David Healey - Red Sniper

Whitlock pounded twice on the back of the cab with his fist, alerting Inna that they were ready, and the truck lurched forward.

Cole realized that he had taken it for granted that Inna could drive a truck. He was impressed. What couldn’t that woman do? The vehicle lurched and bounced along the track that had brought the Russians from their base. Once they were out of sight, Inna stopped the truck and Cole jumped down and got into the cab.

“You done good,” he told her. “What did you tell that driver back there?”

“I said the radio was down and the captain wanted me to go back and get more men to help find the Americans.”

“Huh. I guess that got a laugh out of him.”

Inna grinned. “He cracked up when I told him the captain couldn’t his zhopa with both hands.”

With its deep ruts and rocks, the route they were following more closely resembled a roughly plowed field than a road. They bounced wildly. Whenever Inna tried to drive faster, the bucking truck wrenched the wheel out of her hands. She slowed to a crawl.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Keep going,” he said. “Let’s put some distance between us and that patrol.”

They heard the whine of an airplane. A Russian fighter plane raced across the sky. The plane didn’t seem to be interested in them. The pilot wouldn’t be looking for a Russian truck. He would have his eyes open for anything that was clearly not Russian.

This was the first plane they had seen since jumping out of one over Vologda. It must be that here, near the border, there were air patrols. Cole doubted that they would get far on foot with a plane searching the landscape.

He was mulling that over when the truck went around a sharp bend in the road where it skirted an outcropping of boulders. Coming the other way was a Jeep—a genuine American Jeep—but this one was painted with Russian insignia. More goods from America to help them beat the Nazis.

The Jeep was blocking the narrow road. Inna had no choice but to stop the truck. Cole caught a glimpse of an officer who got out of the Jeep and approached. He had a purposeful stride, but he didn’t have a weapon in his hand. Cole hunkered down in the footwell of the truck, keeping his rifle pointed above Inna’s legs at the driver’s side door.

The officer yammered something in Russian, and Inna yammered back. The exchange sounded calm enough, although it was hard to tell because everything in Russian seemed to be shouted. German sounded angry; Russian sounded loud. He heard the officer walking away and relaxed his finger on the trigger.

Then Inna grabbed the wheel and stared straight ahead. Cole chanced a peek over the dash and saw the officer get back in the Jeep. The vehicle struggled to turn around in the slick tire tracks and then started back the way it had come. The officer gave the truck a “follow me” wave that needed no translation. On the back of the Jeep a large machine gun was mounted, with a couple of soldiers up there with it, hanging on for dear life. They weren’t aiming at the truck, but it would take them about ten seconds to swivel that gun around and turn the truck into scrap metal.

“What’s going on?” Cole asked from the footwell.

“I told him that the radio wasn’t working, so I was sent back to bring more men. He ordered me to follow him back to the base. He said he would get this truck loaded and then go with me personally.”

“Damn. We don’t need that kind of company right now. And we sure as hell don’t need to drive into the Russian base.”

“What should we do?” Inna wondered, hanging onto the steering wheel as the truck dipped into a rut and bounced back up.

“Ain’t got no choice,” Cole said, thinking about that machine gun up ahead. “We follow them and figure something out.”

Inna leaned toward the windshield and muttered something that sounded like a Russian curse. “You had better figure it out fast, Cole,” she said. “I can see that base up ahead.”

With the Jeep leading the way, no one challenged the truck. Cole was looking around, his eyes just above the metal dashboard. The guards opened the gate wide. It was a monstrous affair hammered together out of rough-cut lumber and barbed wire. It was more like a Gulag gate than the Gulag’s had been. He wondered if it was to keep enemies out or to keep the soldiers in.

The base resembled a slushy barnyard. The open ground between the low metal barracks was a morass of muddy snow. Dirty smoke from metal chimneys stained the sky. Beyond the huts was an airfield with a few planes parked around. Over the truck exhaust he could smell some kind of sour food cooking, like maybe cabbage or potatoes. Even so, his stomach churned—it had been too long since Cole and the others had eaten anything besides a handful of jerky, a couple bites of rabbit, and some snow.

Up ahead, the officer jumped down from the Jeep and began barking orders. Soldiers started to scramble. His arrival was creating some confusion, which Cole thought could work in their favor.

“Cole? What should I do?”

“Don’t stop here. Pull up next to that building over there, as close as you can.”

Inna steered toward a larger Quonset hut-style building, made of corrugated metal. Tires and fuel cans were stacked up outside. This must be a shop to fix the trucks after they got beat to hell driving on what passed for a road.

The officer was so busy organizing the second wave of men for the search party that he didn’t pay Inna’s parking job any mind. Soldiers were falling in, still pulling on their uniforms and gear. Any minute now, they were going to head over to the truck and climb in. Trouble was, Vaccaro, Dmitri, and Whitlock were still back there.

“Slide out of the truck on my side, so that you’re between the truck and the building,” Cole said. “Out of sight, out of mind. I’ll go first.”

Cole got out and slung his rifle. The Springfield wasn’t going to do him much good here. No way was he going to shoot his way out of a Russian military base. He unsheathed the big hunting knife, which would be the best way to deal with any curious Russians. They went around to the back of the truck and waved the others out.

“I think this truck has square wheels,” Vaccaro said. He winced as his feet hit the ground. “That was a helluva ride. Kinda like being inside a popcorn machine.”

“I hate to tell you this, but getting in here was the easy part,” Cole said. “Take a look around, City Boy. There’s no way to walk out of this place.”

They hid among the stacks of tires and fuel cans in the maintenance area. That was all well and good until someone came looking for a spare tire. Dmitri was still in his long underwear, which would have been comical if they hadn’t been surrounded by Russian soldiers. The kid’s eyes darted from the Americans to the Russians, as if weighing his chances with one side or the other. Then he seemed to resign himself to staying where he was. The kid wasn’t so dumb—the Russians might keep the Americans alive as bargaining chips of some kind, but Dmitri wasn’t any sort of bargaining chip. He would get used for target practice.

The Russians would shoot Inna, too.

Dmitri looked at Cole. Inna, Vaccaro, and Whitlock looked at Cole. Cole wished there was somebody he could look at. He had gotten them this far. But he was out of ideas.

Just this morning, the day had seemed full of promise. The border with Finland was in sight. They had thought that their journey was just about over. Then Barkov had come into sight. Honaker had turned out to be some kind of communist traitor. No, the rest of the day hadn’t gone so well.

Now, they had ended up even farther away from the border. They were surrounded by Russian troops. Vaska and Honaker were dead. A squad of Americans had attacked them for some unknown reason. The only good news was that that bastard Barkov was wolf chow.