In any case, there was little time for these metaphysical considerations. Sokolov—who had belly-crawled to the edge of the big flat rock—called her forward and got her to see what was going on below them: a young woman, brown-skinned, black-haired, in a tank top and cargo pants, scrambling up the slope in obvious fear for her life. Bursts of submachine-gun fire from a location that, at first, they were unable to see. By the time they had repositioned themselves to a place where Sokolov could get the man with the submachine gun in his sights, that man had stopped firing and was biding his time while a companion flailed and scrabbled up the slope with a pistol in one hand.