Stephen Hunter - The Master Sniper

“Go on, beat it, get the fuck outta here!” he yelled, and they ran off, terrified.

Awkwardly he got Shmuel up off the stretcher. Once he had him in his arms, he was astonished at how light he was after the groans of the pallbearers. He climbed into the pit and a cloud of lime dust swirled up over his boots, whitening them. The chemical stung his nose and eyes and he noticed most of the men around had masks on.

“Hey, Captain, you’ll want out of there. We’re shoveling ’em under now.” It was another officer, calling from the far side. An engine gunned into life. The bright blade of a bulldozer lurched into view over the pit’s edge, pushing before it a liquid tide of loose earth.

Leets laid Shmuel down. Any place in here was fine. He put him down in a long row of nearly fleshless forms.

Leets climbed out and brushed himself off and waved all clear. The dozer began to muscle the earth in and Leets watched for a second as it rolled over them.

“And that’s it? That’s all?”

He turned. Susan was standing there.

“Susan, I—it just—” and he ran out of words.

She looked at him blankly. Behind him the dozer lurched and tracked and flattened the soft earth.

“It just happened,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

She continued to stare.

“There was nothing any of us could do. I feel responsible. He’d come so far.”

In the sunlight, he could see how colorless her face had become. She looked badly in need of sleep. Her work with the dying, with the victims, must have been gruesome and dreadful; it must be eating her, for she looked ill. A fine sheen of bright sweat stood out on her upper lip.

“Everything you touch,” she said, “turns to death, doesn’t it?”

Leets had no answer. He watched her walk away.

There was the note, of course.

He had not forgotten it; but it took awhile to find a man among the prisoners who could read it.

Leets had a headache and Tony was impatient, and the translator, a bright young Polish Communist, played them for two packs of Luckies before delivering.

“That’s not much,” said Leets, handing over the cigarettes, feeling cheated.

“You asked, I answered,” the man said.

“It’s not much to die for.”

“He didn’t die for it. He got caught in a bad accident. Accidents are a feature of war, don’t you see?” Tony said. “It must be some sort of code name.”

Leets tried to clear his head. They were in the office where the interrogations had taken place. He still saw the rail yard full of corpses, Shmuel smashed to nothingness in the dust, the huddled forms laid out under the chemical snow, Susan in her nurse’s uniform glaring at him, eyes vivid with accusation.

He looked again at the word. It had to have some significance, some double meaning. It wasn’t arbitrary.

“Don’t they have an SS division called ‘Nibelungen’?”

“The Thirty-seventh,” confirmed Tony. “A mechanized infantry outfit. Third-rate, conscriptees, the lame, the halt, somewhere out in Prussia against the Russians. But that’s not it. This has been a Totenkopfdivision operation the whole way. Repp and the Anlage Elf defenders. Totenkopf is old Nazi—part of the elite, among the first of the Waffen SS formations. They go way back, to the camps, to the very beginning. They’d have no truck with second-raters like the Thirty-seventh.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Actually, it’s quite a common name in Germany. The street between this lovely spot and the town of Dachau is in fact Nibelungenstrasse. Isn’t that interesting?”

“I wonder if—” Leets began.

“No: it’s nothing to do with that curious coincidence. I guarantee you. No, there’s a joke in this. There’s some hammy German humor. I see the touch of a Great Wit, a jokester.”

“I don’t follow.”

“It’s rather too clever, actually,” Tony pointed out.

Leets, way behind, requested clarification. “So what’s the punch line?” he demanded.

“It’s an opera.”

“Oh, yes, Wagnerian, huh? Some huge thing, goes on for hours. Has to do with a ring.”

“Yes. Ring of the Nibelung . A great hero named Siegfried steals it from them. That’s the joke. Repp’s Siegfried.”

“Who are the Nibelungen?” Leets asked.

“I’m getting to that.” He smiled. “The Nibelungen, my friend, are a tribe of dwarves, in the oldest stories. Living underground. Guarding a treasure.”

Where was she?

He checked his watch. Two hours, she’d been out two hours!

He was upstairs. He peeled back the curtain from the window and looked down the street, as far as he could see. Nothing. He’d done this a dozen times in the past few minutes, and each time his reward had been the same, nothing.

He felt warmly damp in his civilian clothes. He could not get comfortable in them. The shoes were no damned good either, blunt-tipped bluchers, pebble-grained, with cap toes, yet they rubbed a blister onto his left heel. Now he walked with a limp! Locked in this stuffy little house, he was falling apart; he hobbled about in another man’s clothes with a headache and digestive problems, and a short temper and a blister on his heel. He woke up at night in cold sweats. He heard sounds, jumped at shadows.

He really was not cut out for this sort of business, the polite waiting in an untouched residential section.

He sat back, pulled out his pack of cigarettes.

He looked again out the window, even though it had been only a few seconds.

He saw the truck swing around the corner.

It was a military vehicle, moving slowly down the Neugasse toward him. Big thing, dark green after their fashion, about the size of an Opel Blitz, a white star bold on its hood. Soldiers seemed crowded in the back: he could see their helmets bobbing as the truck rumbled along.

Repp drew back from the window, and had the P-38 in his hand.

He threw the slide on the pistol… he felt very cool all of a sudden. It seemed a great weight had been drained away. His headache vanished. He knew he had seven rounds in the pistol. All right, if it was worth six of them to take him, then six it would be. He’d save the last for his own temple. Briefly, he wished he had his uniform. Better that than this silly outfit, banker’s pants, white shirt, shoes that did not fit, like a common gangster.

He was breathing heavily. He crouched at the stairway. He heard the truck outside, nearly up to the house. His finger moved the safety on the grip of the pistol to off. The weapon felt cold and big in his hand. His heart pounded heavily. He knew the truck would stop shortly, and he’d hear the running feet as one squad headed out back. He was all ready. He was set.

“ALL CIVILIANS ARE WARNED THAT CURFEW IS 6 P.M. REPEAT ANNOUNCEMENT: ALL CIVILIANS ARE WARNED THAT CURFEW IS 6 P.M. YOU WILL BE DETAINED IF FOUND OUTSIDE AFTER 6 P.M.”

The speaker on the truck boomed like an artillery shell as it drew even with the house, vibrating through the wood, causing the windows to rattle. It continued on, growing fainter, until it finally went away.

It began appearing in odd places.

“Yes, here, by God,” shouted Tony, “mess records. March eighteenth and nineteenth, meals in the SS canteen, a hundred and three men, charged not to a unit but to one word: Nibelungen.”

Nibelungen: April 11, supplies from the central storage facility at Dachau dispatched: rations, equipment, replacement, fuel allotments.

February 13: Ammunition requisition; 25 crates 7.92 mm X 33 kurz; 25 crates 7.92 mm belted; Stielhandgranate , Model 44, 3 crates.

March 7: More food, a wire requisition, construction supplies.