Gideon's War/Hard Target by Howard Gordon Read Free Book Online Page A

quickly went still. Although the water couldn’t have been more than a few feet deep, he couldn’t see the gun in the muddy darkness.
    The noise was getting louder, the shouts more intense.
    What was he waiting for? Time to get out of here. Floating listlessly on the brown water was the map Prang had shown him only a few minutes ago. On it was the location of the t guáon of theown where he was supposed to meet his brother. Kampung Naga. He grabbed the map, shoved it into his back pocket.
    Tiny cubes of glass raked his body and fell away as he shimmied through the jagged remains of the window. All the sloshing sounds and shouting were coming from the driver’s side. For a moment he hunkered behind the car, wondering if they’d seen him yet, although he didn’t think they had.
    Gideon’s first impulse was to run. But the little computer in his brain—the one that took over when time slowed down—told him that he’d never make it. There were too many of them. And it was a good hundred yards to the edge of the paddy.
    As if to confirm his thought, he watched as one of Prang’s soldiers struggled from the wrecked front seat of the car. He was covered in blood. But he still carried his MP5. He fired two quick bursts over the underside of the car, then made a break for the berm at the edge of the paddy.
    Before he’d gone five steps, he was hit three times and went down like a marionette that had its strings cut.
    One part of Gideon’s mind watched calmly, almost pleased at the confirmation of his earlier analysis, while the other part stared in horror.
    What now?
    And then he knew. The pipe. The general’s pipe was floating nearby, like a buoy marking a channel. Gideon snatched it from the water. The bowl was still warm from its recent load of burning tobacco as he tore it off, then put the stem in his mouth and slowly, calmly, lay back into the murky water. He pushed himself away from the car, splaying out his arms and sinking his fingers into the slimy mud. He closed his eyes, and pulled himself under the surface of the water.
    It was a trick right out of the silly adventure books he’d read when he was a kid—the Indian hiding underwater and breathing through a reed as he hid from the enemy. Was it really possible? Could he get enough air through the tiny hole? Would whoever had just ambushed them be able to see him?
    He had no answer to these questions.
    He simply concentrated on calming his heart, slowing his breathing. He could hear a soft whistle through the pipe stem as he drew his breath in and out. It took some effort, but he was able to draw just enough air through the pipe stem to breathe.
    He could hear the splashing of the assailants. Nearer and nearer. Then a gunshot. Then another. Muffled voices shouting. Another shot.
    Then silence.
    In. Out. In. Out.
    His hands started losing their grip on the mud. If he lost his grip, his body would float up when he took a deep breath and they’d see him. He tried to move his hands as slowly as possible, worming them deeper into the muck.
    More splashing. The killers were moving slowly around the car. It was obvious they hadn’t spotted him. Yet. He tried to calm his quickening heart.
    In. Out. In. Out.
    If his heart beat too fast, he wouldn’t be able to take in enough air and he’d have to break the surface in order to breathe.
    In. Out. In. Out.
    to á0em">He began counting. One, in. Two, out. Three, in. Four, out.
    The splashing continued. Sometimes moving closer, sometimes farther away.
    Sixty-one, in. Sixty-two, out. Sixty-three, in . . .
    The splashing continued for a long time. Maybe they were looting the car, taking the weapons. Maybe searching for intelligence material. It was impossible to know.
    Gideon reached a count of 2,440 before he realized that the splashing had stopped. He had been concentrating so hard on his breathing that he hadn’t even noticed them moving away.

Gideon's War and Hard Target
    He was tempted to surface now, but he knew