Soft Target by Hunter Stephen

Author:Hunter, Stephen [Hunter, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781439138700
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Published: 2011-12-06T06:00:00+00:00

Ray decided not to try to find a stairwell for the down-angle shot, which would cost him time as well as the effort to somehow get through the locked door. Instead he low-crawled as fast as he could along the shadows where the floor and walls joined, sliding under the retail windows. Good thing he was a gym rat still and did hard cardiovascular every day. Stamina is the essence of victory, he knew, and he was able to move at a high rate of speed, not really in the classical low crawl, with that squirming, swimming wiggle that pulls you along, but on all fours, like some kind of sniper rat, scurrying along. He thought, When they make the movie, they’ll cut this bullshit out.

It was a long transit, and he fought the fatigue and particularly the neck strain, for he had to keep his neck pried back so that he could use his eyes to scan ahead for threat. Whoever was monitoring the hall cameras was not paying much attention; no call came from McElroy indicating a reaction from the gunmen, and ahead of him, he saw nothing, though as he passed each store, he could hear scurrying, breathing, shifting, as people sought security deep inside. It took six minutes, down the length of Colorado to the outer ring, down the outer ring, then back down Rio Grande, until he came to rest at the balcony overlooking the atrium, though one quarter of a turn to the left.

He set up not at but a little behind the railing. Peering between its steel struts, he saw his targets. Now there were two, as one had departed for destinations unknown. Ray uncorked his iPhone.

“Okay, I’m here. Where’d the third guy go?”

“He kind of casually left a few minutes ago and took the elevator down. I guess that one central elevator is working. I’ve seen him; he’s rejoined the downstairs bunch.”

“Okay, two. This’ll take some tricky work.”

“What are you doing?”

“My secret weapon: the deadly potato.”

Ray had a shirtful of the starchy tubers with him. He’d dipped into the Boardwalk Fries outlet near the Frederick’s of Hollywood, picked seven or eight of the biggest, gnarliest, grossest spuds.

“A potato!” said McElroy.

“Potatoes make excellent field-expedient suppressors. You watch, bud.”

He selected the biggest, unslung the AK, and wedged the vegetable over the muzzle, feeling the flash hider and sight blade cut into the crunchy fiber of the thing as he slid it over, until a good two inches of potato embraced the weapon. The potato was stoutly mounted.

He set himself up in prone, brought rifle to shoulder, slipped the big prong safety off by pressing it down on the right side of the receiver. Ancient memories came back, associated with the weapon. Some firefight in the sand—Afghanistan, Iraq? who could remember?—he and a mixed force of Marine infantry and Army rangers in a house in some godawful ville. He’d gone to a captured AK and fired and fired and fired, the whole night through. He

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.