David Healey - Red Sniper

Cole wasn’t about to waste any bullets on Barkov. When the time came, he only planned on needing one.

Whitlock noticed the way that Cole’s weird eyes glittered and involuntarily took a step back. “Now what?” Whitlock asked, startled.

“Now we walk.”

With barely more than a breath of wind, the cold settled over them and seemed to weigh heavily on their movements. The Russians didn’t shoot again, but he had made it clear that he was watching—and giving chase.

Cole hoped, at first, that it was some trick of the eye that made the Russians seem to be getting closer, like the way that, when you were hunting in the woods at dusk, a tree stump could seem to take on the shape of a bear. Imagination had gotten the better of more than one hunter. So he looked away from the distant silhouettes of the Russians. He gave it half an hour, timed on one of Vaccaro’s wrist watches. Looked again. Definitely closer.

Vaccaro caught him looking. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I reckon they’re going to catch us before the day is out. Inna and Whitlock can’t go no faster.”

“Goddamn.” Vaccaro looked again. “You sure?”

“Well, maybe not catch us, but get in rifle range, which is the same thing.”

“Let me guess, Hillbilly. You are planning on doing something about that.”

Cole nodded. “It ain’t much of a plan at the moment.”

“Need some help?”

“I appreciate that, City Boy. But in the end it comes down to me and Barkov.”

“God help Barkov.”

“Them Russians don’t believe in God,” Cole pointed out. Cole was a believer, if not a regular church-goer. He appreciated a bit of fire and brimstone preaching to set one’s mind right. “They put you in a Gulag if you do.”

Cole thought he might have another couple of hours before something needed doing about Barkov, three at most. Maybe they could even stay out ahead of the Russians until dark.

As it turned out, they didn’t have nearly that long. They had only been on the move for ten minutes when Inna stepped in a hole and twisted her ankle.

She sat on a rock, grimacing in pain, while Whitlock wrapped the ankle with his leather belt and a scarf. Vaska cut her a sapling to use as a crutch.

“Goddamn,” Honaker said, sounding disgusted.

“I am so sorry,” Inna said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cole said. “It could have happened to any of us.”

Their lead over the Russians shrank while they slowed down for Inna, who hobbled across the snowy frozen ground on her makeshift crutch, clearly in pain. It was only a matter of time before Barkov had them in rifle range.

They walked for another hour. Inna did not complain, but she grimaced with each step.

Vaska pointed ahead. “That is Finland.”

All that they could see was a blur on the horizon where the open plain met forest, like land glimpsed at sea, but they would take the old Russian’s word for it.

The thing was, they weren’t going to make it. The border was still a long way off. The Russians were going to catch them before that border came into sight.

Cole thought it over. Time for a change in plans. Time to settle this business with Barkov once and for all.

Cole looked over at Vaccaro. “You ever see one of them western pictures?”

“Cole, you are such a hillbilly. I know for a fact that the first time you saw a western flick was movie night in the Army.”

“The one I’m thinking of has a shootout on the street of the town between the sheriff and the outlaw.”

“I’ll bet you were rooting for the outlaw,” Vaccaro said.

“The outlaw gets to wear a black hat in them movies. Who the hell wants to wear a white hat?”

“Why the sudden interest in westerns?”

“In the movie, the sheriff stands in the middle of the street with his gun on his hip, and he waits for the outlaw to come to him.”

“This is all very interesting, Cole. I didn’t take you for such a movie buff. Maybe you’ve got a movie projector in your back pocket and you are gonna surprise us all with movie night.”

“No, there ain’t gonna be no movie night, but sure as shit there is gonna be a shootout.”

Barkov felt happy from his fur cap down to the tips of his felt-lined boots. The sun was out and he turned his face toward it, enjoying the faint warmth. The morning cold was dissipating, but the crisp air made you want to inhale great lungfuls of it. The Americans were almost within his grasp.

He had no illusions that re-capturing the escaped American would do him any good. There would be no medals. He might even find himself tossed into the Gulag. That was life in the Soviet Union for you—one’s circumstances changed like the weather. One learned to take both nothing—and everything—for granted.

The only blot on his good mood was the absence of the Mink. Stopping these Americans was a matter of personal pride. The sniper among them had killed his old friend.

He missed the Mink, who had been the closest thing he had to a friend. But in war, he had learned not to mourn for too long. Some people lived, some people died, some sooner than others.

When he caught up with that American sniper, Barkov planned to flay the skin off him with his whip. It was the least he could do for the Mink.

Although the sun was out, it offered far less warmth than a 40-watt light bulb. Ahead of Cole stretched the vast Russian plain, flat as a parade ground and wide as the sea. Sometime in the ancient past, glaciers had scraped this plain clean as neatly as a bowling alley built for giants. The few scattered boulders could have been the gutter balls. Now covered in snow, the plain would have made the perfect place to land a B-17 bomber—a whole squadron of them, in fact, and all at once.

There was absolutely no cover, and nowhere to hide. It was one hell of a place to be caught out in the open when a Russian sniper had you in his sights. Just the thought of it made Cole’s spine tingle.

Cole saw how it would play out. Their group would still be laboring to get clear of this open place, when the Russians would arrive at the other end. Barkov was a deadly shot. In a place such as this, he could simply pick them off, one at a time.

A lot of what happened next depended on logistics. It was now a game of covering the maximum distance in the shortest amount of time. How far could they get before the Russians started shooting?

“Come on,” he said. “We have got to haul ass. Whatever you got left in the tank, now is the time to pour it on.”

“This is pointless,” Honaker said. “We ought to get into those woods to the east of us. We are sitting ducks out here.”

“Then what do you want to do?” Cole asked. “Hide all you want. All the Russians have to do is follow our tracks. No sir, I aim to end this, one way or another.”

“What should we do?” Whitlock wanted to know. “Stand and fight?”

“Run,” Cole said. “Or as close to running as you can get.”

It was easier said than done. The snow tugged at their feet. They were exhausted and hungry. Inna had a painful twisted ankle. Whitlock put her arm across his shoulders and helped her along, just as he had done with Ramsey.

They hurried, gasping with the effort.

At the far end of the glacial bowling alley, the Russians came into sight.

“There they are!” Vaccaro said.

“Leave the packs,” Cole said. “If that’s Finland up ahead like Vaska says, we’ll make the border before dark. No need for blankets or any extra gear.”

Honaker opened his mouth as if to argue, but Whitlock was already shrugging off his pack. “What about the weapons?” he asked.