David Healey - Winter Sniper

“Model 1903 Springfield,” Yancey said. “Thirty caliber with a three-power scope. This rifle is designed for sniper warfare, Captain. That hardware you’ve got strapped on might properly be called a hand cannon. It’s got the accurate range of a kid throwing a green apple. Got to be within twenty feet to hit anything — maybe ten feet for you.”

“Go to hell, Yancey.”

The sergeant just chuckled. Then he looked Ty in the eye. “I could do it,” he finally said. “I could hit the general from here. Not a head shot, mind you — nothing fancy. I reckon I’d rather be on that high ground to the west, but the cover here ain’t bad. I’d get down low, in among some bushes, and nobody would ever see me.”

“Could you get away?”

Yancey swept a hand around them at the trees. “Tell me what you see, Captain.”

“Woods.”

“That’s right. A goddamn shitload of trees. Hard to follow tracks back in here because the snow is too broken up. I would think a good man would have a trick or two up his sleeve about tracking, anyhow. Lay a false trail, run up a stream. Buy hisself some time. Once he got in them deep woods back in the hills, you ain’t gonna find him.”

Ty nodded. None of this was anything he wanted to hear, but it only confirmed what Ty had suspected in the first place. He had wanted an actual sniper’s opinion on how to defend against an assassin with a rifle. He took it on good faith that Yancey was one of the best — Captain Grantham wouldn’t have sent him if he wasn’t. If anyone could get inside the sniper’s head, Ty believed Yancey could.

“Let me make myself perfectly clear, Sergeant. Your mission is to protect the general for the duration of his stay here. The enemy has a sniper, and now we’ve got one on our side.”

Ty knew that if the general insisted on his daily walks, it would be much easier for the assassin than it would be for Yancey to protect Ike. Yancey was no fool; he must have known it too. But he only grinned in reply to Ty’s orders. “I’ll be ready,” he said. Then Yancey added half to himself “You know, I’ve hunted just about everything there is to shoot. Moose, bear, wolf. It’s about time I got me a Russian.”

Someone was following him. Bill Keller knew it wasn’t any figment of his imagination. The man in the charcoal raincoat and gray hat would have blended into the crowd if Keller hadn’t been looking over his shoulder.

Keller would not have been so concerned if he hadn’t left the War Department that evening with a packet containing a gold mine of information. Some of it had been gleaned by staying late and going through the trash before it was collected and burned. As his co-workers left their looks of mingled pity and contempt seemed to say, There goes Keller again, working late. Nobody to go home to, poor man. And making the rest of us look bad! If only they knew the truth.

The real nugget he had stumbled across today went far beyond the usual scraps saved from the trash. It was a copy of a letter over none other than Winston Churchill’s signature cataloging the number of landing craft — LST — available in the Mediterranean theatre of operations. Churchill apparently believed the matter was important enough to warrant his personal attention. The prime minister believed there were as many as 300 LST. Churchill stated that he was having any seaworthy LST brought to England immediately. Keller thought the Germans were fools if they didn’t know an invasion was coming. But this letter proved that the invasion would come by sea from England, not overland from Allied strongholds in Italy. The document also stated that the LST were to be brought to Brest on the English Channel. If this was to be the Allied staging area, the Germans might be able to target the seaport with an air raid and delay the invasion indefinitely.

Keller was willing to let wiser minds interpret the information. To do that, he knew he had to get the document to Eva Von Stahl. And now, of all nights, this man was following him. Who was he? FBI or that shadowy OSS that one only heard rumors about?

Keller squared his narrow shoulders as best he could, imagining that he felt the man’s eyes boring into a point between his shoulder blades. Small and thin, the animal that Keller most resembled might have been a red fox. He deftly cut through the evening crowd, to all appearances just a man in a hurry to get out of the cold or one who knew there would be hell to pay if he was late for dinner.

In his rush, he barely noticed the man in the tan overcoat who stopped to light a cigarette on the sidewalk up ahead. Keller swept past him. He was sure he had already lost his pursuer and he slowed down. His heart raced as if he had just sprinted up the street.

Keller forced himself to walk at a normal pace, although it wasn’t easy knowing that someone might be watching his every move. He was pleased with himself for noticing the man so soon, but that did not make him any less uneasy. What mattered now was how he would deal with the situation.

He paused outside a men’s shop to examine the window. Watches, cufflinks, ties and the most fashionable hats all scattered on a bed of artificial snow. Christmas was still a fresh memory. Other shop windows were also decorated for the season with greenery such as springs of holly and spruce branches, ribbons and candles, miniature Santas with fingers laid knowingly alongside the nose. A fragment of song played in Keller’s mind. He knows if you’ve been bad or good… Keller ducked inside.

Keller had no intention of shopping. He was relieved to see that the clerk was busy with a customer. He studied the collection of ties, positioning himself so that he could see out the plate glass window. Moments later Keller was rewarded with a glimpse of the man in the charcoal coat going by. He had a heavy face roughened with faint acne scars — the face, Keller thought, of every bully he had known in high school. Keller shuddered.

“May I help you?”

Keller nearly jumped out of his skin. “No, no thank you. Just looking.”

The clerk seemed to appraise Keller’s apparel with a single glance. “We have some excellent coats and hats at good prices.”

Keller looked down at his own clothes a bit self-consciously. Did he look so shabby? “Maybe a tie,” he stammered.

“Of course.”

The clerk helped him pick one out, a blue-and-cream regimental pattern that Keller couldn’t help but feel made the rest of his outfit seem careworn and dull. Nonetheless, he liked it so much that he wore it out of the shop with the old tie stuffed in a pocket.

Calmer now, he started down the sidewalk, resisting the urge to look over his shoulder every few steps. Keller was no fool. He suspected that it was no chance encounter that day in the diner that brought him into contact with Eva Von Stahl. He could only guess how she knew to single him out; most likely, someone in Fritz Kuhn’s crowd remembered who he was and who he worked for. The German-American Bund had its own network of spies with contacts in Berlin. He had brought that on himself by getting involved with the American fascists; he had broken his ties with them years ago but nonetheless, he found it unsettling that his name must be on a list somewhere in Berlin as potentially useful. The OSS or the FBI must have had its sources in the Bund as well because he name had ended up on a list of a different kind here in America. His past was catching up with him.

Keller had let himself be used by Eva, but the truth was that he didn’t really care. She was beautiful and captivating — a fading star perhaps, but still lovely, and one who wanted something from him , a scrawny man who nobody else much cared about. And so he had accepted the lie with both eyes wide open, like walking wide awake into a dream. Sitting in her living room, making her laugh, having her touch his knee — these were memories that Keller knew would carry him down the long and lonely years that lay ahead. When he visited, he tried not to think about her bedroom upstairs. That was too much to hope. One would need something of real value to be rewarded in that way — Keller thought the packet in his coat pocket might come close. It would get him further than a box of chocolates.