Ghost Sniper

“All right.”

“Now, the thing about shooting is that you’ve got to ease up on your shot. Keep your aim on the post, but you’ll see your crosshairs float around. It’s hard to hold steady.”

“Merde,” she muttered. “This is true.”

“Keep your finger on the trigger. All you want on there is the pad of your finger. Take a breath. Let it out. Take another breath and hold it in. Let it out and take another one if you got to. Let the crosshairs do their little dance. All the time, your finger is taking up some more tension on the trigger. You get used to a rifle after a while and you know when it’s almost goin’ to fire. When your crosshairs drift onto that post, let your finger take up that last bit of tension, gentle like you were pulling on a baby’s hair.”

Jolie breathed, let it out, breathed again. When the rifle fired, it actually surprised her.

“I missed!”

“Well, that fence post ain’t crossed the field yet to bayonet us. I reckon you’ve got time for another shot.”

Jolie worked the bolt, ejecting the empty shell and feeding a live round from the magazine into the breech. She pressed the rifle tight to her shoulder. She felt Cole leaning in close, pressing against her. She could feel his breath on her cheek and his voice murmuring in her ear. “All right, I just want to see what you see through the scope. Those crosshairs do dance, don’t they? Let me help.”

His rough hands slipped over her own, steadying the rifle. There was something intoxicating about having him pressing close against her. None of them had washed much these last few days, living rough, and she could smell him—it wasn’t a bad smell, just earthy like trees and grass and mud, undercut by the salty musk of sweat. She struggled to concentrate.

“All right,” she said.

“What you want to do is squeeze the last bit out of the trigger just as it drifts across. Just try to relax. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in and hold it.”

Listening to his voice in her ear, Jolie did as he instructed. The crosshairs did not move so wildly now, and she let them touch the post as she squeezed off the last fraction of tension in the trigger. The rifle fired and instantaneously through the scope she saw a chunk go flying out of the post.

“Oh!”

“Ain’t so hard, is it?” Cole said. “They say women are the best shots anyhow, on account of their center of gravity being lower than a man’s. All I know is you just shot the shit out of that fence post. Now, see if you can do it again.”

Jolie fired several more shots. The last three hit the post. When she turned to look at Cole, he was standing a few feet away, smiling with satisfaction.

“Not bad?” she asked.

“Not bad.”

“I want to be a good shot. That soldier you captured told me where the sniper Von Stenger is staying in the chateau. I know just where it is. I am going there tonight to kill him. He has killed enough Frenchmen and Americans.” She didn’t know why she had told him.

“All right.”

Jolie gave him a look. “You are not going to try and stop me?”

“Darlin’, back home in the mountains, revenge is a way of life. People polish up revenge and treasure it like a pretty stone. I reckon you’ve about had it with being kicked around by these Jerries. Fair enough. I just don’t think you’ve got much of a chance against the likes of him with that rifle and I doubt you can just walk into that chateau carrying a Mauser with a scope on it. You might need something more sneaky like.”

“Like what?”

He stooped and pulled a wicked-looking little knife from his boot. “If I was you, I’d get in close and stab that son of a bitch in the belly with this here pigsticker. He might take a while to die, but you’ll kill him sure as shit.”

She took the knife. “Thank you. And Cole—I like that name— please do not tell the lieutenant. He might not understand. I agree that he is one who plays by the rules.”

“Like I said, Jolie, what rules? This here is a war.”

CHAPTER 19

The shooting lesson over, the remaining band of snipers packed up and moved out. Lieutenant Mulholland had no clear orders other than to engage the enemy, and so they trudged along the road toward Carentan. The action at the bridge had taken up most of the long June day and already the shadows stretched far and deep across the fields.

After the rush of adrenalin and pounding hearts during the fight, they now felt curiously empty, like a balloon that the helium had gone out of.

It wasn’t a feeling that lasted long. They had not gone far when they were overtaken by a Jeep tearing down the dirt road. It was a little unusual to see one of the Jeeps traveling alone. Considering that the woods and fields all around them were still contested by the Allies and Germans, the occupant would have been better off in a Sherman tank or even on foot. The sharp whine of the Jeep engine attracted too much attention. Whoever was at the wheel had to be either desperate or foolish. The vehicle skidded to a stop beside them.