Everyone sat in silence as Zolner finished his oats, picking up the bowl to drink the last of the milk. Without warning, he slammed his fist on the table, rattling the bowl and causing Igoshin to nearly jump out of his skin across the room. Mr. Henderson’s eyes opened, but he was too exhausted to flinch. Mrs. Henderson just continued to stare.
“So,” Zolner said. “You wanted to speak with me?” He remained at the table, his back to Igoshin. One hand rested on the cheek piece of his rifle while he flipped up the bolt with the other, inspecting the chamber.
“I had hoped you would send word to Colonel Rostov,” the wounded Russian said. “Inform him I am here so he can send an extraction team to take me home.”
Zolner moved slowly around the table so the rifle was between him and the squirming Russian. “What do you think of my weapon?” he said, looking up at Igoshin with the full force and effect of his gray eyes.
Igoshin opened his mouth as if to speak, but produced only mumbles. When he finally rallied his words they came in nervous stops and starts. “I… it… I… it is exquisite.”
“I think so as well,” Zolner said. He patted the stock as if it were a beloved friend. “She is chambered in 375 CheyTac and built especially for me.” He ran a hand from the muzzle up the fluted barrel toward the action. “Aluminum stock, adjustable for pull and cheek height, she weighs nineteen pounds without the Valdada scope.” He gave a chuckling nod, as if both men shared a secret. “Some people of weak constitution might say that a rifle that pushes a 300 grain bullet at over 3000 feet per second needs to be heavier.” He gave a disdainful flip of his hand as if shaking off a thought he felt was unclean. “But I am a man, and men are not bothered by a small amount of recoil.”
“Of course not,” Igoshin muttered.
Across the great room, standing beside the catatonic Mrs. Henderson, Yakibov smiled.
Zolner released the CheyTac’s box magazine into his hand, then used it to gesture toward Igoshin as he spoke. “Colonel Rostov informed me that one of the men in your team was trained as a sniper. Decorated in battle.”
Igoshin moved the frozen vegetables away from his swollen face. His nose was split across the bridge and hung more off than on. “That was me,” he said, nodding his head emphatically, apparently thinking the two had found some common ground. “The colonel was speaking of me.”
“Well, that is good news,” Zolner said. Kravchuk passed him a plastic container of ammunition and he began to press rounds into the magazine one at a time. Loaded with a projectile of a solid copper nickel alloy, the rounds were huge, each nearly as long as his ring finger. Zolner pushed seven of them into place with a series of resounding clicks. “I consider myself fortunate when I am able to speak with another professional shooter.” Zolner looked up. “May I see your rifle?”
Igoshin hung his head. “I no longer have it,” he whispered.
“I did not quite hear you.” Zolner pressed the loaded magazine back into the rifle, driving it home with a firm smack. The bag of frozen vegetables slipped from Igoshin’s hands with the sudden noise.
“The dark man took it,” Igoshin said.
“Quinn?” Zolner said. “I see. This dark man must have been highly trained in order to shoot two of Colonel Rostov’s men and beat you to death. It takes an especially skilled man to steal the one thing that a professional sniper would never allow himself to lose.”
“He—”
Zolner pounded the table again. “The one thing!” he roared, glaring at Igoshin with dead gray eyes.
“He is—” Igoshin repeated himself.
“You have already told me about him,” Zolner said. He gave a nod to Yakibov and Kravchuk. “In fact you’ve proven yourself quite a talker. I want to know what you told this man about me.”
“I told him nothing,” Igoshin said. “I… I swear it. He is surely dead in any case.”
“People like this Quinn are cockroaches,” Zolner said. “I will assume they infest my life until I feel them crack under the heel of my boot.” He sat at the table and swung the rifle around so it was pointed directly at Igoshin, fifteen feet away. The buffoon began to hyperventilate, casting battered eyes around the room looking for any ally, any route of escape.
“I ask you again, my friend.” Zolner kept his voice low, almost consoling. “What do this dark man and the FBI agent know of me?”
“There was an Eskimo girl with them,” Igoshin said. “She had heard stories about you. She told everyone who listened that you are a ghost, a great hunter who steals her people away when they are out on the ice.”
Zolner smiled as if this pleased him. “These Natives, they fear me, then?”
Igoshin nodded so emphatically it looked as though his head might fly off the end of his neck. The movement must have put him in great pain considering the injuries to his face, but it didn’t stop him. “You scare the shit out of them, sir. They are terrified of your hunting skill.”
“That is good to hear,” Zolner said.
“They have a name for you,” Igoshin said, caught up in the act of pleasing his captor, oblivious to the futility. “They call you Worst of the Moon.”
Zolner’s smile was genuine this time. “Worst of the Moon,” he said, considering each word. “I like that very much.” The smile vanished from his face, and he leaned forward against the rifle’s stock, working the bolt to feed a round into the chamber. The action was butter-smooth and hardly made a sound. He flicked his free hand, motioning his men to drag the Hendersons’ chairs so they were seated directly in front of the table, lined up shoulder to shoulder between the muzzle of the CheyTac and Igoshin’s heaving chest.
Zolner put his eye to the scope. The view was extremely blurry, as he knew it would be. At this close range, a blurry reference was sufficient. The bullet would rise as it flew from the barrel so he lifted the butt of his rifle slightly, placing the center of the crosshairs on the fuzzy patch of cloth three inches above Mr. Henderson’s elbow.
Rising from his chair, Zolner stepped back to study his targets, hands together, thumbs to his lips, as an artist might consider a work in progress.
“The question remains,” Zolner said at length. He moved around the table to reposition Mrs. Henderson’s chair so her right shoulder touched her husband’s left arm. If the woman knew what was about to happen, she gave no indication. “How did this Eskimo girl know I was coming? How did she know she should be afraid of me?”
Igoshin appeared to sink into the stuffing of the chair, defeated.
“How long until sunrise?” Zolner said taking his seat back behind the CheyTac.
Kravchuk looked at his watch. “Fifty-one minutes, boss,” he said.
“Very well. I am almost finished here. Inform Davydov I wish to be in the air before sunrise — as soon as it is light enough to see the ground as we fly.”
Zolner peered over the top of the scope at the dejected Igoshin. “I will shoot only once.” His eyes shifted to the Hendersons, his voice a piercing whisper. “Think of it — bone, lung, heart, lung, bone, bone, lung, heart, lung, bone…”
Igoshin pressed his eyes together, beginning to weep.
“It is possible that it will strike a rib or even a spine and stop somewhere along the way.” Zolner settled in with his cheek pressed firmly against the stock. “But you and I both know that is highly unlikely.” At this distance, he didn’t have to worry about his breathing — but he did anyway. Every shot must be perfect. His mother had taught him that.
Chapter 36
Petyr Volodin loved the pop and whir of the thin plastic jump rope as it snapped against tile and sped past his ears. Knees bent, ankles loose, the balls of his feet barely left the floor. He breathed through his nose, keeping his heart rate slow. Sweat rolled down a hairless chest, soaking the waistband of his gray sweatpants.