PART 5
Holt stopped breathing.
Through his scope, he saw the ammunition feeder jerk backward, confused.
Ava worked the bolt.
“Next.”
Holt blinked.
“Feeder. Half step right. He’s moving.”
“Call it.”
“Right edge of the rock shelf. Wind holding.”
Ava fired again.
The second man fell out of sight.
The third enemy fighter panicked, grabbed the machine gun, and tried to drag it back into the brush.
Ava fired a third time.
The weapon slid uselessly against the stone.
Holt lowered his scope for half a second and looked at her like he was seeing something impossible sitting beside him in the grass.
Ava didn’t look back.
“Keep spotting.”
Below them, the Rangers had no idea what had happened.
They only knew the weapon that should have killed them never came alive.
Rudd’s voice hit the radio.
“Machine gun silent. Whoever did that, keep doing it.”
Ava shifted.
“North element.”
Holt swallowed hard and found his voice.
“Multiple fighters closing on Carver’s position.”
“Range.”
He gave it.
She corrected half a number under her breath.
Then fired.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each shot came with terrible patience.
Not wild.
Not angry.
Ava did not shoot like someone trying to prove herself.
She shot like someone paying a debt.
A man moving toward Cruz.
A fighter raising a launcher.
A spotter waving others forward from the tree line.
Every time Holt thought she had reached the limit of what a person could see through fog, she found something he had missed.
“Left of the split trunk,” she said.
“I don’t see—”
“Glass reflection.”
Holt found it.
May you like
Ava fired.
The reflection vanished.
