Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

And now …

Because he was out of the wind, he saw the one thing that might give away even the most perfectly-camouflaged rabbit—or a hidden sniper, snuggled in the snow.

To his right, a faint, wispy cloud hung above a low hummock of snow. As he watched, the cloud slowly dissipated, the way curls of fog rise from the mirror-like surface of a still lake.

Oh boy. The blood in his veins turned to icy slush. But he knew he was right, that what he saw wasn’t an illusion or a tiny dervish of fine, wind-swept snow. There was no mistake. That cloud was there.

Because someone—or something—was breathing .

Might be an animal. Perhaps a goat had settled down out of the wind. Or this could be a curious villager no more eager than he to meet up with a stranger .

Whatever, whoever that is…he…it must know I’m here. His approach hadn’t been particularly stealthy simply because he figured there was no one else on the mountain.

He could continue. Take another step or two or three. An animal would almost certainly bolt.

But, a person? Maybe. Maybe not. Depended on what the person was after, didn’t it?

So, instead of moving, he only watched. Skin fizzing with dread, he waited, unmoving, his own breath coming and going in small, slow sips.

After five seconds…another cloud.

Hell. From the size, he thought this must be a person, but someone not smart or skilled enough to pull the old Finnish sniper trick Dare taught him.

Eat snow so your breath doesn’t steam , Dare had said . Of course, Dare had also said that what goes in must come out, all that snowmelt filling a man’s bladder, but details.

He needed to be careful here. He thought he had a decent chance, though. If whomever was behind that boulder meant business, John would’ve been in heaven already before the devil knew he was dead. Although with his luck, he might just go straight to hell.

His Glock was in his right pocket. The boulder behind which this new threat hid was to his left, which meant that whoever was there wouldn’t be able to see him pull his weapon if John kept on the driver’s side of the van .

Get the van open. Not that the door would be a decent shield; that only worked in movies. Bullets could make Swiss cheese of a car door. But a door did provide a decent cover if he could just get to the other side and behind the engine block. No bullet could get through that. Of course, if the engine block took a lot of bullets, the van probably wouldn’t be going anywhere, but, again, details.

Get inside, cross over the center console. Head for the other side of the vehicle.

And then? He’d worry about that if he survived the next thirty seconds. For most, a Glock’s effective range was a mere fifteen, maybe twenty yards.

But he was not most men. Shots were loud, though, and in the stillness would echo and carry well. He only hoped Davila would not decide to come charging to the rescue.

Yawning, he stretched, twisted right and left, letting his gaze sweep the terrain on the passenger side. Mounds of snow rested on large boulders edging the front of the lot. He might use those because the guy waiting for him had no other cover but the boulder behind which he waited.

Moving with a casual ease he did not feel, he dipped his left hand into his left pocket, wrapped his fingers around Parviz’s keys then pulled them out with a mighty shake so the keys chimed, sharp and distinct in the brittle air—at the same moment that he slipped his Glock from his right pocket…

And then froze as something cold and hard pressed into the base of his skull.

“Easy does it.” A man’s voice. “Hands where I can see them.”

It can’t be. John’s heart lurched. I saw it happen. I heard the explosion. I saw…

“I know you,” he croaked. “I know who you are.”

A pause. John felt a sudden jerk as the surprise vibrated through the man’s hand and into the gun and then to his skull. Then the cold bore of that pistol was gone, and the man clamped a hand on John’s right shoulder, was turning him around?—

And then they were face-to-face, one ghost to another.

“Driver.” John forced the word through a throat filled with razors. “Daniel Driver…why aren’t you dead ?”