David Healey - Red Sniper

He pulled the trigger.

At point blank range, the slug splintered the shin bone. The small man went down as if his leg had been chopped by an ax. Belly down in the snow, he looked right into the blanket roll and locked eyes with Cole. Even through the pain and shock, the eyes registered surprise. He didn’t make a sound. Then the face tilted away, as the Mink rolled toward the rifle that he had dropped in the snow.

Cole shot him in the top of the head.

Was Barkov out there with his rifle, watching? Cole held his breath, but no bullet tore into him. Cole sat up, feeling like a sausage. He wriggled out of the blanket and scrambled into a tangle of undergrowth nearby.

From the safety of cover, he strained to hear some sound of movement in the surrounding forest, but his ears rang from the pistol shots.

It stood to reason that if Barkov was out there, he would have shot Cole by now.

Slowly, cautiously, he emerged from the underbrush. Crouched. Stood.

Nothing.

That meant the Mink had been alone. But where the hell was Barkov?

Cole built up the fire. He searched the dead Russian and found a flask of vodka. He uncapped the flask and sniffed. The stuff had an oily smell. He jammed the cork back in—he wasn’t that hard up for a drink.

He could, however, think of one good use for the vodka. Maybe he couldn’t bury Ramsey, but he could give him another kind of funeral.

He splashed the vodka over Ramsey’s clothes. Then he dragged the body into the fire, letting the hungry flames spread across the clothing. He piled more wood on top.

He liked to think that Ramsey would appreciate the fact that he didn’t have to worry about being cold.

It didn’t seem right just to leave; something was missing, so he muttered the Lord’s Prayer, the only bit of religion that had survived his childhood. He gave one final nod at the flames, then slipped away into the trees.

Cole didn’t bother to do anything with the dead Russian. The varmints could have at him.

Barkov had already rejoined the others when he heard two gunshots from the direction of the American sniper’s campfire.

He was perplexed. Barkov knew with certainly that he had shot the American square in the head.

Dead men did not need killing again.

So who was shooting?

He waited for the Mink’s return with growing apprehension.

Half an hour went by, and still the other sniper did not appear.

The two shots could mean only one thing, which was that his old friend had walked right into a trap. Barkov did not know how it was possible, but snipers were full of tricks. He should know. There was no point in going to investigate, not unless Barkov wanted to walk into a trap himself.

It dawned on Barkov that the campfire they had come upon might actually have been an elaborate trap. Set not for the Mink, but for Barkov. Who had set the trap? The same man who had scratched his name into the rifle casing. It had to be the sniper that they had already encountered.

He still did not understand what the sniper was doing here, or why anyone had bothered to rescue the American prisoners. It wasn’t the first time that he had found himself caught up in the middle of something bigger than he was, something that he could never understand.

Stalingrad came to mind.

“What were those shots?” Dmitri asked nervously. “Where is the Mink?”

“He is dead,” Barkov said. He cuffed the young soldier in the ear, putting some of his pain and anger into the blow, so that he knocked Dmitri to the ground. The youth glared up at him spitefully. That was good. He was showing some spirit. Barkov kicked him in the ribs, so that he did not become too spirited. “Now, let us go.”

Barkov headed out, following the tracks left by the other Americans. Doubled over in pain, Dmitri did his best to keep up.

The Americans did not wish to stand and fight. Barkov understood now that their only goal was to get across the border into Finland. How many did the Americans have? Five, if you counted the girl. He now had four men—including himself, and the useless youth. It was too bad about the Mink. He had been as good as ten men.

Barkov would have liked more men, but he wasn’t about to give up and turn back.

Thinking about it now, he did not care if the Americans had twenty men, or even thirty. There was only one man who mattered to him now. He did not even care about the escaped American prisoner named Whitlock or the Russian traitor, Inna Mikhaylovna. All that Barkov cared about was the American sniper. The one who had apparently killed his old friend with his imperialist tricks. Barkov felt that he might cross to the ends of the earth to put a bullet in that one.

Cole caught up to the rest of the group just before nightfall. No one relished the idea of another night exposed on the taiga, not after the wolf attack. Not with the Russians still hot on their trail. The Mink was dead, but Barkov was still out there.

There could be no fire tonight. Since the loss of the rations, there was nothing to eat. Cole had brought along the rabbit that he had roasted over the fire, but it provided just a few mouthfuls of meat each. Better than nothing, but not nearly enough.

Snow. Cold. Empty horizons. Empty bellies. The landscape caused a pang in Cole’s soul—though not a bad one. True, it was a harsh and barren place, but that did not bother Cole. If anything, he felt a kinship with wild places.

But they were not here to admire the scenery. They were here to get across the border to Finland.

Maybe it had something to do with the vastness of the surrounding taiga, but their group looked even smaller and more dejected than before. Honaker wore a scowl as if he wasn’t happy that Cole had come back instead of getting himself killed by the Russians, and he didn’t do a very good job of hiding it. Inna and Whitlock sat slumped together on a rock. Vaska sat quietly apart from the others, smoking his pipe and gazing out at the taiga. Even Vaccaro had quit wisecracking.

Cole reckoned that they could cross the border in one more day, if they pushed it. Looking at this group, he wasn’t sure that they had much push left. Two more days, then. Short of a miracle, they wouldn’t make it to three.

Inna looked at Cole expectantly. “What about Samson and Ramsey?”

Cole shook his head.

“Poor bastards,” Whitlock said quietly.

“They put up a fight, that’s for damn sure,” Cole said.

“I hope they got a few Russians,” Whitlock said.

“They got one,” Cole said. “And I know that I got that wiry one you told me about. Barkov’s buddy.”

“I heard the shot. You got the Mink?”

“I reckon I did.”

Whitlock grinned. “If there was ever anyone who deserved to get shot, aside from Barkov, it had to be that rat-faced son of a bitch.”

“But you did not get Barkov?” Inna asked, sounding worried.

“Not yet.”

Vaska came over, holding a small bag, which he dug into to produce a handful of jerky. He explained that this was the last of the food he had brought. He cut the dried meat into equal shares. There was enough for one piece each, not much bigger than a stick of chewing gum.

“Chew it slowly,” he said. “Then eat some snow so that you feel full.”

“Vaska, just what the hell kind of meat is this?” Honaker wanted to know. He looked doubtfully at the jerky. “Are you sure this isn’t an old pair of boots that you cut up?”

“If you ain’t gonna eat it, give it here,” Cole said harshly.

Honaker glared at him. He had long since given up trying to pretend that he was in charge. The hardships they had been suffering had eroded their chain of command. Hunger and exhaustion put them on an equal footing. Cole had shown himself to be the natural leader, out here in his element. That didn’t mean Honaker was happy about it. “Cole, I am goddamned tired of you.”