Red Sniper

Cole didn’t speak Russian, but he understood the first words out of the young soldier’s mouth well enough.

“Inna Mikhaylovna!”

Cole, Whitlock, and Vaccaro looked at her in surprise. ”You know him?” Whitlock asked.

Inna sighed. “This is Dmitri. He is the stupid boy I tricked into leaving his post at the Gulag gate.”

“Then I reckon we owe him one.” Cole lowered the rifle. He had a soft spot in his heart for idiots and fools. Not everybody was meant to be a soldier. Some were made to fight, against their nature. He thought of his boot camp buddy, Jimmy Turner, killed within minutes of landing at Omaha Beach on D-Day. Jimmy had been a lot like this young Russian, who wasn’t cut out to be a soldier any more than Jimmy had been.

The Russian didn’t have a gun, but he was carrying a kind of whip. He stepped forward and offered it to Inna, who shook her head emphatically, as if the thing were toxic. Whitlock took it from him.

“What is that?” Cole wanted to know.

“This was Barkov’s. I hoped I would never see it again. If he has the whip, it means Barkov is dead.”

“I reckon it’s yours now.”

They kept on toward the Finish border. Cole made Dmitri walk out in front, where he could keep an eye on him.

“How did you trick him?” Harry asked Inna. It wasn’t much of a question, considering that Dmitri’s puppy eyes told the whole story. It was clear that a gumdrop was sharper than the Russian.

“I made him think that I was going to sleep with him,” Inna admitted, turning red. She had just crossed the taiga and shot a traitor, but confessing that she had flirted with Dmitri made her blush. “I got him to take off his clothes, and then I stole his key to the gate that you went through, and locked him in a room.”

“Why, Miss Inna,” Cole said. “You are full of surprises, ain’t you?”

“Poor kid,” Whitlock said. He laughed. “He never had a chance against you. He would’ve unlocked the whole damn Gulag for you.”

Whitlock’s laughter had just faded when they heard a new sound in the air.

Cole held up a hand. “Hush now, everybody.”

They all listened, straining to hear. Then came the grind and grumble of vehicle engines.

Cole saw them first. Three Russian trucks, heading in their direction.

• • •

“Run!”

The Russians hadn’t spotted them yet, but they had to get under cover. They had held off a squad of American assassins, but there was no way they could take on three truckloads of Russian troops. Desperately, Cole looked around. To their left was a patch of scraggly trees—not much cover, but at least it was something.

Dmitri stood there, looking kind of stunned. Like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to wait around for the Russians or not. Cole grabbed him by the collar and shoved him in the direction of the trees. From what he had seen of the Russian army, he was sure the boy’s execution would be swift, whether it was for desertion or consorting with the enemy or whatever else they decided was worth killing him over. There was no doubt they would shoot him.

Hidden among the trees, they watched the Russians arrive and swarm out of the trucks. They began to search the area. They were doing a sloppy job of it, with everybody running every which way. Fortunately for the Americans, it was not ideal ground for following tracks. Thin blades of brown grass thrust up through the crusted snow, breaking up the outline of any tracks they had left.

“These guys don’t look like experts,” Vaccaro muttered. “Look at their uniforms. Still nice and clean. New recruits, maybe.”

“Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then,” Cole said. “We got to git.”

Easier said than done. The trees reached toward where the Russians had left their trucks, but then what? It was basically a wide-open plain.

The Russian officers devoted most of their attention to the abandoned American Jeep. The existence of the border did not seem to inhibit them. There was no one around to enforce the boundary. There was a whole lot of nothing. The officers took their time poking through the Jeep. The soldiers took watches and weapons off the dead Americans.

Cole thought about it. There must be a Russian military base nearby. He guessed that the Russians had heard the shooting and sent a squad to investigate. It was hard to say if they were in cahoots with Major Dickey and Honaker, but if not, the shooting in their backyard would surely have gotten their attention.

Cole and the others were now stuck here, with a couple dozen Russians looking for them, and getting closer. It was only a matter of time before someone found their tracks and started toward the trees.

“Out of the frying pan, and into the fire,” Cole said.

Vaccaro shifted his rifle to his shoulder. “We can take them by surprise, and at least get a few of them.”

Cole touched his shoulder. “And then what? All they’ve got to do is turn those machine guns on us at that range and we’re hamburger. No, I reckon I got a better idea.” He turned to Inna. “Tell that kid to get his clothes off. Then I need you to put on his uniform.”