There was no sign of the third Hummer. Justin wondered if Hakim had made the crazy decision to order his driver to turn around or drive in reverse, a move he had not even considered. That would be suicide.
Justin kept his gaze on the first Hummer. Its occupants had decided to play it safe and stay behind their steel plates and reinforced windows. He was not sure if those were their orders or if at this point they were just trying to save their own skins.
He was getting ready to radio Nathan for an update. His position further down and closer to the highway gave him a clearer view of the convoy’s tail. But the wind was blowing the smoke downwards, blocking Nathan’s line of sight.
Then the third Hummer moved lazily into the open. The driver struggled to maintain control of the vehicle. The Hummer in front of him picked up speed. That seemed to encourage the driver to follow suit. The two Hummers rounded the next curve.
Justin followed their movement in his sniper’s scope.
“The last Hummer is gunning up to catch the rest of the team,” Carrie said.
“Well, not so fast,” Justin said.
He reached for the remote control next to him. His team had placed the third explosive charge just where the highway formed another hairpin turn. They had used a tall pine to mark the exact location. Justin counted the seconds until Hakim’s Hummer reached that point.
He flipped the switch on his remote control the moment the front wheels of the Hummer lined up with the pine. The explosion was smaller than the previous two, but it was still quite powerful. The pine tree collapsed on the highway and blocked one of its two lanes a few feet in front of the vehicle. The blast wave cracked the Hummer’s windows, and a massive amount of soil, branches, and roots were hurled against the vehicle.
“They’re moving out,” Carrie said.
Justin aligned his sniper rifle with the second passenger door.
The driver and the front passenger opened their doors at the same time. They stepped outside, their assault rifles at the ready, and their eyes began to scan the forest for signs of attackers’ positions.
After a few tense seconds, the driver stood in front of the Hummer, his head still moving left and right, as he searched for the invisible enemy. The other man walked toward the back of the Hummer.
He opened the door, and a woman stepped outside. She ducked, as the man pulled her out and gently pushed her forward. She began to run toward the driver, who turned around and encouraged her to keep running.
Justin placed his finger on the trigger.
Hakim stepped outside his Hummer. He did not look frightened, but enraged. He had a pistol in his hand, and he moved in quick steps, as he headed toward the safety of the forest.
Justin pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit the target on his left side.
It was a perfect shot. Even if Hakim was wearing a bulletproof vest underneath his black coat, the bullet would have pierced his flesh right where the straps of the vest joined together and offered little protection. Justin usually aimed for the neck or the head of his enemies. But that was at a closer range, not six hundred feet away.
Hakim collapsed against the hood of his Hummer. The man next to him peered in the direction of the shot, his rifle raised to his eye level. He had located the general area, but had not pinpointed yet the exact location of the sniper.
Justin’s crosshairs rested on the man’s silhouette.
Carrie said, “The target’s still alive.”
The driver had knelt next to his boss and was holding up his head. Then he leaned over and began a frantic mouth-to-mouth, along with regular pressing down on Hakim’s chest.
Justin could not allow the driver to finish his life-saving exercise.
At the risk of being discovered, he aimed at Hakim and pressed the trigger. The bullet this time found Hakim’s head, ending his life and the driver’s revival attempts. But it also gave away Justin’s and Carrie’s position.
The other man fired a quick burst. Bullets struck a dozen yards away from them. The man readjusted his aim, raised the barrel of his rifle, and let off a long volley.
A few rounds stripped the bark off the trees to Justin’s left, six, seven feet away. He looked through the scope and fired another shot. The round slammed into the man’s chest and knocked him to his knees. Justin’s next shot flattened him to the ground.
The driver fired off a few rounds. He had slid underneath the Hummer, behind the front wheels. The woman stood a few feet away from the vehicle, frozen in place.
More guards rushed out of the other Hummers. They began to fire long barrages as they secured positions around the highway.
Bullets struck around the sniper’s nest. Justin and Carrie were under full attack. Sooner or later they were going to get hit if they stayed in place.
“Open fire?” Nathan asked over the radio.
“Negative. Do not engage. Unarmed woman,” Justin replied.
A bullet whizzed past his head and broke a branch off the beech tree behind him. Justin lowered his head and slid to the left, sheltering himself partially behind a pine’s thick trunk. He pulled his rifle, folded its bipod, and looked through the scope.
The woman ran bent at the waist. She stooped over Hakim’s body and shook it. Then she looked directly in Justin’s direction. Tears flowed down her face. She cried out something he could not decipher, then reached down next to the dead man’s feet.
Justin thought she was going for the rifle lying nearby, so he pulled the trigger. The woman stopped moving, her arm stretched halfway toward the gun. A second later, she twitched, and her hand dropped a couple of inches away from Hakim’s.
“Fire at will, fire at will,” Justin said.
Carrie’s machine gun began its thundering rattle. Bullets rained over the Hummers. Nathan and his partner had also joined the fight. Justin saw their muzzle flashes, and a few of the guards fall underneath their barrages.
He observed the battleground again. Two guards were sprawled by Hakim’s dead body. The woman’s body also lay there, her face looking up at the blue sky. Return fire came from three different positions: one was behind the front Hummer, and the other two along the edge of the highway. The guards’ shots were getting more precise. A bullet bored a hole on the other side of the pine’s trunk. The thud rang loud, and the trunk exploded in a hail of shards.
“Fall back,” Justin said in a calm voice. “Return to the transport.”
Carrie tightened her gloves and slithered backwards. Justin slid his hand over the sniper rifle, then squeezed a parting shot, which hit one of the guards in his leg. He would have liked to take the rifle with him, but he knew it was not a good idea. The local authorities would find the weapons and would blame some local warlord for the ambush. His fingerprints were not on the weapon or anything else around the area, and neither were Carrie’s.
They pulled their knapsacks and began their retreat through the thick woods. Justin led them down the same trail they had come up earlier that morning. They took a few turns and followed broken branches that marked their exit route. The transport — two old, unappealing, yet powerful BMWs, one silver and one white — was hidden amidst the thick brush behind a couple of abandoned cabins about two miles away.
Justin slowed down the pace and became more alert as they reached the meeting point. He heard footsteps ahead of them and fell behind a thick oak tree. Through the canopy of branches he spotted Nathan and his partner just arriving at the cabins.
“Anyone followed you?” Justin asked them.
“No, we’re clean,” Nathan replied and shook his head.
“Good. You did some great stuff with the explosives, guys,” Justin said and tapped their shoulders. “It all went well, and we completed our task.”