Bob's breath rose above him, then parted. He advanced slowly. If the sniper was here, he was well hidden, completely disciplined.
He could see the fallen tree, and then made out the disturbance in the snow where the man had supported himself while shooting upward.
Bob slid as silently as he could on the oblique through the heavy trees, trying to shake no snow loose, and at last came to the site, paused a second, then stepped behind the cover to put his rifle muzzle on the man. But nobody was there. He heard only his own harsh breath heaving in the cold.
The blood told the story.
Solaratov had been hit bad. His rifle lay in the snow, the ranging binoculars were there too. A raspberry sherbet marked where he'd bled most profusely, driven to the ground by the impact of the .308.
Got him! Bob thought, but the moment of exultation never fully developed, for in the next seconds he read the tracks and the blood trail and saw that the man, seriously wounded but nothing like dead, had moved back through the trees toward the house.
At that moment he heard a bang, which could have been a shot, but it wasn't. He turned and saw through the trees the house and a little puff of flung snow. That helped identify the sound. It had been the sound of a heavy cellar door closing, and when it had slammed shut, it had vibrated free a cloud of snow.
He's in there with my family, Bob thought.
He had a rooted moment of terror. It felt like ice sliding down through his body, smooth and unbearably cold, numbing all the organs it brushed as it rushed through him.
But some part of his brain refused to panic, and he saw what he must do.
He raced to pick up the Remington Magnum, for the three hundred extra feet of velocity and the five hundred extra pounds of energy and, throwing aside his parka, ran, ran like a fool on fire or in love, not toward the house, which was too far, but for a good, straight-in angle on the door.
They heard the door creak as someone tried to pull on it.
'Oh, God,' said Sally.
'Over here,' instructed Julie.
She grabbed her daughter, and with the younger woman they fled to the back of the cellar, but only as far as the brick wall. There was no escape, for the stairwell up was jammed with junk to keep the same man out.
They fell back and cowered when the door cracked open, then was yanked wide, filling the dark space with light, destroying their adjusted vision.
He lumbered wheezily down the steps, kicking the junk aside like an enraged, drunken father home late from a night with the boys, come home to beat his wife. It stirred something deep in Julie, a memory of dread long buried, never examined. The cellar door slammed behind him, and he kicked more stuff aside until he came into the center of the room.
He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust, but he was everything they could possibly fear: a muscular gray savage dressed in white, except that a profuse smear of blood had irrigated a raggedy delta from a source on his chest, leaking down to his trousers and his boots.
He had a gray, blunt face, a crew cut and wintry little eyes. He smiled madly, and blood showed on his teeth. He coughed, and it erupted from his mouth. He seemed barely conscious, seemed almost to fall, but he stopped, caught himself and looked at them fiercely. He was insane with pain, his eyes lit weirdly, his whole body trembling.
The gun muzzle played across them all.
She stepped out.
The killer laughed for some strange reason, and another spurt of blood came from his mouth down to splash on his chest. His lungs were full of blood. He was drowning in it. Why wouldn't he fall?
He lifted the pistol until it pointed into her face.
Julie heard her baby crying, heard the intake of Sally's breath and thought of her husband and the man she'd loved before, the only two men she could ever love. She closed her eyes.
But he did not fire.
She opened them.
He had fallen halfway, but then he pulled himself up, and thrust the gun at her, his eyes filling with mad determination.
Bob ran until he had a good angle into the door.
He'll stop. He has to wait for his eyes to adjust.
He saw it. The man would step into the darkness and pause as his eyes adjusted. He'd be there, just beyond the door, for the length of time it took his pupils to adjust.
With Solaratov, that interval would be a second or so.
He dropped to one knee, braced the rifle on his leg, found the good shooting position. It was five hundred yards if it was an inch, but that had to be the zero on the rifle, for Solaratov had come so close to him so often.
Without thinking, he wrapped the sling tight about his left, supporting arm as he slipped into a good Marine Corps position, feeling a bite of pain from the opened wound, but leaning through it. He took three breaths, building up his oxygen, and looked for his natural point of aim as something in him screamed Faster! Faster! and another part cooed Slower, slower. He laid the crosshairs dead-center on the door, just a patch of gray wood smeared with snow, and prayed for the extra oomph of the 7mm to do its thing.
