David Healey - Winter Sniper

Zumwald hesitated just long enough that the soldier said, “What’re you waitin’ for? Hop in.”

The last thing Zumwald wanted to do was jump onto a truck full of GIs. But to refuse now wouldn’t look right. He forced himself to trot toward the truck and put on a big grin. “Thanks!” He grabbed an outstretched hand and found himself being pulled up. The driver popped the clutch and the truck got rolling again with a jolt.

“You must be headed to the resort,” the soldier said. “You work there?”

“Yeah. In the kitchen.”

“Good thing we picked you up. It’s going to start snowing like a bitch any minute now — you don’t want to get caught out here!”

Zumwald nodded his agreement and grinned. The soldiers were mostly young and baby faced, not at all suspicious. He could only imagine how German troops would have reacted to a lone man out of uniform hitchhiking near a military base. He offered a pack of cigarettes around, which kept him from having to say much. His English was good but he didn’t want to slip up with a truckload of soldiers.

Up ahead, they heard the whine of vehicles coming fast and they all looked up. Three Jeeps hurtled past like bats out of hell, loaded down with grim-faced men holding weapons. They were coming from the direction of the resort.

“Where they going in such a hurry?” one of the soldiers asked.

“Ah, that’s headquarters brass. Probably in a rush to pick up a case of scotch.”

The soldiers laughed. Zumwald watched the Jeeps disappear around a curve with a sense of apprehension. There wasn’t much down that road but fields and farms. But Zumwald had a pretty good idea that the Jeeps were headed to one farm in particular. He suddenly felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

Ty’s Jeep hurtled down the country road, jolting driver and passengers at every bump in the road. The icy wind tore at them in the open Jeep, but it would be just the vehicle if the snow started coming down. Ty took his eyes off the road long enough for an anxious look at the sky. The low clouds appeared to be made of thick cotton. Maybe the forecasters had been right for once about a storm being on the way.

The threat of snow seemed to have kept other vehicles off the road. They passed an old pickup truck or two and a couple of military vehicles. Ty worried that the farm hands would hear them coming. Assuming that they were farm hands and not German operatives. Would they make a run for it or put up a fight? That was assuming that the old farmer’s suspicions were correct.

“Turn here!” the farmer shouted, leaning into Ty’s ear to be heard over the wind.

The farm lane came up so fast that Ty almost overshot it, but at the last instant he wrestled the wheel into a sharp turn, two of the wheels on his side briefly losing contact with the macadam. The Jeep handled more like a tractor than a car. Seconds later they were bouncing up the farm lane over frozen ruts.

Ty registered a neatly kept farmhouse surrounded by several outbuildings. A couple of dogs came bounding toward them. The farm yard was dominated by the large white barn. Low foothills covered in snow marched toward the horizon.

“They’ll be in the barn,” the farmer croaked out, sounding as nervous as Ty felt.

The three Jeeps skidded to a halt in a loose semicircle. Ty jumped out and sent the four men from the third Jeep running around the back of the barn to cut off any escape route.

“The rest of you, come with me,” Ty shouted. He noticed that the farmer stayed put, hands shoved in the pockets of his canvas coat, but that the old man wisely made sure that one of the bulky Jeeps was between him and the barn. Ty drew his Colt .45 automatic and felt reassured by the weight of the weapon in his hand.

“Bet you haven’t fired that thing since basic,” said Kit, who was empty-handed.

“Where the hell is yours?”

“Couldn’t find the damn thing.” Kit reached behind the seat and produced an old-fashioned double-barreled shotgun. “I borrowed one of the skeet guns from the hotel.”

“For Christ’s sake, stick close to somebody who’s got a real gun.”

They got the barn doors open and rushed inside. If the hands hadn’t been expecting anything, there was still a chance that they might catch them by surprise. The farmer said they would just be finishing up that morning’s milking.

The milking parlor was a long concrete pad set up with metal gates and stalls, much more modern in appearance than the rest of the barn. Not a cow was to be seen. The gate into the barn was closed and on the other side, he could see Holsteins milling around a paddock. Heavy with milk and hungry, the cows mooed loudly in complaint.

“Nobody’s been milking here this morning, sir,” one of the soldiers said.

“I can see that,” Ty snapped. “Search the barn. The old man says there’s a bunk room in back.”

The interior of the barn was dusky. The only illumination came from a series of louvered openings, but the winter morning didn’t provide much light. As they moved deeper into the barn, a flock of pigeons burst from the rafters and flew out through one of the openings high up. Some of the men went to one knee, their rifles pointing upward.

Ty lowered the .45. “Come on,” he whispered.

They found the bunkroom, a back corner where the worn floor had been swept clean and a couple of kerosene lamps hung from nail driven into the barn beams. Two canvas cots were set up at opposite ends of the room. A battered wooden table sat in the center of the bunkroom with straw bales drawn up on either side as benches. Otherwise, the room was completely empty.

“They done cleared out, sir,” Sergeant Crandall said, taking off his helmet to rub his balding head. “Damn. I don’t know about you guys, but I just about shit myself when them pigeons flew up.”

The sergeant’s admission was met with nervous laughter. “Those weren’t pigeons, Sarge,” Kit said. “That was the Luftwaffe.”

That brought a few more laughs, but Ty wasn’t in the mood for it. All he knew was that the farm hands were gone. He spoke more harshly than necessary. “Sergeant, go check with the men out back to see if they saw anything.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ty doubted that the hands would have run unless they had something to hide. Or would they have? There were a lot of reasons men wouldn’t want to get tangled up with the law — military or otherwise. Being an enemy operative was one of the more unlikely reasons on that list, somewhere after car thief and draft dodger.

The soldiers poked into the corners of the bunkroom. Kit used the shotgun barrel to nudge aside a grain sack hanging on the barn wall, but there was nothing behind it but a couple of knotholes in the wood siding. The sack would have stopped the draft.

“Sir, you better have a look at this,” one of the men said, reaching up to take something off a rafter.

Ty saw the glittering brass in the man’s hand and quickly took it away and stuffed it in a pocket. Sergeant Crandall returned and poked his head into the bunkroom. “They ain’t seen nothin’ out back but cows, sir.”

“All right,” Ty said. “We’ve done all we can here. You men get back in the Jeeps. Kit, hold on a minute.”

Ty waited until the other men had filed out, then produced the spent brass cartridge and showed it to Kit. “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it in front of the men. What do you think?”

Kit gave a low whistle. “Same damn shell casing we found in Washington.”

“He’s getting careless,” Ty said.

Kit shook his head. “Careless would have been sitting here milking cows when we showed up. No, he left that behind on purpose.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”