Rebecca put pressure on Osip's chest wound, but blood gushed between her fingers. The old man tried to speak. "Shh..." Rebecca shushed as another shot zinged through the window, hit the door, and disappeared from view.
"It's going to be okay," Rebecca murmured to Osip as his lips went from pink to gray to ash to white. It wasn't going to be okay. She'd seen another colleague's lips do the same thing. Back in Rome. Nothing would be okay for Osip ever again.
He muttered something in Russian.
"Lopez, what is he-" Rebecca looked up to find the corporal shoving the refrigerator over. Before she could ask what he was doing, he pushed the heavy appliance in front of the window. Suddenly the shots pinged on the metal, however they did not come out the back.
"We've got to go," Lopez said, trying to urge her up.
"We can't. He's still alive."
The corporal frowned. They both knew that statement wouldn't be true for much longer. Rebecca rushed on. "He's trying to say something." She grabbed Lopez's hand and pulled him down. "Please just translate."
As Lopez leaned over, Osip licked his lips. Still they trembled as he spoke barely above a whisper. Rebecca couldn't understand a word of it, and apparently the corporal was having an equally hard time.
He shook his head. "I don't think he's thinking straight. He's talking about virgins and staircases."
Osip raised his voice, sounding more and more urgent.
"And now a moot?" Lopez translated. "He's just repeating the same words over and over again."
A string of pings filled the air, and a bullet sliced through the refrigerator.
"He's cut out a window," Lopez said as he tugged on her. "We've got to bug out."
She knew she needed to leave, but how could she? What little blood Osip still had inside his body was due to her hand over the wound. If she left...?
Then Osip's finger curled around hers. "Go," he said in perfect English, then pushed her from his chest. Blood gushed like a fountain as Osip coughed red foam.
"No!" Rebecca yelled. Lopez grabbed her, jerking her to her feet.
"You heard him. Go!"
Lopez spun her toward the door as more shots made it through the refrigerator blockade. Before she could make it to the front door, it sprang open. Luckily Harvish's bright red hair signaled it was a friendly entering.
He kept the door open a crack, firing into the hallway. Unfortunately it did not look like good news he carried. "We've got company. Lots of company."
Rebecca looked to Lopez, who spewed out a litany of Spanish curse words.
"What?" Harvish asked. "This apartment is defensible. We can hole up-" A shot came through the refrigerator door, hitting the front door straight in the peephole. "Or not."
Rebecca gulped. Looked like the sniper's accuracy was actually going up.
Not good.
"They're just going to tighten the noose," Lopez said as Harvish fired down the hallway as the sniper punched several more holes in the refrigerator. Harvish had to dance back from the door as he was now in the sniper's line of fire.
Lopez glanced to Rebecca as they huddled beneath the windowsill. Clearly he didn't have a plan. But who would under these circumstances?
Except Brandt. Brandt would have a plan, but where in the hell was he?
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Brandt cursed, but the wind whisked his words away though as if it didn't care that there was a fucking sniper out in those trees. The same trees that Talli said would be impossible to shoot from.
Really? Because all those muzzle flashes told a different story.
He was pushing his bike as fast it could go, yet it wasn't even close to fast enough. There was no doubt in his mind whoever the fuck it was had ground forces moving to take the apartment. He'd sent Rebecca into a goddamned kill zone.
Suddenly Davidson's bike shimmied and then skidded out. What the hell? Brandt braked, swinging his motorcycle to the right as Davidson hit the pavement hard and rolled away. Bullets dug into the ground beside him.
That fucking sniper. He'd shot out a moving motorcycle's tire.
Davidson scrambled to cover as Brandt revved his engine. The kid wasn't a member of his team. Hell, he was a damned traitor. Still. Brandt couldn't leave the man defenseless. Releasing the brake, Brandt's bike sprang forward into the alley. He reached his hand out, but Davidson refused it.
"Do you have a rifle in your pack?" Davidson asked.
Of course Brandt had a rifle in his pack. The question was would he, could he give it to Davidson with a clear conscience? What were the odds that the weapon would be turned on them in the end?
"I've never hurt Rebecca," Davidson stated. "And I never will."
Brandt scanned the ruined mask of features. Could sincerity really be found there? With shouts and cries filling the streets, Brandt really didn't care. He needed that fucking sniper taken out. He didn't have time to unpack the rifle though. Brandt unhooked the bag and tossed it to Davidson. "You better not."
The kid was already at work getting the rifle out. "I'll head to a perch and give the sniper something else to worry about, then swing round to covering your exit."
Gunning the engine, Brandt nodded, not believing what he was about to say. "The fallback rally point is Kvratel six, but-"
"You won't wait for me," Davidson said, checking the sight of the rifle. "Wouldn't expect you to."
"Good," Brandt answered before opening the throttle and letting the bike do its thing. So he could do his thing. Racing toward the screaming.
Davidson dug the feet of the rifle stand into the roof's gravel. He loosened the swivel and scanned the area. To hit that apartment there were only about three trees to make your nest within the line of sight. And make that shot? The guy had to have a nearly perfect perpendicular angle on the building.
A muzzle flashed amongst the green leaves.
Gotcha. High up in the poplar tree sat the sniper. There was no way Davidson could hit him though. The distance was simply too great, and the wind cut across the meadow.
However, killing the sniper wasn't why Davidson came up here. They simply didn't have time to get him to a proper perch for the distance rating on this rifle. Now if he had the M107 LRSR, well that would be a different story. Now though this wasn't about eliminating the enemy, it was about flustering the enemy. Forcing him to act defensively rather than offensively.
Davidson tilted the rifle down and scanned the area beneath the tree. The sniper probably had a spotter. Someone to keep an eye on the surrounding area so the sniper could focus on hitting a window nearly half a mile away.
A bit of black against the green. And from the curves under that black bodysuit the spotter was a she not a he. Interesting.
Again he couldn't hit her, but damn if he couldn't distract her.
Aunush ignored the birds that flew up and out of the trees. Since the sniper began shooting, they had startled numerous animals. It was of no concern. Her only concern was the sniper regaining a window into that apartment. They needed to squeeze and squeeze that whore's hideout until she was crushed. Along with the knowledge of how Osip died.
"Move in, now," she insisted to her men inside the building.
The loud clatter of gunfire fired her ear. "We're taking heavy fire."
All the better, Aunush thought but did not voice. She did not need her men knowing that she really did not want them surviving this battle. "Then return fire and advance."
Aunush put her binoculars back up to study the sniper's progress when something flew past her sightline. She refocused and watched again. There it was. Something small but fast. Birds cried out, scattering from the trees.
What was happening?
Then something bit into her cheek. She fingered the wound. A tiny dribble of blood came back. Then another particle nicked her chin. Taking a step back, Aunush turned her attention to far closer to home as a bullet struck the tree to her left, sending bark as shrapnel.
She glanced up to her sniper, whose eyes crackled. He so hated it when another dog entered the fight.
But it could not be. Yet clearly it was the same sniper from back in London. Who was he? Aunush had studied Brandt's team file. Kark Talli was a skilled sniper. He had to be if he wanted to be on a Special Forces unit. However, he did not possess this kind of mad skills.
Mad skills or not, he did not have the equipment he needed on this mission. If he was busy taking potshots at trees rather than executing precise kill shots at the sniper up in the trees, then he did not have as long a range rifle as her sniper.
With a fierce grin she nodded. The intent clear.
Take him out.
"Did you hear that?" Lopez asked Rebecca.
Hands over her ears, she answered, "What? The barrage of gunfire?"
"No," he said. "The lack of sniper fire."
Rebecca looked up to the refrigerator riddled with holes. Yet no bullets flew through them.
Lopez grabbed her arm, urging her up. "We've got to get to new ground."
They joined Harvish. She peeked through the cracked door.
The point man indicated to the stairwell. "That's the only way down, so unless you want to jump eight stories down, I'm not sure what your backup plan is."
Lopez gritted his teeth. "Time to go balls forward."
She didn't know exactly what that meant to the corporal, but if meant getting out of this apartment, Rebecca was all for it.
"Harvish, shoot out the lock," Lopez said, pointing to the door across the hallway.
The point man didn't hesitate. The opposite door swung open.
"Cover us," Lopez said, taking Rebecca's hand. "We've got to haul ass."
Rebecca laughed nervously. "Duh. It's you."
His grin was a ghost of what it normally was as he nodded to Harvish. The point man stepped farther out, firing toward the stairwell as Lopez and Rebecca bolted across the hallway. A half step out and the attackers braved Harvish's cover fire, shooting back.
Lopez spun Rebecca inward, offering his back to the hail of bullets, slamming into the other door. Harvish followed on their heels, still firing down the hallway.
The point man breathed heavily. "Great, Lopez. So now we're across the hall. Not exactly a green zone."
"How far do you think the buildings are apart?" Lopez asked.
"Can't be more than four meters," Harvish answered.
Rebecca looked at the window. The buildings were stacked closely together. But what did that have to do with...
"Tell me your plan involves jury-rigging some kind of ladder across that gap, Ricky," she begged.
Gunfire rattled at the door. Even if they could build a ladder they certainly didn't have time to actually build it.
"Shoot it out!" Lopez yelled.
Harvish obliged, shattering their window and the one across the way.
"We're going to need to be going full speed, darlin'," Lopez explained as he urged her to a run.
Rebecca didn't have time to worry or freak out or refuse. Not as the feet on the refrigerator squealed as the attackers scraped it across the floor. Instead, she let her muscles do the work, dashing across the room. Lopez went first, leaping onto the small seat beneath the window and diving through the opening. Rebecca was only a few steps behind.
Then she hit open air. Rebecca tried to keep from looking down, but how could you? The ground seemed so far away. Like a distant dream. Hitting her shoulder against the other building certainly woke her up. Her body bounced off the gray plaster as she tumbled into the apartment, slamming into a kitchen table, smashing its legs.
She didn't even have time to get out of the way as Harvish landed with a crash at her feet.
Within a breath all three were up, running for the door. On the way the point man shot out the lock, so they hit the opened door at a full sprint, spilling out into the hallway. The blissful hallway without bullets flying. They made for the stairwell until Lopez stopped at a door and strangely knocked.
"What are you doing?" she asked, knowing that she really, really, really didn't want to know the answer.
After no answer, Lopez shot out the lock. "They'll swarm us at ground level if we go down now. We've got to get lost in the buildings."
Lopez opened the door. Rebecca backed away a step. "Clarify buildings."
He urged her inside the new apartment. "We've just got to make that jump three more times. No biggie."
"I really don't think that phrase means what you think it means, Ricky."
Davidson ignored the chunks of ledge that sprang up into the air and then fell back down in a shower of plaster. The other sniper was just showing off. So what that he had the bigger gun and knew how to use it?
The ruse had worked. The sniper's attention was now focused on Davidson rather than the apartment. Fingers spasming, he had to release the gun. He swung the sight to the east. Still no sign of Rebecca, but there was enough gunfire in those buildings to indicate a small war.