The sergeant began to creep outward, this time at an even slower rate than before. He crawled slowly, ever so slowly, halting each two pulls forward, going still.
Donny returned to his scope. Back and forth, he swept the likely shooting spots, seeing nothing. It was clear. This was beginning to seem ridiculous. Maybe they were out here in the middle of nothing, acting like complete idiots.
The bees buzzed, the flies ate, the dragonflies skittered.
He couldn't keep his eye behind the scope for very long because it fell completely out of focus. He had to blink, look away. When would the call come from Bob that he was all right?
The trigger rocked back, stacked up and was on the very cusp of firing.
Where is the other one?
His finger came off the trigger.
There were two. He had to kill them both. If he fired, the other might take him or, seeing his partner with his head blown open, simply slide back farther into the grass and disappear. He'd call in air, possibly, and Solaratov would have to get out of the area.
Where was the other one?
He looked up from the scope. He realized he could see the sniper because for some odd reason, the grass was thinner there. The other one would be nearby, covering, as he was vulnerable. He would be vulnerable for only a few more seconds.
A plan formed in Solaratov's mind: Find the spotter.
Kill the spotter. Come back and kill the sniper. It was possible because of the semiautomatic nature of the weapon and the fact that the distance was under three hundred meters.
He returned to the scope and very carefully began to crank backward, looking for another black face against the dun and the tan of the vertical thickets of stalks. He came back a bit more, no, nothing, nothing .. . and there! An arm! The arm led to a body, which led to the form of another prone man hunched over a rifle--he took a gasp of air, a little spurt of pleasure--and then continued up the trunk to the torso to discover that it was indeed a man but he was not a spotter, he was another sniper, and his rifle was pointing exactly at him. At Solaratov.
The man fired.
Donny looked up from his scope. His head ached. When would the call come from Bob? God, he needed an aspirin.
He glanced about, seeing nothing, only the endless grass.
A dragonfly flashed close by. It was odd how their wings somehow caught the sunlight and threw a reflection just like-Donny went back to the scope.
He was so close!
The sniper was less than three hundred yards away-or rather, the snipers, for there was a smear of enemy, blurry in the haze of Donny's concussion, well sunk in the grass. The man was bent into his rifle, moving slowly, tracking, and with a start, Donny realized he had located Swagger.
Kill him! he ordered himself. Shoot! Do it now!
The crosshairs seemed to quarter the head. He squeezed the trigger.
He lost his sight picture as the pressure increased. He squeezed harder. Nothing happened.
The safety, the safety. He reached for where it should have been, that nub in front of the trigger, but it wasn't there. That's where it was on an M14. On an M70, it was up on the bolt housing. He took his eye off the scope, looked for the flange that was the safety, and snapped it forward. He ducked to the scope, saw the man had turned and the rifle's muzzle was coming .. . right at him.
He jerked at the trigger and the rifle fired.
Bob crawled forward. Only a few more yards and then he was into the higher grass and-The shot, so unexpected, sounded like a drumbeat against his own ears. He froze--lost it, the great Bob Lee Swagger--and had a moment of twisted panic.
What? Huh? Oh, Christ!
Then he picked himself up, ran like a son of a bitch for the higher grass, waiting to get nailed and trying to sort it out.
'He's there! I saw him!' Donny screamed, and instantly from three hundred yards out, an answering shot sounded. It struck near Donny, blowing a big puff of dirt into the air.
Donny fired back almost instantly and Bob looked, saw the puff of dust where his shot hit.
'Get down!' he screamed, now terrified that Donny would take a shot in the head. He dove into the brush, righted himself, squirmed until he could see the dusty bank.
He threw the rifle to his shoulder, put his eye to the glass and saw ..
nothing.
'He's there!' Donny screamed again, but Bob could see nothing. Then a shot cracked out, seeming to come from the left, and he swung his rifle just a bit, saw some dust in the air from the disturbance of muzzle blast, and fired. He cycled, fired again, fast as he was able to, not seeing a target but hoping one was there.
'Get down!' he screamed again.
'Get down and call Foxtrot for air!'
He worked the bolt, but could not see the sniper in the dust that floated in the grass in the area Donny had
