The Gravitational Leap. Darrell Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ why I married you, baby, for your very large brain…well, your brain and your typpi.” Alyd grinned.

      Timo removed the glove from his right hand with his teeth. “Call it in,” he said.

      Alyd picked up the walkie-talkie. “Command, this is team-three.”

      “Go, team-three,” Lieutenant Risberg responded.

      “We have single contact, 435 meters in the north ravine.”

      The radio was silent for thirty seconds. “Clear to engage. Surrounding teams have been notified.”

      Timo’s breathing slowed. Flow with the wind, he said to himself.

      Timo clicked the rifle’s safety off. He felt the wind with his mind, anticipated when it would gust and when it would lull; it had a rhythm to its breathing. He slowly exhaled full lungs of air through his nose, and the skin of his bare index finger put light pressure on the cold metal of the trigger. He felt the wind’s breath subside.

      The rifle’s report sounded like a sack of wet cement had been dropped to the ground from the roof of a hut. A man standing over one hundred meters away wouldn’t hear it at all.

      The rock jolted and the camouflage cover came off as the man underneath rolled and got up on his elbows to crawl for the protection of a nearby boulder. Timo worked the bolt on the rifle, ejecting the hot, spent casing and ramming a new round into the chamber in a single motion. He settled the crosshairs of the scope on the correct elevation and windage offset to the man’s chest and fired again. The man jerked and flopped to the ground, twitched an arm, and stopped moving. Timo chambered another round and watched and waited.

      “Nice shooting,” Alyd said, still watching through her scope.

      “Thanks,” Timo said and breathed deep to help slow his heart rate in case of a follow-up shot.

      After ten minutes Alyd spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Team-three.”

      “Go, team-three.”

      “Confirmed kill on our contact.”

      “Understood. Teams eight and nine will set up to the north and south of you. Execute normal intel retrieval procedure,” Lieutenant Risberg ordered.

      “Copy,” she said into the walkie-talkie and placed it back down. “Damn it.”

      “There go our warm bowls of soup,” Timo said, still looking through the rifle scope. “I hate intel retrieval.”

      “Why does command want us to do that?” Alyd asked. “That’s an awfully big risk. What if it’s a trap just to target a sniper team? The Denock wouldn’t be above sacrificing a mercenary to get a crack at one of us.” Alyd scoffed and picked up the spent bullet casings lying next to her and put them in an empty slot in the ammunition pouch. She looked through the spotting scope.

      “He’s just a scout, like every other scout. Our teams have killed more than a dozen this year. What’s so special about this one?”

      “I guess we’ll find out when we get there,” Timo said.

      An hour after dark, they informed the flanking teams they were moving out. The sniper rifle was strapped across Timo’s back. Each of them had an assault rifle slung across their chest. Timo paused and scanned the distant ridge with binoculars. No silhouettes appeared, so they started their descent into the river bottom. They could only use bushes and rocks for cover part of the way, until they had to sprint across the open, snow-covered ground from the edge of the dry river to the spot where the scout lay dead. Timo held his rifle at the ready position and veered to a rocky outcrop to the left, and Alyd veered to one on the right. They crouched behind each, pressing their backs to the cold stone. Alyd took the walkie-talkie from her belt, her heavy breath misted. She keyed the microphone.

      “How are we doing?”

      Team-eight replied fast. “No movement.”

      “Same here,” replied team-nine.

      Timo peeked over his rock at the dark hillside in front of him. He took out the binoculars and scanned the ridge top again. The optics gathered the little light available and showed him details he couldn’t see otherwise. He waited and listened. Only the wind moved. His heart rate slowed, but not as much as he’d wanted. Timo hand-signaled Alyd to hold her position. He moved from behind the outcrop, rifle at the ready. The corpse was lying facedown. Timo felt his heart rate quicken again as he stopped beside it.

      The scout wore typical Denock garb: sand-colored uniform pants, hooded parka, and gloves. The snow around him was soaked with dark, sticky blood. Timo patted down his back and then around his waist and found nothing. To the right, the camouflage canvas he was using for cover flapped in the wind, held in place from blowing away by a backpack. He moved to the backpack and felt the contents through the outside. Nothing seemed suspicious. After he untied the flap, inside he found a set of civilian clothes with a head wrap and gloves, a revolver, a large knife in a sheath, food rations, a canteen filled with water, and a walkie-talkie.

      The knife felt heavy in his hand and its handle smooth. Different-colored wood followed a diagonal pattern across the handle. He drew the twenty-centimeter blade from the leather sheath. The blade was steel, polished to a mirror-like finish, and sharp as the best razor. He’d never seen a knife so well made. He knew that neither team-eight nor team-nine, from their positions across the riverbed, could see enough detail in the dark to know exactly what he was doing. His back was turned to Alyd, blocking her view. He glanced at her. She held her rifle at the ready, scanning the hillside. He put the blade back in the sheath and tucked it inside his jacket.

      Next he examined the radio. It looked different from the one he had. It had a short, thick antenna, a rectangular display on the front, and buttons with unfamiliar symbols. He put everything back in the pack, including the camouflage canvas, slung it over his shoulder, and low-walked back to the scout. Gripping the scout by the shoulder he rolled him faceup. Upon removing the cloth wrapped around the scout’s head, Timo saw that he was bald and his skin was dark brown. Timo was stunned.

      “What’s wrong?” Alyd whispered from her hiding place.

      “He’s an Asus soldier,” he whispered back.

      “What? What’s he doing here in the winter? And why’s he dressed like a Denock?”

      Timo laid his hand on the dead scout’s head and bowed his head for a silent moment of prayer.

      “Go forth, dear soul, from this world in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you. In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for you. May your home be with God in Zion and all the angels and saints,” Timo whispered.

      He moved back to his hiding place near Alyd.

      “This could be very bad,” Timo whispered to Alyd.

      “No kidding! If the Asus and Denock have joined, that could be a real problem. We need to go,” Alyd said. She took the radio from her belt. “Team-eight and nine, we’re returning.”

      “Team-eight copy.”

      “Team-nine copy.”

      Timo and Alyd raced back across the open span of the canyon. Once СКАЧАТЬ