Red Sniper

Whitlock did. He forced the stick down, moving the plane into a steep dive. Wind whistled at the wings, threatening to rip them off. The whole plane bucked and shook. The Russian fighter raced past overhead and swung around in an arc to come at them again. Effortlessly. It was easy enough to imagine the Russian pilot with his gunsights on them, finger on the trigger, waiting for a radio message with orders to put another shot across the bow or just let loose with a killing burst through the fuselage so that he could get home in time for borscht and vodka.

The fighter pilot fired. The flurry of rounds punched holes the size of golf balls through the skin. Inna screamed. Vaccaro had been pale before; now he was the grayish color of dishwater.

The Russian pilot had not finished them off—yet. He was just showing them that he meant business. He wanted them to land the plane. He was making it clear that they were going down—one way or another.

Cole decided that he’d had enough. He wasn’t going to wait around for them all to be shot out of the sky. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to become a prisoner. That just wasn’t his style.

He got down close to Whitlock’s ear. “Listen up, Whitlock. You hold this plane real steady. I’m gonna try something.”

He left the cockpit and made his way back to the cargo area. He reached for his rifle. Vaccaro, Inna, and Dmitri eyed him with a look that seemed to ask, What’s that crazy hillbilly up to now? It was too loud to even attempt an explanation. Each breath turned to icy vapor. The plane rocked as frigid winds buffeted the fuselage. The wind coming through the bullet holes whistled like an angry teapot.

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.