Red Sniper: A World War II Thriller

CHAPTER 32

Cole walked out into the empty plain, backtracking through the snow. He scanned the landscape for cover, but there wasn’t so much as a rock or a scrap of brush. Sunlight reflected off the snow. The brightness hurt his eyes. He squinted into the distance.

He had been half joking with Vaccaro about Western movies, but this is what it felt like. Like it was high noon on some dusty street. He’d be damned if he was the one wearing the white hat. Cole was black hat all the way.

Once he had put some distance between himself and the others, he stopped. Shooting from a standing position was never easy, so he looped his arm through the sling just to help balance the weight of the rifle and steady his aim. He put the smooth comb to his cheek, fitting it just under his high cheekbones. The butt fit into the socket just where his arm met his shoulder. Looking through the rifle scope now, everything sprang closer. He could see the Russians coming through the snow.

Finger on the trigger, he waited.

Barkov squinted into the distance. The Americans were hurrying now, which made sense. Finland was within sight. He could see the difference in the terrain that delineated a national boundary. He turned to the men behind him and snarled, "Faster!"

As the group moved away, he saw a lone object outlined against the snow. He was fairly certain that it had not been there before. Perhaps a tree trunk? A stone marker? That made no sense. Whatever the object was, it gave the impression of rigidity, like a fencepost. Odd, out here in the middle of nowhere.

With his naked eye, he could barely make out anything in the plain ahead. He paused and put his rifle to his shoulder so that he could study the object through the scope.

The optics shrank the distance, although it was still quite far. He could see that the anomaly in the landscape was not a tree, or a fencepost, or a standing stone. It was a man.

Barkov blinked. Pressed his eye closer to the optical lens.

The man held a rifle and stared back at him through his own telescopic sight, like a distant mirror image.

Barkov snatched the rifle from his own eye, as if that would stop the other man from seeing too much of him. They were both too far apart to see real detail about the other.

He knew who it was. The American sniper. The one whom Ramsey had promised would be waiting for him.

A promise kept.

The man stood like a tree, a stump, a stone.

The other Russians sensed that Barkov had stopped and they halted, awaiting his orders.

For once, Barkov had none. It was only him and this American that mattered now. They might have been alone on the taiga.

"He wants me to fight a duel," Barkov said to no one in particular, although he half expected the Mink to answer. Then he remembered that his old companion was dead.

He put the rifle to his shoulder again, dimly aware of the remaining soldiers around him. Two stood, one behind the other, to his right, while Dmitri stood to his left. He knew Dmitri’s name, but not those of the two other men. It was enough to call them you… and you. That was a habit from the war, when men died so quickly there was no point in bothering to learn what they were called.

Barkov licked his lips and strained to see into the distance.

He considered his options. It was a difficult shot to make from that range using the standing or offhand position. A shooter wanted a gun anchored somehow — using anything from a window ledge to a fallen log was preferable to relying on the steadiness of one’s own arms. Lying down was good. Even sitting down, with the rifle propped across one's knees. A marksman needed to connect himself and his rifle to the earth. Bone on stone.

Standing, it was hard to hold a rifle rock steady. At that range, the smallest motion meant that the bullet would miss.

Big and solid as he was, Barkov was more like a human boulder than a fencepost. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, acquired the target, let his breathing—

The sound of the American sniper's rifle echoed across the distance, seconds after the bullet ripped through the two men on Barkov's left.

He lowered his rifle to survey the damage.

Because they had been standing one behind the other, the bullet had punched through the head of the first one and then drilled into the throat of the second man.

The first man had died instantly, but the second was taking his time about it, clutching his throat as he lay in the snow, a big pool of blood spreading around him. Barkov observed the dead and dying man without any particular emotion.

You… and you.

It would have been an impressive shot if it had been intentional. However, Barkov was sure that the American had aimed for him, and missed.

Feeling more confident now, he put the rifle back to his shoulder. He settled the reticule a few inches above the American's head—

This time, he actually heard the second shot whip past him on the left, just where Dmitri was standing. He thought that the shot must have killed Dmitri, but a fraction of a second previously, the boy had thrown himself face down in the snow, mittened hands covering his head as if that would offer some protection. That moment of cowardice — or good sense, call it what you will — had saved his life.

That left Barkov alone on the plain. He felt himself grow cold, although there also happened to be a tingling all through him that had nothing to do with the temperature. He recognized the feeling for what it was — fear.

Barkov felt afraid because it had occurred to him that the first shot had not been a miss. It had been very deliberate. Both shots had been fired quickly, at a great distance. The American was picking off Barkov’s men. Leaving Barkov for last.

Not if he could help it. He was Barkov the sniper! He put the rifle to his shoulder, lined up the reticule again. The American stood there, daring him. It was a long shot, and Barkov was shooting offhand, which was the most difficult position.

He squeezed the trigger.

The rifle fired.

Cole saw the distant muzzle flash but didn’t so much as flinch. He knew there was no way to dodge a bullet.

Instantaneously, Barkov’s bullet zipped past his ear like a supersonic bumblebee — the sensation made his whole body thrum like a bow string. That was close. Close enough to make his insides feel like jelly.

He pushed every thought and worry from his mind. It had come down to just him and Barkov. He let himself slip deeper into his shooter's trance. His breathing became shallow, and his heart rate slowed. Shooting from the standing position was difficult, and normally his arms might tremble ever so slightly from the strain. Holding an eight-pound rifle steady enough to aim with any precision was harder than one might think. After a few minutes, your arms started to quiver no matter how strong you were. But now it was as if the cold had frozen him into place.

He kept the rifle steady and settled the crosshairs on Barkov. It was a long way off, but he had been lucky in the first two shots. He felt good about three out of three.

There was almost no wind, so Cole placed the crosshairs directly above Barkov's head to account for the drop of the bullet.

Hitting the head was too much to hope for — instead, he was trying for a body shot.

Everything launched into the air eventually fell back to earth, after all — baseballs, footballs, even bullets. They all fell at the same rate, thanks to gravity, but the speed of the object determined how far it traveled before falling to earth. To compensate for the pull of gravity, a marksman aimed above his target when taking a shot. The farther the target was, the higher you aimed.

Given time, Cole could have walked his bullets in. He did not have that option. He had one shot.

He had almost forgotten that his finger was on the trigger. It nearly surprised him when the rifle fired.

There was a stab of flame, and the cool, still air actually rippled as the hot gases caused by the rapid burning of gunpowder geysered from the muzzle. Traveling at nearly 3,000 feet per second as it left the muzzle, the 152-grain bullet exited the barrel spinning like a drill bit. The still, clear air welcomed the bullet and wrapped itself around it, guiding the projectile like it was on rails. A full second later, the bullet completed its arc and punched through Barkov's rib cage.

One rib attempted to deflect the more than two thousand foot pounds of energy and was snapped in half for its trouble, resulting in splinters of bone joining the bullet as it churned through Barkov's liver. Barkov's body cavity was massive, big as a steamer trunk tipped on its side, and the bullet lost its way and wandered downward, nicking his stomach here, tearing out chunks of bladder and prostate there, before exiting just above the hipbone opposite where it had entered. Having lost its momentum, the bullet tumbled to rest in a snow drift just a few feet away.

Barkov was such a big man that the energy of the bullet did not knock him down, although it would have knocked down most men. He felt no pain at first. Just an odd sensation as if his insides were being stirred with a large metal spoon. He looked down to see where the bullet had gone in, and then reached down to feel for the hole where it had come out.

He even looked behind him and saw the gouge in the snow that the spent bullet had made. Some detached part of his mind thought, "Ah, so that it where it went."

His body was not so detached as his mind, however. The interior of his torso was now a raw stew of torn tissue, blood, bone, bile, and urine. Barkov's knees buckled. He dropped his rifle. He went down.

Through the scope, Cole watched the Russian collapse.

The impact put Barkov down. He knew too well that a bullet was a small thing, and yet despite its small mass the slug was moving at supersonic speed that increased its energy exponentially.

How many times had he watched a bullet wreak havoc on someone else?

Now, his own turn had come.

He got to one elbow and coughed up some blood. There was little pain, but only a numbness. Barkov tried to get up, but somehow could not will himself off his hands and knees. His body simply would not obey.

He heard footsteps on the snow behind him, and looked up to see Dmitri trotting past him. The boy paused long enough to snatch the nagyka whip from where it was tucked into Barkov’s belt. The young fool was running straight for the American.

"Wait! You must help me!" Barkov shouted, but the youth did not stop. Barkov cursed him. "Traitor! Coward!"

Barkov thought that he had shouted the words, but then realized they had only been in his head. His lungs no longer had the volume for shouting.

He looked into the distance, but the American sniper had vanished, like a ghost.

Barkov's body, strong as it was, drifted into shock. He thought he heard shooting far away, but couldn't be sure. Mercifully, he lost consciousness.

Toward nightfall, Barkov came to his senses again. As he regained consciousness, he was surprised by the simple fact that he was still breathing. In Stalingrad, he had seen men miraculously survive terrible wounds. Maybe he would be one of those lucky ones. He ate some snow and felt better.

The day stretched on toward dusk. In the gathering gloom on the taiga, he caught a glimpse of something moving. Maybe it was that ingrate Dmitri returning to help him, after all. Barkov felt a glimmer of hope. Another shape flicked past in the gloom. Maybe it was another group of soldiers, coming to find him.

Barkov heard something in the snow to his right, and turned painfully toward the sound.

A large gray wolf stood there, head down, studying Barkov with its deep brown eyes. Measuring him.

Barkov cursed at the wolf, and tried to crawl away. His arms worked all right, but he felt like he was dragging a sack of broken crockery that had been dredged in warm lard — the sack being the rest of his body.

The wolf followed in the wake of Barkov’s progress. Coming closer.

Panting from the effort, Barkov stopped trying to crawl. He reached for this whip, then remembered that it was no longer there. When the wolf was close enough, he shook a fist at it, driving the animal back.

"Son of a whore!"

The wolf retreated. But then another wolf appeared on its flank, and the first wolf advanced. Barkov couldn’t keep an eye on both of them.

Barkov swung his fist again, but his strength was depleted. Propped up on one elbow, he flailed weakly at the wolf.

The two wolves moved closer, growling, jowls curled back from sharp white teeth. He raised his arm to protect himself.

The wolf darted forward and grabbed his arm. The second wolf went for the bloody wound near his hip.

This time, Barkov screamed.