Chapter 42- Cold Spring
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12:15 PM- Cold Spring, Long Island 
  
Dan watched Kayla from the kitchen while he sliced vegetables for dinner. But every few minutes he peeked out the window at the road leading to the house. The only pathway in, except through the forest. 
  
Settle down, Dan, he thought. But when he glanced over at Kayla she was gone. 
  
“Oh shit! Kayla!” Dan yelled and raced into the center room, “Kayla?” 
  
“Dan!” a yell from the den. 
  
"Kayla?” Dan rushed in and found her innocently looking out the den window. His stomach jumped in his chest as he reached down and gently pulled her toward him. 
  
“Dan, I wanted to show you it’s snowing out,” she said. 
  
“Oh?” He glanced at the falling light flakes. “That’s lovely.” 
  
“Can we go outside and see it?” she asked, bright eyed. 
  
“Not yet honey, but please stay away from the window until mommy comes home, ok?” he asked in his most endearing dad voice. 
  
“Ok,” Kayla replied and hugged him. But Dan knew she understood the situation. For at this point the child has already witnessed death. 
  
At that moment he received a message from Rica, “We’re on our way, be there in thirty!” 
  
Dan exhaled and texted back, “Great, please drive carefully in the snow.” 
  
The message eased his worry for the moment. For although he hadn’t heard from Reyna, he damn sure knew his step-daughter Rica was a total bad-ass herself. And that’s from first hand experience. But still, until any one of them arrived, him and Kayla were on their own. 

  
Pincer 
  
A quarter mile down the road from Dan’s house a dark grey car idled by the forest line. The two passengers inside, Viktoria Vadász and her Turk driver, both stared at a tablet. On the screen before them an app read the number of cell phone users in a given area. Only one signal displayed from Dan’s location, and someone just contacted him. 
  
“He’s in the house alone," said the Turk driver holding the device. "This thing is amazing, Viktoria,”   
  
“Russian technology,” she replied while stuffing her auburn hair under a black cap. 
  
The Turk observed her, “What’s your plan?” 
  
“Simple, you stay here for two minutes after I leave. Then you drive to the front and knock on the door,” she replied. 
  
“Eh?” He blinked, “What are you going to do?” 
  
“Don’t worry, it will be over before you knock,” she said with a smile while locking and loading a ten round magazine in her battle rifle, Vipera. 
  
“Heh heh! Ok, two minutes.” The driver agreed and they both synched their watches. 
  
After that, Viktoria bolted out into the snow wearing extreme weather black tacticals and armed with her rifle. Before exiting the vehicle she attached a high velocity suppressor to the barrel and added a snow filter to her scope. Now the Viper could hunt. 
  
Two Minutes 
  
Viktoria shuffled through the white forest, deliberately moving under snow banks and behind large trees, blocking her own silhouette. Exactly two minutes from entering the area she arrived within one hundred meters of Dan’s house. Positioning herself behind a tree she pointed her rifle and scope toward the road. 
  
“Hmm.” She grinned as the Turk guard then drove toward the house, right on time. And when the vehicle reached fifty meters of the porch… 
  
FWAP!   
  
A shot burst through the car’s passenger side window and splattered the driver’s brains all over the interior. The vehicle stopped dead in front of the house, just as Viktoria predicted.  
  
“Hm hm hm, Reyna you bitch! I knew you’d be out in these woods protecting your soft man,” she mumbled while re-aiming her rifle toward the treeline behind the house, at the spot where she detected the crack-bang of that rifle shot. “Yes Reyna, I know you’re out there-Oh shit!” Viktoria dropped as fast she could as a rifle round smashed the bark of a tree just inches from her face. “Anyád picsája!” she cursed in Hungarian while backing up on the ground from her position. 
  
"Dammit Reyna, you knew I’d take to the forest! But that’s just as well because I know where you are now too!” 
  
With a cruel grin Viktoria pulled herself back, but as she glanced up white smoke suddenly consumed the forest and the house in front of her. “Smoke bomb? You childish woman!” 
  
The smoke destroyed all visibility in the forest, making it impossible to spot a target by sight. And that worked in both directions, for now Viktoria had stealth to her advantage, however, true Rifle Girls don’t need to hunt by sight. 
  
Viktoria doubled back running parallel to the smoke and the house. If she could get behind Reyna she’d track her by footprints and ambush her from the rear. 
  
I know you’re back here, she thought while aiming her weapon in a ready to fire position. But the white smoke grew worse. Damn, that coward Reyna is lighting one bomb after the other to throw me off! But no worries. Viktoria ran up on a set of light boot prints. Because I’ve already found you, heh heh. 
  
White 
  
Viktoria tracked the snow prints into the smoke, which grew fresher as she followed. Soon the viper slowed down and drew her weapon to her cheek. For Reyna couldn’t be more than a few meters away. But as Viktoria closed in, the footprints suddenly vanished all at once into the smoke, “Eh?” She halted and stared in the distance at what appeared to be a rifle barrel in the snow.
  
“A trap!” Viktoria dove head first to the ground. And as the auburn haired killer landed a bullet deflected off of her back with the impact of a sledge hammer, paralyzing her for a full second. For Reyna Rai had snuck behind Viktoria and fired. 
  
Ghost-vs-Viper 
  
In the hidden world of criminal assassins, the names Reyna Rai and Viktoria Vadász meant one thing only: THE KILLER ELITE 

Both warriors in that forest knew they’d face off. And Viktoria, ever a professional, had the good sense to wear polyethylene body armor. A plastic so strong it can stop armor piercing rounds. But it’s one drawback, force impact. For Reyna’s shot knocked the wind out of Viktoria. But since it didn’t kill her, the viper rolled over and fired five rounds back at the ghost, who wasn’t there. 
  
“Eh? Where?” In the smoke a figure completely covered in white hustled into the treeline, before turning and firing another single shot at Viktoria. “Ha!” Viktoria dodged the bullet and let off two more rounds at the white ghost who disappeared again. 
  
“No!” Viktoria shouted while charging at the treeline and firing again, forcing Reyna to expose herself. But Reyna was closer than Viktoria thought.  
  
“Yaa!” A scream followed by a thrusting bayonet out of the snow forced Viktoria to block with her rifle. And from that moment on… 
  
“Reyna!” 
  
“Viktoria!” 
  
A clash of Rifle Girls commenced in the Cold Spring forest. And no, a fight between elites is not a dazzling display of speed and elegance, as young girls like to perform. No, when mechanics reach the level of Reyna and Viktoria the battle becomes one of precision and power. Every brutal blow, deliberate, and delivered with the intent of breaking the other fighter’s bones, and killing them as quickly as possible.  
  
“Raah!” The women howled as they smacked rifles, each jockeying for position. Both threw elbows and kicks in their kata. But Reyna practiced a Krav Maga approach, where Viktoria utilized a full body Russian Sambo style and drop-kicked Reyna in her chest, knocking her back in the snow. “Aaah!” Reyna yelped as her mighty M40A3 rifle, Jezriel, flew up out of her hand. In that motion Viktoria recovered and flipped her own rifle to fire point blank at Reyna. But that was a mistake. For in the time it took to spin the weapon, Reyna kicked Viktoria’s foot in the slippery forest ground, causing the viper to fire her last two shots into the treeline, pissing her off.  
  
“Fuck you Reyna!” she yelled and bashed her rifle into Reyna’s shoulder. 
  
“Gaah!” Reyna screamed, but took the blow while grabbing and shoving Viktoria to the ground, forcing her to drop her rifle to counter. 
  
“I’ll kill you!” Viktoria yelled as the two villains, with near endless stamina, grappled in the snow. With each combatant attempting to choke the life out of the other. A raw battle of attrition. But this fight would prove pointless unless Viktoria could achieve her objective. Kill Reyna, kill Dan, take the girl. Time to play dirty.
  
Out of options Viktoria pulled a fast one. In the middle of the tussle she whipped out a flash grenade, closed her eyes, and set it off in between Reyna and herself. PAP! The exploding device split the fighters and damn near burst Viktoria’s eardrums. But as she opened her eyes she realized she’d been partially blinded. However, Reyna was in worse shape. 
  
Reyna kneeled in the snow while covering her ears as she whipped back and forth trying to locate Viktoria. And Viktoria, with a slight sight advantage, leapt up and retrieved her empty rifle. Still partially blind and totally deaf, Viktoria dropped the empty clip out of Vipera and reached in her back for a fresh ten round mag. And not a moment too soon either. For as Viktoria slapped the magazine in place a light bulb on the side entrance to the house suddenly flickered in the vanishing white smoke. And Viktoria could see as clear as day that the side door of the house was open.
  
“Ah!” She immediately aimed her rifle toward the door where she did nothing. For in the deafening ring of her ears, she barely heard the two pistol shots that slammed into her right arm, and her bullet proof vest. The strikes knocked her to the ground. But the veteran mechanic still held her rifle as she gaped over at Reyna’s soft man Dan, firing a pistol at her. His third and fourth shot hit the snow in front of her. Fool! She quickly turned and squeezed her trigger while targeting center mass at his gut, letting off two shots.   
  
But it appeared the soft man had some training with his gun, and dove down into the snow while firing less than six meters away. During his attack his lips moved as he appeared to shout at Viktoria, while his next shot struck her vest again. 
  
“No!” she reeled back from the impact and squeezed off another- 
  
POP! 
  
A Minute Earlier 
  
Having placed Kayla under the bed in his room, Dan raced out into the white smoke. He’d heard too many shots and refused to hide. As he exited the house he saw the scuffle in the snow before a flash bang went off in between the fighters. Thinking it was a gunshot, he ducked. But when he raised up he observed Reyna in the distance covering her ears in pain. And in front of her, a beautiful woman, dressed in all black, running toward his house, with a semi automatic rifle. 
  
She’s going to hurt Kayla! 
  
Daniel Capra, math teacher, ex U.S. Army infantryman, raised his Glock 9mm and opened fire on the black clad assailant. But when he struck her twice and she dropped and fired back at him, that’s when he caught on that she wore body armor, so he shot her in the face. And while charging at her, he yelled, “Stay away from my family!” and kept firing until the Rifle Girl, Viktoria Vadász, aka The Viper, lay dead in a mound of crimson snow. Her mission stopped by a hollow point bullet to her head. Executed by Daniel Capra. 
  
  
...Reyna’s soft man...

..

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