David Healey - Red Sniper

He definitely didn’t hear any warning shouts in Russian, which was a good sign. They had been told not to worry about the Russians—nobody was expecting them, and their landing zone was just about exactly in the middle of nowhere. For once, the so-called intelligence seemed to have been correct.

He just hoped that the other three men had landed in the general vicinity. How the hell were they supposed to link up? It all sounded so much more sensible back in the warm, well-lighted planning room than it did here.

He decided to take a chance and click on his flashlight. He flicked the switch on and off a couple of times. He was relieved when he saw a light flick on and off in answer about three hundred feet away. An even more distant light appeared, then clicked off again. That accounted for two of the others, but what about the third? He waited tensely, wondering if anyone hostile had seen the light. There were no warning shouts or gunshots. With any luck, nobody had seen them arrive.

Cole flicked his light again and then began moving in the direction of the nearest answering light.

He had not gone more than a dozen steps when he realized he was not alone. It was hard to say how he knew, exactly. You couldn’t spend time in the woods without experiencing that feeling at some point—and learning to trust it.

Cole froze. He unslung his rifle, being careful not to make any noise. There was nowhere to run or hide out here in the open, so he got down low, where he would not be silhouetted against the sky. Then he held his breath.

Someone went past him in the dark. He could just see the figure in the starlight. Definitely one person. It was not a body type he recognized as another team member. He had the impression of someone a little older and thicker—not a soldier, then. But stealthy all the same.

He rose up, took three silent steps, and put his rifle muzzle between the other man’s shoulder blades.

The man halted. Slowly, he raised his arms from his sides. One held a rifle. “Do not shoot Vaska,” the man said in heavily accented English.

Cole pulled the rifle back. “Turn around and keep your hands just like that.”

The man did as ordered, swiveling slowly around to face Cole. “I am to be your guide,” he said.

“I like blueberry cobbler,” Cole said, remembering the first part of the password.

Vaska thought a moment. “With vanilla ice cream.”

Cole lowered the rifle. “Do you always go around making as much noise as a herd of elephants?”

The guide shook his head. “You must have the ears of a lynx. Where are the others?”

“Scattered around.”

“Come, let us find them. There are only a few hours until daylight, and everything must be hidden by then.”

Cole and the guide moved toward where Cole had last seen the light. That’s where they found Vaccaro, still wrestling his way free of the tangled parachute lines. “You pushed me out of the plane, you son of a bitch.”

“Shut up, Vaccaro. By the way, it’s good to see you, too.”

Vaccaro nodded at the guide. “Who’s this?”

“This here is Vaska.”

Vaccaro flicked on his light. “No offense, Vaska, but you look old enough to be my grandpa.”

Vaska shrugged.

“Come on, let’s go find the rest of us,” Cole said. He flicked the light and got another answer flash, so they moved in that direction.

Soon enough, they found Samson. He was limping, but otherwise no worse for wear.

Honaker was nowhere to be found. Cole flicked his light again, but got no response.

“What do you think if I give him a shout?” Cole wondered. “Vaska, are we near anyone who ain’t supposed to hear us?”

“You are in the taiga,” Vaska said, and offered another shrug, as if that explained everything. “Fire a cannon if you want.”

“All right then.” Cole filled his lungs and shouted, “Honaker!”

They listened; when no one replied, he hollered out again. Cole had a high, ringing shout that could carry across a mountain valley back home, but the vastness of the dark plain around them seemed to swallow up the noise like padded velvet. He decided against firing his rifle.

“Maybe I’m not the only one who got cold feet and there was nobody to push him,” Vaccaro said. “He was last.”

“Nah, he got blowed off course is all. Vaska, are there any woods ‘round here?”

“To the west, about three kilometers away, there is a forest.”

Cole nodded. “If he come down in them trees, he might have got hisself hung up. Vaska, how big is that there forest?”

“It would take many days to cross it.”

They stood around, thinking about that. Honaker could be hung up in a tree, either tangled up or injured. There were stories about that happening behind enemy lines to paratroopers who managed to reach their jump knives and then cut their own wrists so that they could bleed out quietly rather than become prisoners, tortured for their secrets. Not to mention the fact that there were wild animals. A badly injured man was just another meal to some varmint.

The fingers were most vulnerable. Then the face. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

“Goddamnit,” Cole said. “We ain’t off to what you’d call a real good start.”

“Listen, we can’t wait around,” Vaccaro said. “You heard Vaska. It’s gonna be daylight soon. We can’t be seen out here, but maybe Vaska can come back and look for him. He won’t attract attention like we would.”

“ Da , da , I will come back,” Vaska said. “For now, we must hide you.”

First, they collected the parachutes. Vaska had already thought ahead and knew of a sink hole that they stuffed the parachutes into. Then they started off across the vast plain. It was still too dark to see much of anything, but Vaska led them confidently, keeping a brisk pace.

“He moves fast for an old man,” Vaccaro muttered, panting.

After an hour, they came to the edge of a village. A dog came out and barked at them, but lost interest when Vaska fished around in his pocket and tossed him a scrap of dried meat. Vaccaro opened his mouth to make some comment, but Vaska cut him off by putting a finger to his own lips. They followed him to a small house—more of a shack, really. It reminded Cole of a Russian version of his own family’s mountain shack, hammered together out of rough-cut lumber, scrap wood, and discarded metal sheeting.

But inside it was warm enough. There was an old-fashioned ceramic oven rather than a fireplace, over which an older Russian woman tended something good-smelling in a pot. She watched them without emotion, except for her eyes. They drifted over Vaccaro, narrowed at the sight of Cole, but grew large when Samson entered the house. He seemed to fill the tiny space.

“Vaska’s house,” their guide announced. “Now, you eat, and then you hide.”

The woman, whom Vaska did not introduce, served them bowls of fish stew. It was a bland, almost tasteless fish. Lumps of potatoes and onions mingled with the fish. The stew needed salt, but they ate hungrily enough. Samson held out his bowl eagerly for a second helping, which seemed to improve the old woman’s mood.

“Burbot,” Vaska explained. “I catch them in the river here, from the riverbank in the summer and right through the ice in the winter. When I catch a little extra, I sell the fish to the camp. If not for burbot, we would starve. It is a blessing and a curse, you know. It is a blessing because it feeds us and a curse because it is all we have to eat.”

“I thought you were a guide,” Vaccaro said. “I thought that meant you were a hunter, too.”

“Hunting is hard,” Vaska pointed out. “In the winter, you must travel far from the village. Game is scarce. There are wolves. You don’t always have something to shoot, but there is always a fish to catch. One burbot feeds us for two days, maybe three.”