his target, melding his eye with the tiny crack between the Vulcan's
barrels and the armored glass. In his mind, the coin-sized target
expanded into a saucer, then a dinner plate ...
His finger settled firmly on the trigger.
Squeeze ...
The instant before Hauer fired, a blast of flame erupted from the
Vulcan's spinning barrels. Tracer rounds arced out toward the rim of
the bowl. The turret began to rotate ...
He felt his shot disintegrating. His shoulder twitched, his stomach
heaved in sudden confusion. All around he heard the desperate rattle of
guns firing at the moving turret, all to no avail. The dazzling beam
marched from position to position, silencing one gun after another. He
felt a sudden surge of hope. The gunner was ignoring the Armscor! He
thinks we're out of the fight! Because we're not moving, he thinks his
bunker guns stopped us! Hauer searched swiftly for a shot. With the
turret rotating, hitting the tiny gun port was out of the question.
Instead he picked a spot a few centimeters to the left of the Vulcan's
barrel-the spot he estimated the gunner would be sitting behind.
He fired.
Nothing happened. His bullet struck the very millimeter of glass he had
aimed for, but the transparent armor was simply too strong. How many
perfect shots would it take to drill through the polycarbonate?
Like an automaton Hauer worked the bolt-action rifle, tracking his
moving target.
Fire! Eject shell, close bolt, fire! The transparent wall shuddered as
Hauer's slugs relentlessly hammered the same single square of armor. Six
shots ... seven ... eight ... Fire!
Eject shell, close bolt, fire! He jerked out the empty magazine and
loaded his spare.
Around him the battle raged on. The Vulcan whined, the bunker guns
chattered, the hull of the armored car rattled like a tin can in a
hailstorm. He smelled the burning phosphorus of tracer rounds as they
streaked across the field in brilliant, lethal arcs. Suddenly, with a
strange shiver, Hauer sensed the Vulcan's tracer beam stagger somewhere
off to his right. He jerked his eye away from the scope and scanned the
dark field. Christ! The gunner had spotted his muzzle flashes!
His mouth went dry as the Vulcan's angle of fire lowered toward him.
Every fiber of his being screamed, 'Run!' He shut his eyes against the
fear, then forced himself to open them again and put his right eye back
to the scope. Somewhere out there, he thought fiercely, is the man who
is trying to kill me. He could feel the Vulcan's slugs hitting the
ground, thousands in each burst, like the first shuddering waves of an
earthquake. The roar seemed to swallow up,the very air.
And the light ... it was mesmerizing, like some lunatic laser beam.
The tracer beam slowed as it neared the Armscor. Smuts wanted to be
sure he did not miss. In that moment of hesitation Hauer steadied his
twitching muscles, fixed his eye upon the tiny square of armored glass
he had spent his first magazine against, and opened fire.
Pieter Smuts found his mark first. In the first two seconds of contact,
the Vulcan slammed two hundred shells into the Armscor's tail, shearing
off a quarter-ton of hardened si armor.
The vehicle shuddered like a great wounded beast; black smoke poured
into the air. Suddenly the Armscor's turbocharged V-8 diesel roared to
life. In a last frantic bid for survival Captain Barnard floored the
accelerator. The armored car bolted forward like a wild bronco, leaping
out of the Vulcan's line of fire and leaving Hauer exposed on the
ground.
Stunned, kneeling alone on the dark plain, Hauer raised his rifle and
pressed his eye to the scope. Dirt showered over him as the Vulcan's
bullets thundered after the Armscor just meters away. There is nothing
here, said a voice in his brain, nothing but you and the man behind that
gun ...
He fired.
His bullet starred the glass.
He fired again.
The tracer beam jinked away from, the Armscor and moved back toward him.
Too late Smuts had realized where the real danger lay.
With the Vulcan gun thundering down upon him, Dieter Hauer actually
closed his eyes as he fired his last shot. The tracer beam stuttered,
flashed again ... winked out.
The spell was broken. Hauer scrambled to his feet and dashed after the
Armscor. Gadi Abrams dragged him back through the hatch.
'You crazy German bastard!'
The Armscor was filling rapidly with oily black smoke.
'Everybody shoot!' Hauer shouted. 'Clear a path through the mines!
Detonate everything in our path!'
One Claymore exploded harmlessly nearby, but no more.
The Armscor had reached the section of ground where Burton's Colombians
had been slaughtered the night before. The mines here had been spent,
no replacements laid. The Annscor roared forward and reached Horn House
in twenty seconds flat.
Captain Barnard pulled the vehicle across the main entrance like a
barricade. Instantly two South African CT troops thrust shotguns
through the ports and blasted the hinges off the teakwood door. When
Hauer shoved open the side hatch, he was staring straight into the
marble reception hall where Major Karami's assassins lay dead.
'Move out!' he shouted.
'Wait!' General Steyn was up in the driver's compartment, leaning over
Captain Barnard. Hauer remembered the young man had taken some glass in
the face when the windshield shattered, but as he peered over the
general's beefy shoulder he realized that Captain Barnard was suffering
from a mortal wound.
'Where is it, son?' General Steyn asked softly.
'My chest ... sir.'
Carefully the general probed the young man's torso.
'I thought he was wearing a vest,' Hauer said quietly.
General Steyn pulled a bloodstained hand from beneath Barnard's right
arm. 'There's a splinter of polycarbonate sticking out of him,' he
whispered. 'Right where the vest stops at the underarm. God only knows
