Red Sniper: A World War II Thriller

CHAPTER 29

Barkov was the first to spot the smoke. He was surprised. So far, the Americans had shown a great deal of discipline in avoiding any sort of fire. Maybe they had finally gotten too cold, or maybe they had something to cook. Any number of possibilities ran through Barkov's mind.

What the Mink said in Russian was the equivalent of, "Can you believe they would be so stupid?"

Barkov told the other three men to stay put, and he and the Mink went out to check on the source of the smoke.

They could see flames flickering through the tree trunks — the fire was no stingy affair. A delicious smell reached them. That explained the fire. The Americans were cooking meat.

They crept forward, using the trees and brush for cover. Barkov made a motion that signaled far enough and quiet all in one. The two Russians studied the scene before them.

Much to their surprise, there was just a lone figure hunched over the fire. An American sniper rifle with a telescopic sight was propped up within the sniper's reach. It was hard to see the sniper's face, because his neck and the lower part of his face were wrapped in a scarf against the cold. A cigarette hung from his lips. They had expected an entire group, but not one man. Looking around through the scope at the sniper’s feet, they could see what was clearly a body wrapped in a blanket. There was no mistaking it. They had seen enough of those over the last few years.

“So that is the American sniper,” the Mink whispered. “He’s not much bigger than I am. What is he up to, do you think?"

“It looks to me like he is cooking his dinner.”

The Mink gave him an annoyed look. “Over a big fire like that?”

"Maybe he does not think we are nearby. Maybe he thinks we gave up. Maybe he just does not give a shit anymore."

The third possibility was plausible. They had seen so many strange things. Soldiers who lost their minds and threw away their weapons and stripped off their clothes in the middle of a battle. A schoolteacher who sat down to read a book as he froze to death. One could only believe what one saw, which was what they were seeing now. One of the Americans sat by this fire, cooking a rabbit, with a dead man rolled in a blanket nearby. Who was the dead man? Nobody — he was dead. It was not an elaborate scenario.

"What are you waiting for?" the Mink asked.

Barkov lined up the sights and shot the sniper through the head. The body sagged.

The Mink stood up. He uncorked his flask of vodka, took a drink, and handed it to Barkov.

"Good shooting."

"I expected more from this one," Barkov said. “In the end he was nichevo. Nothing."

Barkov took a drink, handed back the flask.

"I want his rifle," the Mink said. He grinned. "And there is no point in letting that rabbit go to waste. Are you coming?"

Barkov clapped him on the shoulder. "You go ahead. I will start back toward the others, so that the cowards don't run away. I would not care, but we may still need them yet. Catch up to us when you can, and bring me some of that rabbit."

Cole waited for what seemed like an eternity, holding himself very still and barely breathing. But he was a patient man. He just hoped that the rabbit didn't burn. He would have had time to turn it, too, because it took an hour for the Russians to find the fire. By then he felt cramped and cold, despite the fact that he was wrapped tightly in a blanket, but he ignored the discomfort.

He was positioned with his arms in front of him. His hands held the Browning 1911 pistol.

He neither heard nor saw the Russians approach. He only knew that they had arrived when a single shot ripped out and hit Ramsey square in the head. The sound made Cole wince. It didn't seem possible to kill a dead man any deader, and yet Barkov had done just that. Ramsey’s body slumped to the snowy ground just at the edge of Cole’s limited field of view.

Now came the tricky part.

He tightened his grip on the pistol.

What happened next depended on what sort of cards he had been dealt. If one or two of the enemy approached, he had a chance. More than that, and this blanket was going to be his shroud.

He waited, his heart barely making a murmur, which was a good thing — it was so quiet in the forest that the flutter of a bird's wings sounded like a hurricane wind.

He had left a gap in the end of the rolled blanket so that he could look out. The problem was that it reduced his world to a narrow field of vision. It was essentially like looking through a tube. Like a rifle scope, as a matter of fact. He felt cramped as the tobacco inside a hand-rolled cigarette.

Cole had positioned himself carefully. A ring of bushes surrounded the camp — nothing too obvious, but there was a gap through which anyone approaching the fire would naturally walk. It was this gap that the open end of the blanket faced, like a rifle barrel.

As for the waiting, it was simply part of the game. He was very good at being still for hours. He just hoped that these bastards came along before he froze to death — or his supper burned to a crisp. His belly rumbled. It would be a damn shame to waste that rabbit.

It was a sign of the Russian’s own skill that Cole never heard him approach. He felt him instead; some inexplicable pressure in the air. He was impressed that the big Russian could move so quietly, until he saw that it wasn't the big Russian at all. In a single glimpse as the man passed through his field of view, he saw that it was the smaller Russian. The one that Ramsey had called the Mink.

Everything depended on the Russian stopping cautiously a dozen feet away, coming through the gap in the bushes directly in front of Cole, so that he could get a clear shot.

But without pausing, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, the Russian walked right up to the fire.

Too fast to get off a shot.

Then the Mink was gone. Out of Cole’s narrow field of view.

Cole couldn't move the gun or even see him at all. He heard him pick up the Springfield rifle and grunt with satisfaction. At any second, the Russian might get suspicious and put a big, fat slug into Cole. He held his breath.

The Mink stepped closer. Too close. But at least some part of him came back into view. Cole could see the man's boots, his legs to his knees, and that was it. Cole began to understand the fault in his plan. His heart beat faster.

Then, he saw the Russian toe the body with his boot.

In another second the Mink was going to realize that he had not shot a sniper, but that he had shot Ramsey all over again. Cole couldn't take that chance. He aimed at the Mink's shin. His hands shook from the strain of holding the pistol so long. He was aiming at the leg just eight feet away, but still far enough to miss.

He pulled the trigger.

At point blank range, the slug splintered the shin bone. The small man went down as if his leg had been chopped by an ax. Belly down in the snow, he looked right into the blanket roll and locked eyes with Cole. Even through the pain and shock, the eyes registered surprise. He didn’t make a sound. Then the face tilted away, as the Mink rolled toward the rifle that he had dropped in the snow.

Cole shot him in the top of the head.

Was Barkov out there with his rifle, watching? Cole held his breath, but no bullet tore into him. Cole sat up, feeling like a sausage. He wriggled out of the blanket and scrambled into a tangle of undergrowth nearby.

From the safety of cover, he strained to hear some sound of movement in the surrounding forest, but his ears rang from the pistol shots.

It stood to reason that if Barkov was out there, he would have shot Cole by now.

Slowly, cautiously, he emerged from the underbrush. Crouched. Stood.

Nothing.

That meant the Mink had been alone. But where the hell was Barkov?

Cole built up the fire. He searched the dead Russian and found a flask of vodka. He uncapped the flask and sniffed. The stuff had an oily smell. He jammed the cork back in — he wasn't that hard up for a drink.

He could, however, think of one good use for the vodka. Maybe he couldn’t bury Ramsey, but he could give him another kind of funeral.

He splashed the vodka over Ramsey's clothes. Then he dragged the body into the fire, letting the hungry flames spread across the clothing. He piled more wood on top.

He liked to think that Ramsey would appreciate the fact that he didn’t have to worry about being cold.

It didn't seem right just to leave; something was missing, so he muttered the Lord's Prayer, the only bit of religion that had survived his childhood. He gave one final nod at the flames, then slipped away into the trees.

Cole didn't bother to do anything with the dead Russian. The varmints could have at him.

Barkov had already rejoined the others when he heard two gunshots from the direction of the American sniper's campfire.

He was perplexed. Barkov knew with certainly that he had shot the American square in the head.

Dead men did not need killing again.

So who was shooting?

He waited for the Mink’s return with growing apprehension.

Half an hour went by, and still the other sniper did not appear.

The two shots could mean only one thing, which was that his old friend had walked right into a trap. Barkov did not know how it was possible, but snipers were full of tricks. He should know. There was no point in going to investigate, not unless Barkov wanted to walk into a trap himself.

It dawned on Barkov that the campfire they had come upon might actually have been an elaborate trap. Set not for the Mink, but for Barkov. Who had set the trap? The same man who had scratched his name into the rifle casing. It had to be the sniper that they had already encountered.

He still did not understand what the sniper was doing here, or why anyone had bothered to rescue the American prisoners. It wasn’t the first time that he had found himself caught up in the middle of something bigger than he was, something that he could never understand.

Stalingrad came to mind.

"What were those shots?" Dmitri asked nervously. "Where is the Mink?"

"He is dead," Barkov said. He cuffed the young soldier in the ear, putting some of his pain and anger into the blow, so that he knocked Dmitri to the ground. The youth glared up at him spitefully. That was good. He was showing some spirit. Barkov kicked him in the ribs, so that he did not become too spirited. "Now, let us go."

Barkov headed out, following the tracks left by the other Americans. Doubled over in pain, Dmitri did his best to keep up.

The Americans did not wish to stand and fight. Barkov understood now that their only goal was to get across the border into Finland. How many did the Americans have? Five, if you counted the girl. He now had four men — including himself, and the useless youth. It was too bad about the Mink. He had been as good as ten men.

Barkov would have liked more men, but he wasn’t about to give up and turn back.

Thinking about it now, he did not care if the Americans had twenty men, or even thirty. There was only one man who mattered to him now. He did not even care about the escaped American prisoner named Whitlock or the Russian traitor, Inna Mikhaylovna. All that Barkov cared about was the American sniper. The one who had apparently killed his old friend with his imperialist tricks. Barkov felt that he might cross to the ends of the earth to put a bullet in that one.