Free Ultimate Power by Arno Joubert Page A

the wall above her head. “C’mon General, we need to keep moving.”

Neil lifted his head over the dune and scanned the horizon. "Where the hell are you?"
    Alexa's desperate pleas for help rang in his ears. He scanned the landscape clockwise through three-hundred-and-sixty degrees, then anti-clockwise. He noticed a glint to his right. "There you are, you bastard."
    He took aim, zooming in with his scope. A man wearing army fatigues was laying on a dune, firing in rapid succession with what looked like an F2 sniper rifle. Alexa had been right, the rifle was fitted with a thermal scope.
    He bounded down the dune and pulled the AWM .338 Lapua from the tent, pumped his legs up the dune again. Neil steadied his breath and took aim. It was going to be a hell of a shot, the target was at least nine hundred meters away.
    He adjusted for the wind and aimed above the target to adjust for the distance and squeezed the trigger. The gun slammed into his shoulder as he watched through his scope, and two seconds later a puff of dust exploded a meter in front of the shooter.  
    Neil adjusted a millimeter down and pulled the trigger again. Through the scope he saw the shooter look up as the bullet struck him. The shooter dropped his rifle and clutched his shoulder. "That should keep you busy for a while."
    Neil rolled to his side as a bullet struck the dune next to his ear.  
    Shit. Another one? Where are you?
    He lay on his back, scanning the horizon. Then he saw another flash of a scope reflecting the sun five hundred meters to his left. He changed his position, rolling a meter to the left as another round whacked into the sand where he had been. He crawled over the dune, praying that the other shooter hadn't recovered enough to shoot him in the back.
    He centered the crosshair on the shiny glint and pulled the trigger. He heard the double thwack that told him his aim was true.
    Neil crawled back and aimed his rifle at the first shooter, unsure of whether the man was mortally wounded. He saw a movement and fired into the dune. The guy returned fire, his aim was high, not even close. They kept at this cat-and-mouse game for fifteen minutes before Neil heard the familiar whop-whop sound of rotor blades. The Medivac had arrived.  
    He aimed his scope at the entrance to the building Alexa had gone in. She appeared a second later, dragging the general behind her, bullets exploding around her as she ran.
    Neil aimed at the first shooter, he was laying uncomfortably on his side, taking pot shots at Alexa and the General. Neil aimed and squeezed. At first Neil thought that he had missed, but then the man rolled onto his stomach and slumped forward, his face buried in the sand.
    He watched Alexa through the scope again. The medics had helped her and the General into the chopper, and it was lifting into the air and banking steeply to its side, heading for Kabul, Neil guessed. He rolled down the dune and started packing their supplies.  
    Please be okay, please be okay , he repeated like a mantra as he packed up.

Alexa ducked low as the Blackhawk HH60 hovered in the air above them, the powerful rotor blades spraying sand and grit into her eyes. She dragged the General by his collar, holding onto him with both hands, pulling him backwards. Another bullet ricocheted off the ground beside them, and Alexa wondered why the shooter hadn’t managed to hit her yet, they were open targets.
    She glanced down at Laiveaux. Shit. He was clutching his throat, blood seeping between his fingers, and had a bullet wound in his lower leg.
    Two guys carrying rifles jumped down from the chopper and helped her drag the General into the aircraft. The helicopter rose into the air and banked steeply, away from the firing line.  
    Alexa took a seat on a bench next to Laiveaux. She felt helpless. Two medics were working furiously, trying to save the older man’s life. One inserted a drip into Laiveaux’s arm, the other pulled open a silver fridge filled with bags of