Tatiana peered through powerful binoculars at Kirill’s facility. The outer screen of bullet-proof glass shimmered, blending with the ancient landscape.
She gazed up from their position, keeping the Chinook helicopters in clear view as the first one lifted off from its landing pad, then the second, and lastly the third one.
Dillon’s voice was calm and calculated, as he said. “Well, that’s a surprise. Look who’s just crawled out from under a rock.”
“Who?”
“Professor, bloody, Kirill. That’s who. What a most satisfyingly pleasant surprise.” Dillon adjusted his position behind the rifle sight, and Tatiana read the body language, understood it from the firing ranges she had been sent to while training for her current role at Ferran & Cardini International. He was getting comfy. Getting ready, ready to shoot, he wanted no mistakes…
Dillon placed his hand around the grip. Red lights turned to blue, and then to green. The Nemesis had synchronised with Dillon’s grip and finger-prints — and was now ready to shoot.
Dillon flicked the rifle’s safety to the off position. Rolled his head a couple of times to loosen the tension.
“What are you going to do?” Asked Tatiana softly.
“Do? I’m going to shoot that bastard, right between the eyes. Damn-it, he’s gone and disappeared again. He must have gone back inside the building.”
Dillon watched as the only helicopter left on the landing pad, a much smaller six-man Robinson, started its engine and the rotors started to spin. He wondered why they were leaving such a secure facility, and where they were going to.
“What I’d give for a cold pint of lager, right now.”
“That’s about the hundredth time you’ve said that, Dillon.”
Dillon looked round at her, and said nothing. But she was sure that he had made some sort of snorting sound, before returning his eye to the telescopic sight.
They continued to wait in the cold and the damp. A northerly breeze was now blowing in and Dillon repositioned and adjusted the Nemesis to take this into account.
Tatiana went back to the quad and returned with a bottle of water and two nutritional breakfast bars.
“We’ve only two more water bottles left, after this one. So we’ll have to be careful with it.”
“Really. You city girls haven’t got a fucking clue have you?”
“I’m only pointing out that our water ration is getting low, that’s all.”
“Bloody hell, luv. We’re in the Scottish Highlands, not the Sahara Desert. Every stream is a watering hole. The water up here is cleaner than the shit they pour into those bottles, believe me.”
Dillon grinned, flashing her a dark look.
He returned to the scope, scanning the surrounding countryside, before panning up in a wide arc to the landing area again. His eye caught a dark clad figure jumping down from the lone helicopter and moving around it, presumably carrying out its final pre-flight checks.
Dillon calmed his breathing.
The sight locked on.
The Nemesis fired.
The bullet took the pilot through the side of the neck; the slender figure slumped to the ground with blood pumping in a high arc across the fuselage of the Robinson helicopter. Then it was still. Dillon immediately swept the scope back and forth, looking for more targets to take down…
Kirill emerged and moved towards the helicopter.
“At last,” murmured Dillon.
Tatiana had been lying on a rock, her weary eyes closed, and the fur-lined parka hood pulled up tight around her face. After hearing the crackof the rifle, she had scrambled over to Dillon and now peered through binoculars up at the helicopter. The engine pitch increased, the rotor blades became a spinning blur as it lifted up into the air.
Again, there was a crack.
Dillon released the electronic grip, and sighed.
The helicopter rotated ninety degrees, pitched forward slightly, and then came gently back down onto the landing pad with a bump.
The rotor blades stopped spinning and the only noise came from the wind. Calm…
Dillon looked through the scope, and the sensation was sweet; Kirill’s panic in the cockpit. What to do? Where to run?
The cockpit door opened slowly — but no one stepped out.
Kirill’s head then peered fleetingly out, then immediately disappeared back inside.
He was gauging the distance he had to run — no cover between the helicopter and the facility entrance that he had come through just minutes earlier.
Where was the shooter? Dillon knew that would frustrate the hell out of Kirill. And he was also sure that Kirill was cursing.
The man’s hand-made Italian shoes hit the ground and Kirill began to run, head low, as he sprinted at a speed that surprised Dillon greatly.
“You’re fast for an old man! Running as if your life depended on it,” Dillon said calmly, a man relaxed, focused. He gently squeezed the grip. The Nemesis kicked, ever so slightly, and there was the crack as the round was discharged. “And of course, it does.” He smiled.
Tatiana watched Kirill tumble forward onto the hard surface of the landing bay to remain there stunned. Or dead…
“Tatiana. It’s at times such as these, I really love the work I do,” said Dillon, smiling. He pressed his eye into the rubber cup of the scope. Watched Kirill, his face contorted in pain, gather himself up to his feet and then stumble forward, blood flowing freely, towards the inner sanctum of the facility and safety.
“Where did you get him?”
“Right where it hurts, in the left cheek of his ass. And boy, will that hurt.”
Dillon squeezed the grip once more. Kirill was knocked off his feet, crashed to the ground, and lay there.
“Right thigh. That’ll stop that bastard from running away.”
Dillon remained still for a while, watching, checking for any stray security guards. “Let’s go up and have a little chat to the man. He might be amiable to that now. What do you reckon, Tats?”
Tatiana remained silent.
Kirill lay on the wet surface of the landing bay near to the entrance of the facility, wondering what the hell had hit him.
And then he remembered the sound of the single heavy thwack, and an immediate loss of oil pressure as the large caliber round had smashed into the side of the Robinson’s engine casing.
And then panic…
Blind panic.
He made a dash for the entrance. A searing pain, white hot, in the soft flesh of his buttock, pain like he’d never experienced before.
And then the second round — right thigh.
And tears of pain running down over his cheeks.
He rolled over into a sort of semi foetal position and tried to examine the bullet wounds. The cloth of his expensive hand tailored trousers had turned crimson and clung to his brutalised flesh. Blood pooled on the ground around him, spreading viscously from the two wounds.
Lots of blood…
Kirill’s head snapped first to the left and then right, eyes searching the surrounding terrain in panic. Where was that damned sniper?
And then the association…Could it be possible?
Was it Dillon out there?
He shook his head, almost in disbelief. This is becoming a nightmare, he thought. After everythingthat I’ve been through! And he also understood why he had been shot in the legs and not in the head. Whoever had sniped him wanted him alive and was most likely on their way up…
Kirill rolled onto his belly and gritting his teeth, started to crawl. His clothing was ripped in several places and got covered in grime. His neatly groomed greying hair became flat against his scalp with the rain falling. His usually calm and composed face became a picture of panic, of comprehension, of time running out…