Drake Sisters 03 - Oceans of Fire

the sand, taking on dark, malevolent shapes. The boom of the sea was loud and echoed through the small well-protected cove.
    White water sprayed high along the sides of the cliff.

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    Aleksandr hunkered down, crawling as close to the edge of cover as he could get. Two boulders crowed together just at the vegetation line and he used them to his advantage, lying flat behind them, the hole between them perfect to see through. He had a good view of the cove and the sea. The idea of Prakenskii lying in wait with a scope and rifle somewhere up above him gave him an all too familiar itch between his shoulder blades. He didn’t move, didn’t make the mistake of looking for more cover, but kept his eyes trained on the sea.
    Minutes passed. Fifteen. Thirty. An hour. The night air was cold on his skin. He glanced again at his watch. He might be wrong. There was every chance that they were in the wrong cove. Or that it was the wrong night, that he’d completely misread the signs. He remained still and was grateful for Jonas’s professionalism. The sheriff didn’t make a sound.
    The wind grew stronger, ruffling his hair and the grasses surrounding him. He heard a soft song, feminine voices riding on the sea breeze. The words were incomprehensible, but the notes slipped into his mind in warning. He slid his gun out with a slow, careful movement and eased it into the wide hole between the two rocks. He had a good angle on the beach and could cover almost all of the shore.
    Aleksandr felt the wind touch his face, and he strained to see past the long plateaus of rock. The sound of an engine carried over the boom of the sea. He let his breath out slowly and slipped his fingers inside his shirt to warm them.
    The Zodiac swept into sight, coming in fast, rolling over the waves and straight toward shore. Aleksandr lifted the night glasses to his face, focusing on the incoming boat. There were four men, two standing and two seated. He recognized three of the men with AK-47s nestled in their arms. They’d been sitting at Nikitin’s table at the Caspar Inn. The fourth man was a stranger. He held what appeared to be a small suitcase. The driver took the boat right up onto the sand, riding a wave as far up the shore as possible.
    Two of the men jumped out and dragged the boat farther up onto the beach.
    The others leapt clear and began hurrying toward the cover of the denser brush. Aleksandr kept his eye on the man with the suitcase. He was the last to get out of the boat and lagged behind the other three men, who now had the AKs up and ready for action as they fanned out and moved up the sand toward the wilder terrain. They were obviously protecting the man with the suitcase.
    Aleksandr willed him to move away from the boat. Every few steps he halted and looked around, clearly wanting the others to reach the brush before he ventured too far from the safety of the boat. The three men were within feet of cover. Aleksandr swore to himself. Jonas was going to be forced to hit them with the light and the man with the suitcase was still too close to the Zodiac and could possibly escape.
    The wind shifted slightly. He heard the catch in the voices of the women. Alarm. It was the only warning he had. The man with the suitcase sagged to the ground, lay sprawled only feet from the boat, the case beside him in the sand. Staring through the night glasses, Aleksandr saw the stain spreading out like a halo around his head.
    Even as Jonas hit the other three men with the floodlight, temporarily blinding them, a second man went down and then the third without a sound. The remaining man threw himself to his right, but Aleksandr knew it was too late. Someone had to be using a Russian-made VSS Vintorez sniper rifle with a silencer and subsonic rounds. The range of subsonic rounds wasn’t nearly as far as regular ammunition so if the sniper was Prakenskii, he had to be concealed on the finger of rock just above them.
    The sniper had fired one, two, three, four rounds, just that fast. Squeezing the trigger, moving to the next target, and repeating the action. Four quick rounds and four lay dead in the sand. There were no flashes Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
    to give his position away. The sound carrying across the water wasn’t that of a gun, but more like a soft rat-tat-tat that was nearly lost in the boom of the ocean and the