Ardennes Sniper: A World War II Thriller (12 page)

Cole shot him.

"Good. At two o'clock there is
un fou
with his head still out of his tank."

Cole put the crosshairs on the German and squeezed the trigger.

• • •

Von Stenger scanned the field for more targets.

"Schiffer?" he called down to the driver.

"Yes, Herr Hauptmann."

"Take those binoculars I gave you and watch the field. Tell me if you see any movement."

"Do you want me to shoot at them, Herr Hauptmann?"

"No, it's just your eyes I need right now."

"Yes, sir."

Over to his right, he could hear the distinctive mechanical whine of a panzer turret and gun being aligned for a shot.

The problem with using tanks to fight a handful of pesky snipers was that it was like trying to drive a nail with a boulder, when what you needed was a hammer. He held that hammer in his hands.

"Herr Hauptmann? I think I see something," the driver said.
 

"Where?" Von Stenger had to prompt.

"Ten o'clock. Behind that stone wall. I think I saw the cloud from someone's breath."

Von Stenger swept the scope over the wall. Nothing. He tried again, and finally noticed where the snow had been disturbed where someone had gone over the wall. But there was no one in the immediate vicinity. Where, where ... finally, he spotted the vapor left by warm breath in the freezing air. Two distinct patterns of vapor, which meant two snipers, or a sniper and a spotter.

The sniper's rifle was buried under snow, creating the perfect camouflage. Clever, clever. The sniper had arranged his rifle in such a way as to present almost no target. Just where his head should have been, Von Stenger found himself staring at a large frozen rock. This Ami was good at hiding himself.
 

He thought about sending a bullet out anyway, bouncing it off the frozen wall, on the off chance that a splinter of stone might catch the sniper in the face.

"Herr Hauptmann, the panzer is preparing to fire. Trust me, sir, but you will want to cover your ears."

"Schiffer, maybe after the war you can get a job announcing soccer games on the radio. But for now, please shut up."

Von Stenger had never taken his eye off the scope. He was amazed when the American sniper lifted his head up from behind the wall. Like Schiffer, he seemed worried about the tank.

He saw the American clearly through the scope. Thin face like a fox, covered in stubble. Young. And on his head was a helmet decorated with what the Americans called a Confederate flag—the "Stars and Bars" of the Old South. Von Stenger knew his American military history better than most Americans.

He also knew that helmet and that face. It was the American sniper who had challenged him in the days following Normandy.
 

Von Stenger put the crosshairs on the man's forehead and let his finger put pressure on the trigger.
 

Goodbye, Ami.

• • •

Cole started to worry that they had outstayed their welcome. These Germans were not going to let a handful of snipers bring the entire column to a halt. If any of the Germans had been paying attention, there was a good chance that someone had figured out where the shots were coming from. There were an awful lot of Germans and an awful lot of firepower they could bring to bear.
 

Like a tank. Like
several
tanks.

He put the scope back on the King Tiger at the side of the road, just in time to see the massive turret swivel slowly in his direction. Cole took his eye away from the scope and took a chance, popping his head above the wall just long enough to make sure he was seeing this right. Even without the scope he saw the barrel jig up, then back down, as the gunner tried to get the range right.
 

Nothing melted your insides quite so much as looking down the barrel of a tank.

He gave Jolie a shove. "Run!"

• • •

Then the air ripped apart around Von Stenger. The panzer had fired.
 

Von Stenger's rifle never wavered, but the tank shell struck just short of the wall, erupting in a geyser of frozen mud and snow.
 

He moved quickly to reacquire the target, but the sniper was gone. The tank fired again, demolishing the wall.
 

Out on the road, the column surged forward. The sniper fire dwindled, and then disappeared. Any snipers that were not dead had slipped away.

Von Stenger slid down from the sloping trunk of the windfall. Schiffer was waiting for him, stamping his feet to stay warm.
 

"Did you get him, Herr Hauptmann?"

"No, but the tank sent them scurrying like rats. Don't worry, we will have another chance at him."

They started back through the trees toward the road, Von Stenger leading the way. He was surprised to find himself humming a tune—a chord from the second act of Wagner's
Tristan und Isolde,
the scene in which the doomed lovers are finally alone together while the cruel king and his knights are hunting wolves in the forest. He had seen it in Berlin in 1933 during a special performance for the Führer. It was an opera so challenging and intricate that over the years it had literally killed one opera singer and two conductors.
 

Von Stenger loved such complexity. And he appreciated the idea of things that could be beautiful and challenging and deadly all at once. Thinking about the American sniper, he realized that the road through the Ardennes was going to be more interesting than he had expected.

"Keep up, Schiffer," he said. "We have much work to do."

CHAPTER 13

Nightfall approached as the snipers rendezvoused in the barn. The massive structure, built of stone and thick beams, was missing patches of its roof thatch. The cows and horses had long since been cleared out. Not so much as a footstep disturbed the snow around the barn, which had been abandoned and forgotten like so many war-torn farms.
 

Cole was the last to go in. He had already sent Jolie ahead to let the others know he was out here, keeping watch in the last light of day.

Shrouded in a white poncho, he waited in a hedgerow where he could keep watch on the fields and road leading to the barn. He blended into the scenery so well that a red fox walked within ten feet of him without so much as giving Cole a glance. As dusk fell and he was satisfied that the Germans were pushing forward, not hunting for the American snipers, he slipped quietly from his hiding place and entered the barn.
 

"Jesus, Cole. I was starting to worry about you," said Vaccaro. "I wasn't sure if the Germans got you, or maybe a wolf."

"Are there wild animals around here?" the Kid asked nervously.
 

"Just the two-legged kind," Cole said, thinking of Von Stenger—and all the rest of the Germans. He stamped his feet. "Colder than a penguin’s pecker in here."
 

"Nah, it's colder than an Eskimo's nose."

“That’s right cold,” Cole agreed. “But it’s still colder in here than Santa’s ass in a North Pole outhouse.”

"All right, you two are a regular couple of Bob Hopes,” the lieutenant said. “If that's a hint that somebody wants to build a fire, go ahead. If we keep it small, the Krauts aren’t going to see the flames inside the barn, and now that it's dark they won't see the smoke, either."
 

Cole built a fire better and faster than anyone in the squad, hands down. He cleared a place on the stone floor of the barn, then found a weathered pine plank. With a few strokes of his razor-sharp knife, he had long dry shavings that he added to a pile of old straw. He struck a match and the flames licked up to catch a few smaller pieces of wood that Vaccaro had scavenged for him. In a few minutes, they had a small fire going. The flames did not create much warmth inside the cavernous barn on a frigid December night, so they huddled around the flickering glow.
 

Cole looked around the fire, relieved to see that the only face missing was Rowe’s. He had seen him go down, killed by a single bullet. He was sure it was not some lucky shot from an SS trooper.
 

The other new sniper, McNulty, had a heavy bandage around his upper arm.
 

"What happened to you?" Cole asked.
 

McNulty shook his head. "Damnedest thing. I thought for sure nobody could see me. I was in a pile of hay, dug in like a tick, but if that bullet had been another couple of inches in the wrong direction, I wouldn't be here right now."

"Huh," Cole said, mulling it over. Whoever had killed Rowe and wounded McNulty was one hell of a shot, but there had been no sign of him.
Like a ghost.
He recalled the gold-tipped cigarette and Mosin-Nagant shells from earlier today. His mind spun at the thought that they may have encountered Von Stenger at the ambush. Could it have been Das Gespenst?

Vaccaro brewed coffee over the fire. He poured a mug for Cole, who barely even glanced at it before giving it to the Kid, who took it gratefully. Vaccaro shook his head. That was Cole for you—he could be the meanest son of a bitch you ever met, meaner than a pissed-off copperhead snake having a bad day, and yet he would give you his left nut if he liked you.
 

"I know that
huh
thing," Vaccaro said. "It means you've got a theory. So, what does your theory have to do with Rowe getting killed and McNulty getting winged?"

"I reckon it was that sniper. Das Gespenst."

"The Ghost? But I thought he was dead. You killed him in that flooded field back in Bienville."

"Maybe, maybe not," Cole said. "Back at the massacre site I found those shell casings with the Russian markings, and one of those fancy gold-tipped cigarettes. Then someone killed Rowe with a one-of-a-kind shot and winged McNulty."

"Nah, could be anybody," Vaccaro said.

“How many Germans can shoot like that?”

Vaccaro fixed his eyes on Cole’s. “Not many.”

"It's him," Cole said. "It's Das Gespenst."

"How do you know for sure?"

"I just got a feelin' is all."

Nobody questioned Cole further. In the last several months of combat, they had learned that a hunch usually meant something. Especially when it was Cole's.

Vaccaro poured him more coffee. "If you run into him again, this time make sure he stays dead."

Jolie took McNulty off to one side to have a look at his bandage, which had been done hastily in the field and needed to be readjusted. Vaccaro and the Kid went to poke around the barn to see what they could find. That left the lieutenant and Cole sitting together near the fire. They both sipped coffee. A tension hung between them, and they both knew what it was—Jolie Molyneaux. Mulholland acted like some kind of Sunday school chaperone around her, but he wasn't fooling anyone—the French girl had caught his eye as far back as the beach in Normandy.

But it was Cole she had chosen. That fact hurt his pride and left him puzzled. Wasn't he the officer? Wasn't he the one who had been to college? Cole was nothing more than a hillbilly who was handy with a rifle. Mulholland was the one who was supposed to get the girl.

"Listen, Cole," he began. “This thing with you and Miss Molyneaux—"

"What thing?"

Cole was rubbing salt in the wound. "You know what I'm talking about," Mulholland snapped. "We're not supposed to be fraternizing with the civilians."

Even to his own ears, Mulholland thought that had to be one of the lamest excuses he had ever heard. Fraternizing with the civilians? Could he sound any more pompous? He didn't like to admit it to himself because it was a base emotion, but the truth was that he was jealous that Jolie Molyneaux had picked Cole, of all people. Most of the time, Cole was about as friendly as barbed wire. Come to think of it, Jolie was not all that welcoming herself.

"Whatever you say, sir," Cole said in a tone that made it clear that wasn't what he thought at all, and fixed him with those cut-glass eyes that always seemed to be taking Mulholland’s measure.

Mulholland tried to meet Cole's gaze, but soon gave up.
 

"All right, let's not make a big deal out of this," Mulholland said. Somehow, without actually saying it, they had agreed to disagree about Jolie Molyneaux. "We've got enough problems as it is."

"I reckon we do," Cole said. "We got hundreds, if not thousands of problems, all of them with swastikas on their helmets."

"In the morning, we're going after them. We can't do too much damage, and I know that we're certainly not going to stop them, but we can harass the hell out of that German column."

Cole nodded. "That's just what I was thinking. But there's one thing that's got me worried about that plan."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"Das Gespenst."

"He's just another German."

"He shot Jolie."

Again, Mulholland felt that twinge of jealousy. It was like a blister on his heel. Always rubbing. He tried to get past it, but deep down it was hard to change the way he felt. No getting around it.