David Healey - Red Sniper

“You must have patience,” Vaska said. “She is coming.”

Cole had to hand it to Vaska, because he himself hadn’t seen a thing. He reckoned it helped that Vaska was on his home turf. Also, Vaska had brought along his dog, whose ears were about a hundred times better than their own. From where he was standing, Cole could hear the dog growl. He tightened his grip on the rifle.

Moments later, Inna emerged as a shadow on the road from the Gulag.

She gasped when Cole emerged from the shadows.

“I have done it,” she said excitedly. “The gate is unlocked, and I left Harry the signal. He should be here any minute.”

“If he ain’t here in thirty minutes, we’ve got to call it off,” Cole said. “We need a head start on whoever is gonna chase us, and the closer we get to morning roll call, the less time we have.”

“He will be here,” Inna said.

“I sure as hell hope so,” Cole said. “For his sake—and ours.”

By previous arrangement, it had been decided that Cole would be the one to step out of the shadows while the others still waited, hidden, with weapons drawn, just in case Inna or Whitlock, when he showed up, had accidentally brought along any Russians.

Inna crouched beside Cole, struggling to remain calm. She seemed to be holding her breath. Once or twice she fidgeted or cleared her throat as if to speak, but Cole quieted her with a touch. It was better not to call any attention to themselves. Anyone else might be concealed in the darkness nearby.

She had mentioned this thug named Barkov. What if he had followed along behind Inna, unseen?

Fortunately, Vaska’s laika had much keener senses than any of the men. He had told them the dog’s name was Buka, which translated roughly to surly . The name fit.

Buka began to growl.

Whitlock and Ramsey had both had slept in their boots. Other than their tattered coats and their supply of bread, which barely filled a single pocket, they had nothing else to pack or carry.

No one seemed to pay any attention to Whitlock and Ramsey. It wasn’t unusual for men to get up during the night to relieve themselves. The door of the barracks was not watched, although the compound itself was guarded. They slipped out into the night.

“I have to tell you, Harry, I don’t think I can make a run for it if it comes to that,” Ramsey whispered. “You’ll need to leave me behind.”

“We’ll walk,” Whitlock whispered back. “If we run, we’ll only attract attention to ourselves.”

Side by side, they took their time crossing the distance to the gate. They expected at any moment for someone to shout at them to halt. Nobody seemed to be around. Inna definitely was nowhere to be seen. There were a couple of figures moving through the gloom in another part of the compound, but those guards were too far away to identify them as escaping prisoners. They reached the gate, found it unlocked, and walked beyond the Gulag walls.

They had escaped.

Ahead of them, about half a mile away, they could see a few twinkling lights from the village. Those lights seemed swallowed up by the vast darkness of the taiga beyond. The wind was blowing, and Whitlock found himself shivering. It was late October, but it felt cold as a December night back home in New England. The ground felt frozen under his feet.

Ramsey looked at him and said, “Now what?”

Whitlock didn’t have a quick answer for that, but as it turned out, he didn’t need one. A figure stepped out of the darkness and said in a twangy Southern drawl, “I reckon you must be Whitlock. It’s about goddamn time you done showed up. Who the hell have you got with you?”

Whitlock was so overcome with emotion at the sound of another American voice that he couldn’t even speak.

Beside him, Ramsey spoke up. “Lieutenant William Ramsey, Army Air Corps.”

Ramsey seemed to be struggling for breath, even while just standing there. Moments later, he was overcome with a coughing fit, doubling over from the spasms that racked his lungs.

“Where’s Whitlock?” the man in the road asked.

“That’s me.”

Another man emerged from the shadows. “We can’t take him,” he said angrily, pointing at Ramsey. “Just you, Whitlock. That’s the deal.”

“Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Honaker.”

“Listen, Honaker, I’m not leaving without him.”

The Southerner spoke up. “We ain’t leavin’ nobody behind for these Ruskie bastards. Now let’s get a move on, or we’ll all end up in that there Gulag, or worse.”

“I like this guy,” Ramsey said. “We ought to listen to him.”

Inna approached and threw her arms around Whitlock. “Thank God, Harry. I wasn’t sure that you were going to make it.”

Their reunion was cut short by Honaker. “Listen up, people. I’m in charge here,” he said. “We can’t take another prisoner with us. This is a rescue operation, not a two for one sale.”

“And this ain’t Montgomery Ward,” Cole said. “If we leave this poor bastard, the Ruskies will kill him—after he tells them about us. We either have to kill him, or take him with us, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna kill him.”

It was impossible to make out any details of the surrounding faces in the darkness, but it didn’t take much imagination to guess the expressions on them as they glared at Honaker.

“Goddamnit,” Honaker said.

Honaker wasn’t a happy camper, but he could see that nobody was going anywhere without Ramsey. Giving in, he grudgingly introduced the team to the two escapees.

“Let’s move out,” he said, once the introductions were over. “Vaska, you lead the way.”

They expected Vaska to strike out into the surrounding taiga. To their surprise, Vaska brought them back toward the sleeping village. They kept to the road at first, heading toward the houses, then made a wide circle around the village before setting off to the east, directly across the taiga.

“What the hell?” Again, Honaker wasn’t happy. He fell into step beside Cole and said in a low voice, “We just walked in a circle. What a goddamn waste of time. What the hell kind of guide have we got?”

Cole had seen right away that Vaska was covering their tracks by taking a roundabout route. “If they put dogs on our trail, all the smells from the village will keep them confused,” Cole said. “It will take them a while to figure out which direction we took. That’s good. We need to put some distance between us and them. Once they figure out that their prize American prisoners done run off, the Russians will come after us with everything they got. We can use a head start. We need all the help we can get.”

Honaker looked doubtfully at the group. He snorted. “All the help we can get sounds about right. That’s because this other guy is gonna slow us down, not to mention that woman.”

“Ain’t nothin’ we can do about that.”

“It’s not too late to leave them behind.”

“Wouldn’t be right,” Cole said with finality.

“Then they are officially your problem,” Honaker said. “I wash my hands of those two. If we have to carry Ramsey, then I expect you to do it. Look how weak he is.”

Cole quickened his pace to break stride with Honaker. He had long, rangy legs that were used to eating up the miles. Even loaded down with gear and a rifle, Cole managed to walk with the easy lope of a coyote. It wouldn’t be any problem for him to walk clear to Finland.

Honaker was right, even if Cole hated to admit it. Ramsey would definitely slow them down. The jury was still out on Whitlock, but if Cole had to issue a verdict, he would guess that Whitlock was more than likely a soft, rich boy whose feet would blister up after a couple of miles.