when I’d have my next chance to hydrate either, so I poured half the contents of his water flask down my neck.
I paused for a moment at the edge of Trev’s clearing, slipped off my right glove and sparked up Google Maps on the iPhone to set my bearings. It took a while to work out where it was, then told me pretty much what I already knew. I’d be in cover until I went past the south-western corner of the wood.
I didn’t have to stay close to the trees; despite the rate of incline, I wouldn’t be visible for about the first half of my journey between here and the ridge. Then I’d have to cross about forty metres of open ground, like a rat up a drainpipe, before I could duck below the crest and head right for the gully.
That forty-metre stretch was where things would get complicated. I wanted my sniper mate to spot me, because I needed him to know what path to follow, but I didn’t want to give him enough time to get a lead on me, then squeeze the trigger.
Judging by the mess it had made of his head, the round that had killed Trev had had a lead knocker in its base, or my new best mate on the other side of the valley was using polymer tips.
Stopping power and flatter trajectory, even in a high wind, meant that the polymer option was fast becoming the good old boys’ favourite during the Midwestern hunting season: it could separate an elk from its antlers at three hundred metres. And they didn’t just make them in Nebraska: the Lucznik munitions factory in Radom, a hundred Ks south of Warsaw, kept the Eastern European market well supplied.
Wherever it came from, one of these fuckers wasn’t just going to give me a superficial flesh wound. It would either miss completely or take a big piece of me with it.
I put the iPhone back in my jacket, replaced my glove, visualized the next twenty minutes of my life, and stepped out from beneath the canopy.
By the time I’d got halfway towards the open ground I was beginning to regret having left my Russian tank commander’s hat in the Defender. The temperature had dropped big-time, partly because the day was drawing in and partly because of the wind-chill. My cheeks and the tips of my ears started to burn with cold.
The US Military Field Manual once spread the word that a human being lost between 45 and 50 per cent of his body heat through his head. In truth it was probably closer to 10, but anyone who took comfort from that had probably never been out on the Black Mountains in sub-zero temperatures. The fact remained that driving snow turned your hair rapidly into an iceberg and frostbite hurt like shit, then made bits of you drop off. And since the head was where most people’s brain was located, it messed with your cognitive functions, and thus with your reaction time. So, if I’d just been out on a ramble, I’d have zipped my ears as tightly as possible into the Gore-Tex hood folded beneath my jacket collar. But in a strong wind the fabric rippled as loudly as an America’s Cup jib sail every time you moved, and whenever someone big and ugly was creeping up behind me, I wanted as much warning as possible.
I’d stick my neck out as long as I could bear it.
We were fast running out of daylight by the time I reached the start line of my forty-metre dash, but there was now enough of the white stuff on the ground to give my sniper mate a big green dot to aim at, thermal imaging or not. In these conditions I’d never know how close his misses were, unless they zinged past my ear. But so what? A miss was a miss.
I was no Usain Bolt, but I took off for the ridge good style.
After twenty-five metres I felt I’d hit my stride.
After thirty-five a searing pain wiped out my leading ankle and I was hurled sideways, like a sack of shit.
12
I had no idea whether my ankle could hold my weight, but wriggling the last five metres to the ridge on my belt buckle was not an option. At least I knew it hadn’t been on the receiving end of a polymer tip. If it had,
I paused for a moment at the edge of Trev’s clearing, slipped off my right glove and sparked up Google Maps on the iPhone to set my bearings. It took a while to work out where it was, then told me pretty much what I already knew. I’d be in cover until I went past the south-western corner of the wood.
I didn’t have to stay close to the trees; despite the rate of incline, I wouldn’t be visible for about the first half of my journey between here and the ridge. Then I’d have to cross about forty metres of open ground, like a rat up a drainpipe, before I could duck below the crest and head right for the gully.
That forty-metre stretch was where things would get complicated. I wanted my sniper mate to spot me, because I needed him to know what path to follow, but I didn’t want to give him enough time to get a lead on me, then squeeze the trigger.
Judging by the mess it had made of his head, the round that had killed Trev had had a lead knocker in its base, or my new best mate on the other side of the valley was using polymer tips.
Stopping power and flatter trajectory, even in a high wind, meant that the polymer option was fast becoming the good old boys’ favourite during the Midwestern hunting season: it could separate an elk from its antlers at three hundred metres. And they didn’t just make them in Nebraska: the Lucznik munitions factory in Radom, a hundred Ks south of Warsaw, kept the Eastern European market well supplied.
Wherever it came from, one of these fuckers wasn’t just going to give me a superficial flesh wound. It would either miss completely or take a big piece of me with it.
I put the iPhone back in my jacket, replaced my glove, visualized the next twenty minutes of my life, and stepped out from beneath the canopy.
By the time I’d got halfway towards the open ground I was beginning to regret having left my Russian tank commander’s hat in the Defender. The temperature had dropped big-time, partly because the day was drawing in and partly because of the wind-chill. My cheeks and the tips of my ears started to burn with cold.
The US Military Field Manual once spread the word that a human being lost between 45 and 50 per cent of his body heat through his head. In truth it was probably closer to 10, but anyone who took comfort from that had probably never been out on the Black Mountains in sub-zero temperatures. The fact remained that driving snow turned your hair rapidly into an iceberg and frostbite hurt like shit, then made bits of you drop off. And since the head was where most people’s brain was located, it messed with your cognitive functions, and thus with your reaction time. So, if I’d just been out on a ramble, I’d have zipped my ears as tightly as possible into the Gore-Tex hood folded beneath my jacket collar. But in a strong wind the fabric rippled as loudly as an America’s Cup jib sail every time you moved, and whenever someone big and ugly was creeping up behind me, I wanted as much warning as possible.
I’d stick my neck out as long as I could bear it.
We were fast running out of daylight by the time I reached the start line of my forty-metre dash, but there was now enough of the white stuff on the ground to give my sniper mate a big green dot to aim at, thermal imaging or not. In these conditions I’d never know how close his misses were, unless they zinged past my ear. But so what? A miss was a miss.
I was no Usain Bolt, but I took off for the ridge good style.
After twenty-five metres I felt I’d hit my stride.
After thirty-five a searing pain wiped out my leading ankle and I was hurled sideways, like a sack of shit.
12
I had no idea whether my ankle could hold my weight, but wriggling the last five metres to the ridge on my belt buckle was not an option. At least I knew it hadn’t been on the receiving end of a polymer tip. If it had,
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