Which raised the question of whether any of the men down below Sokolov might be so equipped. He had engaged in several exchanges of fire with them so far, but with so many opponents, all concealed in the forest, spraying rounds at him from different directions, it had been difficult for him to take a census of their weapons. From sound alone it was obvious that most of them had submachine guns or assault rifles. But the infrequent firing of a bolt-action sniper rifle could easily have gotten lost in all that noise. Some of them might have been packing scopes in their bags, and for all he knew they were down there right now mounting better optics on the weapons that he knew about. Sokolov’s gun was pretty and expensive, with a nice scope on it, but its barrel and its ammunition imposed certain inherent limitations on its effective range. In a sniping duel against a man armed with a proper long-range weapon, he would lose.