David Healey - Red Sniper

Cole lowered the rifle but kept it pointed in the Russian’s direction. He kept his finger on the trigger. He hadn’t lived this long by being trusting.

Cole didn’t speak Russian, but he understood the first words out of the young soldier’s mouth well enough.

“Inna Mikhaylovna!”

Cole, Whitlock, and Vaccaro looked at her in surprise. ”You know him?” Whitlock asked.

Inna sighed. “This is Dmitri. He is the stupid boy I tricked into leaving his post at the Gulag gate.”

“Then I reckon we owe him one.” Cole lowered the rifle. He had a soft spot in his heart for idiots and fools. Not everybody was meant to be a soldier. Some were made to fight, against their nature. He thought of his boot camp buddy, Jimmy Turner, killed within minutes of landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day. Jimmy had been a lot like this young Russian, who wasn’t cut out to be a soldier any more than Jimmy had been.

The Russian didn’t have a gun, but he was carrying a kind of whip. He stepped forward and offered it to Inna, who shook her head emphatically, as if the thing were toxic. Whitlock took it from him.

“What is that?” Cole wanted to know.

“This was Barkov’s. I hoped I would never see it again. If he has the whip, it means Barkov is dead.”

“I reckon it’s yours now.”

They kept on toward the Finish border. Cole made Dmitri walk out in front, where he could keep an eye on him.

“How did you trick him?” Harry asked Inna. It wasn’t much of a question, considering that Dmitri’s puppy eyes told the whole story. It was clear that a gumdrop was sharper than the Russian.

“I made him think that I was going to sleep with him,” Inna admitted, turning red. She had just crossed the taiga and shot a traitor, but confessing that she had flirted with Dmitri made her blush. “I got him to take off his clothes, and then I stole his key to the gate that you went through, and locked him in a room.”

“Why, Miss Inna,” Cole said. “You are full of surprises, ain’t you?”

“Poor kid,” Whitlock said. He laughed. “He never had a chance against you. He would’ve unlocked the whole damn Gulag for you.”

Whitlock’s laughter had just faded when they heard a new sound in the air.

Cole held up a hand. “Hush now, everybody.”

They all listened, straining to hear. Then came the grind and grumble of vehicle engines.

Cole saw them first. Three Russian trucks, heading in their direction.

“Run!”

The Russians hadn’t spotted them yet, but they had to get under cover. They had held off a squad of American assassins, but there was no way they could take on three truckloads of Russian troops. Desperately, Cole looked around. To their left was a patch of scraggly trees—not much cover, but at least it was something.

Dmitri stood there, looking kind of stunned. Like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to wait around for the Russians or not. Cole grabbed him by the collar and shoved him in the direction of the trees. From what he had seen of the Russian army, he was sure the boy’s execution would be swift, whether it was for desertion or consorting with the enemy or whatever else they decided was worth killing him over. There was no doubt they would shoot him.

Hidden among the trees, they watched the Russians arrive and swarm out of the trucks. They began to search the area. They were doing a sloppy job of it, with everybody running every which way. Fortunately for the Americans, it was not ideal ground for following tracks. Thin blades of brown grass thrust up through the crusted snow, breaking up the outline of any tracks they had left.

“These guys don’t look like experts,” Vaccaro muttered. “Look at their uniforms. Still nice and clean. New recruits, maybe.”

“Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then,” Cole said. “We got to git.”

Easier said than done. The trees reached toward where the Russians had left their trucks, but then what? It was basically a wide-open plain.

The Russian officers devoted most of their attention to the abandoned American Jeep. The existence of the border did not seem to inhibit them. There was no one around to enforce the boundary. There was a whole lot of nothing. The officers took their time poking through the Jeep. The soldiers took watches and weapons off the dead Americans.

Cole thought about it. There must be a Russian military base nearby. He guessed that the Russians had heard the shooting and sent a squad to investigate. It was hard to say if they were in cahoots with Major Dickey and Honaker, but if not, the shooting in their backyard would surely have gotten their attention.

Cole and the others were now stuck here, with a couple dozen Russians looking for them, and getting closer. It was only a matter of time before someone found their tracks and started toward the trees.

“Out of the frying pan, and into the fire,” Cole said.

Vaccaro shifted his rifle to his shoulder. “We can take them by surprise, and at least get a few of them.”

Cole touched his shoulder. “And then what? All they’ve got to do is turn those machine guns on us at that range and we’re hamburger. No, I reckon I got a better idea.” He turned to Inna. “Tell that kid to get his clothes off. Then I need you to put on his uniform.”

Quickly, he explained what he had in mind. Inna nodded, turning even paler. It was risky.

She rattled off her instructions to Dmitri, who looked at her blankly until she hissed something that must have been the Russian equivalent of saying, “Now!”

Dmitri hopped to it. In half a minute he was shivering in the snow in nothing but his long underwear.

The uniform was big enough and baggy enough for Inna to tug on the trousers and coat over her own clothes. She topped it off with Dmitri’s ushanka hat. The uniform wasn’t going to pass a parade ground inspection, but it might be enough to give them all a second chance.

Inna nodded at them, then stood up straight and composed herself. She walked out of the woods and straight toward the nearest truck, struggling to disguise her limp. Cole had coached her to stay calm. Their lives depended on it.

One of the truck drivers had stayed behind, leaning against a truck and smoking a cigarette. He was a heavyset older guy who had the look of someone who was better with a wrench than a gun. Inna walked right up to him and bummed a cigarette. They chatted for a moment, and the truck driver laughed at something she said. Then she walked back and climbed behind the wheel of the truck.

Cole was impressed. “Damn, that girl has moxie.”

“She broke me out of the Gulag, didn’t she?” Whitlock pointed out.

Now, it was their turn to show some of that same moxie. They moved out of the woods toward the truck, forcing themselves to walk. Running would only attract attention. They had to cross a hundred feet of open ground. The truck driver Inna had spoken to was blocked from view by the angle of the truck, but they were clearly visible to the search party, if any of them cared to look.

Cole kept a nervous eye on the Russians, his rifle ready to fire. The Russians were still busy over at the Jeep. One of the officers must have found something; a knot of men was gathered around him, looking at what appeared to be a map.

Fifty feet to go. Someone shouted, and Cole’s finger tensed on the trigger. But it was only one of the officers, pointing up the road that the escaping Jeep had taken. Maybe he wanted someone to go that way. The Russians kept their heads turned in that direction.

The truck started. The motor sounded rough, more like a tractor than a truck.

Cole held his breath as first Dmitri, then Whitlock and Vaccaro, climbed in the back. He took one last quick look around and got in. To his surprise, the interior looked much like every other army truck that he had ridden in: canvas top, wood sides, rough wood benches. Then again, it was an American vehicle, a Studebaker sent to Stalin to help them beat the Nazis. Cole shook his head. The U.S. government must have been run by fools to have given the Russians equipment that could be turned against it now that the shooting war was over.