Sacrifice Read online

She understood very well. He resented being here, and he resented taking orders from a woman even more.

  ‘We’ll finish up just as soon as we can,’ she replied without emotion, and went back to her work.

  ‘Ever get the feeling we’re not welcome here?’ Keegan asked quietly, grinning as he picked his way along beside her.

  ‘This is Afghanistan. We’re not welcome anywhere.’

  ‘I hear you,’ he agreed. As she went back to searching the ground, he added, ‘Just so we’re clear, what exactly are we looking for here? Burned ground from the back-blast?’

  ‘Hardly,’ she said without looking up. ‘If the missile’s engine was powerful enough to burn the ground when it fired, what do you think it would do to the poor guy holding the launcher?’

  Keegan snorted in amusement. ‘Point taken. My question stands, though.’

  ‘Well, I doubt our friends would be stupid enough to leave the launcher itself lying around,’ she said. ‘But if they were up here, they should have left signs. Tracks, footprints, maybe a concealed firing position they’d prepared. They might even have used a vehicle to get here. Even the smaller shoulder-launched SAMs are five or six feet long and weigh a good thirty pounds. Not the kind of thing you’d want to be seen carrying around. If we do find tyre tracks, we might be able to figure out what kind of vehicle they belong to.’

  ‘You know your stuff,’ he remarked, impressed.

  ‘I should. I’ve had plenty of practice.’

  ‘How’d you get involved in all this, if you don’t mind my asking?’

  She paused just for a moment, thinking about it. ‘I used to be US Army, working for the EOD teams.’

  EOD stood for Explosive Ordnance Disposal; specialised teams brought in to defuse unexploded bombs, mines and booby traps. Theirs was one of the most hazardous tasks of all, as they often had to operate in combat zones while they went about the dangerous job of rendering high-explosive devices safe.

  ‘I did a couple of tours in Iraq, then got sent back Stateside to work as an instructor. I applied for a third tour but they kept stalling me.’ She grinned at the memory. ‘It was pretty obvious they didn’t want a woman coming home in a body bag. Or several body bags in my case. But as it happened, the Agency found out about me and offered me a job.’

  ‘Plenty of work for you out here, huh?’

  At this, her grin faded a little. ‘You bet your ass there is.’

  They were both silent for a time as they slowly picked their way forwards. The breeze sighed around them, stirring tiny particles of dust, while the sun beat down mercilessly from a cloudless sky.

  Their time here was running short. More than once they saw Vermaak glancing at his watch.

  ‘Mind if I ask you something?’ McKnight said, breaking the silence.

  ‘Shoot.’ Seeing her look, he grinned. ‘Bad choice of words, huh?’

  She ignored his attempt at humour.

  ‘What’s this business between Drake and Franklin? I assume we’re talking about the Dan Franklin. As in, the guy who runs Special Activities.’

  ‘The one and only,’ he acknowledged. ‘They’ve got a history together, those two.’

  ‘What kind of history?’

  ‘The bad kind.’ The old sniper sighed and lowered himself down on his haunches, staring off into the distance with a thoughtful expression on his craggy face. ‘Believe me, you’re better off not knowing.’

  ‘And if I thought otherwise?’ she prompted.

  ‘Then you’d have to ask Ryan yourself.’

  She was about to say something, but decided against it. Something had caught her eye. Something she’d been looking for since their arrival.

  ‘At last,’ McKnight breathed, dropping to her knees.

  The sandy ground in front of her was marked by a pair of boot prints. They were faint and indistinct, the slow progress of the wind gradually wearing them away, but were still intact enough for her to discern a general size and outline. They seemed to be heading downhill.

  Keegan approached from her left, his steps slow and careful so as not to walk right over other tracks. ‘Looks like a big guy,’ he said after studying the boot prints. ‘Maybe two hundred and forty pounds.’

  ‘Thirty pounds of which could have been the missile and its launcher,’ McKnight reminded him.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ he agreed. ‘Still, look at the stride length, the weight distribution. This guy must have been well over six feet.’ He pointed to another print further down the slope; this one on the lee side of a low rock and therefore better protected from the wind. ‘Looks like he was wearing military-patterned boots. I don’t recognise the tread, though.’

  McKnight glanced at him, impressed by his insight. ‘You see a lot.’

  He shrugged. ‘My daddy taught me how to hunt and track when I was a kid. Kinda stuck with me. Humans aren’t that different from deer or coyotes – they’re just dumber.’

  She opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly she saw Keegan’s eyes dart to some indistinct point over her right shoulder. Then without warning the older man launched himself forward, grabbed her roughly around the waist and threw her to the ground. She landed hard, a rock jabbing painfully into her ribs as his weight settled on top of her.

  A moment later, the ground behind her exploded with a dull thud as something impacted with tremendous force, throwing up pieces of broken stone and chunks of dry earth that coated her in a fine spray.

  For a moment McKnight’s mind was frozen in shock, unable to process what had just happened. Only when the rolling crack of a gunshot reached them a few seconds later did she suddenly snap back into awareness.

  ‘Sniper!’ Keegan yelled, lying flat on the ground beside her.

  Her heart hammering in her chest, McKnight stared at the foot-wide crater where the high-velocity round had struck, impacting like a miniature artillery shell. She realised with a strange sense of detachment that it would have been her own body sporting such damage if Keegan hadn’t shoved her out of the way.

  Vermaak and the other Horizon operatives who had accompanied them up to the ridge wasted no time throwing themselves behind cover. Within seconds they had vanished from sight.

  ‘All units, we have incoming sniper fire from the south-east,’ the South African said, speaking low and urgent into his radio. ‘Anyone got eyes on target?’

  ‘I counted three seconds before we heard the shot,’ Keegan called out, his voice now calm and controlled. He knew better than to panic in a situation like this. ‘He’s gotta be at least a thousand yards out.’

  McKnight’s face and clothes were covered in dusty sand. It was in her eyes, dry and gritty, making them stream with water. Wiping them as best she could, McKnight raised her head a little to look out over the empty plains beyond, but Keegan was quick to push her back down.

  ‘Might want to keep that down till we get a fix on him,’ he warned. ‘This guy’s got talent.’

  She glanced at him. ‘How did you—’

  Her sentence was abruptly cut off by the thundering boom of weapons fire. The M2 heavy machine gun mounted atop the nearest armoured personnel carrier had turned south-east and opened up on full automatic, its 2-foot-long muzzle flash reflecting off the windshield below.

  The noise was unbelievable, the concussive impact of each round sending little tremors through the rock around them. Spent shell casings clattered off the vehicle’s armour belt to land sizzling on the sand.

  Further down the slope, the second vehicle added its firepower to the barrage, spraying tracer rounds in a seemingly random fashion. Clutching her ears, McKnight could do nothing but wait until it was over.

  At last the firing ceased, the echoes dying down, though her ears were ringing. The air reeked of burned cordite, and a faint haze of smoke hung over their surroundings.

  Keegan reached out and touched her arm.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked, having to raise his voice to be heard. Even then it sounded thin and distant.

&n
bsp; McKnight nodded, unsure what to say.

  ‘You all done up there?’ Keegan called out. ‘What was the point of that, except to waste ammo?’

  ‘Suppressing fire,’ Vermaak replied from somewhere behind the armoured vehicle. He sounded more irritated than panicked. ‘Come to us, man. We’re pulling out of here.’

  The older man considered it for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. This guy’s good. He would have scored a hit with his first shot from a thousand yards out, and believe me, there ain’t many snipers who can do that.’ He reached up and ran a hand through his dishevelled hair, pushing sweat-soaked strands out of his face. ‘He’s out there right now, just waiting for one of your boys to make a run for the truck. Soon as that happens, you’re gonna be picking pieces of them off your windshield.’

  The South African was quiet for several moments. ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘Call in air support,’ McKnight said. ‘They could find him on infrared.’

  ‘Forget it. It’d take too long to get here.’ Keegan chewed his lip for a moment, weighing up his options. There weren’t many.

  At last he nodded as if to confirm the decision to himself. ‘Where’s the guy with the Barrett light fifty?’

  ‘Up here,’ came the reply. ‘The name’s Hale.’

  ‘Okay, Hale. If we draw the son of a bitch out, think you can take the shot?’

  The answer wasn’t long in coming. ‘Fuck that. I ain’t getting my head shot off for this shit.’

  ‘You want something done right …’ Keegan said under his breath, distinctly unimpressed by his counterpart’s dedication. Clearly he hadn’t joined up to be a hero.

  Still, bitching about it wasn’t going to get them out of here. There was only one choice if they wanted to take that sniper out.

  ‘Okay. Sit tight. I’m heading your way.’ He turned to the woman lying flat on the ground beside him. ‘Stay down until the coast is clear, Sam. I don’t think he’s got line of sight on you.’

  ‘Great. What about you?’

  He flashed a grin. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  With that, he turned and started to crawl up the slope, slithering along the dusty ground like a snake, moving only a few inches at a time. Keegan was no stranger to counter-sniping work, and knew how best to frustrate and impede his opponent.

  If he was right, his friend out there on the plains would have relocated after the first shot so as not to give away his position. Now he would be set up in his second firing point, sweeping his sights across the ridge, eagerly looking for another target.

  It was hard to tell what the man was armed with. Considering most of the weapons and equipment used in Afghanistan were of Russian origin, Keegan suspected it was a Dragunov; a heavy sniper rifle developed by the Soviets back in the 1960s. They’d been killing people all over the world for the past fifty years, with great success. Like the AK-47, they weren’t exactly refined, but they did the job. Their 7.62mm steel-jacketed projectiles were powerful enough to defeat almost any body armour.

  A very dangerous weapon in the right hands.

  As he moved, he began to hum a familiar tune under his breath. It was something he always did to keep his mind calm and focused. ‘Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer …’

  The sniper had chosen his timing and location well. It was the hottest part of the day, when heat and inactivity started to erode awareness. No doubt he’d hoped to take out a couple of the personnel on the ridge, then slip away before an effective response could be organised. This was going to be a tricky one. Not only would Keegan be silhouetted against the sky, but he’d be looking for a needle in a haystack.

  ‘Ninety-one bottles of beer on the wall …’

  He crept forward an inch at a time, trying to keep rocks and bushes between him and the sniper, and also to avoid disturbing any of the dry vegetation. His friend down there would be looking for unnatural movements in the scrub.

  Keegan could feel the sweat trickling down his face, stinging his eyes as a combination of heat and exertion took their toll. His shirt clung to his back, his hair plastered to his forehead. He ignored it all, just concentrated on maintaining his progress.

  ‘Eighty-three bottles of beer …’

  He was getting closer. He could see the squat bulk of the armoured personnel carrier up ahead. Hale would be close to it, just off to the left judging by where his voice had come from.

  Eager to reach his destination, he picked up the pace.

  Not much further now.

  ‘Seventy bottles of beer …’

  He felt as much as heard the faint whizz of the incoming projectile. After passing through 1,000 yards of dry dusty air, even high-powered rounds lose a lot of their kinetic energy, often making them subsonic.

  Instinctively he flattened himself against the ground just as the bullet slammed into a rock beside him, blasting it apart in a shower of tiny fragments that peppered him like buckshot. A couple of seconds later, the sharp crack of the gunshot finally reached them.

  In response, the heavy machine gun atop the armoured personnel carrier started up again, spitting out a long burst of automatic fire in the general direction of the shot.

  ‘God damn, cut it out!’ Keegan yelled when the last echoes of the barrage had faded away. ‘You gonna shoot up the entire horizon?’

  ‘John, are you okay?’ McKnight called to him. She couldn’t see him from her position and wasn’t going to risk getting up to look.

  Something wet was trickling down his cheek. Thinking it was just sweat, he wiped at it with his hand, only to find his fingers stained red with blood. The rock fragments must have cut him.

  ‘Yeah, I’m good,’ he replied, unsettled by his close call. ‘But this guy’s starting to piss me off.’

  ‘This is taking too fucking long,’ Vermaak growled. ‘He’s probably calling his mates to bring reinforcements right now. You want to sit here and wait for more snipers to show up?’

  Keegan gritted his teeth. He was running out of time. He glanced up towards the crest of the ridge, estimating the distance at a dozen yards or so. A man at full sprint could cover that in just a few seconds.

  A few seconds.

  The moment he broke cover, the sniper would see the movement. It would take him a second or so to bring his weapon to bear, line up the shot, then another precious moment to put first pressure on the trigger, relax his body, exhale and fire. Travelling supersonic, the round would take at least another second to cover the 1,000 yards between the rifle and its target.

  In total, he guessed he had between two and four seconds to sprint up the hill and find cover. That was a pretty big margin for error, but there were just too many factors that he couldn’t compensate for. A lot of it would come down to the basic skill and shooting style of the sniper himself. He had already proven himself an excellent marksman, foiled only by luck and good observation. Whether or not he had good reactions would likely mean the difference between life and death.

  Reaching down his shirt, Keegan found the charms hanging from the simple leather necklace he wore: a dice, a crucifix and a wedding ring. He gently touched the pointed spars of the crucifix, sending out a silent prayer to anyone who might be inclined to listen. After sending so many people His way ahead of schedule, Keegan was under no illusions that he was in God’s good books, but he hoped the Almighty was in a forgiving mood today.

  ‘Screw it,’ he said, scrambling to his feet and taking off at full sprint, fuelled by fear and adrenalin.

  The clock in his head was running.

  One second. The sniper would have seen the movement, and would be bringing the big cumbersome rifle to bear on his target.

  The dry dusty air seared his lungs with every breath, the muscles in his legs ached each time they bunched and released. The ground was rough and uneven beneath his boots, always threatening to give way beneath him. He paid no attention to any of it. He ran with every ounce of speed and energy he could summon.<
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  Two seconds. The sniper would have a sight picture now, would have lined up his shot and adjusted his aim to account for wind speed, range and air temperature. His finger would tighten on the trigger until it resisted, his body would relax, and he would apply that fraction more pressure needed to fire.

  A wide boulder blocked Keegan’s path. No time to skirt around it. Gathering himself up, he leapt over the obstruction, landing awkwardly but managing to stay on his feet. Twenty years ago he would have made such a jump with ease, a tiny part of his mind reflected. Now, pushing fifty, he barely cleared the obstacle.

  Three seconds. The sniper had opened fire. The 7.62mm projectile would have left the barrel at something close to 800 metres per second. At this very moment it would be hurtling towards him faster than the speed of sound, 9.8 grams of high-velocity metal eager to blast its way through his soft, fragile body.

  He was there. Cresting the ridge at last, Keegan threw himself on the ground, heedless of sharp rocks that tore at his clothes and skin. His heart was beating so hard and fast he could feel it thumping in his ears.

  But it was still beating, and that was all that mattered. He was alive.

  A moment later, he heard a faint whizz as the shot zipped by overhead. Unlike the other two, there was no dull thump as it impacted the hillside. This one had cleared the ridge altogether, and would carry on for another 1,000 yards or so before it exhausted its kinetic energy and fell harmlessly back to earth.

  Glancing towards the armoured personnel carrier, he saw Vermaak glaring at him, his eyes holding a mixture of annoyance and grudging respect. ‘You got a death wish or something, man?’

  Keegan laughed, an instinctive response to the pressure he’d been under. ‘Midlife crisis. Now where’s that fifty?’

  ‘Right here,’ the operative named Hale said, crawling over with the bulky sniper rifle cradled in his arms.

  Keegan hefted the weapon and brought it around in front of him, flipping the folded bipod legs down so it was properly positioned. This done, he checked the telescopic sights, made sure a round was chambered and that the feed mechanism wasn’t fouled with dirt. As far as he could tell, the weapon was good to go.