Page 70 of Edge of Honor

Leaving no further room for argument, she got into a crouch at the front of the Tahoe and prepared to run. Over the radio, she counted down from five in Norwegian.

When she got to “one” she began sprinting as Haugen unleashed a barrage of pistol fire into the tree line.

She ran like she had never run before, sliding through a pile of broken glass and plastic as she arrived at the multicar pileup and grabbed the first piece of cover she could find.

From the woods, the sniper fired multiple rounds at Haugen, her, and the Tahoe itself.

Unwilling to sacrifice even a few seconds to catch her breath, Sølvi radioed the PST agent to lay down more cover fire. The moment he started shooting, she was off and running again.

She zigzagged through the sea of cars, leaping over hoods and bumpers where necessary, eventually making her way to the other side of the highway.

This time when Sølvi stopped, she was at a sufficient enough angle that the smoke and flames from the crippled motorcade helped conceal her.

Nevertheless, she took nothing for granted and quickly abandoned the position for something safer.

Her lungs burning and heaving for air, she finally allowed herself a few moments to catch her breath. She radioed Haugen that she had made it and told him to sit tight and wait for her signal. She was headed into the woods and would need him to help flush the sniper out for her.

After a few more deep breaths, Sølvi got herself together and headed into the trees. Taking out her phone, she pulled up her geolocating app and got a fix on her position.

What she was hoping to find was some sort of access road or parking area that the attackers had used to leave their vehicles. They would want to be able to make a quick exit and that required having transport nearby. If she could figure out where their cars were, she could better narrow the search area for the sniper.

Beyond the woods, however, there was nothing but apartment complexes, home associations, and office parks. Their vehicles could be anywhere.

Sølvi tried to remember exactly where she had seen the RPGs being fired from and, drawing her pistol, headed toward that spot.

The dense underbrush clawed at her feet and legs. It was like trying to march through miles of heavy steel cable. She had been at it for several hundred feet when suddenly the underbrush gave way to some sort of jogging or hiking trail that hadn’t appeared on her app.

If the motorcade’s attackers had found the tangled vines and bushes of the forest floor as disagreeable as she had, the chances were pretty good that they were using this same path to get as close as possible to where they had launched their ambush from. Stepping onto the path, Sølvi began following it back toward where the attack had been launched.

The heavy tree cover made it difficult to get her exact position on her phone. She also didn’t like having her attention divided. Where there was a sniper, there very well could be someone watching the sniper’s back. Any local suburbanite out for a run or walking their dog could have stumbled upon the attackers. They would have needed a way to deal with that possibility.

Sølvi switched over to a mapping feature that relied on cell towers—along the Dulles Access Road there were undoubtedly many—got an approximate fix on her current position, and slid the phone back into her pocket. She was much closer than she had thought. As slowly and as soundlessly as possible, just as she had been trained, she moved forward.

The heat and humidity were beyond oppressive. Instead of the bug-infested woods providing a little bit of shade and a lessening of the temperature, it seemed hotter, closer, and more difficult to breathe. Sølvi’s body armor, not to mention her shirt and jacket, were stifling. She could feel the sweat running straight down the middle of her back. She was a long way from her days as a pampered fashion model.

This, however, was exactly what her army training had prepared her for. The Norwegian government had agreed to the formation of an all-female special forces unit, but only if the selection standards were impossibly high and presented some of the most difficult training any military had ever imposed—even on its male recruits.

The newly formed “Hunter” unit, orJegertropen, had been looking for women who wouldn’t quit. Then, once a highly select few had applied and been accepted, the Norwegian Army had done everything in their power to get them to drop out.

Many did quit, but Sølvi wasn’t one of them. She had taken everything the instructors had thrown at her and had doubled down on her commitment to see it through. In that crucible, she had been reborn a stronger, fiercer, more determined warrior. A hot day and some rough terrain weren’t going to get in the way of her eliminating this threat.

Feeling she had to be almost on top of the sniper, she found a tree big enough to provide cover, stepped off the path, and quietly radioed Haugen to begin firing.

As soon as he did, she heard two shots fired from just up the path. Staying in the trees, she worked her way toward the sound, maintaining her situational awareness and keeping her eyes and ears open for the possibility of a spotter or some sort of security element.

When she had traveled as far as she dared, Sølvi took cover behind another tree and scanned the area around her, searching for the gunman, but to no avail.

In addition to being an exceptional shot, the sniper also appeared to be quite skilled when it came to camouflage—two traits that spoke to a high level of training, likely achieved in the military.

Where are you?she wondered, her pistol up and ready to engage.

Sølvi continued to slowly scan the wooded hillside looking for places she would have chosen had the task been given to her to establish a hide site from which to snipe the survivors of the motorcade. Yet no matter how hard she focused, she couldn’t see a damn thing beyond leaves, branches, bushes, and vines. It was like the guy was invisible, until all of a sudden she noticed something.

There was what looked like a dried-up pile of forest rot, which was interesting considering how verdant and overgrown everything else was. The pile was just long enough for a man to be lying prone underneath. But that wasn’t what convinced her that she’d found the sniper.

Protruding from the pile was what looked like a piece of MultiCam green nylon that had been wrapped around a Pringles can and secured with black elastic cordage. And while it may have looked like nylon, it was more than likely constructed of Kevlar or Nomex.

It was called a suppressor heat wrap and one of its key uses was to prevent heat waves from rising off a hot suppressor and creating a mirage effect that could disrupt a sniper’s magnified optics. With her target identified, Sølvi opened fire.

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