Manson was barely ten feet from Abby. He stopped again to slam in another clip. Alex, Harry and Reuben opened fire, but Manson had wisely taken up cover behind a large rock outcrop. When he came back out with fresh ammo his firepower would overwhelm them at the shortened distance. But clearly Abby would be the first to die.

“Oliver!”

Stone looked up at Knox’s shout.

Still cuffed, Knox held up the gun between his feet and Stone nodded. Using his feet like a catapult Knox tossed and Stone caught. He had bare seconds.

“Stay down, Abby,” he warned.

She frantically dug into the earth with bleeding fingers, trying to get as low as possible.

A second later Manson stepped out, the muzzle of the MP-5 searching for and finding her lying feet from him. Alex and the others had no line of fire because of the chunk of mountain lying between Manson and them.

Stone had no direct line of fire from where he was either. The first rule of the sniper was that any unintended movement of gun and shooter would spoil the shot. Steady hand, breath exhaled, heartbeat in the sixties and weapon locked in position against a stable surface—that’s how one killed successfully. And Stone had mostly followed those rules in his career as the best assassin the U.S. ever had.

Mostly, but not always. Because sometimes what looked good in planning went to shit in the field. When that happened the merely good and competent failed nine times out of ten.

The best cut those odds down to fifty-fifty.

The very best improvised and upped the percentage of success by twenty points.

And then there was John Carr.

John Carr, who had come back from the dead at least one more time, to save a good woman who did not deserve to die at the hands of a maniac wielding a weapon of mass destruction.

Stone leapt, his pistol arrayed out at the sharpest angle he could hold it and still get a shot off. Manson’s finger closed on the trigger.

Stone fired. Joe Knox would later claim that he had seen the damn bullet actually bend around the chunk of rock. No one argued with him.

Manson pulled the trigger and the MP-5 roared. But all the rounds went straight up into the air because there was a massive hole in the side of Manson’s neck. The shredded arteries released their rich blood supply high into the air and for several horrifying moments a red rain poured down on the dying Manson. Then he hit the dirt, his one eye open but now as unseeing as the other.

Chapter 79

CHAPTER 79

STONE RACED TO ABBY and helped her up. She was scared, but okay.

Alex and Harry Finn were putting a tourniquet on Tyree’s leg using a stick and a piece of Finn’s jacket. The tall sheriff was sitting up now, grimacing with pain.