David Healey: Winter Sniper

He reached the third floor and strode down to Ike’s suite. He took out the sheaf of papers, scattering ashes on the carpet as he did so, and then knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Joe Durham was seated on the sofa, going through a stack of paperwork that was stacked precariously high on the coffee table. There was a cup of coffee and a lit cigarette on the end table at Durham’s elbow. Ike wasn’t there.

“Where’s the general?” Ty asked.

“Hello to you too,” Durham said. The colonel rarely so much as cracked a smile. Looking at his face now, Ty was reminded of a desiccated piece of driftwood. Durham went on “I thought you’d be spending every spare minute with that girlfriend of yours. The movie star.”

Ty shoved the papers back in his pocket. He really didn’t feel like explaining the situation to Durham. “I really need to see Ike.”

“Then you had better strap on some skis if you want to catch him,” Durham replied. “He just took Mamie out for a romp in the snow. Did you see how much we got? We’ll need a day or two to dig out.”

Ty grew cold all over. “Did you say he went skiing?”

“Naw, he thought he’d try out one of those new-fangled snow machines they’ve got here. Snowmobiles they call them.” Durham fixed Ty with his dry stare. “What’s the matter with you? I’ve seen pie dough with more color.”

Ty spun around and took off down the hall, then back down the stairs. The last thing he wanted was for Ike and Mamie to blunder into the middle of the trap he was setting for the sniper. He just prayed to God that he wasn’t too late.

It was mid-morning when Hess spotted two figures working their way across the field on cross-country skis. He could see that it was a man and woman; the man wore a familiar camel’s-hair overcoat.

Hess felt his heartbeat increase, but he willed it to slow down. By the time he was ready to pull the trigger, his heart would be beating softly as the footfalls of a stalking tiger.

He tightened his grip on the rifle. Calm and stillness had followed in the wake of the snowfall so that not so much as a breath of wind stirred the air. Dimly, he was aware of an engine roaring in the distance. It was hard to identify because the rumble echoed around the valley but it didn’t sound like a truck or airplane. He glanced at the sky, which was crackling blue. Cold, crisp weather had moved in behind the snowstorm. When he exhaled, his breath came out like smoke. Hess did not want the fog of his breath to give him away, so he scooped up some snow and put it in his mouth. His chilled breath did not so much as a telltale wisp in the winter air.

The Mosin-Nagant was already cradled in its firing rest, but he pressed the rifle butt more firmly against his shoulder. The scope was mounted too far forward for Hess to put his eye tight against it, but he craned forward as close to the optics as he could so that the figure of the general seemed to fill the world. Everything sprang closer — the twigs of the shrubs growing along the path, swirls in the snow, even the buttons on the skiers’ coats.

Hess studied the man’s face. He had never seen Eisenhower up close — unless one counted the glimpse through the rifle scope in Washington. But he had seen photographs of the general, and mentally he compared these with the man in the rifle scope. There was no mistaking the open, vaguely handsome face that framed blue eyes. This man had broad shoulders and looked remarkably fit for being more than fifty years old. The Americans called him “Ike” and now Hess understood why — he looked more like one of those can-do businessmen than commander in chief of the Allied forces in Europe.

He was less interested in the woman, although she seemed surprisingly fit for a middle-aged general’s wife, easily keeping pace with her husband. He could not see her face because she wore large goggles with smoked lenses.

As Hess watched, Eisenhower paused to light a cigarette, cupping his hand to protect the flame of the lighter, though that must have been habit more than necessity — there was scarcely a breath of breeze. A perfect morning for shooting. Hess settled the single post of the Russian sight on the general’s temple and put his finger on the trigger. A head shot at this range was difficult — safer to go for the heart and lungs — but Hess did not intend to miss. He would go for the killing shot.

His cigarette lit, Ike looked up to greet someone. Through the limited field of vision provided by the scope, Hess had not seen the other person approach. The whine of the engine sounded closer. He swiveled the scope to look down the path.

Silently, he cursed. Some kind of snow machine was roaring across the field toward the skiers. He had seen a few machines like that in Russia, mostly used by the Red Army for scouting. The vehicles resembled a two-man bobsled with skis mounted on the front half and dual rubber treads in the rear to drive it across the snow. The snow machine came to a halt near the skiers. Had they come to warn the general? The man in the front cockpit stepped clear of the machine while the passenger, who from the wisps of hair escaping a ski cap appeared to be a woman, stayed put. Eisenhower and his wife slid forward on their skis to greet the newcomer. Mamie Eisenhower — or who he thought was the general’s wife on the cross-country skis — pulled off her goggles.

If he had been holding the rifle instead of resting it on the ground, Hess might have dropped it. It cannot be. On the ski trail with Eisenhower was none other than Eva Von Stahl. It might have been Hess’s imagination, but she seemed to scan the distant woods nervously, her gaze passing right over him. What the hell was going on?

There wasn’t much time to think it through. If he was going to kill the general, it had to be now. He might not get another chance.

Hess let his body and mind slip into its shooting rhythm. He was aware of it being a kind of trance he went into, and he let it take over. He willed his heartbeat to slow until there was the barest tick in his chest, no louder than a wristwatch. His breathing quieted until he was only taking sips of air. Both eyes were open, his shooting eye focused on the target in the Russian scope’s field of vision.

Nothing must stir the Mosin-Nagant by the smallest fraction if the shot was to be true — not his breathing, not his heartbeat. The burlap bag he had put under the rifle made a fine shooting rest, padding the stock from the frozen earth but also anchoring it to the solid ground. Hess felt himself almost sink deeper into his sniper’s rest, as if the frost had reached up and taken hold of him.

He had found it best when he was making a difficult shot like this to let his mind wander. He did not allow himself to dwell upon the fact that the target in his rifle sights was General Dwight D. Eisenhower. As far as Hess was concerned, Ike was just another man, like hundreds of others he had shot. Hess had shot generals before and had learned that if you spent too much time considering the importance of the man you were shooting, it could throw off your shot as easily as a stray gust of wind.

While his thoughts drifted, another part of his mind created a mental picture of the shot he must make, even subconsciously calculating the point at which the sight post had to rest to compensate for the bullet’s trajectory in the slight breeze. Then the single-post sight found that spot, and Hess felt his finger tighten ever so slightly on the trigger. His finger seemed to have a will of its own as it began to press against the curved metal. There was a reason for that even the best shooters had a tendency to go tense at the very instant the rifle fired. The trick was to get the rifle to fire so that it was a surprise and his body would not flinch in anticipation of the recoil, for even the smallest twitch at the moment of firing would send the bullet far off the mark.