Dar reached the shallow gully—not more than a meter and a half deep, filled with ferns and brambles—which ran about four meters to the fallen tree over the ravine. He was alive. So far, so good. But he was panting so hard that he could not hear if anyone was in the weeds here with him. Dar undid the clasp on his K-Bar knife—feeling lucky that the knife scabbard had not been shot off his belt along with the cell phone—and began crawling toward the tree, rifle aimed.
There was no one else in the gully on this side. The log looked longer and narrower than Dar remembered it, and the ravine much deeper. Spray rose from the rocks below. Dar knew that this fissure, not as deep but still formidable, ran several hundred yards north, almost all the way to the ridgeline. To cross there, a sniper would have to come out of the trees and expose himself along that ridgeline.
Dar caught his breath and peered through the ferns at the twenty feet of fallen log. The mossy surface was wet. Only one old branch might serve as a handhold along the way, and Dar was certain that it was rotten and would not hold his weight if he went off. He had often noted this log in his hikes up the hill, but he had never crossed it. Why should he? It would be a profoundly stupid thing to do.
Dar got to his knees and exposed his head and shoulders, inviting a shot if Zuker was waiting somewhere across the ravine. That would have been Dar’s strategy if he were up here alone—hide and wait for Zuker to cross the log. But he was not alone here. Syd was pinned down in the cabin, and Yaponchik could go after her at any time.
Ten seconds passed and there was no fatal shot. Dar slung the M40 across his back—difficult to get to but guaranteed not to fall into the ravine unless he did—and then jumped out onto the log and started the crossing.
Pavel Zuker, a slim, mean-faced man, jumped out onto the log at the same instant. Dar did not know which of them looked the more surprised. Zuker had not been able to see Dar from his waiting point in the opposite gully, and Dar certainly had not sighted the Russian before this.
Both men had slung their rifles similarly and there was neither time nor sufficient balance to go for them, so each went for the weapon at his belt. Dar pulled his K-Bar knife. Zuker pulled an ugly little semiautomatic pistol and aimed it at Dar’s face. They had both come too far out to turn back and were now separated by only nine feet or so. Dar froze.
“Isn’t this just like a stupid American?” said Zuker, his accent thick. “Bring a knife to a gunfight.”
An old joke, thought Dar, crouching near that one protruding branch. Still holding his K-Bar knife in his right hand, Dar used his right boot to give that branch a heavy kick just where it entered the trunk.
It broke off, just as Dar had thought it would, but not before rocking the entire tree twenty degrees to the right and then back.
Zuker fired twice, the second bullet passing an inch or so over Dar’s head. Then the Russian dropped to straddle the log, hanging on with his left hand until the rocking stopped, trying to steady the pistol with his right arm. He fired again.
Dar had been ready for the sudden motion and kept his balance, even while jumping forward, knife coming around, left hand grabbing at Zuker’s right wrist. The ninemillimeter slug hit him along his left side, sliding off his heavy body armor but knocking Dar off balance. He would have fallen then if he had not dropped and straddled the tree trunk as well.
The two men were inches apart now: Zuker grabbing and holding Dar’s knife hand, Dar desperately gripping Zuker’s gun hand, keeping the muzzle aim only inches away from his forehead. Zuker fired again. The bullet took a tiny slice out of Dar’s left ear. The entire tree-bridge was rocking. Dar could hear the water hitting the sharp boulders sixty feet below and could feel the spray and sweat loosening his grip on the Russian’s right wrist. They were face-to-face now. Dar could smell the smaller man’s breath and easily see the customized, finger-grooved grip on the Kahr ninemillimeter, as well as the fluorescent yellow front sight and ugly orange paint on the rear sight.
The two struggled in sweaty silence. The cool, analytical part of Dar’s mind sent the message—the CAC Customs Arm Kahr has a 6.5-pound trigger pull—while the adrenaline-filled majority of his brain told the useless analytical part to shut up, for Christ’s sake. Dar realized that even though he was slightly stronger than the wiry Russian, Zuker was going to win this game. All the Russian sniper had to do was bend his wrist enough to get the muzzle aimed at Dar’s head, while Dar had to turn the knife around and into full contact. Though he was ducking his head as far forward and out of range as he could, it was time for a strategy change.
Just as the black muzzle opening was rotating steadily toward Dar’s temple, he threw his head and shoulders back instead of forward, ripping his right arm free by jerking it back violently. He almost dropped the knife, but managed to hang on to it as he leaned far back as Zuker fired, creasing Dar’s scalp this time. Then Dar brought the knife around the side, low and fast under the Russian’s blocking left arm, using more energy in the motion than he thought his body still possessed, stabbing toward the belly with a vertical blade and then tugging up as hard as he could, precisely as he had been taught at Parris Island more than two and a half decades earlier.
The Russian said, “Ooof,” as the wind was knocked out of him, but then he smiled broadly, showing poorly cared for Russian teeth—mostly steel.
“Kevlar vest, American asshole,” said Pavel Zuker, and then, having the leverage over Dar in this awkward choreography, he rotated his weapon further. Dar’s slick grasp slipped a little more, until the yellow forward sight was aimed directly at Dar’s right eye.
Suddenly Zuker’s smile faded and he looked thoughtful, perhaps a bit disappointed. Dar remembered the same look on the faces of childhood friends when they were being called in by their mothers just as the playing got good.
Zuker looked down at his belly and at the blood pumping and squirting out over the handle of the K-Bar knife and Dar’s clenched fist. He was frowning in real confusion now.
Dar knocked the Kahr pistol out of Zuker’s suddenly strengthless grip and then grabbed for the Russian’s vest, but Zuker was already tilting, sliding, falling—gone. Dar caught a last glimpse of the Russian’s eyes—still alert and asking an unspoken question even as the blood quit pumping to the sniper’s brain—and then the man fell out of sight into the spray. Suddenly Dar was busy keeping his own balance as the tree-bridge rocked from the energy of Dar tugging the blade free of Zuker’s midsection. Dar drove the knife into the center of the log and hung on with both hands until the rocking stopped.
Panting heavily, his body debating as to whether he should vomit now or later, Dar looked down through the mist at the broken form sixty feet below. The water ran thick and red downstream from the corpse. Zuker’s pale face was still raised, the mouth open wide as if still trying to ask a question.
“Kevlar doesn’t stop knife blades,” panted Dar, answering Zuker’s unspoken question. “Especially blades sprayed with Teflon.”
Might be a good idea to get off the log, the banished analytical part of his mind suggested diffidently.
Dar crawled on all fours the last ten feet. Pulling himself into and up the shallow gully on the other side, seeing the boot-prints where Zuker had hidden behind a fold in the rock before attempting the crossing, Dar was acutely aware that his middle-aged body wanted to call it quits for the day.
He vetoed that idea and crawled slowly up and out of the gully, sheathing his K-Bar knife after wiping the blade on ferns, and then unslinging his M40.