Finally, the shack came into view again. It was small, twelve feet to a side, with a mossy roof and timber walls. He saw no light and smelled no woodsmoke.
Satisfied, he bent down and pulled up Kane’s camera stalk. He also made sure the radio receiver remained secure in the shepherd’s left ear canal. Once done, he did a fast sound-and-video check with his phone.
With the GRU unit on the hunt, he wasn’t taking any chances.
And he certainly wasn’t going to enter that cabin blind.
Tucker pointed at the shack, made a circling motion with his arm, and whispered, “QUIET SCOUT.”
Kane slinks from his partner’s side. He does not head directly for the cabin, but out into the woods, stalking wide. His paws find softer snow or open ground, moving silently. He stays to shadow, low, moving under bowers that burn with the reek of pine pitch. Through the smell, he still picks out the bitter droppings of birds. He scents the decaying carcass of a mouse under the snow, ripe and calling out.
His ears tick in every direction, filling the world with the smallest sounds.
Snow shushes from overburdened branches, falling to the ground . . .
Fir needles rattle like bones with every gust . . .
Small creatures scrape through snow or whisper past on wings . . .
As he moves, he sights the cabin, glances back to his partner, always tracking. He glides to the far side of the shack, where the shadows are darkest, knowing this is best for a first approach, where fewer eyes will see him.
A command strikes his left ear, brash but welcoming.
“HOLD.”
He steps to the nearest cover: a fallen log musky with rot and mold. He drops to his belly, legs under him, muscles tense and hard, ready to ignite when needed. He lowers his chin until it brushes snow.
His gaze remains fixed to the structure. He breathes in deeply, picking out each scent and testing it for danger: old smoke, urine of man and beast, the resin of cut logs, the taint of thick moss on shingles.
He awaits the next command, knowing his partner watches as intently as he does. It finally comes.
“MOVE IN. CLOSE SCOUT.”
He rises to his legs and paces to the cabin, scenting along the ground. His ears remain high, bristling for any warning. He comes to a window and rises up, balancing on his hind legs. He stares through the murky glass, deeply and long, swiveling his head to catch every corner.
He spots no movement in the dark interior—so drops back to his paws.
He turns to stare at where his partner is hidden among the trees and keeps motionless, signaling the lack of danger.
It is understood.
“MOVE OUT. QUIET SCOUT AGAIN.”
He swings away, angling around the corner. He checks each side, spies through another window, and sniffs intently at the closed door. He ends where he started.
“GOOD BOY. RETURN.”
He disobeys, instead dropping again to his belly by the rotten log.
A low growl rumbles in his chest, barely heard with his own ears.
A warning.
Tucker watched the video feed jostle as Kane lowered to his belly, his nose at the snow line. He heard the growl through the radio and noted the pointed stare of the shepherd toward the deeper forest to the right of the shack.
He studied the video feed on his phone. Even with the camera, his eyesight was no match for Kane’s. He squinted at the screen, trying to pick out what had seized Kane’s attention. After ten long seconds, he spotted movement, fifty yards away.
A lone figure, hunched over, moved through the trees, heading toward the shack.
Tucker swore silently and dropped quietly to his chest. He shifted the sniper rifle to his shoulder, flicking off the safety.
The trespasser was also carrying a gun—an assault weapon from its shape and angles. The figure moved through thick shadows, hard to make out, camouflaged from head to toe in a woodland winter suit. He moved deftly, someone well familiar with hunting in a forest, every cautious step cementing Tucker’s certainty that this was one of the Spetsnaz soldiers, not a local hunter.
Thank God for Kane’s keen perception.
But why only one?
If there had been others, Kane would have alerted him.
It made no sense. If the Spetsnaz knew he and Kane were here, they would have come in force. This had to be a lone scout. He remembered the Havoc helo circling the perimeter of the air base. Apparently the unit commander must have sent a man or two to do the same on foot.
He raised the sniper rifle to his shoulder and peered through its scope, getting a sight picture. Once fixed, he subvocalized into the radio mike taped to his throat, passing on yet another command to his partner.
“TARGET. QUIET CLOSE.”
It was an order Kane knew all too well from their time together in Afghanistan: get as close to the enemy as possible and be ready.
Kane began creeping toward the man.
With his partner on the move, Tucker laid his cheek against the rifle’s stock and peered through the scope. The target was forty yards off, moving with practiced economy. He never paused in the open, only when behind a tree. His current line of approach would take him straight to Kane’s position.
Thirty yards.
Given the angle of the man’s body, Tucker knew a head shot would be tricky, so he adjusted the rifle’s crosshairs and focused on a point a few inches below the man’s left nipple.
The soldier stepped behind a tree and paused, ever cautious. Two seconds passed. The man emerged again from cover, ready to close in on the cabin.
It was Tucker’s best chance. He squeezed the trigger ever so slightly, took a breath, let it out—and fired.
In the last millisecond, the soldier’s arm shifted forward. The bullet tore through the man’s elbow, shattering bone and cartilage, but veering wide from a kill shot.
The man spun counterclockwise and disappeared behind the trunk of a spruce.
“TAKEDOWN!” he called out to Kane.
He didn’t wait to track his partner. Instead, he dropped the sniper rifle and charged forward, drawing his P22 pistol on the run.
Ahead and to his left, Kane leaped through the air and disappeared behind the spruce. A scream burst out, followed by a spatter of automatic fire that shred needles from the tree.
Tucker reached the spruce, grabbed a passing branch, and whipped himself around with his pistol raised. The soldier struggled on the ground, on his back. Kane straddled him, his jaws clamped on his right wrist. The assault rifle lay nearby, but the soldier had a Makarov pistol gripped in his free hand.
Time seemed to slow for Tucker. The man’s gun hand turned, straining to bring the weapon to bear on Kane. Then the Makarov bucked. Kane was strobe-lit by orange muzzle flash but unharmed. In his panic and pain, the man had shot too soon.