“I’ve been here before and know what to expect. Still, it’s different this time.”
“Oh?” Anne replied. “How so?”
“This time we’re up against a trained professional—maybe more than one.”
She sighed. “I’d like to come up here some time—when I can truly enjoy this.”
“I would never have thought you’d like roughing it.” Houston stared at a loon as it swam through the beam of moonlight shining on the lake’s surface. “Anne, there’s something I have to say.”
“Then say it.”
“I couldn’t have made it these last few years without you. I don’t have to tell you that when we met I was going ninety miles an hour down a dead-end street. You’ve helped put purpose and direction back in my life.” He looked into her eyes.
She was silent for several seconds. Her voice was barely audible when she said, “You give me more credit than I deserve. I depend on you for a lot of things too.”
She guided him off the rock.
Houston turned and took her in his arms. When he felt her body respond to him, he held her tighter. Anne wrapped her arms around him. “Mike—”
“Yes?”
“We’ve held off making love all this time because we were partners and didn’t want to complicate things.”
“That’s what we both agreed upon.”
“Tomorrow, one or both of us could be dead.”
“Don’t think like that.” He held her at arm’s length and looked into her eyes.
“We have to consider it.”
“What are you saying?”
“I want you—now—here.”
“You’re sure?”
She smiled at him. “I’m sure.”
Before he could ask another question, she placed a finger across his lips. “If you ask one more question I could change my mind.”
He swept her up and carried her into the trees.
31
“To overcome the difficulties of detection and to maintain security during every day sniping operations, the aim should be to confuse the enemy.”
—US Marine Corps Scout/Sniper Training Manual
Houston woke to the chirping of his watch, looked at the luminous hands and got up. He stepped around Anne’s sleeping form and reached out to nudge Winter.
“I’m awake.”
Houston nodded and began final preparations to shove off on the last leg of the journey within the hour. He took the Ghillie suit off his pack and put it on, snapping it to his coveralls. The previous night while waiting for Anne, Gordon and Jimmy to arrive, he had collected the assortment of local fauna he would need to complete his camouflage.
Once their preparations were complete, they packed their gear into the canoe. Houston returned to the camp and found O’Leary and Anne stoking the fire. Anne placed a coffeepot on the coals. “At least stay long enough to eat something and have some coffee.”
Winter called to O’Leary from the motorboat. “Hey, boss, if you want, now’s as good a time as any for me to train you on how to use the trolling motor.”
O’Leary stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants. “A man’s work is never done,” he said as he walked toward the boat.
Anne got up. “I better get in on this too—just in case.”
They ate a quick breakfast. During the meal, Winter checked his assault rifle. When he pulled and released the operating rod, he nodded to Houston. “I’m ready, we can leave whenever you want.”
“It’s time. There’s only one paddle—we’ll take turns.”
“You okay with the boat?” Winter asked O’Leary.
“I’ll let Anne drive. I’ve never been the nautical type.”
Houston and Winter pushed the canoe out into the lake and got in. The paddle barely made a sound as Houston pulled against the water.
The surface of the lake was smooth as glass and Houston saw the reflection of early morning stars twinkling on the water. He wondered what it must have been like for early Americans to leave the safety of civilization to explore and settle the wilderness. He was afraid to do anything that might shatter the mood and remained mute as he concentrated on paddling the canoe.
Houston’s reverie broke when a pair of moose—a bull with huge antlers and his cow—swam past the canoe on their way between islands. He became aware of the darkness and realized that they would have to be alert to avoid hitting anything.
It was six thirty, and daylight was just starting to push away the darkness when they came to the island. They placed their paddles in the bottom of the canoe and drifted while they stared at the dark silhouette.
“Now I know how the 1st Marine Division felt when they first saw Guadalcanal . . . ”
The premise became even more sobering when he realized that, like the Solomon Islands, this one too was about to become a killing ground.
Houston wanted to err on the side of caution. He picked up the paddle and signaled to Winter. He slowly paddled around the island using the predawn darkness to hide their approach. As much as possible, he wanted to study the island’s geography and hopefully find Rosa’s boat at the same time.
The shoreline appeared primeval and uninhabited, as if the world had not yet discovered this place, or if it had had found it to be too remote. When dawn broke, they continued their reconnaissance, staying close to the shore, hoping to avoid detection in the early-morning light.
Suddenly, Winter tapped Houston on the shoulder and pointed to a small motorboat partially hidden in an inlet on the western shore.
Houston turned to Winter. “We’ll row around to the eastern shore.” “Makes sense to me. Last thing we want to do is make it easy for him and walk into an ambush.”
They caught a current and slid past the hidden boat, paying close attention to the trees as they drifted by. Houston was unsure how long Rosa had been in place and was not about to do the obvious by looking for him. Rather than tramp the island, exposing himself, he intended to find a hide and wait—for days if necessary. That would force Rosa into moving—and a sniper would be at his most vulnerable when on the move.
On the eastern shore, they beached the canoe and hid it in a copse of brush. They waited fifteen minutes for the woods to quiet down before unloading their gear. Houston loaded his rifle and checked his pistol. Satisfied with his state of readiness, he watched Winter finish his last-minute checks. They nodded in unison and slid into the forest.
The sniper sat in the tree stand, his eyes the only part of him that moved. His mind raced as a charge of adrenaline coursed through his veins. This was what he lived for—the hunt. In the distance, he heard the chatter of a boat motor coming from the south. He listened as the sound moved north and then diminished to silence—a fisherman, he decided.
He stared down the side of the ridge, seeking signs of movement in the forest. The only movement was the intermittent rippling of leaves as the wind blew through the trees. A calm day was preferable, but it was no big deal. He had done this often enough to know the difference between the breeze and human movement.
He settled back, breathed deep and felt the adrenaline subside—it could be a long wait.
Estes left Susie tied to the bunk and walked out of the shack. She glanced up at the morning sun, placed her hands on her lower back, and stretched. Looking back at the cabin, his orders about the girl ate at her. She was having a hard enough time adjusting to taking instructions from a corporal, but he was the expert sniper, so she acquiesced. His insistence on the kid not being harmed made no sense. After all, the kid’s death was inevitable; Susie had seen both of them and heard their names. It would be suicidal to allow her to leave the island alive. She turned away and walked to the trail that led to the lakeshore. Why risk pissing him off? The kid’s time was limited either way. About fifty meters down the trail, Estes turned into the brush. A fallen tree from which she could see the path provided an unrestricted field of fire and Estes settled back to wait. Two things were certain: Houston would not be alone and anyone he recruite
d probably knew little or nothing about military tactics. To ensure all was in ready, Estes rechecked her rifle, settled back and watched the trail.
Too bad that I can’t document this operation. It will be historic, she thought. In the history of the United States military there had never been a woman sniper, even though Lyudmilla Pavlichenko, a female sniper, had scored more than three hundred kills as a sniper for the Soviet Army during World War II war in Stalingrad. Every marine knew the story of Carlos Hathcock tracking and shooting the infamous Vietnamese female sniper known as Apache. It would finally prove to the Corps that a woman was as capable of being a combat sniper as any man.
Estes’s thoughts returned to the young woman in the cabin. He should have taken her advice and killed the kid yesterday—eventually they had to. His desire to cut the girl’s throat while her father watched, helpless to stop it, was stupid. Once again she looked at the front of the shack. Maybe, I’ll just do it now . . . .
Houston felt as if he were once again a young marine seeking out the enemy. There was more than a little truth to the adage “ Once a marine, always a marine.”
Winter’s expertise impressed him. O’Leary’s right-hand man knew how to move through rough terrain and bush. His eyes seemed to see everything, no matter how minuscule the movement. In no time, he and Houston had synchronized their movement, as if they were one. One thing that scout-snipers and army Rangers had in common was their need to operate unheard and unseen. Because of their training, it took them over an hour to move one hundred meters. They moved as silently as a pair of stalking tigers, taking care to step over dead brush and fallen tree limbs. They came to a small stream and settled in amongst some alders for a break.
“Christ,” Winter whispered, “it’s like I never left the army.”
They drank from canteens, their eyes always on the move, watching, searching the terrain.
“One big difference though,” Houston said.
“Which is?”
“We were young and immortal then. Now we’re older and know we can die.”
“There’s only one thing about dying that bothers me,” Winter said.
“Which is?”
“What if I’m good at it? I only get to do it once.”
“Gordon, you’re one weird dude.”
“Yeah, my mother always said that.”
“You got family?”
“Parents are dead—which is probably for the best.”
“How so?”
“My old man was like you, a career cop. I doubt he’d find what I do for Jimmy easy to live with.”
“On the other hand, if you’d grown up in Southie, the locals would probably call you a hero.”
Anne and O’Leary left for the island at eight in the morning. They drove the boat past the large island and killed the motor when they were several hundred yards beyond the northernmost shore. He rummaged around for a few seconds, then handed Anne one of the fishing poles.
“What’s this for?”
“In case they’re watching. We’re going to fish for a while. That way they’ll ignore us.”
Anne looked hesitant.
“Don’t worry, we’ll use artificial bait. I ain’t too crazy about stabbing a hook into a worm either.”
A surprised look came over Anne’s face. “Are you squeamish, Jimmy? I never would have thought that.”
“What?”
“That you’d have reservations about hooking a worm.”
“I didn’t say I had reservations, I said I ain’t crazy about it—damn things are too slimy.” O’Leary lit a cigarette and grinned. “Besides, I ain’t ever hurt anything or anyone that didn’t try to hurt me.”
Anne chuckled. “Jimmy, the more I’m with you the less I dislike you.”
“I told you that if you hung around with me long enough I’d grow on you.”
They cast their lines into the water and let the boat drift toward the island.
“What are we going to do if we catch something?” Anne asked.
Houston heard a sound to their left. He froze in place scanning the area through the Unertl telescopic sight. He slowly panned the trees, looking for anything that broke the natural patterns of the forest. He forced his eye to seek out horizontal patterns; at scout-sniper training they emphasized that in the bush most humans missed seeing things because they lived in a vertical world and would look too high. Most unsuccessful hunters looked at a deer and never saw it; at its shoulders, a large buck would be only three to four feet high, but may have a horizontal length of over six feet long. Animals and experienced snipers looked for objects on the horizontal as well as in the vertical plane. Houston studied the area. He detected a shape in the scope and froze. It took him a second to identify a fully mature buck. He noted the full rack of antlers and knew he was observing a trophy whitetail. He centered the scope’s crosshair just behind the buck’s front leg. If he had been a hunter, it would have been a perfect shot through its heart. The deer froze in place, stared at the strange shape for a few seconds and then darted off into the trees.
Houston heard Winter exhale. “Good thing you’re on the point. I’d have blasted it.”
At noon, they started scaling the slope that led to the top of the ridge. Houston and Winter took a short break and ate a lunch of crackers, cheese and water.
“We climbing all the way to the top?”
“I think not. I don’t want to be silhouetted against the skyline.” Houston pointed to a small plateau about three-quarters of the way up. “That looks like as good a place as we’ll find.”
“You’re the sniper.”
“We’re going to separate.”
“Is that wise?”
“It’s not something a sniper team usually does. But then this isn’t a typical sniper-op. The target is aware of us and he’s waiting too. Whoever fucks up first gets the body bag. We won’t be that far apart—we’ll keep each other in sight. I’ll go for the plateau. In the meantime, you find a place to watch my back. If he gets me first, take him out.”
Winter looked uncertain. “What if he gets me?”
“Then I’ll know where he is and I’ll take him out.”
Winter grinned. “Now there’s a strategy. But, I get your point—either way one of us flushes the asshole.”
“Exactly.”
Houston waited until Winter had disappeared into the woods and then climbed for another hour before reaching the plateau.
He settled down and looked across the ravine that separated the ridge from a smaller one across the way. The field of fire was good and Houston settled in. It was time for the hunt to begin in earnest. It was time to see how patient his competition was. The shooter and he were now involved in a war of nerves that Houston felt confident he would win.
Houston melted into the brush and got into as comfortable a shooting position as possible. He unhooked the sling from the rifle’s rear post and created a loop through which he slipped his left arm. Tightening the loop until it was almost as tight as he could without making a tourniquet of it, he wrapped the straight section around his arm. He placed his left hand against the swivel at the forward end of the hand grip, pulled the stock firmly into his shoulder and scanned the area through the telescopic sight. The tight sling held the rifle sight steady, creating a stable shooting platform. All was ready.
Once his stakeout site was established, Houston felt better. His opponent had several advantages, the greatest of which was that he had selected the terrain and knew it. On the other hand, Houston had an advantage of his own; he was damned good at waiting. He had been on many stakeouts and could wait for days if need be. However, this time there was one major difference. On previous sniper hunts, he hadn’t had to worry about the target stalking him. This time, however, the target knew that he was the hunted as well as the hunter.
Houston munched on beef jerky and washed it down with water. The afternoon wore on and a couple of times he thought about moving, but fought back the urge. Successful snipers tr
ained themselves to lie in wait with little or no movement for hours—if not days—on end. The primary problem they had to deal with was that although the body was motionless, the mind was anything but. Houston had always found maintaining mental alertness more difficult than maintaining physical alertness. As he lay motionless, his mind drifted in numerous directions, reliving his tumultuous marriage, wondering if he could have done anything differently. He recalled his own words: “Pam was by far a much better wife to me than I was a husband to her.” His thoughts turned to Susie and fear gripped him when he realized that she might be dead. The sniper had said he wouldn’t hurt her if Houston joined him in this psychotic game. Nevertheless, now that he was here, there was nothing to keep him from killing her.
Clearing his mind and studying the terrain, Houston searched for Winter. When he failed to find him, he was reassured of his abilities. Of itself, that was not overly surprising; Army Rangers went through a rigorous training regimen, possibly more demanding than that of scout-snipers. Like scout/snipers, the washout rate for Ranger training was around eighty percent. Houston knew he could not have a better man covering his back door.
Susie struggled against her bonds, listening for the sound of anyone approaching the shack. She hadn’t heard anything but the wind through the trees since Frankie and the scarred man had left to set ambushes for her dad.
Susie twisted her wrists, ignoring the pain as the coarse nylon bit into her flesh.
She had to free herself, to find some way of warning her father.
32
“Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to the battle will arrive exhausted.”
—Sun Tzu Wu, The Art of War
Jimmy O watched the shore from the corner of his eye. From time to time, he ventured a look at Anne. “I can’t say I like sitting out here like a floating target.”
“The shore is only a few yards away.”
“If they were watching us, I think they’d have made some kind of move already. Let’s beach this thing.”
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