Winter Sniper: A World War II Novel

Chapter 33

Rumors flew around the hotel kitchen like dinner plates about how a German sniper had been caught trying to assassinate General Eisenhower. Then there was the mysterious and beautiful spy locked in her room upstairs. Zumwald listened as he worked peeling potatoes and scrubbing the dinnertime pots and pans until almost ten o’clock that night. There seemed to be an awful lot of dirty dishes because the day’s excitement had made everyone hungry and the kitchen staff was shorthanded because of people not being able to get to work through the snow.

Hess, he thought. You’ve gone and done it now.

It was really all the Western novels he had read that got him thinking about breaking Hess out. In a lot of stories the bad guy or sometimes the hero got himself locked up in the local jail on charges of being a horse thief or a murderer. There was always a hanging threatened in the morning. So the condemned man’s gang would break him out of jail. Sometimes they dynamited the wall or used a horse and a rope to pull the bars off the windows. Many times the jailor conveniently fell asleep and somebody — generally a woman who had it bad for the soon-to-be-hanged hero or villain — slipped in and stole the keys right off his belt.

Peeling potatoes and scrubbing plates, Zumwald thought about that. In a Western novel the escape plan always worked and the gang rode off with six guns blazing at the inevitable posse. But this was real life. There were machine guns and Jeeps instead of revolvers and horses. Plus there was never a foot of snow covering the ground in the stories Zumwald read.

Zumwald thought some more about the snow and on his smoke break he walked out back to where the resort’s snowmobiles were kept. With a little imagination, you could almost see yourself riding off into the sunset on one of those.

When a guard finally got around to coming by the kitchen to pick up some dinner for the prisoner, Zumwald volunteered to carry it. He shrugged on his coat and slipped a rolling pin into one deep pocket. He had considered one of the kitchen knives, but he wasn’t interested in killing anyone if he could help it.

Hess was being kept in a guest cottage not far from the actual hotel. Zumwald followed the guard; they trudged out on a path of trampled snow. When the guard bent down to unlock the door, Zumwald hit him on the back of the head with the rolling pin. That was another trick he’d read about to knock someone out, but in real life it didn’t quite work. The guard fell to his knees but started to get up. Zumwald hit him again, and this time the guard slumped into the snow.

“Sorry,” he muttered, then stepped inside the cell. Hess was supine on a cot and he sat up with some effort. Zumwald was concerned; he hadn’t considered that Hess might be hurt. The man seemed so invincible. “Can you get up?”

“Zumwald. What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too. I’m here to get you out of this place.”

“You are a fool. Get out of here while you can.”

“Too late. I already hit the guard over the head.”

“Well, why spoil the moment.” Hess got stiffly to his feet. With Zumwald supporting him by the arm, they made it to the door. At their feet, the guard groaned. “Have you got a plan?”

“Ever ride a snowmobile?”

“Take his rifle and his belt,” Hess ordered. The coldness in the sniper’s voice almost made Zumwald regret his decision. “He’ll have spare ammunition.”

“All right.” In the distance, the lights of the hotel sparkled.

“Where is Eva Von Stahl being held?” Hess asked.

“The spy? I heard about her. She’s in her room under guard. I know because they sent food up.”

“You have to get her. I’ll wait outside.”

“Are you crazy?” This was not how it worked in a Western.

“We don’t leave German soldiers behind.”

Zumwald was thinking this was not a good idea, especially because Hess had no suggestions for how to get past the guard, but there was no arguing with the sniper. He helped Hess across the snow, thinking how easy it would be simply to walk back into the nice, warm kitchen and throw himself on the mercy of the American authorities. Instead, he left Hess by the snowmobiles and returned to the kitchen. He poured a mug of coffee and placed it in a five hundred degree oven for several minutes. While it heated up, he asked somebody what room the spy was in because he was supposed to take coffee up to the guard. Then he picked up the phone and called Room 203. He told the woman who answered to put on a coat.

Then Zumwald removed the mug from the oven, being careful to use tongs. He placed the mug on a tray and carried it carefully to the service elevator. Thirty seconds later he presented the coffee to the grateful guard outside Room 203.

“Careful,” he warned. “It’s hot.”

Of course, Zumwald neglected to warn the guard just how hot. The poor man left skin on the handle and in his haste to let go managed to spill most of the scalding liquid down the front of his pants. While the man cursed and hopped about in pain, Zumwald unlocked the door. Being something of a movie buff, he instantly recognized the woman who waited on the other side. Her renunciation of Nazi Germany and defection to America was legendary. Zumwald noticed that her idea of winter gear was a fur coat worn with army boots. She was also carrying a suitcase.

“Good God,” Zumwald said. “You?”

“Get moving,” she said, pushing past him. “We haven’t a moment to lose.”

She and Zumwald ran to the service elevator. He was aware of a kind of uproar beginning to build in the hotel as they got off the elevator by the kitchen and dashed out into the snow. Hess had started up two of the snowmobiles and they stood idling while he strapped the rifle across his back and buckled on the ammunition belt. “One for you,” he said to Zumwald, nodding at the other machine. He turned to Eva Von Stahl. “You’ll have to drive.”

Eva nodded, then handed off her suitcase to Zumwald. “Luggage?” He was incredulous.

“You’ll thank me later,” she said.

They roared off into the winter night.

Ty was where any self-respecting man would be after having his heart crushed by a fallen movie star while being almost simultaneously chewed out by the supreme allied commander in Europe. Kit Henderson sat beside him at the hotel bar and was pouring each of them a third large scotch when a frantic MP came looking for them.

“Sir, one of the prisoners just escaped.”

Ty jumped up. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s gone, sir.”

“Goddamnit!” He was a little woozy from the Johnnie Walker. “I want an extra guard posted around the sniper. And I mean now!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Don’t worry, she can’t go anywhere in this snow,” Kit said. “It’s better than a fence around this place.”

That’s when they heard the muffled sound of snowmobile engines. Ty turned to his friend. “You were saying?”

“Christ.”

They ran for the nearest door, the same one they had gone out of that morning when sending Crandall to his death in the snow. The cold night air sobered Ty instantly. In the distance, he could see the lights of not one but two snowmobiles winking at them. Following them wasn’t a simple matter of jumping onto the nearest snow machine. For starters, they didn’t have coats, hats or gloves and were already shivering in the arctic-like air.

“Come on,” Ty said, and turned back inside. “We won’t do any good if we freeze to death before we get out of sight of the hotel.”

Before they could even get back indoors, another MP came running out to find them. “It’s the sniper, sir. He’s gone too.”

Even over the roar of the snowmobile, Hess sensed that someone was giving chase. He looked over his shoulder. Far behind them he could see the single headlights of several snowmobiles. Maybe half a dozen. Coming fast.

He tapped Eva on the shoulder. “Hurry!”

In response, Eva hit the accelerator and the machine surged forward. She handled the snowmobile well. Zumwald raced ahead of them, blazing a trail through the fresh snow. With their own machine nearly running up on top of him, Zumwald put on a fresh burst of speed.

The trouble was that it was difficult to navigate the woods and fields at night with anything resembling speed. Their headlights stabbed into the darkness but that meant they could really only see the next fifty feet or so clearly. They had only a vague idea of what lay farther ahead. The stars were out, twinkling in an icy, clear sky, but the waning moon hung like a bright fingernail above the mountaintops. The contrast between trees or the occasional boulder and the brightness of the snow was obvious, but that was about it. The real danger was running into a wire fence half-hidden by a drift. Zumwald had already snagged his arm on a barbed wire fence and left part of his jacket behind.

Their pursuers had the advantage of simply following a trail. Hess glanced behind him again, noticing that the headlamps looked closer.

“Keep up with Zumwald!” he shouted to Eva.

“Shut up! Do you think this is easy?”

Eva had to wrestle with the machine, which had handlebars like a motorcycle behind a windscreen. His own shoulder was too shot up to be much use.

They came out into an open field and Zumwald put on a fresh burst of speed. Hess watched with satisfaction as their pursuers’ headlights grew smaller. Shutting off their own headlights would have made them less of a target, but it would have been suicide trying to run through the darkness for any distance. Besides, it would be easy enough for the others to follow their tracks through the snow. Hess realized they could run, but they could not hide.

They crossed another field, churning through the pristine snow. This field had a kind of island in the center where a collection of boulders had forced the farmer to plant his crop around it. Small trees and brush had grown up between the rocks. A sudden idea formed itself in Hess’s mind.

“Flash your lights and head toward those rocks,” he shouted over the engine.

Eva did just that. Up ahead, Zumwald noticed the flashing headlight and steered back toward them. Both snowmobiles pulled up at the edge of the island and Hess motioned for them to switch off the engines. The sudden silence was almost deafening, but in the distance they could hear the whine of the oncoming snowmobiles.

“Just like a posse,” Zumwald noted glumly.

Hess did not know the word. “What is that?”

“A hanging party.”

“Not if I can help it,” he said, and swung off the machine. Pain shot through him with every move but he tried not to let it show. He reached for the rifle strapped to the side of the machine. “I am going to get in among those rocks and wait for your posse. You two get back on those machines and get out of here.”

“What are you talking about?” Zumwald demanded. “We are not leaving you here.”

“He’s right,” Eva said. She took him by the arm. “You are being foolish.”

The look Hess gave her made Eva let go. In the starlight his pale eyes almost seemed to glow. “I can’t get far with this wound. I have a rifle. There is nothing else I need. Now go before they get any closer.”

Zumwald shook his head. “But you can’t —”

“That is an order,” Hess snapped.

Zumwald stared at him, and then got back on the snowmobile. Eva did the same. They lowered their goggles and roared off across the field.

Hess did not wait to watch them go, but crawled in among the rocks and aimed the rifle at where their pursuers would ride out of the trees into the field.

Ty never heard the shot, but only saw the rider to his left tumble off the snowmobile. He thought at first that the man had lost his balance. Then he noticed Yancey jerk his machine around and roll off, hunkering down behind the snowmobile. Ty still didn’t know what was going on until he looked ahead and saw a muzzle flash. Another rider fell and Ty did just as Yancey had, bringing his machine to rest near the sniper, who already had his rifle settled across the seat of the snowmobile and his eye pressed to the telescopic sight.

“What the hell is going on?” Ty demanded, panting. In the field around him, the two remaining riders spun their machines to a halt and hunkered behind them. In the quiet, Ty saw another muzzle flash. This time he heard the crack of the rifle.

“Ambush,” Yancey muttered. “We rode right into them. Son of a bitch.”

Ty struggled to see anything, but could only make out clumps of rock and snow-covered brush in the copse up ahead. He immediately grasped that they were pinned down out here in the open. If they so much as moved, the German sniper would have a target. “Stay down!” he shouted. Then to Yancey “Can you see him?”

“Tricky Kraut bastard,” Yancey said, almost under his breath. “Got hisself dug in like a tick.”

Being careful to keep his head down, Ty worked his .45 free of its holster and pointed it at the copse of trees and boulders. He got two hands around the pistol grip and tensed his shoulders, ready to fire. “I saw his muzzle flash before. He’s somewhere to the left of that big rock.”

“Captain, you might as well put that away,” Yancey said. “He’s out of range and you’ll just make yourself a target when he sees your muzzle flash.”

“Do you have any better ideas, Sergeant?”

“Put your hat on that Colt and stick it up in the air like you’re taking a peek. Oldest trick in the world, but I don’t reckon this Kraut is as smart as he thinks he is.”

Ty did as Yancey suggested, his hands shaking as he pulled off the wool ski cap. Just the cold, he told himself. “Anything?”

“Oh, I see him,” Yancey almost purred, and then fired. There was an almost immediate shot in reply from the enemy sniper’s position and then Yancey went very still.

“Sergeant?”

On his belly, Ty inched toward Yancey. Their two snow machines provided cover because they were just about touching, but he kept his head pressed almost into the snow. When he got to Yancey, he could see no sign of a wound. The sergeant still had his eye pressed to the telescopic sight. Ty nudged him, and Yancey’s head shifted slightly. It was then that Ty noticed the pulp of blood and shattered glass occupying Yancey’s right eye socket. The German sniper had shot right through the rifle sight. “Jesus Christ,” Ty muttered. He fought back the urge to be sick and forced himself to take big gulps of air.

Ty slumped into the snow, feeling the cold seep deeper into his bones. Five minutes went past, then ten.

“Captain?” one of the other soldiers called out. “Any ideas?”

Ty knew they couldn’t lay there in the snow all night and let the sniper pick them off one by one. Kit Henderson had stayed back at the hotel to organize a larger team to follow them, but it might be some time before reinforcements arrived. “Let’s see if we can get back on our snowmobiles and rush him,” he replied, trying to keep his voice as low as he could. “Don’t get on until you’ve got the engine started.”

Soon, three engines shattered the stillness. They jumped on and roared toward the copse of trees. When Ty reached it, he rolled off and got into the trees, firing the .45 blindly in the direction where he had seen the sniper’s last muzzle blast stab into the darkness. The big pistol kicked and bucked in his hand. When no one fired back, they made a search of the copse. They found a coat filled with snow and a sort of snowman’s head wearing a ski cap. A stick was propped under the dummy to resemble a rifle. Ty realized that the sniper had lured Yancey into firing at the dummy so that the muzzle flash would give him a target.

“He ain’t here, Captain. There’s tracks leading across the field toward the woods.”

Ty ran around to the trail left by the sniper. Dark drops of blood marked the snow beside the footprints. “After him,” he said.

Hess reached the woods and slogged through the snow as fast as he could. Behind him, he heard the snowmobile engines, and then the sound of shooting. He smiled. Fools. But they wouldn’t be tricked for long. He doubled his pace, each breath like an agony. He wouldn’t be able to outrun the snow machines. Like a miracle, he found the stream he had hoped for. There was ice along the edges but the running water had kept it from freezing over. He stepped into the icy current and waded downstream. At one point he tripped and fell, getting a good soaking in the frigid water. Two times he jumped out to leave a false trail, but the third time he managed to find a log across the stream that was mostly clear of snow. This time, his footprints started some distance from the stream bank. With luck, they would be hours finding his tracks, and when they did, he would be ready for them again.

His shoulder throbbed and his head ached. His mouth felt so dry and he stooped to scoop up some snow. Spatters of blood, bigger all the time, fell beside his footsteps. He was wet now from the stream and he could feel his shirt stiffening with ice. Hess forced himself to keep moving. The ground rose under him as he climbed higher, into the mountains, deeper into the forest.