Diana nodded, quickly relaying what she knew about the GS-777.
“They are ensuring that they don’t miss,” Taras said, leaning back against a rock, stretching out his legs.
“The safe house is secure but not set up to take shots from that thing,” Amber said.
“Panic room?” Diana asked.
Amber nodded.
“Can we get them a message?”
“Through a few different means but it would take too long,” Amber stated, chewing on the inside of his cheek as he analyzed the rear of the safe house along the edge of the lake.
“I can buy us time,” Diana said. “Distraction.”
“Risky.”
“Or I go in from behind them and kill them right now,” Diana snapped.
“I like that plan,” Taras piped up.
“Okay, just pause for a second,” Amber said. “Let’s combine the two. I’m going to make a call—get Mr. Hoagland in there in the panic room. Taras is our distraction, and Diana, you go in from behind to see if you can get a shot. If you can’t get a shot, go for the rocket launcher. While I’m trying to get through, I’ll go around to the safe house and do it the old-fashioned way if necessary.”
“Knock on the front door?” Diana asked.
“I can’t wait around for Voss to get through.”
“That’s even riskier,” Diana said. “If they blow the house before you get him in the room, you’re both dead. At least if you stay up here, it’ll only be him that’s dead.”
They all looked at each other, realizing that none of them really cared whether Hoagland lived or died but were much more concerned with whether or not Zabójca walked away from this.
“He’s always got an escape plan,” Diana said, looking around the mountain to see what Zabójca could possibly have up his sleeve to get him out of this one. The Jeep two miles behind them, maybe. They were surrounded by natural barriers like the valley below was their arena, the soft mat of a boxing ring, and the mountains around it the ring ropes. No place for him to go. He would not slip through her fingers this time.
This man was responsible for the death of her son.
She would break his legs if he tried to run.
They did go with Amber’s plan because it was the only one they had, and they were running out of time. He was too focused on justice and saving “innocent” lives to sit at the top of the mountain on the phone, so both he and Taras slid their way down the black-stoned path, keeping low and quick and quiet.
Diana made her way up over jagged rocks to try and get on top of the cliff’s edge that Zabójca and David were hiding behind. Several outcrops kept almost their entire bodies hidden until Diana was right on top of them, thirty feet up, balancing on the edge of her own rock, staring down. David with the rocket launcher balanced on his shoulder and Zabójca with a sniper rifle on his.
One wrong move and her cover would be blown. So she took a moment to breathe, to gain balance and to analyze their bodies for the kill shot.
“Four minutes out,” Zabójca said.
“Fuck,” David replied. “I hate riding on tha’ thing.”
“That’s because it’s not what it’s for,” Zabójca replied. “It won’t be long.”
“Do ye feel like ye have to use it because we wasted so much money on it?”
Zabójca took his eye off the scope of the sniper rifle to give David a look.
“I mean… it literally burned up in the desert.” David doubled-down.
Shaking his head and muttering something that Diana couldn’t hear, Zabójca put his eye back against the scope.
“Is tha’—” David started.
“What is he doing here?” Zabójca asked in a tone that was surprisingly amused. He revelled in this.
“Do we—”
“Yes.”
The sniper rifle let out two shots. Diana squinted out into the distance to see who and what they were shooting at, wishing for Amber’s monocular. As she leaned forward, her sneakers loosened two rocks from the mountainside, tumbling like pennies rolling down a train track, too loud and echoing off everything close by.
As David began to turn, Diana dropped down on them from above. Dropping too fast and too close range for her pistol, she took out her dagger, plunging it into his chest, hearing the crack of his bones from her weight and the knife in his sternum.
Zabójca was already on his feet, dropping the sniper and collecting the dropped GS-777, running down the side of the mountain to get out of Diana’s view and range. With the rocket launcher balancing in his one hand, he took out a pistol from his pocket with his other, layering the rock face with bullets. Most of them hit the mountain; stones and dust flying up, one wedged itself into David’s back. He cried out, more echoing off the valley.
Ducking behind David’s body, with him squirming and bleeding against her, Diana propped up the discarded sniper rifle on his torso, taking a quick frantic look through the scope and two shots at Zabójca. They both hit the ground, one behind him and one way to his left. He skittered through a collection of trees, Diana losing him amongst the pine, trying to readjust the scope.
“Shit,” she growled and stood up to try and get a better shot. She walked toward him, rifle in hand, taking blind shots just to get him as far away from the scene as possible, not allowing him a shot of the safe house.
But he was annoyingly evasive—sneaking between the trees, finding spots just outside of the scope behind the trunks or between the fans of pine needles.
Quickly, she swept the scope over the house.
Through the window, Amber was shoving a half-naked Hoagland out of his bedroom and down a set of partially covered stairs, going toward the panic room. A woman behind them, completely naked, sprinting ahead and screaming at Hoagland as she made her way downstairs.
Another quick sweep. No Taras.
