He edged around the right, squinting out. He tried to find the shooting site of his enemy, but it was much harder to see from this angle. Instead, he scanned back and forth in what he determined was the proper sector, and saw nothing, no movement, no anything. He finally found the fallen tree he was convinced had supported his enemy, but there was no sign of him, there was no sign of disturbance in the snow. A spot, a little farther back, could have been blood, but it was impossible to tell. It could also have been a black stone, a broken limb.
He lowered the rifle, slipped down the nightscope lenses and watched in the murk for a while. It stayed green, uncut by the flick of a laser.
Did I hit him?
Is he dead?
How much time should I give him?
A dozen scenarios instantly occurred to him. Maybe Solaratov had moved to a fallback position. Maybe he had moved laterally. Maybe he was even advancing on him. He might even be headed now toward the house, certain he had Bob trapped.
That last seemed the most logical. After all, the job was to hit the woman, not Swagger. Swagger's death had no real meaning, Julie's had all the meaning.
And if he were seen, he'd kill witnesses too.
Bob took a deep breath.
Then he pushed himself up, scuttled down a few yards, turned angles obliquely, dodged, jumped, found cover. He tried to make himself difficult to hit, knowing he could not make himself impossible to hit.
But no shot came.
From his new cover his angle was lower, so his view of the valley was less distinct. He could only see a bit of the flatland through the snowy trees, and could see nothing moving on it, approaching the house. But his target would be camouflaged, moving at angles, dropping, easily evading him.
His heart was beating rapidly. There was no breath left in his lungs. The planet seemed scorched dry of oxygen.
He pulled himself out and moved at the assault again.
He fell twice in the snow and almost blacked out the second time. And when he looked up, the house seemed no closer.
His mind raced, it would not stay where he put it. He thought of sight pictures, of men going limp against reticles, of long stalks in mountains and jungles and cities. He had hunted in them all and been victorious in them all.
He thought of the crawl with the sandbag, the long, slow crawl outside the American fort and the earlier moment when they had him, and then the large black plane, like a vulture, hung in the air for just a split second before its guns pulverized the universe.
He thought of the times he'd been hit: over the years, it amounted to no less than twenty-two wounds, though two were blade wounds, one inflicted by an Angolan, one by a mujahideen woman. He thought of thirst, fear, hunger, discomfort. He thought of rifles. He thought of the past and the future, which was running out quickly.
He rose the last time, and stumbled through the snow, which fought him. It was not cold. The snow still fell, harder now, in swirls and pinwheels, dancing in the wind, the heavy damp flakes of Eastern European cities.
Where am I?
What has happened?
Why has it happened?
But then he was at the house.
All was silent.
He bent to the storm cellar door, pulled hard, even as he reached inside his coat and drew out the Glock pistol.
A nail seemed to hold him back. He felt the door want to yield but hang up. He pulled harder, finding strength somewhere in the backwash of his mind, and with a crack, the nail gave and he pulled the door open. It revealed three cement steps down into a dark entrance that looked jammed with clutter.
He slid by the door and stepped down into the darkness, aware only marginally that he had made it. He felt clear-eyed, suddenly, recommitted to his purpose, certain of what he must do.
He kicked his way through the impediments: a sawhorse, a bicycle, bed springs, boxes of old newspapers, and as he got through he felt the door slam shut behind him, sealing him off in the darkness. He took another step, kicking things aside, looking and waiting for his vision to clear. He smelled moisture, mildew, rot, old leather and paper, decaying material, ancient wood.
Then he could see them.
They were over against the far wall, huddled under the steps, two women and a girl clutching each other, crying.
Swagger made it into the treeline. This is where he needed a pistol, a short, handy, fast-firing weapon with a lot of firepower. But the Beretta was somewhere up the mountain, buried under a ton of snow.
He carried the rifle like a submachine gun in the low assault position, poking through the woods as he closed from the flank on the sniper's hide.
He paused, waiting, listening. There was no sound, no sense of life at all in the haunted place. Branches and bushes distended by heavy, moist, fresh snow stood out in extravagant shapes like a display of modern art. Through the gray, the snow fell, swirling.
