"That did sound pretty promising," Brandt said, then followed up with his real thoughts. "If we were back in the seventies and didn't have a plague hot on our heels. This isn't getting us any closer to where Amed hid the Rinderpest."
Rebecca frowned, however Bunny stirred on the couch across from them, lazily opening her eyes. "Did you look at the later letters? I think they got more cagey."
Brandt leaned forward and grabbed a letter from the last row of pages. He read a random passage. "'I am so glad to hear that your trip to Wadi was so successful. Your travels truly are a revelation. I can almost see the place through your words.'"
Sitting up, Bunny wiped the sleep from her eyes. "We both assumed that author of the letter referred to Wadi as in Wadi Karnataka, India."
You could almost see the lightbulb go off over Rebecca's head. "What if they meant Wadi Zered?" Off Brandt's confused look Rebecca continued. "It is a valley that ran between Edom and Moab," Rebecca added for those nonbiblical scholars in the room, "ancient kingdoms that occupied lands that later became Jordan."
"Jordan?" Brandt asked, suddenly far more interested. Jordan fulfilled several of their search criteria. The country lay along the path of Moses's exodus from Egypt. Yet it was now under Arab control. Not that Brandt believed that the Jordanian government would condone such a terrorist act as storing the Rinderpest, however those sympathetic to Amed within the government? Those who could look the other way at abnormal shipments? That Brandt believed.
Still Jordan wasn't a small country. It was twice as big as Slovenia. That was a lot of ground to cover.
"Anything that narrows that down?" he asked as Lopez made his way down the stairs from the bunks.
"Any more of that stale, nasty-ass lumpy oatmeal left?" the corporal asked.
Bunny rose, pointing to one of the later letters. "I think that one has-"
"Shh," Davidson hissed from the door.
Brandt tensed as Bunny turned to the private. "What-"
"Get down!"
Brandt was already on it, grabbing the younger woman by the wrist and yanking her to the floor as Lopez leapt over the stair's railing, drawing his weapon before his feet hit the floor.
A window shattered as a bullet sped through the room, striking the solid rock fireplace and ricocheting back toward Davidson. The private ducked, covering his head.
That bitch. Brandt never should have assumed the weather would keep her at bay. The chick had a hard-on for them bigger than Bush's for Saddam.
"Douse all the light!" he shouted. Lopez and Davidson obliged, although Brandt wasn't sure if it did them any good. They'd been light-tight before the attack. The guy did not find them because of the fire or the lamps. That sniper must have an infrared scope. Of course, the bastard had a night-vision scope. Probably even one that had a wind gauge, because why the fuck not?
Plunged into darkness, Brandt heard movement from his men on the second floor, as he turned to Lopez. "You are getting the Bombardier ready for evac."
"Sarge, I don't know..." Davidson said as he cracked the door open. "Unless I set up somewhere to provide cover fire, I don't see how anyone is making it across to the Bombardier." He slammed the door shut as another shot flew through the crack and then dug a trough in the soft wood floor. "Like I said."
"I've got a plan," Lopez said as he army-crawled his way across the room. "But no one, and I mean no one is going to like it."
Anything had to beat hugging the rug until the enemy decided on a full-out assault. Didn't it?
Aunush let her elbow touch the sniper's. Not enough to interfere with his aim, but enough for him to know how much she truly appreciated his skills. Dawn was only a few minutes away, but darkness still claimed the mountains as snow fell in thick sheets. The only sound beyond the muffled pop of the silenced sniper rifle was the crunch of ice behind her.
She didn't flinch as a gun muzzle dug into her temple. Nor did the sniper, he just kept firing at the chalet. The only concession she made to having a gun to her head was to lower her thermal-equipped binoculars.
"What took you so long?" Aunush asked.
The wei's hand shook with fury, digging the metal deeper into her temple. "What did I warn you if you tried to escape?"
"Please," Aunush stated. "Escape? More like leaving bread crumbs across Slovenia."
Her eyes darted up to witness the wei's confusion. Clearly he wasn't quite as adept at Western culture as he thought.
"The broken bathroom window? The tiny, almost imperceptible blood trail to the stolen car?" The muzzle fell back a millimeter as the wei considered her words. "Then the extremely obvious break-in at the Slovenia's World's Elite Winter Sport storage facility? Where the only items stolen were two electric snowmobiles?"
The gun pulled away. "You have endangered the mission."
"Really?" Aunush asked as she handed him the binoculars. "Those seven green splotches in that house? That's Brandt and his team."
The wei peered through the lens, then snapped them down. You could tell he wanted to punish her. Really, he probably wanted to kill her except for that lingering doubt at the base of his skull. Could he have found their mutual enemy? Could he take them out without her?
The answer to both of those questions was no.
"Remember," the wei said, clearly trying to stay in control, "we have your Watcher back at the hotel."
Oh, shudder the thought. Aunush simply held her hand out for the wei to return the binoculars as the sniper fired every twenty seconds or so to put pressure on Brandt.
"So," Aunush asked the wei. "Do you have a rocket launcher or something to add to the mix, or are you going to let my sniper do all the work for you?"
With a snap of his fingers, one of the soldiers brought over what looked like an AK-47 rifle on steroids. Aunush watched as the Chinese soldier put the tripod base on the QLZ-87 grenade launcher. Basically the Chinese, not big on originality, had copied the Russian rifle model and then developed it into a magazine-fed grenade launcher. Maybe not original but innovative. The thing had easily fit on the back of the electric snowmobiles that Aunush had conveniently left for the rest of the team at the storage facility. She'd even put the keys in the ignitions just in case they didn't see the connection.
That was how she and the sniper, along with the Chinese team, had made it up the mountain without Brandt being any the wiser. The electric motors were nearly silent. It was said you could stalk deer on a clear winter day and never have them hear you coming. After having her bones rattled on the long journey up the slopes, Aunush wasn't so sure about that claim, however they had made it up the mountain to their perch on a peak across from the chalet without detection.
Now, however, Brandt was well aware of their presence. Although strangely his team was huddled together by the fireplace. Strange. But his odd tactics mattered little.
As the sun rose to the east and the soldier set up the grenade launcher next to her, there was no reason to deny herself that sweet, sweet moment of revenge.
Davidson's fingertips bled as he gripped a sharp outcropping of rock.
Lopez grunted below him. "No hurry, dude."
Ignoring the pain shooting down the back of his hand and settling into his wrists, Davidson found another handhold and hauled himself another meter. He glanced up the long chimney to finally find light. Not much farther.
Which was a good thing. Between the strain of the climb and the cold, he would be lucky to be able to pull the trigger, let alone hit something. As they neared the top of the rocky shaft though, the crevices became more frequent and easier to hold. They were at the lip of the long crack in the rock that served as the chalet's chimney.
"Ready," Davidson announced.
Lopez projected down the shaft. "Three."
Davidson braced his feet on Lopez's shoulders, releasing his hands so he could swing the sniper rifle from his back and prepare to fire. He kept reminding himself that he didn't have to hit anything. He just had to give that other sniper pause. A seven-second pause. Exactly seven seconds.
If he missed...if the sniper still fired despite his attempts...if Brandt and the others didn't haul ass as fast as they thought they could...then Lopez's whole plan fell apart. Or at least the first salvo of his plan would fall apart. There were plenty of other opportunities for this to go south in the second phase.
"Two."
Davidson tucked the rifle up against his shoulder, picturing where the sniper was set up. It had to be on the eastern peak directly across from the chalet. The guy would have good shelter. Then Davidson moved on to calculating the wind-shift between the peaks. And then mainly praying his damaged fingers could still work in the extreme cold.
Prepping for the shot, Davidson took in a long, deep breath, then exhaled as the air in front of him steamed. He let it dissipate and then dug his heel into Lopez's shoulder.
"One!" Lopez announced as he pushed up, forcing Davidson out of the chimney.
The world was a blur of snow, but Davidson didn't count on a visual. He trusted his instincts and fired once. But not in time. A rocket-propelled grenade's red streak reddened the pristine snow as it shot across the crevice between the peaks.
The first wrinkle in Lopez's plan.
"Run!" Davidson yelled to the team below as the corporal lowered him behind the lip. "No!" Davidson yelled, but Lopez wouldn't shove him back up.
"We've got to trust the plan," the corporal explained.
As the mountain shook from the explosion, Davidson wasn't so sure about that.
Brandt literally flung Rebecca ahead of him and dragged Bunny behind the Bombardier to shelter. Just in time as the chalet burst into flames. The beautiful little cottage now a conflagration.
The first hitch in Lopez's "sniper Whack-a-Mole" plan. They hadn't counted on RPGs, although seriously they should have. But why the hell hadn't the enemy opened with those? Why go with sniper fire if they had the muscle of RPGs?
"But I think Osip killed Nikolay for the fragments here," Rebecca protested. He ignored her. "Brandt, the fragments are here." He ignored her again. Whatever was here or wasn't here wasn't their problem. Surviving was.
"Sarge, orders?" Harvish asked from up front. Brandt didn't ignore him.
"Stick to the plan," Brandt said.
"Until it comes unstuck," Talli added.
Their seven-second plan was probably fucked, however, it was the best one they had.
Seven.
Harvish opened the front door to the Bombardier.
Six.
The point man climbed in, staying low, not leaving a target to shoot at.
Five.
Talli opened the passenger side door for them and then slipped in beside Harvish.
Four.
Brandt urged Rebecca into the backseat.
Three.
Bunny climbed in.
Two.
He joined his team, closing the door behind him.
One.
CHAPTER 17.
Chalet, Slovenia 5:03 a.m. GMT The roar of the Bombardier's engine filled the alpine air as Davidson popped back out of his hole. He didn't bother to even aim. He just fired and fired again and again, trying to give those shooters across the divide something to focus on other than killing his team.
Lopez tried to pull him back down, but Davidson refused to budge. He braced his feet against the stone wall to support his weight and continued to fire, honing in on his target. Searching the snowy white cap for signs of movement. Or better yet a splotch of red.
"Damn it," Lopez growled. "Get down here."
Davidson didn't bother to argue, not with the Bombardier still sitting there like a sitting duck. Why the hell weren't they moving? The rest of the team was supposed to be gone, down the ridge by now.
He'd effectively stalled the opposing sniper, but that damned RPG gunner fired again. And if Davidson knew anything about trajectories, it was heading straight for the Bombardier.
Rebecca watched through the back window with a sick fascination as the rocket shimmied its way across the open air, glistening in the early morning light. If she didn't know better, it seemed harmless. Just a bright sparkler coming at them.
"Incoming!" Talli shouted.
No kidding.
But the vehicle was practically buried in snow. The engine couldn't overcome the weight of what the storm had dumped on the Bombardier's struts. Any path they had cut last night was long buried.
"Fuck it!" Brandt cursed and reached over, leaning on the Bombardier's throttle.
The engine screamed, stripping gears, tearing itself apart, but the vehicle jerked backward, tipping them over the ledge just as the rocket streaked overhead, sending a shower of sparks on the Bombardier's roof before exploding against the plateau exactly where they'd been a second ago.
Her relief was short-lived as the Bombardier started picking up speed, coursing down the slope, backward. Rebecca gripped the seat, stifling a scream.
So it came as no great surprise when Harvish announced, "I've lost steering!"
Davidson fought Lopez, who tugged on his leg. He couldn't stop shooting. Even though the other sniper was occasionally popping off a shot, Davidson had to keep that RPG gunman busy.