David Healey - Red Sniper

Truth be told, he wasn’t sure that this was going to work. It was only a half-baked plan, but he had to try something .

He was glad that he hadn’t wasted any more bullets than necessary on Barkov. He was down to his last two shells.

The question was, would it be enough?

Cole made his way as far back in the cargo area as he could. There wasn’t any sort of bulkhead at the rear of the plane, just a seam where the two sides of the plane joined. It reminded Cole of how the stern of an aluminum canoe was riveted together.

He took out his knife and punched a hole through the skin, then sawed the knife blade in a rough circle. He soon had a hole the size of a dinner plate, about ten inches off the floor of the plane. Looking out the hole at the ground far below made his head swim. Nothing out there but air. He tried not to think about it.

Behind them, riding in the cargo plane’s slipstream, was the Russian fighter. Head on, the fighter resembled something predatory, like maybe an oncoming falcon. Meanwhile, Cole and the others were riding in the pigeon. The fighter had a single propeller. Above the propeller was a windshield. Behind the glass, Cole could make out the silhouette of the pilot. If the pilot even noticed what Cole was up to, he must have been left scratching his head.

He lay down and rested his elbows on the floor of the plane. It was not comfortable, but he ignored the feel of the metal jarring up through the bone. Never mind that it was goddamn cold with the arctic air sucking at the hole in the airplane. He put the muzzle through the hole he had cut. Through the scope, the enemy fighter sprang much closer. The pilot’s head went from being the size of a dime to being the size of a baseball.

The crosshairs settled on the target, then bounced away. Cole struggled to hold the rifle steady. The plane hit another pocket of rough air and shook all around him like a dog that had just come out of the rain.

All he needed was a patch of smooth air. He let the crosshairs drift over the target, finger taking up pressure on the trigger. At just the precise moment, the pad of his finger would take up the last bit of tension in the trigger.

Wait , he told himself. Steady .

The thing about this kind of shooting was he you didn’t want to think about it too much, at least not with the front part of his mind. He let his mind go kind of fuzzy. The crosshairs drifted while the finger stayed on the trigger. The back part of his mind would know when everything was lined up. His eyeballs and his trigger finger were connected in that back part of his mind.

Behind him, the Russian pilot fired another burst. The guns flared and crackled. A few rounds hit the fuselage and Inna screamed again. Vaccaro swore. Fortunately, most of the burst passed overhead.

The Russian was sending a message that he wanted them to put the plane down. Now . All he had to do was keep his finger on the trigger for a couple seconds longer, and they would be blown out of the sky.

Through the scope, he could practically see the pilot lining up the next burst. His crosshairs drifted to the pilot’s head, just visible through the windshield.

Around him, the cargo plane quit bouncing.

Cole fired.

He wasn’t sure just what he expected to happen next, which was why it came as a surprise.

The pilot opened up on them, firing nonstop. The burst clawed at the cargo plane until Whitlock, up in the cockpit, veered to the right so suddenly that Cole lost his grip on the rifle and slammed painfully against the fuselage. He crawled back to the hole he had made and acquired the target again. He couldn’t believe that he had missed. Had he somehow miscalculated about firing on a moving plane, from a moving plane?

He had one bullet left.

By now the Russian pilot had stopped firing. The fighter simply flew on in a perfectly straight path, not bothering to follow the cargo plane on its new course. Cole worked the bolt, got lined up for another shot. The fighter flew blindly past them, headed to nowhere. As it went by, Cole caught a glimpse of a starburst of broken glass where his bullet had punched into the cockpit.

He hadn’t missed. He realized that the final burst must have been the death reflex of the pilot’s finger on the trigger.

Then the plane started to drift even farther to the left, off course. Soon after that, the nose dipped. The fighter plane started a long, steady slide toward the earth below.

All around them, the blue sky now stretched empty and limitless.

And he still had one bullet chambered in the Springfield rifle, so the possibilities were endless.

Two hours later they were somewhere above Finland when Whitlock spotted a runway carved into a forest. They decided to land, considering that a plane with Soviet markings would not get a warm welcome if they flew clear to Helsinki. Having narrowly dodged a Soviet fighter plane, they didn’t want to take any chances with the Finnish air force.

After all that they had been through, it was an inauspicious arrival. A couple of Finnish guys came out and watched in curiosity as the cargo plane bumped down on the unpaved runway. The Finns there spoke a smattering of Russian, so Inna asked to use the telephone.

Then, they settled in to wait.

The two Finns weren’t exactly friendly, but once it became clear that the cargo plane was carrying Americans, rather than Russians, they were greeted more warmly. They were given food, coffee, blankets, and vodka.

“More reindeer stew,” Vaccaro said. “I think I’m starting to like it. Now old Vaska, he would have loved it.”

They slept soundly, warm for the first time in days, and well fed. The next morning, three vehicles appeared on the road into the airfield. This late in year, the road was snow-covered, so the vehicles all had chains on their tires. The lead vehicle was a 1938 Volvo sedan, ugly but tough, perfect for Finland’s backroads.

Whitlock, Inna, and Vaccaro went out to meet the new arrivals. Dmitri stayed indoors by the wood stove. Cole hung back, his rifle held at the ready.

Four or five men got out of the other two vehicles. All of them were armed with submachine guns. They set up a loose perimeter, facing back toward the road.

Only then did Senator Whitlock emerge from the passenger door of the Volvo. He stood staring for a moment at his grandson, then stepped forward and hugged him. “My God,” he said. “It’s good to have you back, Harry.”

“It’s good to be back.” Although emaciated and exhausted, Harry Whitlock had never looked better. He introduced Inna. “I think you already know Vaccaro and Cole.”

The senator nodded. “Indeed, I do. I owe them a debt of gratitude. What about the others?”

Whitlock shook his head. “They didn’t make it.”

They went inside. Harry explained about the welcome party, commanded by Major Dickey, that had met them at the border.

The senator looked troubled. “That’s why I brought those guards along, although I’m not expecting trouble.”

“Honaker said something about the government not wanting us to come home. He said it would only cause complications.”

“About that,” the senator said. “I’ve made… an arrangement with the president.”

“The president?”

“Yes. This thing goes right to the top, and you can’t get any higher than the Oval Office. The official story will be that you were wounded and that the Russians nursed you back to health. You weren’t detained. You were hospitalized.”

“But that’s a lie!”

The senator held up a hand to fend off further protests. “These are complicated times, Harry. We don’t need another shooting war on our hands. You’re home, and that’s what matters.”