David Healey: Winter Sniper

“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.

Five days later, two figures emerged from an abandoned fishing shack along the Virginia coast. They both wore black so that they almost blended into the night. Between them they dragged a dinghy, the lightweight kind used to reach moored sailboats, which was exactly what this small boat had been used for until the pair had stolen it from a boatyard the night before. They reached the water’s edge and the stockier figure pushed the dinghy into deeper water before jumping in, nearly capsizing the tiny boat.

The sea was calm for January, which was lucky for them, because the dinghy tossed and bounced on the swells as it was. The one who had jumped in took up the oars and started rowing toward the open sea. Not far from shore, the dinghy was lightened when the second figure tossed a suitcase overboard.

“Are you sure we won’t need that anymore?” the rower asked. He had cursed the heavy suitcase during that night they had escaped through the snowy woods and then trekked for days toward the coast. The suitcase had turned out to contain a portable two-way radio.

“Darling, you should know by now never to argue with a woman about her luggage.”

No sooner had the shore faded into the darkness then the sea around them seemed to change. It roiled as if some monster lurked beneath, and then a submarine broke free of the depths, icy ocean water cascading in silvery rivulets down its black iron sides. There were whispered orders and hands quickly pulled them on board. Then the U-boat slipped beneath the surface once more.

“You look like you could use one of these,” said Kit Henderson, pressing a drink into Ty’s hand.

“I think I could use a whole bottle at this point,” Ty said.

They had to raise their voices to be heard over the thrum of the twin aircraft engines. The plane was somewhere over Newfoundland; a fighter escort lurked in the clouds overhead. The fighters didn’t have the range to follow them across the Atlantic, but once off the Scottish coast there would be another fighter escort flying out to meet them. Ike’s staff wasn’t letting him take any chances these days, not after their close call with the German sniper. Once they were back in London, Ike would be surrounded once again by military personnel and guards. He would be working almost around the clock to plan the Allied invasion of Europe that would take place when spring arrived.

There was a risk that the preliminary plans seen by Eva Von Stahl might compromise the secrecy of the attack, but there was no way to know that she was even in any position to pass along that information. With her home in Washington being watched and FBI agents looking for her at every train station in the United States, she would be a fugitive.

As for the German sniper, he had vanished into the woods.

To Ty’s great relief, Ike was already too distracted by the monumental planning effort that lay ahead to waste time on what had happened in the West Virginia mountains. But as soon as they returned to London, Ty planned on requesting a transfer. It seemed like the honorable thing to do under the circumstances.

He sighed and took a drink of bourbon. “Good stuff.”

“Ought to be. I lifted it from the bar during all the confusion. You don’t think the storied Greenbrier Hotel would keep cheap hooch on hand, do you?” Kit lifted his drink. The mild turbulence made the liquor swish around the glass. “I propose a toast.”

“To what? There’s nothing worth drinking to that I know of.”

“You only stopped a German assassin from killing the supreme allied commander.”

“But as the British would put it, I made a balls-up of it.”

Kit downed his drink and smacked his lips. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“Eva made a fool of me.”

“You think you’re the only one? At least she didn’t shoot you.”

OSS in Washington had confirmed what Petra told them. The body of Colonel Carl Fleischmann had been found in an alley, shot through the heart. Eva was more dangerous and ruthless than any of them had known. Eva . He thought he had loved her, which made the betrayal hurt that much more.

The bourbon made him sleepy. Somewhere over the Atlantic the fighter escort turned back and the plane flew on solo, droning across the dark winter sky. Now that he was on a flight back to London, Ty found it hard to grasp that two nights ago he had been pinned down in a snowy field. Sergeant Crandall and half a dozen others dead. Eva gone. He wondered if they would ever know what happened to the sniper.