Red Sniper

“I want his rifle,” the Mink said. He grinned. “And there is no point in letting that rabbit go to waste. Are you coming?”

Barkov clapped him on the shoulder. “You go ahead. I will start back toward the others, so that the cowards don’t run away. I would not care, but we may still need them yet. Catch up to us when you can, and bring me some of that rabbit.”

• • •

Cole waited for what seemed like an eternity, holding himself very still and barely breathing. But he was a patient man. He just hoped that the rabbit didn’t burn. He would have had time to turn it, too, because it took an hour for the Russians to find the fire. By then he felt cramped and cold, despite the fact that he was wrapped tightly in a blanket, but he ignored the discomfort.

He was positioned with his arms in front of him. His hands held the Browning 1911 pistol.

He neither heard nor saw the Russians approach. He only knew that they had arrived when a single shot ripped out and hit Ramsey square in the head. The sound made Cole wince. It didn’t seem possible to kill a dead man any deader, and yet Barkov had done just that. Ramsey’s body slumped to the snowy ground just at the edge of Cole’s limited field of view.

Now came the tricky part.

He tightened his grip on the pistol.

What happened next depended on what sort of cards he had been dealt. If one or two of the enemy approached, he had a chance. More than that, and this blanket was going to be his shroud.

He waited, his heart barely making a murmur, which was a good thing—it was so quiet in the forest that the flutter of a bird’s wings sounded like a hurricane wind.

He had left a gap in the end of the rolled blanket so that he could look out. The problem was that it reduced his world to a narrow field of vision. It was essentially like looking through a tube. Like a rifle scope, as a matter of fact. He felt cramped as the tobacco inside a hand-rolled cigarette.

Cole had positioned himself carefully. A ring of bushes surrounded the camp—nothing too obvious, but there was a gap through which anyone approaching the fire would naturally walk. It was this gap that the open end of the blanket faced, like a rifle barrel.

As for the waiting, it was simply part of the game. He was very good at being still for hours. He just hoped that these bastards came along before he froze to death—or his supper burned to a crisp. His belly rumbled. It would be a damn shame to waste that rabbit.

It was a sign of the Russian’s own skill that Cole never heard him approach. He felt him instead; some inexplicable pressure in the air. He was impressed that the big Russian could move so quietly, until he saw that it wasn’t the big Russian at all. In a single glimpse as the man passed through his field of view, he saw that it was the smaller Russian. The one that Ramsey had called the Mink.

Everything depended on the Russian stopping cautiously a dozen feet away, coming through the gap in the bushes directly in front of Cole, so that he could get a clear shot.

But without pausing, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, the Russian walked right up to the fire.

Too fast to get off a shot.

Then the Mink was gone. Out of Cole’s narrow field of view.

Cole couldn’t move the gun or even see him at all. He heard him pick up the Springfield rifle and grunt with satisfaction. At any second, the Russian might get suspicious and put a big, fat slug into Cole. He held his breath.

The Mink stepped closer. Too close. But at least some part of him came back into view. Cole could see the man’s boots, his legs to his knees, and that was it. Cole began to understand the fault in his plan. His heart beat faster.

Then, he saw the Russian toe the body with his boot.

In another second the Mink was going to realize that he had not shot a sniper, but that he had shot Ramsey all over again. Cole couldn’t take that chance. He aimed at the Mink’s shin. His hands shook from the strain of holding the pistol so long. He was aiming at the leg just eight feet away, but still far enough to miss.

He pulled the trigger.

At point blank range, the slug splintered the shin bone. The small man went down as if his leg had been chopped by an ax. Belly down in the snow, he looked right into the blanket roll and locked eyes with Cole. Even through the pain and shock, the eyes registered surprise. He didn’t make a sound. Then the face tilted away, as the Mink rolled toward the rifle that he had dropped in the snow.

Cole shot him in the top of the head.

Was Barkov out there with his rifle, watching? Cole held his breath, but no bullet tore into him. Cole sat up, feeling like a sausage. He wriggled out of the blanket and scrambled into a tangle of undergrowth nearby.

From the safety of cover, he strained to hear some sound of movement in the surrounding forest, but his ears rang from the pistol shots.

It stood to reason that if Barkov was out there, he would have shot Cole by now.

Slowly, cautiously, he emerged from the underbrush. Crouched. Stood.

Nothing.