Flee (23 page)

The
only thing worse than a firefight during the daylight was a firefight in the
dark.

I
ditched the sedan in a turn off about a mile from the three blips on my tablet
PC. I'd zoomed in enough to get a topical layout of the area. One was me. The
other was Clancy. The third was unknown. It might be Hammett, though I guessed
the blip at the Hancock Center was hers. There was also a blip at the Cook
County morgue, which could indicate Forsyth, or Ludlam, or Follett. Or a
combination of all three.

So
why was there an extra nearby? Could one of my dead sisters be back in play
somehow? Or were there more of these tracker things than The Instructor had
indicated?

Hefting
my rifle case, I started through the woods. Clouds scutted across the sky, dark
on one side, pastel on the other as the sun dipped down. Night had its own
smell, crisp and cool and dangerous.

Dry
leaves skittered and skipped along the dirt. I moved slowly, watching my
footing, keeping low. It wouldn't be easy to spot a sniper through the trees,
especially a pro like Clancy supposedly was. I would need all my senses and a
liberal dose of luck.

Make
that an
extraordinary
dose of luck. Matching the blip to the terrain, I
saw that my sister had taken the highest point in the area, on a ridge two
kilometers to the northwest. From that vantage point, she was the master of
this entire domain. My only hope was to lay low and try to sneak up on—

The
shot missed my foot by only a few inches, kicking up a clot of dirt. A
millisecond later the report echoed through the trees, a thunderous boom coming
from the ridge.

I
dove behind a fallen tree, rolling onto my back, clutching the rifle case to my
chest. I  wondered how exposed I was, but didn't dare check. Since the bullet
arrived before the sound, I knew Clancy was firing supersonic rounds. If I
peeked my head over the rotting log, chances are I'd have it shot off before I
even heard the bullet coming.

Although
I'd excelled at long distance shooting during training, the sniper mindset was
never a good fit for me. The best snipers were almost supernatural with their
patience. In a full ghillie suit—a mesh covering woven with camouflage fabric
and often actual leaves, weeds, and moss until the wearer looked like a swamp
monster—it might take a sniper an entire day to cross a single acre of land,
creeping an inch at a time, blending perfectly into the foliage. While waiting
for a shot, it wasn't unusual for a sniper to bivouac for a week or more in a
single area, never moving more than a few feet.

I
opened the clasps on my rifle case. Working quickly, while there was still a
sliver of light left, I began to assemble my M24. It was a modified, takedown
version of the Remington 700 rifle, upgraded for military use. This one was
rebarreled for .300 Winchester Magnum ammo, had a muzzle flash hider, a Leupold
day scope, and a AN/PVS-26 night vision device. I finished putting the rifle
together by feel just as the sun made its exit, all the while holding my breath
and waiting for Clancy's next shot. Though an excellent weapon, the M24 had a
maximum effective range of 800 meters. I could maybe hit her at 1000 meters,
but that would be pushing it.

Unfortunately,
Clancy was at least 1800 meters away. Not only did she have the eagle-eye
vantage point, but she was no doubt using a more powerful weapon than mine. She
probably had a ghillie suit as well, rendering my night vision practically
useless for spotting her.

I
put my chances at survival under ten percent. As for actually killing Clancy,
the odds were too astronomical to even bother calculating. Add the fact that my
whole body hurt and my thoughts felt sluggish after the hellish day I'd had,
and I had to admit that Jack Daniels was probably right. I was going to get
killed.

But
I had one thing going for me.

I
had nothing to lose.

And
the world should fear the angry assassin with nothing to lose.

Holding
the starlight scope to my eye, I took in my surroundings, deciding where to go
next, wondering if it even mattered. My training dictated the best course of
action would be to draw her fire, then quickly run southwest, which provided
brush cover and a gradual elevation, which would put us on more even footing.

But
Clancy had the same training I did. So I looked for the worst direction to go.
That would be straight ahead, into forty meters of open meadow. Flat terrain,
no cover at all. Suicidal, but she wouldn't expect it. If I sprinted fast
enough, I could get to the copse of trees across the meadow before she could
line up a shot. It was particularly tricky to hit a moving target at long
distance, so I had a minute chance of making it. Maybe.

I
rolled onto my stomach, my rifle on the ground in front of me, an extra
magazine of ten rounds in my pocket, and I gradually spread out my legs,
straddling the dirt. Staying flat, I brought my knees up until I must have
resembled a bullfrog.

Then
I jumped like one, springing forward over the log, feeling then hearing the
shot pass under my spread-eagled leap. As soon as I hit the ground, I was
tearing ass across the meadow, a full out sprint in the dark, my rifle in one
hand and my scope in the other, counting my steps until I was sure I was near
the tree line, then sliding like a baseball player as another shot cracked, so
close I felt it breeze by my hip.

I
rolled into the tree cover, pulse pounding in my ears, amazed I was still
alive. I was perhaps fifty meters closer. If I did that seven more times, and
my luck held, I might get a chance to defend myself.

I
stayed in the thicket, surrounded by trees, and gained another fifty meters
before coming to a second clearing. This one was wider than before. It had two
routes through it, neither very promising. One path had high weeds that I could
perhaps crawl through, but if Clancy had a thermal camera I might as well be
strolling across a football field in broad daylight. The other was a lengthy
zig-zag through thorn bushes.

I
didn't want to die tangled up in thorn bushes, so I went for the weeds. The
first ten strides were straight, then I cut left, then right, then right again,
then left, not thinking about direction so much as trying to be random. If I
didn't know my next move, neither would Clancy.

Just
as I reached another tree line, I felt a tug at my leg and heard the rifle
report. I put my back to a big oak, scooted onto my butt, and used the scope to
check my injury.

The
bullet had cut through my pants and lightly grazed my thigh, leaving a streak
that looked, and felt, like a burn. It was such a minor wound I didn't even
need to dress it, but it made me think.

Four
shots fired, and all at my legs. Legs are much harder to hit than center mass.

Which
meant my sister wasn't trying to kill me. Only disable me.

That
perked up my spirits a bit. If they needed me alive, they couldn't risk a
lethal hit. Which meant more careful shot selection. Which meant fewer shots.
Which meant drastically increased odds of me surviving.

In
an odd sort of way, it made me invulnerable.

I
didn't think about my next route. I just ran like hell, straight into the thin
trees, up the gradual incline, feeling completely exposed and yet bulletproof
at the same time. Either my mad dash confused Clancy, or she'd lost me in the
darkness, because she didn't fire again for the entire length of my sprint. By
the time I came to rest beside an outcropping of dirt and rocks, panting like a
dog, I was unable to prevent the incredulous smile that had formed on my face.
As far as I could tell, I was within 1000 meters of the ridge.

I
checked the tablet PC to make sure, covering it with my shirt so the glow didn't
attract attention. Sure enough, Clancy's blip was only 730 meters away. She
hadn't moved. Neither had the other, unknown blip, which was 510 meters due
east. I attached my night vision to the rail in front of the scope and sighted
east, through crooked, green-hued trees. I saw what appeared to be the corner
of a stone house, recessed into the side of a hill. If I had to take a guess,
the house, and the source of the blip, was Jacob's stronghold, and Clancy was
keeping watch on it.

Curiouser
and curiouser.

I
tugged back the bolt and loaded a round, then flopped onto my belly and set up
my bipod. I was still panting from the run, and I took several deep breaths in
an effort to slow my respiration and counter the rise in my heart rate. Then I
assumed the standard sniping position. Body in line with the weapon. Heels flat
on the ground. Elbows comfortable. The butt of the weapon resting on the fist
of my non-firing hand. My face against the cheek plate. Then I adjusted the
eyepiece focus ring, and the range focus ring, and tried to locate my sister.

She
helped me by firing once again, the round burying itself into the dirt between
my calves. My pulse spiked, and I fought the urge to roll away, instead zooming
in on the tiny barrel flash I'd seen.

Clancy
fired once more, shooting off the tip of my right shoe. That's when I saw her
in the scope, an amorphous mound of green moss draped over a gigantic rifle
barrel, so far away she was barely visible. It was a calm night, with a slight
northeast wind, and the elevation and bullet drop were hard to judge on the
fly. I couldn't make out Clancy's features, but aimed where her head would be
and exhaled while I gently squeezed the trigger.

My
shot fell short by at least ten meters.

Steady. Stay calm.

I
worked the bolt and relaxed my fist, raising the barrel a hair to account for
the incline and gravity—like all projectiles, bullets moved in an arc and were
pulled downward toward the earth.  I hissed out a breath and squeezed another
round off a bit too soon. It sailed harmlessly over Clancy's head.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Relax, stay calm, don't rush it.

Don't think about getting shot.

Don't worry about missing again.

I'm ice, and my blood is antifreeze.

Clancy
returned fire, but my shot must have unnerved her, because her round hit a few
feet to my right. That's the biggest danger in a sniper firefight. You want so
badly to kill before you get killed that you don't take your time.

But
she recovered quickly, firing less than a second later, grazing my left thigh
with another searing burn.

That's
when I decided to cheat. She might have been the better shot than me, but
technology had improved since we'd been trained by Hydra.

I
tugged out the tablet PC, and saw Clancy was 728.5 meters away. I zeroed out my
scope, adjusted for elevation, then hit the
DUAL HIGH
buttons on my side
mounted AN/PEQ-2. This was an infrared illumination system, only visible
through night vision. The narrow beam was a laser dot, for pinpointing targets.
The wide beam was like a flashlight, illuminating a cone of visibility.

No
doubt Clancy was equipped with this as well, but she hadn't used it because it
was ridiculously easy to spot by the opposition, almost like a signal flare.
But in this case, we both knew where the other person was. I just needed to be
able to hit the bitch.

Letting
out a slow breath through clenched teeth, I centered the tiny laser dot alongside
her scope, right at her closed eye—my closed eye—and fired.

Clancy's
head erupted in a brilliant green explosion of brain matter and bone.

Adios, Sis.

I
had nothing in my stomach, but retched bile onto the dirt next to me.

That
was the fourth lookalike I'd killed today. Four suicides by proxy. Four sisters
I desperately wanted and never got the chance to know. I'd never met Clancy.
She'd been my enemy. I shouldn't care that she was dead. But the thought that
there were only two of us now—me and that psycho, Hammett—made me feel almost
as alone as I had after Kaufmann's death.

Freud
would have loved me.

But
there was no time for distractions. I couldn't allow myself to be anything but
senses, reflexes and training. No thought. No feelings. It took less than a
minute to pull myself together, to get my breathing and heart rate under
control, to get my head back in the game and my emotions buried. When I
finished compartmentalizing everything, I scrambled to my feet and headed east
through the forest, toward the other blip on the screen, trying not to think
about my sister's face.

The
murmur of wind through branches was now joined by the plaintive hooting of an
owl. Darkness cloaked the forest, moon and stars only visible in brief flashes
between the clouds. The terrain sloped upward, and I entered a clearing and caught
another glimpse of the low hulk of a house, a shadow behind the trees.

The
place was expansive, a block of stone and glass built into the side of the
hill. Only the east side had a view, windows peering across sloped paths. The
rest of the house burrowed into the earth, like the hobbit homes in
Lord of
the Rings,
but without charm. I had no idea if this was Jacob's personal
home or some kind of Hydra Project safe house, but clearly whoever paid the
bills had cash to spare and a serious need for security.