by A P Bateman
The AR-15 was not equipped with a sling. Stone had never liked slings anyway, he preferred the weapon in his hands where you needed it most. He didn’t go in for safety catches either. He carried it hot. However, the climb would prove difficult with the rifle, so when he reached the base of the cliff he undid his belt, threaded the loop and wrapped it around the stock before pulling it tight. He put it over his shoulder and tied the other end around the barrel. It was crude, but should hold. He applied the safety, not wanting it to slip and blow his leg off, then started to climb. It was only thirty feet, but he was tired and hungry and fading fast. The climb was about a forty-five-degree angle with plenty of hand and footholds. As he reached the top, and the grassy bank at the edge of the trees he took the rifle off his shoulder and undid the belt before selecting fire on the safety. He was breathing hard and felt light-headed. As he rethreaded his belt he kept his eyes on the mountaintop and the trees below. He estimated a traverse of four-hundred metres east to bring him above the men on the slope. He just hoped they were still there.
Stone had taken care of four of the men last night. That had left two, but reinforcements had taken the total to six that he could see from the valley below. He had no way of knowing how many had joined them, but it did not seem conceivable that only four more would come to back them up. Perhaps this was one group and there was another on the mountain somewhere. It was likely. But how many would the Conrad brothers send? Stone had no way of knowing, so he concentrated on what he did know.
Six hostiles, armed and dangerous.
He climbed higher, but the terrain was steep earth with grass and newly sprouting bracken. It was a hands and knees climb, but nothing that needed expertise, just raw determination. He hadn’t eaten anything in twenty-four hours and had expelled a great deal of energy. His blood-sugar was low, and he was cold once more, the sun still yet to break over the easterly ridge.
Stone had trained hard most of his life. He served in an artillery unit in the army and pulled a tour in Afghanistan. He later transferred to Airborne Rangers, where he had to pass basic training once more. He was soon part of a four-man special forces reconnaissance unit performing sniper, communication and intelligence gathering duties on his second tour in Afghanistan. He then applied for the Secret Service. If he had thought his military training had been intense, his eyes were truly opened by the training he had to perform to pass out into the Secret Service. He had been taken to his physical and mental limits, maybe even beyond. For one reason, and one reason only: To push him through real situations. Stone was tired, hungry and cold. But he hadn’t even started to get near his limit.
He was now half-way across the wooded area of slope below him. Somewhere, in those trees below would be a number of men looking for him. They would be twitchy, anxious. They were carrying the same weapon as himself, with varying degrees of competency. Stone shouldered the weapon and kept the selector switch on semi-auto. This meant one bullet would be fired, its empty case ejected and another bullet chambered each time the trigger was depressed. This sounded slower, but in truth a thirty round magazine could still be emptied in five seconds or so. What it did give was complete controllability and negated wasteful bursts of fire.
Although he was tired, his senses were still acute. He kept his eyes forwards, the weapon in place. He could fire the weapon at targets of fifty metres distant without aiming directly through the sight apertures. It was a drill he had learned and practised, he could do the same snap shooting with a pistol at twenty feet. This kept his periphery vision in constant focus to be ready for hostiles left and right. In the Secret Service he practised weapons drills daily. They were second nature. Thousands of rounds a week were fired down the range or in the various urban warfare buildings to keep up muscle memory honed. Various weapons were used, sometimes the sights were removed. The idea that you could feel the weapon – become a part of it.
Thousands of rounds a week, sometimes not using the sights at all.
He could see movement ahead. He stopped, lowered himself to the grassy slope slowly. He crawled forwards on his stomach. He had to get nearer to see, but at least if he was low to the ground he was less visible.
The man was big. The wrong side of two-hundred and fifty pounds, and although Stone could not guess at the man’s height because of his squatting position, he could tell he would be of medium height. He was certainly broad. Squatting was good field craft. To lower your profile, to keep closer to the ground would present a smaller target to your enemy. On this occasion, however, the man was squatting to take a shit and his weapon was rested against a rock three feet away.
Stone rose slowly, his eyes searching everywhere for another lookout. He couldn’t see anybody else, and the terrain was relatively lacking in hiding places. He took a few deliberate steps and when the man looked up, it was into the muzzle of the rifle. Stone stared at him, shook his head.
“Make a sound and you’re dead,” he said quietly.
The man raised his hands. In his left hand he was holding a bunch of tissues. “You’re not going to shoot me,” the man replied. He had looked surprised at first, but his expression soon became smug. “One shot and they’ll know where you are.”
“You’re right,” Stone said. He took the out sheath knife with his left hand. “You shout and I’ll cut your throat out. I’ll cut so deep you’ll be able to hear the blade grate on your spine before you die.”
The man seemed to think on this. He went to stand, but Stone pushed the muzzle of the rifle into the man’s gut and he dropped onto his backside.
“Ah man! You’ve made me sit in my own fucking shit!”
Stone stepped forward a pace and swung the butt of the rifle against the man’s temple. The man’s head slumped forwards. Stone prodded him in the chest with the muzzle, but he was out cold. He hadn’t wanted to kill an unarmed man, let alone one in the middle of his morning ablutions, but he was also damned if he was going to have this man wake up and be a threat. He had learned this once before in Afghanistan, let a young Taliban boy soldier go in a moment of madness or maybe compassion. Or downright weakness. That boy had later strapped on a suicide vest and killed a group of villagers who defied the Taliban to open their shops. It had been a lesson, a lesson he remembered almost daily.
Stone hoisted the man’s right arm, rested the back of his elbow upon his knee, and dropped his body weight. The joint snapped, but the man didn’t stir. He would wake up, maybe, but when he did he would be out of action for weeks. He took the magazine out of the man’s weapon and pocketed it. He was carrying almost one-hundred and fifty rounds. He was ready to go noisy. But before he made a move, he opened the receiver on the man’s weapon and removed the bolt and firing pin assembly, and tossed it further up the slope into a clump of bracken.
The slope levelled out until it formed a large overhang which spanned not only the wooded part of the slope below, but the shale mountainside. Stone dropped low and eased himself over the overhang, edging the rifle over the edge. He brought his head up to aim, but there was nobody on the slope below. He looked towards the treeline. Nothing. He edged out further, the three bodies lay on the slope as he’d left them. He felt nothing as he looked at them. In truth, he’d only killed two. He was convinced he had rendered the first man unconscious and he had in fact been killed by his own friendly gunfire.
He felt uneasy. He had felt the same way before. In the mountains of Afghanistan. Just before…
The ground erupted first, before he heard the gunfire, but the aural resonance soon caught up. Stone was rolling, he held the rifle by the pistol-grip in his right hand, as he rolled briefly onto his back he could see three muzzle flashes high above him. He continued to roll, fired a number of shots as he rolled onto his back once more, maybe they got their heads down – he couldn’t tell because he was up and running now, but he almost ran into the gunfire. They had worked a pincer attack on him from above. It was textbook and an attack such as this would be able to hold off a dominant force,
let alone a single adversary. Stone got in tight to the slope and could see that he was out of their line of sight. He flicked the selector to auto and backed out, then fired a whole magazine off at the ridge. He changed over to a new magazine and flicked the selective fire switch upwards. He could see a man leaning over the ridge. They looked at each other at the same moment but Stone fired first. The man took a round, Stone could tell by the way he flinched. The man continued to aim, but then he appeared to look like he was drunk, his body just catching on to the fact a .223 inch lump of copper coated lead had scythed through him at three-thousand feet per second. He started to slump forwards, which gave Stone time to aim and fire again. The man’s head exploded like it was a watermelon. Stone got back under the ridge. Although he had only fired two or three shots, he switched to a fully loaded magazine which along with the chambered round gave him thirty-one bullets. He tucked the partially used magazine into a pocket on his right side. Left side for fully loaded, dregs on the right.
He knew he had to keep moving, had to keep up momentum. If he allowed himself to get bogged down, then he would lose. Plain and simple. They had numbers on him and they had the high ground.
Maybe Sun Tzu had a point.
Stone edged out again but wished he hadn’t. Two barrels blazed away and the bullets came so close to him that he was peppered with bullet fragments that exploded against the granite rocks, the shrapnel of hot copper-coated lead ripping through his trousers and tearing or embedding into his flesh. He could feel the heat, feel the blood seeping down his legs. He grimaced, but was surprised at the lack of pain. He edged his way backwards, but there were bullet strikes strafing the ground towards him. He ducked back under the overhang. He couldn’t see to his left or right without taking huge amounts of gunfire, and he couldn’t step out and aim at the ridge above him.
They had him.
Ahead of him the edge of the cliff. Beyond that, though unseen twenty feet below the ridge, the tips of pine trees, wafting gently in the light breeze. Stone took out the magazine, ejected the chambered round into his hand and dry fired weapon. He reinserted the magazine, the weapon now safe and empty.
And then he ran.
Ten paces followed by trails of bullets tearing the ground up behind him.
And then he leapt out into the abyss.
26
The drop to the tips of the trees was more like forty feet.
Stone let go of the rifle and braced for the impact. He hit the treetop and fell through the thin canopy of branches, each one snapping under his weight, but slowing his fall infinitesimally. He fell another twenty feet before the branches slowed him dramatically. And then, with a bone crunching jolt, he stopped when a branch as thick as his leg refused to bend or break. He felt a rib crack, his spine protest as he was almost bent double. He did not allow himself to stall, he rolled and swung, hand over hand and dropped ten feet to the pine needle covered forest floor. He landed heavily, but rolled before the shock found its way to his spine. The rifle had landed near the tree. He picked it up and checked it over, the barrel seemed straight enough. He opened the action and checked the barrel for debris. Just a single piece of earth or clump of moss could prove fatal if he fired, creating a breach blowback of gases. Effectively, a bomb in his hands. He blew down the barrel, turned it around and checked again. Clear. He locked it down, cocked and chambered, set the selector to single shot.
He walked, or rather limped into the trees, then made his way to the treeline where it opened out onto the scree slope. He stepped out onto the loose rock and looked up. Three men were slowly climbing down from the overhang, their backs to him. Two were on his right, the third was forty metres to his left. Stone aimed at the man on the far left. He sighted the open sights onto the centre of the man’s back and fired once. The man dropped silently the twenty or so feet to where Stone had been pinned down. Both men to his right hesitated, looking around and locking eyes on Stone almost eighty metres away. Stone raised the rifle and fired again. The man on his far right fell, screaming. He hit the ground and the screaming stopped.
“Please!” The remaining man shouted. He was frozen to the cliff face, straining his neck to see what Stone was doing. “Please don’t shoot!”
Stone started up the shale bank. He kept the weapon trained on the man, but watched all around him as he climbed the steep slope. Each footstep jolted his wounded ribs. His knees were stiff and ached, his back shouted at him to stop. He reached the top and looked up at the man, thirty feet or so above him.
“How many of you are there?”
“Please…”
“I asked how many.”
“I don’t know how many you’ve killed,” the man said. “Please, I’m slipping! I’m going to fall!”
“Six men hunted me last night. There were more feet on the ground this morning. How many came to help?” He kept the weapon up. “I’m getting impatient.”
“Four,” the man grunted. “Douglas and O’Connell are waiting at the truck.”
Stone did the math. This guy made eight. That meant there were two more out here, and two wherever they had parked. Which had to be near the bridge, Stone guessed.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Orders, man. Nothing personal.”
“Whose?”
“Look man, I’m slipping!”
“Whose orders?”
“Conrad’s.”
“Which Conrad brother?”
The man slipped approximately five feet, digging his fingers and toecaps into the soft earth. The drop was almost sheer, but the last fifteen feet was sheer rock with a scattering of football sized rocks on the ground below. “I’m going to fall, let me climb down, I can’t hold my weight!”
“Drop the weapon down first.”
The man fumbled with the sling fitted to his weapon. Stone noticed it was equipped with a laser sight. The barrel was shorter too. It also had a retractable shoulder stock. It was more of a custom job. Maybe this guy was a leader of some sort. The man got the weapon off his shoulder and dangled it, but as he tossed it out he slipped, his feet dug in and catapulted him outwards. He screamed, but not for long. He landed on his back, amongst the rocks. The scream was replaced with an agonising series of grunts and moans.
“My back… my back…” He panted, his teeth gritted together. “Oh Christ! I can’t feel my legs!”
“Yeah, you sure took a tumble.” Stone picked up the rifle, inspected it, took the magazine out and checked how many rounds there were. He decided to stick with the rifle he was using. He knew it worked just fine.
The man fumbled inside his jacket pocket. Stone bent down and grabbed his arm. The man was weak, his hands were shaking. He held a cell phone in his hand. Stone took it and put it in his own pocket.
“I need to phone for help…”
Stone shook his head. He opened the man’s coat and searched him. The man had a small compact .38 snub-nosed revolver tucked into his inside pocket. Stone took it and opened the cylinder. There were five bullets. He looked down at the man. “It hasn’t changed anything. You’re injured, that’s all. You’re not getting help, and you’re not getting out of this.”
“What?”
“You guys are out here trying to kill me,” Stone shrugged. “What the hell did you expect?”
“But I need help!”
Stone emptied the pistol, but slipped a single round back into the chamber. He closed the cylinder, four rotations away from the live round. He dropped it on the floor next to the man. The man looked at it, unsure whether to grab it and chance a shot. He knew he wouldn’t make it though, couldn’t possibly pull the trigger five times before Stone got a round off.
“Your back’s broke. I’m getting off this mountain alive, which means you and your friends are not,” Stone shrugged. “You win some, you lose some. I hear bears are waking up around here. The mountain lions are brave in the spring also. They all need to feed. You’ve got one round there. Use it wisely.”
Stone turn
ed and walked away. The man went for the pistol. By the time he picked it up, Stone had cleared the ridge and disappeared.
27
It was a full hour before Stone heard the gunshot. It was a short, punchy sound, different from the high velocity rifle he was carrying. It was someway distant, but he knew exactly where it had come from. He had given the man a get out and he had taken it.
Stone was traversing the mountainside higher up now than he had been before. Whether he had walked into a well-planned, well-anticipated ambush; or whether he had merely been spotted and they had reacted accordingly, he wasn’t certain. But he took heed and decided to work his way up the mountain and maintain the high ground, and he was now above the river he had nearly drowned in the night before.
The ground was now almost entirely solid rock. There were numerous crags for someone to hide in, and the occasional giant pine had managed to take hold in places and thrive without competition for light and water, but other than that he was afforded the advantage of looking down on the slope. He wasn’t cold anymore, but he was tired, hungry and thirsty. He wasn’t hunting either, he had made up his mind to get back to the scene of their capture. Abandon was twenty miles away at least. Beth’s police cruiser had been left on the road to Claude Conrad’s place. It had been damaged, a puncture for sure, but maybe that was the extent of the damage. Even with a ruined tyre he would make some distance at least, and the vehicle would undoubtedly have a spare wheel. Standard Secret Service operating procedure was to always have spare keys stowed somewhere in a vehicle, and he was sure Beth hadn’t removed the keys from the ignition. Why would she have? The thought that a vehicle was his for the taking no more than a few miles away spurned him onwards. Beth was a cop now– maybe she had Twinkies or doughnuts stashed in the glovebox as well.