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Barkov, Bunin, and the Mink stood apart from the men. Rifles slung over their shoulders, they were turned in the direction of the dogs. Bunin was right about them singing—their barking had taken on a more musical note that made it clear they were on the trail of the escape prisoners and Inna.

“What will those dogs do once they catch them?” the Mink wanted to know.

Bunin answered with a question. “What does a dog do when it catches a sable?”

“I am thinking that they do not sit down and have tea, Comrade Bunin, but you tell me.”

“The dog, he shakes that sable until he breaks its neck.”

“A man is much bigger than a sable,” Barkov pointed out.

“Then maybe the dog grabs a leg and does not let go until we arrive. What I want to know is—”

Bunin never finished his sentence.

• • •

Cole settled his crosshairs on the man to the right. At this distance, it was impossible to see their faces. Both men looked tall and heavy in their winter coats. The group of soldiers paused; some lit cigarettes or drank from flasks of vodka. Maybe the booze kept them going. It was possible that they were listening to the dogs; the two tall men and the shorter one seemed to be conferring about something.

He adjusted the crosshairs about a foot above the distant target to account for the drop that the bullet would make. Some officer had called it the bullet’s trajectory, but Cole knew it was simple gravity. When you threw a rock, it fell to earth, and a bullet was no different. A bullet traveled a whole lot farther, but it was falling just like that rock the moment it left the barrel. The air, though heavy with the promise of snow, was barely stirred by the wind, so that much, at least, was in Cole’s favor as he took aim.

He held the crosshairs steady, unwavering, and slowly squeezed the trigger, gently applying pressure with the pad of his right index finger.

Through the scope he could see all three men talking, oblivious.

Cole felt a familiar rush. This was the part of being a sniper that no one ever spoke about. Most people saw how a sniper would be satisfied in the ability to hit a distant target. Cole almost took that part for granted anymore—hitting targets was like pulling on his boots in the morning. He just did it. Without thinking much about it. However, that sense of holding a life in your hands—well, it was an almost god-like power. That part of being a sniper never faded or got old. It was what thrilled him about putting his finger on the trigger.

Focus, he warned himself.

By now, his body was operating on autopilot. He had done this so many times that it was like sleepwalking. Thinking too hard at this point only spoiled the shot Better to let training and instinct take over.

His finger applied the last fraction of the nine-point-eight pounds of pressure needed to release the trigger.

What happened next was a complex chain reaction that had changed little from the days when a twelfth century Chinese warrior fired a stone projectile from what was essentially a pipe. Thanks to modern technology, however, it was now a chain reaction that took place instantaneously.

Within the mechanism of the rifle, the firing pin shot forward and struck the center of the round in the chamber. That firing pin caused the primer in the base of the brass cartridge to explode, which in turn cased the gunpowder in the cartridge itself to ignite. The cyclone of hot gases drove the bullet down the barrel, in which the rifling gripped and spun the bullet until it emerged at a speed of more than two thousand feet per second. The spinning bullet honed in on its target like a supersonic hornet.

It all happened faster than Cole could think it.

Bullseye.

• • •

Bunin was still asking Barkov and the Mink his question when a neat round hole appeared in his chest. Barkov watched Bunin open his mouth in surprise once, then twice, before he sank to his knees.

Traveling at just a little under muzzle velocity now, the impact of the bullet released more than eighteen-hundred foot pounds of energy into Bunin’s chest. His lungs exploded and his heart shattered, killing him instantly.

“Sniper!” Barkov bellowed, mostly for the benefit of the soldiers who lolled nearby. He was diving for cover behind a clump of bushes before Bunin’s dead body hit the ground. Right about then, the noise of the rifle shot finally reached their ears.

The Mink had found a boulder to shelter behind and had gone to one knee, his rifle to his shoulder, scoping the vast open taiga for a target.

The soldiers were still busy putting away their vodka. Two or three, including young Dmitri, gawked at Bunin’s body. They were too shocked and surprised to move.

“Get your heads down, you fools,” Barkov shouted at them.

They finally stirred themselves to action and scrambled behind what shelter they could find. If the sniper had fired again, he could have killed at least one more.

But he did not fire.