Ghost Sniper

It didn’t work that way. His hands missed the gutter and he felt his belly lurch sickeningly as he dropped like a wing-shot bird toward the ground.

Helpless, he fell.

He hit the top of a truck parked below, then bounced off and landed on the hood. His next stop was the cobblestoned street, where he landed so hard that it knocked the breath clean out of him. He had a scary few seconds trying to get his lungs working again. Then his breath came back in a gush.

He was out of sight of the German sniper now, so he took his time getting up and taking stock. Nothing broken, but he hurt like hell. Cole glanced up at the roof, which seemed very high above where he sat, aching and bleeding, on the cobblestoned street.

He reckoned he was damn lucky that some French farmer had left his battered truck parked beside the house, though the roof of the cab was more like a metal slab than a feather bed. Still, it had broken his fall somewhat. Otherwise, he would have landed right on the cobblestones and burst open like a watermelon.

Cole looked around for his rifle. He found it a few feet away, and his heart sank at the sight of it. The stock was cracked, the scope busted. He picked it up and a little shower of broken glass tinkled down on the cobblestones like frozen tear drops. Christ on a cross. Here he was with a sniper lording it over town and half the German army on its way, and him without a goddamn rifle. Don’t it just figure. Maybe he could throw rocks at the son of a bitch.

“Have you lost something?”

The French voice came out of the shadows, and he was still disoriented. He spun around, trying to locate the source. Then Jolie materialized as she stepped out from behind the truck.

“Busted my rifle, and damn near busted my ass permanently,” Cole said. “By the way, I reckon that’s your sniper friend up in the church tower.”

“He is not mon ami.” She reached out a hand and helped him up. “Are you all right?”

“Darlin’, I done fell off a roof. How the hell do you think I am?”

“It seems like a reasonable question.”

“Well, I reckon I’d be a lot worse with a bullet in me. How the hell did he get up there?”

Jolie shrugged. “He is the Ghost Sniper.”

Cole did not care to admit it, but he was shaken by far more than the fall from the roof. Jolie had made sure this so-called Ghost Sniper would come to Bienville by practically handing him a party invitation. All things being equal, Cole would have had a good chance of eliminating someone who had been a deadly killer of their own troops. But the German had beat them at their own game.

Cole did not like to be outfoxed, and that was just what the German sniper had done. Now the other sniper had the high ground, the upper hand, and here was Cole cut and bruised with his rifle busted. As a matter of fact, he was getting worked up about it. Gettin’ goddamn mad. He took a deep breath. Gettin’ mad got you killed. He knew what he had to do was get even.

“Here, take my rifle,” Jolie said. “You are much better with it than I am.”

“Jolie, them Germans movin’ toward town ain’t here to play patty cake. You best be able to shoot back.”

“I hate to say it, Cole, but there are many GIs who won’t be using their weapons anymore. I will take one of those.”

Cole nodded, and she handed him the rifle she had used for her shooting lesson. It was the Mauser K98 they had taken off the dead German sniper who had been hidden in the forest. He knew it was a good rifle—probably superior to the 1903 Springfield. It had a nice heft to it and the scope was better than the American one had been. Say what you wanted to about the Germans, but those bastards knew how to make good rifles and good optics.

She passed over several clips of ammunition. While there weren’t enough rounds to get the average G.I. through a brief fire fight, it was more than enough for a sniper. Cole had only one target in mind. He needed just one bullet for that.

He glanced up at the church steeple. Another shot rang out, and somewhere in the town another American died. I’m comin’ for you, you son of a bitch.

CHAPTER 24

Up in the church steeple, Von Stenger watched the American sniper tumble off the roof and he sent a final bullet after him like a kick in the pants, hoping for a lucky hit.

Was the sniper wounded? He knew at least one of his bullets had come close. If nothing else, the American sniper was going to have a painful landing and perhaps a few broken bones. It was hard to know the man’s fate because the other sniper had fallen off the far edge of the roof, so that the house itself blocked his view.

At any rate, he would not be hearing from the American anytime soon—and he was the only enemy sniper Von Stenger really had to worry about.