Richard, who had been so much at gravity’s mercy an instant ago, now found it too weak and slow to bring the shotgun’s barrel down as fast as he would like. Rather than wait here to get shot, he twitched his body sideways, flinging himself down onto his back and then his side, rolling away. A younger man on better terrain might have rolled all the way over and come back up firing, but Richard bogged down in rocks and tree roots about halfway through this maneuver and found himself in the worst possible situation of having to get up on hands and knees with his ass pointed squarely in Jahandar’s direction and the shotgun down in the mud. How could anything go so badly wrong? It was just like John’s Vietnam stories, the ones he told when he was drunk and weeping. A pistol was banging, banging, banging . Richard wasn’t dead yet. His mind had registered something odd about that banging, but he hadn’t had time to think about it yet. An eternity later he fell heavily onto his ass, finally facing toward the enemy, finally with the shotgun up where he wanted it. He expected to see Jahandar still aiming the revolver his way, fire spurting from the barrel and all but scorching Richard’s nylon parka, but the jihadist had turned to look downhill and had crouched down so that only the curve of his back was showing.