burst, and both sergeants fired at the same instant. There was no immediate sound. Their weapons were fully suppressed by the design in which the barrel and silencer were integrated, and the range was too close to miss. Two separate heads were blown apart by multiple impacts of large hollowpoint bullets, and both bodies dropped limp to the lush green grass almost as quickly as the cartridge cases ejected by the weapons that had killed them.
'This is George. Two subjects dead!' Tomlinson called over the radio, as he started running to the hostages who were still walking toward the helicopter.
Homer Johnston was starting to cringe as a shape entered his field of view. It seemed to be a female body from the pale silk blouse, but his sight picture was not obscured yet, and with his crosshair reticle set just below Petra Dortmund's left eye, his right index finger pushed gently back on the set-trigger The rifle roared, seeding a meter-long muzzle flash into the still night air
–she'd just seen two pale flashes in the direction of the house, but she didn't have time to react when the bullet struck the orbit just above her left eye. The bullet drove through the thickest part of her skull. It passed a few more centimeters and then the bullet fragmented into over a hundred tiny pieces, ripping her brain tissue to mush, which then exploded out the back of her skull in an expanding red pink cloud that splashed over Gerhardt Dengler's face-
–Johnston worked the bolt, swiveling his rifle for another target; he'd seen the bullet dispatch the first.
Eddie Price saw the flash, and his hands were already moving from the execute command heard half a second earlier: He-pulled his pistol from the map-pocket and dove out the helicopter's autolike door, aiming it one- handed at Hans Furchtner's head, firing one round just below his left eye, which expanded and exploded out the top of his head. A second round followed, higher, and actually not a well-aimed shot, but Furchtner was already dead, falling to the ground, his hand still holding Erwin Ostermann's upper arm, and pulling him down somewhat until the fingers came loose.
That left two. Steve Lincoln took careful aim from a kneeling position, then stopped as his target passed behind the head of an elderly man wearing a vest. 'Shit,' Lincoln managed to say.
Weber got the other one, whose head exploded like a melon from the impact of the rifle bullet.
Rosenthal saw the head burst apart like something in a horror movie, but the large stubbly head next to his was still there, eyes suddenly wide open, and a machine gun still in his hand - and nobody was shooting at this one, standing next to him. Then Stubble-Head's eyes met his, and there was fear/hate/shock there, and Rosenthal's stomach turned to sudden ice, all time stopped around him. The paring knife came out of his sleeve and into his hand, which he swung wildly, catching the back of Stubble-Head's left hand. Stubble-Head's eyes went wider as the elderly man jumped aside, and his one hand went slack on the forestock of his weapon.
That cleared the way for Steve Lincoln, who fired a second three-round burst, which arrived simultaneously with a second rifle bullet from Weber's semiautomatic sniper rifle, and this one's head seemed to disappear.
'Clear!' Price called. 'Clear aircraft!'
'Clear house!' Tomlinson announced.
'Clear middle!' Lincoln said last of all.
At the house, Loiselle and Tomlinson raced to their set of hostages and dragged them east, away from the house, lest there be a surviving terrorist inside to fire at them.
Mike Pierce did the same, with Steve Lincoln covering and assisting.
It was easier for Eddie Price, who first of all kicked the gun from Furchtner's dead hand and made a quick survey of his target's wrecked head. Then he jumped into the helicopter to make sure that Johnston's first round had worked. He needed only to see the massive red splash on the rear bulkhead to know that Petra Dortmund was in whatever place terrorists went to. Then he carefully removed the hand grenade from her rigid left hand, checked to make sure the cotter pin was still in place, and pocketed it. Last of all, he took the pistol from her right hand, engaged the safety and tossed that.
'Mein Herrgotd' the pilot. gasped, looking back.
Gerhardt Dengler looked dead as well, his face fairly covered on its left side with a mask of dripping red, his open eyes looking like doorknobs. The sight shook Price for a moment, until he saw the eyes blink, but the mouth was wide open, and the man seemed not to be breathing.
Price reached down to flip off the belt buckle, then let Johnston pull the man clear of the aircraft. Little Man made it one step before falling to his knees. Johnston poured his canteen over the man's face to rinse off the blood. Then he unloaded his rifle and set it on the ground:
'Nice work, Eddie,' he told Price.
'And that was a bloody good shot, Homer.'
Sergeant Johnston shrugged. 'I was afraid the gal would get in the way. Another couple of seconds and I wouldn't've had shit. Anyway, Eddie, nice work coming out of the aircraft and doing him before I could get number two off.'
'You had a shot on him?' Price asked, safing and holstering his pistol.
'Waste of time. I saw his brains come out from your first.'
The cops were swarming in now, plus a covey of ambulances with blinking blue lights. Captain Altmark arrived at the helicopter, with Chavez at his side. Experienced cop that he was, the mess inside the Sikorsky made him back away in silence.
'It's never pretty,' Homer Johnston observed. He'd already had his look. The rifle and bullet had performed as programmed. Beyond that; it was his fourth sniper kill, and if people wanted to break the law and hurt the innocent, it was their problem, not his. One more trophy he couldn't hang on the wall with the muley and elk heads he'd collected over the years.
Price walked toward the middle group, fishing in his pocket for his curved briar pipe, which he lit with a kitchen match, his never-changing ritual for a mission completed.
Mike Pierce was assisting the hostages, all sitting for the moment while Steve Lincoln stood over them, his MP-10 out and ready for another target. But then a gaggle of Austrian police exploded out the backdoor, telling him that there were no terrorists left inside the building. With that, he safed his weapon and slung it over his shoulder. Lincoln came up to the elderly gent.
'Well done, sir;' he told Klaus Rosenthal.
'What?'
'Using the knife on his hand. Well done.'
'Oh, yeah,' Pierce said, looking down at the mess on the grass. There was a deep cut on the back of its left hand. 'You did that, sir?'
'Ja' was all Rosenthal was able to say, and that took three breaths.
'Well, sir, good for you.' Pierce reached down to shake his hand. It hadn't really mattered very much, but resistance by a hostage was rare enough, and it had clearly been a gutsy move by the old gent.
'Amerikaner?'
'Shhh.' Sergeant Pierce held a finger up to his lips. 'Please don't tell anyone, sir.'
Price arrived then; puffing on his pipe. Between Weber's sniper rifle and someone's MP-10 burst, this subject's head was virtually gone. 'Bloody hell,' the sergeant major observed.
'Steve's bird,' Pierce reported. 'I didn't have a clear shot this time. Good one, Steve,' he added.
'Thank you; Mike,' Sergeant Lincoln replied, surveying the area. 'Total of six?'
'Correct,' Eddie answered, heading off toward the house. 'Stand by here.'
'Easy shots, both of 'em,' Tomlinson said in his turn, surrounded by Austrian cops.
'Too tall to hide,' Loiselle confirmed. He felt like having a smoke, though he'd quit two years before. His hostages were being led off now, leaving the two terrorists on the lush green grass, which their blood, he thought, would fertilize. Blood was good fertilizer, wasn't it? Such a fine house. A pity they'd not have the chance to examine it.
Twenty minutes later, Team-2 was back at the assembly point, changing out of their tactical clothes, packing their weapons and other gear for the ride back to the airport. The TV lights and cameras were running, but rather far away. The team was relaxing now, the stress bleeding off with the successful completion of their mission. Price puffed on his pipe outside the van, then tapped it tut on the heel of his boot before boarding it.
