Gray and his rifle pushed through several tufts of fleabane, and then rather than change direction he let a bull thistle scratch his face as he passed. He pressed himself against the ground as he moved. Dirt and twigs kept finding their way into his mouth, and he quietly spit the bits out as if he were a Pall Mall smoker.
Gray could do nothing better in this world than to move invisibly across terrain. Each small and silent motion was an art, his art. When the rhythm of the crawl came back to him after a while, he found he could pick up his pace a few more feet an hour. The slightest mischance with an errant stalk of grass might send a bullet his way, so Gray constantly reined himself in. He desperately wanted the shelter of the trees. His clothes were sodden with perspiration. He was still leaking blood. Stray pieces of dried grass clung to him, and he began to resemble a scarecrow.
Two hours passed, all the while Gray knowing Trusov was in a hide somewhere in the bowl, searching with his binoculars, occasionally raising his rifle to use the more powerful mounted scope.
Then the sound of a shot rushed over the grass. Gray bit into the ground, flattening himself. The noise echoed around the bowl, washing over Gray several more times. Gray did not hear the bullet passing overhead or through the grass. He allowed himself the slightest smile of satisfaction. Trusov must be nervous. He had fired at a shadow or a bird or a wind-blown branch. When a nail in his back brushed a nerve the smile vanished.
Gray dug his leading hand into the ground and pulled forward, parting the grass, sliding over the ground, rearranging the grass behind him, a smooth mechanical motion impeded only slightly by the spikes of pain in his back. He could smell pine sap and knew he was drawing close to the trees. Maybe another sixty or seventy yards.
Then he smelled something else, a scent entirely foreign in the bowl. For an instant all his nose could detect was some sort of chemical. And then he knew it was gasoline. Next he smelled fire.
Gray could not risk raising his head above the grass, but he could hear the fire ahead of him, spreading rapidly left and right, probably along a line of gasoline Trusov had poured. The Russian had probably left behind a partly filled can of gas, and had ignited the gas by firing into the can. Trusov must have suspected Gray was in the grass but could not know precisely where.
The fire quickly consumed the dry grass. The wind was easterly but indifferent, only haphazardly pushing the flames, but the cheat grass and bunch grass and nipplewort were hay-dry, and the fire briskly ate into the field, quickly working east toward Gray. Smoke reached him, then tossing embers. Grasshoppers flicked by, fleeing the flames, then mice, one after another, a few crawling along Gray's arm, too frightened to care about the human.
A wind-tossed bit of burning grass landed on Gray's back, but to swat at it would ruffle the grass that hid him. Trusov was surely scanning the field, hoping to flush Gray and put a bullet into him as he tried to escape the fire. The fire was meant not to kill Gray but to flush him. Only a bullet would do for the killing.
The heat reached for Gray, the first blushes of it rolling over him, then subsiding with a quirk of the wind. Then more insistently, a pulse of heat that made him suck air. He looked forward through the grass. Orange licks were blackening and twisting the grass and sending waves of black smoke skyward. Not enough smoke was over him to cover him for a sprint. Gray had no choice but to lie there. From Gray's point of view — his eyes two inches above the dirt — the fire seemed to be sprinting toward him. Bits of flaming grass rose and swirled as smoke billowed. Grass snapped and hissed. A new gust of wind sped the flames. The fire roared as it closed in on Gray.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Bite down. No trembling, no thinking, no equivocating. If he rose to flee he would die. If he made a sound or if he made any quick move he would die. He could feel the sweep of Trusov's binoculars, feel the Russian's eyes searching and searching.
To protect his weapon and prevent ammunition in the pack from detonating in the heat, he slowly brought his backpack and rifle to his stomach. He tucked the pack and Winchester under his belly. Walls of heat rushed at him. He crammed his hands under him, squeezing the Winchester's stock, knowing he would need a grip on something.
Embers landed on Gray's shirt and pants, burning through the cloth and into his skin. The fire sounded like an animal tramping through the brush, closer and closer, cracking and bursting, homing in on Gray. Curls of flame came for his cap. The odor of burning fabric filled him. The blaze came on louder, now the sound of an engine.
He clamped his eyes shut and ground his mouth into the soil, filling it with dirt to dampen any scream. The first licks of fire found his face, caressing him then eating into his skin. The cap was on fire and his hair with it. Gray tried to dig his face deeper, deeper into the cool soil. His head felt as if razors were being dragged across it, temple to temple.
An ear caught fire. The fire stitched its way down his neck to his shoulders. It felt as if he were being flayed, as if his skin was being peeled back to reveal his skull and bones. His shirt caught with hissing flame, and the sensation of flaying continued down his back. The fire line advanced past his shoulders and to his back, then along his back, baking his skin, bubbling it with heat. But the quickened wind pushed the flames. The fire ate but did not tarry. A cloud of smoke covered him and he gasped for breath, and in the smoke was his salvation. The smoke was above him now. He had cover.
Marine snipers know that the fastest way to travel from one position to another is the rush. Gray slowly drew his arms to his body with his elbows on the ground, and pulled his right leg forward. He rose by straightening his arms as if doing a push-up. Keeping his grip on the rifle, he dug his left foot into the soil and leaped up, rising in the flame. Gray willed his knees to work. He ran low to the ground.
The blaze leapt and twisted around him. Fire stuck to him, consuming more of his skin. He bolted along the fire line, the only place the smoke was thick enough to hide him, keeping a shroud of black around him. His burns were a straitjacket of pain, and every step squeezed him with agony. He ran along the fire, right along the fire line, running for his life. He could see nothing but roiling smoke.
Then the south slope and its trees appeared before him, blurred by the smoke. His burned skin wrapped him in an agony he could not outrun. A pant leg trailed fire, and Gray could feel the flames chewing into his thigh and knee. He sprinted out of the fire, and carried smoke along with him as he ran uphill, then finally out of the smoke and into the woods. He passed several trees deeper into cover before he dropped the pack and rifle and collapsed at the base of a pine tree. He rolled on the ground, trying to extinguish the flames. He scooped pine needles onto his head, dampening whatever fire remained.
His cap was gone, and so was most of his hair. His mouth gaped open with the pain. When he sagged back against the tree trunk, a thousand needles of pain sank into his skin. He lurched away from the tree, and fell slowly to one side. Behind him, the fire continued across the field. Smoke churned up, then collected in a mushroom before drifting slowly east toward the bowl's mouth. The back of his shirt had burned away, but the sleeves and front were held on by a stretch of fabric at his collar. One leg of his pants was gone.