St Kilda Consulting 02 - Innocent as Sin

stepped back into the dark interior of the plane. It would be like the rebels to try and make off with the arms, the coltan, and the diamonds. Or perhaps the Camgerian government had discovered he was selling to both sides of its little war.
    In the shadows of the aircraft’s cargo hold, the Siberian lifted his binoculars and studied the spot where he’d seen the flash of light.
    Like everything else away from the tropical coast, the hillwas covered by scrub and dust. He could make out what might be a sniper’s keep and thought he could see men inside. But he couldn’t be sure he wasn’t seeing his own paranoia in the moving wind shadows. The binoculars were inferior Moldavian goods.
    Impatiently he turned toward the guard who had the sniper rifle. With both voice and gestures, the Siberian said, “Give it to me.”
    The man hesitated until his officer barked a command. Reluctantly the guard handed over the rifle.
    Still concealed by the shadows inside the plane, the Siberian rested the weapon on a crate and studied the hillside. The telescopic sight brought details into sharp focus.
    There were two men. White. Both faces were hidden—one by a camera with a very long-range lens, the other by field glasses.
    Then the man with the camera ducked down into the blind. Through the light grass screen across the front of the blind, the Siberian could see that he was reloading the camera. Film, not digital.
    Russian curses echoed in the plane. The cameraman had at least one exposed roll of the Siberian overseeing the unloading, the rebel officer inspecting arms, the diamonds and coltan, the rebel brandishing weapons that were being delivered in contravention of African Union and United Nations arms embargoes, in the face of world opinion and all civilized standards. And those would be the headlines if the photographs were ever published.
    It would ruin him. He’d live out his life in the stinking hell of Libya’s “freedom.”
    He stared through the rifle’s telescopic sight. “Is the weapon accurate?” he asked.
    The officer translated.
    The guard grinned, nodded, and answered.
    “He has it zeroed in at two hundred and fifty yards,” the officer translated.
    “Excellent,” the Siberian said.
    He changed his aiming point to compensate for the differences in range and for the fact that he was firing uphill. He would wound one. The other would try to save his comrade.
    And both would be his.
    Slowly the Siberian’s finger took up slack on the trigger.
    The spotter moved slightly. For a timeless instant the Siberian and the spotter were frozen in each other’s sights.
    As the last of the slack in the trigger vanished, the spotter threw himself on the cameraman and shoved him away. The shot echoed. Birds shrieked and leaped for the sky.
    Dust leaped from the spotter’s cammie shirt, followed instantly by blood.
    When the Siberian worked the bolt to reload, it was rough, gritty. The scope jerked. By the time he reacquired the grass blind, both men were gone. Cursing, he fired several times. Then he stepped into the doorway and stabbed toward the hill with his finger.
    “Spies,” he shouted. “Kill them!”
    The officer yelled at his army. As the rebels turned toward the hillside, two men broke cover and began scrambling over the crest of the hill. The rebels fired, but the men were too far away for accuracy.
    The Siberian lifted the rifle to his shoulder and fired two more shots without any real hope. A sniper’s rifle wasn’t much good on moving targets. Disgusted, he slammed the rifle onto the crate.
    While the rebels watched, the wounded man fell.
    Finally!
    Before the Siberian could bring the sniper rifle to bear again,the cameraman bent over, picked up his wounded comrade, pulled him into a fireman’s carry, and vanished over the crest of the hill.
    “Strong,” the Siberian said, surprised. “Very strong.”
    And very unexpected.
    He gestured at the staring rebels. “Go after them, shit-heads!”
    The officer translated and the rebels ran toward the hill. Before they were halfway, an engine started on the other side of the hill. Moments later dust rose from the tires of a fleeing Land Rover.
    The Siberian looked at the officer, who shrugged and said, “There is a track over there that leads to three roads. The Camgerian army controls two of them.”
    Unease crawled through the Siberian’s belly. He had been very careful in his violent climb to the top of a violent profession. No one had ever