The second group of two headed for the dormitory buildings near the mouth of the canyon. They disappeared through a doorway and Chapel lost sight of them.
The third group headed for the factories at the end of the canyon, their weapons tracking the broken windows. They moved fast, but they didn’t leave themselves exposed — wherever they went they kept a wall at their back, or one of them twisted around to cover their rear. These guys were professionals, and they weren’t going to take any chances.
At the entrance to one of the factories, one of them readied a grenade — probably a CS tear gas grenade, by the look of it — while the other covered the intersection with his rifle. They gestured back and forth, not making a single sound, then stepped inside the factory together.
The second they were through the empty doorway, into the darkness of the factory building, Nadia appeared in the door of an administration building across the street. She glanced up at Chapel where he hid on the rooftop.
He looked around for the other groups. Both of them were inside buildings, out of sight. Chapel risked a quick wave at Nadia to let her know it was momentarily clear.
Nadia ducked low and ran across the street, to press herself up against the outside wall of the factory.
For a long, tense minute nothing happened. Chapel had an idea of what Nadia had planned, and he also knew that if either of the other two groups emerged from their buildings in that time, they would see her in a second. Nadia stood perfectly exposed to anyone watching from the street.
Then the group in the factory came back out into the light. It would take them a second for their eyes to adjust to the light, Chapel knew.
Nadia didn’t give them the chance. She swung around in one fluid motion, raising her pistol and holding it in front of her in both hands.
She was a terrible shot. The assassins were wearing body armor.
It didn’t matter.
She knew they would kill her if she didn’t kill them, so she went for the best possible shot. Her pistol was only inches from the lead assassin’s face when she fired. Even from the other side of the intersection Chapel could see the man’s eye explode in a cloud of blood.
He dropped his grenade and brought his hands up to his face, but he was already collapsing, already dying. The grenade hit the ground and bounced away from the door, and for a second Chapel thought Nadia was diving to catch it. But she had something else in mind. The dead assassin’s carbine was on a strap around his neck. It would have taken too long for her to get it loose so she just slid in under his falling body and used him as a shield, grabbing the carbine and twisting it upward to fire into the body of his partner. At that range she couldn’t miss, and the carbine was powerful enough to tear through his body armor.
It also made one hell of a racket, clearly audible all over town, even with the noise of the helicopter. Chapel saw movement in one of the dormitory buildings, a flash of dark fabric in one of the second-floor windows. The other assassins had heard Nadia’s shots, and it wouldn’t be long before they ran over to investigate.
Meanwhile the tear gas grenade went off in the street, a huge white cloud jumping out of it instantaneously. Nadia freed the carbine from its strap and cradled it to her chest as she rolled inside the factory building, away from the cloud.
Two assassins came out of an administration building that fronted on the intersection, just as the wind carried the cloud of tear gas straight at them. They wore gas masks and it didn’t affect them, but it did cut down on their visibility. They jogged toward the factory building, clearly intent on investigating what had just happened.
Surely Nadia would have expected that. Surely she would have moved on already, slipping out the back of the factory. The only way to win a fight like this was to move constantly, to maintain the element of surprise. Chapel was sure Nadia knew that — she’d been trained for this kind of fighting, just as he had.
He wanted to keep watching the factory, to see what happened next, to make sure she was okay. But he didn’t get the chance to see her next move.
Up at the mouth of the canyon, the helicopter was already lifting into the air. It was going to provide air support to the assassins on the ground. If it spotted Nadia, even for an instant, the jig was up.
Chapel had to make sure that didn’t happen.
The helicopter drifted slowly toward the center of town, toward the Lenin statue, staying low but not so low it risked colliding with any of the buildings. It moved through the air like a starving predator, hunting desperately for any sign of prey. Chapel kept his head down so the pilot wouldn’t see him, waiting for his chance.
Down in the intersection, the tear gas cloud was already beginning to disperse, shredded by the downward wash of air from the chopper’s rotor. One of the assassin teams moved through the thinning cloud toward the factory, their carbines swiveling back and forth in case Nadia showed herself.
Chapel couldn’t see the other team, the one that had gone into the dormitories. They must be holding back, as a reserve, or simply as spotters. The Russians weren’t taking any chances.
Time to give them something new to worry about. As the helicopter neared Chapel’s position, he readied himself, then jumped up and started firing. His rifle’s bullets tore through the thin metal skin of the helicopter, leaving bright holes in the dark paint of its fuselage. He didn’t hit anything vital — this was a military helicopter, and all its important equipment would be protected by armor plate — but he definitely got its attention.
Its beak-shaped nose started to swing around in slow motion, and he got a good look into the canopy. He cursed when he saw there were two people in there, a pilot and a copilot. The Ka-60 had a big rectangular front viewport, much like the windshield of a car. In Ranger school they’d taught Chapel just how difficult it was to snipe someone through a windshield — the curved glass distorted your view, and it also tended to refract the trajectory of any bullet that passed through it. He tried for a shot at the pilot anyway. That was one vital piece of equipment he could conceivably hit.
His bullets starred the viewport, sending a gentle rain of glittering glass cubes falling toward the street below. The helicopter jerked sideways and raised its nose, looking very much like a startled dragonfly. Chapel had time to see that he hadn’t hit either of the pilots, though the copilot had shed his safety webbing and was running back toward the main body of the aircraft.
Then the nose came up farther and he could only see the belly of the helicopter as it reared back and fell away from him, pulling out of range. Chapel let it go and looked down into the streets. Both members of the assassin team he could see were looking up at him, though their carbines were still aimed at street level. He desperately wanted to fire a burst into them, to make them jump, but he didn’t dare waste bullets. He’d already fired twelve rounds of his thirty into the helicopter and there was a long fight coming.
Nor, it turned out, did he need to shoot at them. Even as he watched them watching him, Nadia was sneaking up behind them, crouched so low she was nearly walking on her knees. She fired a quick salvo into their backs and then darted away, into the shadowy interior of an administration building.
Chapel wanted to cheer as he saw them dance and jump. One of them was bleeding from a wound at his hip as they ran for cover. Chapel ignored them and studied the dormitory buildings, looking for any sign of the third team. He was so intent on his search he almost missed what the helicopter was doing.