having working on the inside?”
“Are you going to get on the phone to your people in Tbilisi or not?” Pope said. “Time is running out for my men.”
“I’ll pull them out,” Vance growled, “but you can bet your ass I’ll be expecting a quid pro quo one day. This could cost us a helluva lot if it goes bad.”
“That’s why it’s so important,” Pope said. “I’ll have Midori call you immediately with the coordinates and the rest of the particulars.”
Pope hung up and called Midori, telling her what he wanted. Then he called the president at the Pentagon. “Mr. President, I’ve arranged for evac. You don’t have to bother with the Georgians anymore.”
“Who the hell did you get, Bob?”
“Obsidian Optio.”
“Obsidian! How in hell did you get Vance to agree to it?”
“I twisted his arm, Mr. President.”
“How’d you — never mind!” the president said. “I don’t want to know. Let’s just hope they get there in time.”
66
After agreeing to separate, Gil left Dragunov and moved carefully from cover to cover toward the south, allowing Kovalenko to catch glimpses of him but not enough to risk getting shot. He knew the Chechen was in the tree line on the far side of the valley, so, relatively speaking, the bullet would take a little bit longer to reach him. This extra bit of time would be measured in tenths of a second, but it was enough for Gil to leap between rocks or trees without having to worry about Kovalenko forcing a shot that could potentially expose his position. The biggest risk was that he might anticipate Gil’s movement, firing a split second before he made his dash, thus delivering the round in time to intercept him. For this reason, Gil had to be very careful to keep his movements jerky and unpredictable. It was a dangerous game, and if he played it too long, he would certainly be killed.
The plan was for Gil to draw Umarov’s men southeast of Dragunov’s position. This would put their backs to Dragunov and allow him to start picking them off without immediate danger from Kovalenko. And this would force Kovalenko to make a choice: either let them escape or begin maneuvering against two different sniper positions at the same time. Gil had no doubt he would choose the latter.
The bulk of Umarov’s men had reached the stream by this time, and it was apparent from the size of the force that additional reinforcements had arrived. There were at least a hundred men maneuvering through the trees and around the boulders. The fighters at the front of the advance had spotted Gil’s movement, and they took the occasional potshot at him as he darted from cover to cover.
After traveling a few hundred meters around the eastern rim of the valley, Gil was forced to pause, having arrived at a particularly wide gap in the trees, where a large fissure cut down through the slope like a firebreak. The fissure was four feet across and five feet deep. He could leap across it easily, but the jump would give Kovalenko time enough to blow him away. He crouched with his back to the rock and thought about the Chechen sitting in his hide across the valley, undoubtedly licking his chops as he waited for Gil to make the obligatory leap of faith.
He envisioned himself in Kovalenko’s position, eye to the scope, watching the left side of the fissure for the first hint of movement, then squeezing the trigger, delivering the bullet at the same instant Gil landed on the far side.
Gil darted halfway from behind the rock and pulled back quickly. A bullet struck the rocky ground on the far side of the fissure, kicking up dust, and Gil lunged forward again, throwing himself across the fissure and diving onto his belly behind another rock. A second bullet nicked the heel of his boot as he pulled his legs to safety.