Red Sniper

Cole heard the shooting in the distance and started running in that direction. It sounded as if his friends had run into serious trouble. The snow, up to his knees in places, weighed down every footstep. He willed his legs to move faster. Who was shooting? Why? Had another group of Russians somehow gotten ahead of them to cut off their escape? Maybe there was some kind of patrol at the border. None of it made any sense.

Just run, goddamnit, he ordered himself.

He trotted out of the valley where he had confronted Barkov and ran up a hill at the end, ignoring his ragged breathing as he dodged boulders and shrubs on the way up. At the top he looked down and saw the skirmish taking place.

Closer to him, he could see his companions taking shelter behind a rock. Two bodies lay in the snow, sprawled in a way that Cole was all too familiar with. Dead. He thought one of the bodies might be Vaska’s. The other body, which lay a little ways off, was harder to identify.

He got down in a crouch so that he wasn’t outlined against the sky. He put the rifle to his shoulder and looked through the scope. The others were caught out in the open, trying to use a rock and a half-assed bush for cover. Vaccaro was behind the rock, returning fire. Whitlock had found a rifle and was shooting back, but it was likely he couldn’t shoot worth a damn, considering that he was a pilot, of all things. Inna crouched behind the bush, hands over her ears, trying to make herself as small as possible. Bullets plucked at the snow around them.

Vaccaro, Whitlock, and Inna. That meant the two dead men were Vaska and Honaker.

Cole moved the scope to focus on their attackers. Seven men—an eighth soldier lay face down in the snow. Probably Vaccaro’s handiwork. The soldiers were clearly Americans, driving Jeeps with the big white star on the hood. Those were U.S. Army uniforms. Our boys. So why the hell were they shooting at us? Maybe they had somehow mistaken the rescue team for Russians, although that seemed unlikely.

He put the scope closer to his eye, straining to make out any detail. He was shocked that he recognized one of the attackers. Major Dickey. Dickey would sure as hell be expecting Senator Whitlock’s grandson. He had been the one who recruited Cole, after all. He had set up the whole damn mission. Through the scope, Cole watched Dickey pop off a few shots from his sidearm. None of them had seen Cole up on the hill.

Cole’s thoughts raced. What the hell was going on here? Unless Dickey was seriously blind, he would have recognized the other Americans. He was the one who had sent them out here. Yet he was here waiting for them. Waiting to ambush them.

It could only mean that he didn’t want them to cross that border into Finland.

Cole was done thinking about it. There wasn’t any good reason for Dickey to be leading this trigger happy welcoming committee. Cole wasn’t going to sit up here on this hill and watch Vaccaro and the others get shot.

The crest of the hill made an ideal shooting position. He felt kind of exposed, but overall he couldn’t have asked for a better vantage point. Cole lay down in the snow, splayed his legs out behind him, got his elbows settled deep into the snow, and put the rifle between a couple of rocks that gave him at least some protection. The sinking sun was at his back, so that was to his advantage.

As he settled into position, he realized that his heart was pounding. No wonder. First, the encounter with Barkov had poured about a pint of adrenalin into his system. Then the run up hill through the snow toward the sound of the shooting had left him winded. The crosshairs danced around more than he would have liked. Got to cut out them cigarettes, he thought.

He took a couple of deep breaths. Getting some oxygen back into his system. Cole felt his heart slowing. He had gotten so that he could almost will his heart muscle to beat more slowly, in the same way that you could clench or unclench a hand. His breathing smoothed out. This time, when he put the crosshairs on a soldier’s head, they didn’t dance at all.

It was just over two hundred yards. An easy shot. He pulled the trigger nice and smooth. The soldier went down.

Cole worked the bolt, picked another target. Fired.

Target. Fire. Target. Fire. Target. Fire.

Four down. Cole picked them off like birds on a wire. He tried not to think about the fact that he was shooting Americans. Right now, they were the enemy.