armoury, and he also had the SIG he’d liberated from Stein after knocking him unconscious. But only a fool or a hopeless optimist would even consider tackling a sniper with a couple of pistols. Richter’s only option now was to put some distance between himself and the unknown assassin. The Seat’s engine screamed as he started it up, then he floored the accelerator pedal in first gear and powered the car away and up the gentle slope, weaving from side to side to present his adversary with a more difficult target.
Two hundred metres away, Murphy cursed fluently and brought the sights of the Dragunov back to bear on the target area. It was now time to finish the job, but the moment Murphy steadied his weapon and sighted through the Bushnell again, he realized that might not be so easy.
The Seat was already in motion, gathering speed fast as its unidentified driver accelerated up the road. The boot lid was still up, preventing Murphy from seeing through the rear window, and the driver was weaving about to make sighting difficult.
Murphy moved the Dragunov over slightly, looking for Stein. His primary target had already scrambled to his feet, and was running as fast as he could towards what little cover the area afforded: a group of rocks and a few stunted trees standing over to the right. Stein could wait, he decided in an instant. The fact that his hands were tied meant that he was unarmed, so Murphy could track him down later and finish him off at his leisure. What he had to do first was stop the Seat.
Murphy swung his rifle barrel to the left, located the tarmac road through the telescopic sight and moved the muzzle up an inch or two. The blue Seat had already moved almost a hundred yards since he’d fired the first shot, but was still easily within range. Murphy concentrated on it, noting how the vehicle still swung from one side of the road to the other, and settled his aim not on where the car actually was, but where he calculated it would be in about a second. Only then did he squeeze the trigger.
The shot missed, or at least had no apparent effect, and he fired again almost immediately, and then again – the semi-automatic action smoothly reloading the weapon each time he fired. The car was by then over three hundred and fifty yards away, and gathering speed quickly. The result of his third shot was immediate, though. The Seat lurched, lost momentum, then slid off the road to the right, coming to rest in a cloud of dust almost broadside-on to where Murphy lay hidden. He guessed he’d either hit the mystery driver or burst a tyre.
Murphy watched the vehicle intently through the telescopic sight, finger caressing the trigger, waiting to see if the driver emerged, but after two minutes there was still no movement. He couldn’t even see the man’s shape behind the wheel, but he knew he still had to be inside the car. Murphy nodded in satisfaction: obviously he was badly wounded or maybe even dead. Just to be on the safe side, he sighted carefully and fired another round through the left-hand side front door, below the level of the window where the bullet was bound to strike him if he was crouching across the front seats.
Then he turned his attention to the point where Stein had been heading, and quartered the area of ground with his telescopic sight. Wherever the American agent had hidden himself was unfortunately invisible from Murphy’s vantage point. He would therefore just have to do it the hard way.
He left the Dragunov where it was – it was far too cumbersome to be useful at close-quarters – but ejected the loaded cartridge and removed the magazine, which he placed in his jacket pocket for safety. He then took out the Daewoo pistol, chambered a round, slipped off the safety catch, and began to walk down the hillside towards the road.
Stein crouched behind a small cairn of boulders, well out of sight of the hill from which he knew the shots had originated – he’d seen the bullet plough through the Seat’s boot lid and strike the ground beyond – and kept worrying at the plastic cable ties round his wrists with his teeth. If he could get his wrists free he would no longer be helpless. He would then be able to fight back, even if the only weapons to hand were sticks and rocks.
With a sudden stabbing pain in his jaw, his teeth finally snapped together as the tie parted, freeing his arms. He peered around the cairn of rocks he was hiding behind, checking the whole area. The Seat was about two hundred yards away, and off the road. Its engine was still running, since he could just make out a whisper of smoke from its exhaust. He presumed the Englishman was either dead or badly wounded, so guessed that the sniper would be coming to attend to him first. He again checked the hill to his left, but saw no signs of movement. On the other hand, the sniper could sneak down to the road out of sight on the far side of the hill, then cross straight to where Stein was hiding.
He looked around desperately for any kind of weapon. He seized a fallen branch and hefted it in his hand. The end of it was slightly rotten, but he guessed it could still strike a killing blow, if he got the chance. Then he looked back, towards the hill. Still nothing visible, but he knew the sniper had to be coming for him.
In the last few seconds Stein had worked out a kind of plan, but it all depended on what he saw when the sniper did come into view. If he was carrying his rifle, Stein would just have to take his chances in a close-quarter fight, though he had no illusions about how successful he would be using his broken branch against a man carrying both an automatic pistol and a rifle. But if the sniper was carrying only a pistol, then Stein was going to run – and he knew exactly where.
He stared around, but there seemed nowhere better to hide, no better place to wait for the assassin’s arrival. And he had to wait for him to appear before he could begin to run. Stein desperately considered other possible options, but he saw none. To the north of the handful of trees and rocks in which he was hiding the land lay flat and open. If he tried to run across that way he’d be cut down from behind in an instant, and in any case he was half-expecting the sniper to approach from that direction. He rubbed his hands to remove some of the sweat on his palms, took a firm grip of his improvised club, then did his best to blend into the rocks and dirt around him.
Murphy paused for a few seconds as he reached the road, scanning the terrain in all directions. It had taken him only seconds to get down to level ground, and Stein couldn’t have broken cover in that short a time without still being in sight. That meant his quarry must still be hiding in the same place.
He jogged across the road, heading for the small group of stunted trees into which he’d seen Stein run only a few minutes earlier, then stopped and again surveyed his surroundings. He decided to circle round slightly and approach the same trees from the east. But at that moment he saw Stein break cover and start to head away from him to the south. Immediately he realized what the other man was trying to do.
Stein had seen him coming and froze for an instant. He’d moved swiftly around the other side of the pile of rocks, gratefully putting their solidity between himself and the approaching assassin. And then he’d leapt to his feet and started running, hard, towards the road which led south, every pace taking him closer to the blue Seat Cordoba, which still sat motionless with its engine idling.
If he could only reach the car, he would have some kind of a chance because he knew that the Englishman had both his SIG and a Browning Hi-Power, and with either weapon Stein could confront the sniper on more equal terms.
He just had to get there in time.
Murphy stood irresolute for under a second. The effective range of an automatic pistol is generally accepted as between fifteen and thirty yards: heroes who can snap off a shot and bring down a man at fifty yards exist only in the fevered imaginings of Hollywood film directors. When Stein had started to move he was about sixty yards away – therefore already well out of pistol range. Murphy realized he had two choices: he could pursue him and hope to run him down before he reached the Seat, or he could get back behind the telescopic sight of his Dragunov and pick him off before he got that far.
It wasn’t a difficult decision. Murphy snapped off two quickly aimed shots in Stein’s general direction, neither of which got within fifteen feet of the fugitive, then turned away and ran back towards the hill where he’d left the Dragunov.
Thirty seconds later he slammed the magazine back into the rifle and cycled the action to chamber a round. Pulling the stock of the weapon into his shoulder, while struggling to control his breathing, he peered through the Bushnell sight for the running target. It looked as if Stein was now less than fifty yards from the Seat.
Murphy sighted quickly and snapped off a shot. He didn’t see the impact point but it must have passed close
