Fallen Sniper, page 19
part #8 of Caje Cole Series
Cole should have felt that sense of burning revenge now, but instead, he felt curiously hollow. The Chinese had gotten up there on that hilltop and outsmarted him. They had shot the kid, along with Lieutenant Ballard and maybe even Sergeant Weber, from the sounds of it.
He was supposed to be a sniper—the best in Korea, some claimed. And yet, he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to keep his unit from being shot to hell.
He leaned the Springfield against the wall and put his face in his hands, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.
Lieutenant Commander Miller looked at him curiously. “You all right?”
Cole snorted. “What do you think? We’re getting chewed to pieces. Now there’s a nest of snipers up on that hill. They even shot the kid. Aside from all that, I’m just dandy, sir. How about you?”
The grounded pilot climbed the rest of the way into the loft, dragging himself onto the piles of guano.
“What’s all this stuff?”
“Bat shit.”
The officer looked alarmed. “Can’t you catch rabies from bats?”
“Sir, I’d be a lot more worried about catching a bullet right about now.”
“I came up here to see if I could help.”
“Where’s your rifle? You can’t hit much from here with a pistol.”
The pilot patted a deep pocket. “I brought my binoculars. You need a spotter, don’t you?”
“It might be too late,” Cole said. “I don’t know how much longer we can hold out.”
The pilot crawled toward Cole, making a face as he moved through the dark-colored guano. “Listen to me, Hillbilly. You know what I’m good at? Flying an airplane.”
“Good to know. You got one of them in your pocket, too?”
“Don’t I wish. But right now there’s a shortage of airplanes around here. You know what you’re good at? Shooting. Everybody says what a good shot you are.”
“Easy to say and hard to do.”
“I’ve seen you in action, Cole. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“If you say so.”
The pilot pointed. “You see all those people fighting down there? They are desperate, Cole. But some of them saw you heading in here with your rifle and you know what, it gave them some hope. They know you are a tough, mean son of a bitch. You scare them a little, maybe more than a little. They’re not like you, Cole. If anyone can change how things are going in this fight, it’s you and your rifle.”
“I’m sure glad they all think that,” Cole said bitterly. “Makes it all sound real easy, like I can make the world change all because I pick up a rifle.”
Lieutenant Commander Miller shook his head. “Be honest with yourself, Cole. Deep down, you know it’s true. Things do change when you start shooting. Now, pick up that rifle, you goddamn hillbilly. That’s an order. I am an officer, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Cole studied the rifle propped against the wall, but didn’t yet reach for it. Against the backdrop of the dusty old stone walls, the battered stock had seen better days and the well-oiled metal of the action and the barrel were concealed by camouflage wrappings.
“You still got them binoculars handy?”
“Right here.”
“Good. In that case, you can help me shoot these bastards.”
On the hilltop, Wu was busy searching for new targets using his vintage German binoculars. He wanted to make sure that his snipers eliminated the officers and non-commissioned officers in order to leave the enemy without leadership.
“You missed your last shot!” Wu complained, grinning at Deng with a broad smile. Deng had been aiming at the American sniper, who had moved at the last second, causing the shot to go wide. The sniper had then scrambled for cover. If the sniper had not known they were on the hill, then he did now.
Deng nodded warily. He knew that with Wu, a smile often meant the opposite of showing pleasure. “The range is very long, sir.”
“You are a sniper! Do what you are trained to do. If not, I will give that rifle to someone else.”
“Yes, sir. I will do better,” Deng said through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath to calm himself. Anger would not do him any good if he wanted to hit his next target and satisfy the major.
“Shoot them!” Wu snapped.
While Deng turned his attention back to the rifle, Wu glassed the fortress wall below. The defenders were still putting up a strong fight, managing to stall the battalion. This must not be allowed, he thought. The longer that the Chinese force remained exposed in the open without moving into its hiding place for the day, the more likely it became that they might be attacked from the air. The delay also gave the Americans more time to reinforce the main line that the Chinese were determined to push back.
Wu and his snipers must do their part to sack this fortress, sooner rather than later, and they were in a perfect position to do just that.
Through the binoculars, he saw an American soldier carrying a rifle with a telescopic sight scramble into the watchtower in the center of the fortress wall. It was the American sniper again! Would they ever be rid of that man?
Wu directed Deng to shoot at the sniper, but the enemy soldier scrambled behind cover like the rat that he was, leaving Deng’s bullet to strike the now-empty wall where the sniper’s head had been a moment ago.
“Shoot him through the arrow slits.”
Deng did not answer, but squeezed off another round. Debris flew from the edge of the opening. They were so intent on the sniper that, too late, they saw another man scramble into the tower.
Deng fired again. This time, Deng’s shot seemed to go right into the narrow window.
Wu imagined the bullet bounced around inside there like beads in a baby’s rattle.
Wu smiled.
Through the scope, Cole studied the hilltop occupied by the enemy. He spotted the man-made geometry of a rifle barrel, clearly standing out against the rough-hewn landscape. He was a little surprised that the rifle wasn’t wrapped in some sort of cloth in order to camouflage it, as his own rifle was. Anything that broke up the outline of your rifle or your body helped a sniper to blend into his surroundings. A small bit of camouflage went a long way toward hiding him from the enemy—and keeping him alive.
For the enemy sniper, the failure to disguise his rifle was about to become a fatal mistake.
Cole moved the crosshairs slowly up the length of the barrel until they settled on the head of the shooter, which was the only part of the enemy sniper visible.
Nearby, Miller was glassing the hill with the binoculars.
“Maybe you’re right,” Miller said. “That’s a long way to shoot. Nobody can hit anything that small at that distance.”
Cole didn’t reply. His universe had shrunk down to the circle of magnification that he could see through the scope. In the vastness of the Korean landscape, it was only this circle three feet wide that mattered.
Now, he did what came so naturally to him. He let out a breath. His shooter’s mind did a million subtle calculations, purely by instinct.
He nudged the crosshairs to the left and held high.
Never mind that a bullet smacked into the wall nearby. Never mind that a mortar shell arced over the wall and exploded in the supply area below.
As if in a trance, Cole ignored the deadly chaos and carnage around him. Gently, his finger took up tension on the trigger.
The rifle fired, sending a spiraling bullet from the watchtower to the hilltop in the same span of time in which a butterfly’s wings might beat once, twice.
Through the binoculars, Miller saw the spray of blood as the top of the Chinese sniper’s head flew off.
“A little high,” Cole muttered.
“Holy shit,” Miller replied, his voice tinged with awe, and maybe a little fear of the man next to him. It was one thing to engage in a dogfight and shoot down an enemy plane. There was even an element of single combat to a dogfight that went back to the days of knights errant. But what Cole had just done … this was killing. The brutality of it shocked him.
“Look around and find the others,” Cole said, working the bolt of his rifle. The spent brass casing spun away and clattered into the guano. “In case you ain’t noticed, it’s them or us.”
Miller did as suggested, searching the hilltop with the binoculars, which had a much broader field of view than the rifle scope. To his surprise, he spotted something. “How do I let you know where to look?”
“Just like in the air,” Cole said. “Pretend it’s a clock face.”
“Two o’clock,” Miller said.
Cole shifted his rifle and saw the other sniper now. Again, the man didn’t seem to know enough to wrap the barrel of his rifle, but he was well hidden. All that Cole could see was a splash of face and a single eye.
He put the crosshairs on the eye and fired.
The enemy sniper slumped, his rifle clattering among the rocks.
“One shot. Holy moly. I can’t believe it,” Miller said. “You nailed him.”
But the dragon still had claws. A bullet tore through one of the narrow arrow slits and ricocheted around the inside of the loft. Miller ducked, as if that would do any good.
Cole’s eyes had never left his scope. He was looking for something, anything, that might give away the enemy sniper’s position. The bastard was dug in good. He was well aware of Cole’s hiding place. But Cole had yet to figure out where the enemy sniper was hiding.
Down below, one of the medics trying to help a wounded Borinqueneer suddenly slumped over. He was behind a solid section of the parapet, sheltering him from enemy fire coming from the road. The bullet could only have come from the hilltop.
The sniper up there knew his business. Considering the distance, he was also a damn good shot. He had Cole pinned down in the watchtower, and he was still managing to pick off the defenders.
“There’s still another sniper up there,” Cole said. “The only reason we ain’t seen him yet is because he’s smarter than the others.”
Cole decided that he’d had enough. There was no time for patience in the middle of a battle. “Sir, I’m about to do something foolish.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes, the best way to bait a trap is to act the fool. That sniper could keep me pinned down all day and we ain’t got time for that.” Cole nodded toward the gap in the wall made by a mortar round. “I’m going to stand in front of that big hole and see if I can lure him out. Short of that, maybe I can see where he’s shooting from if I’m standing up.”
Cole started to get up, but Miller dragged him back down. “No, you don’t. I’m not letting you do that and get yourself shot.”
“Sir—“
“Shut up and give me your helmet,” he said. The pilot was still wearing the bush hat. Reluctantly, Cole traded, then watched as the pilot made his way to the gap and crouched beside it, ready to expose himself to the enemy’s view. “Ready?”
Still on the rifle, Cole grunted.
The pilot stood up and stepped in front of the gap. He raised the binoculars to study the hilltop. Nothing happened. “How long—“
A bullet snapped past his head and he dove for cover before the sniper could fire again.
“I saw him through the binoculars,” Miller exclaimed excitedly. “There was a muzzle flash right at—“
“Twelve o’clock,” Cole said. “Now, give me back my helmet.”
“Wait, you’re not going to stand in that gap, are you?”
“Hell no, I ain’t as dumb as you,” Cole said. “The helmet is for good luck.”
Cole settled the helmet with its Confederate flag back on his head. He touched the flag with his trigger finger, then pressed his eye back to the scope. He held the sight picture he had seen earlier in his mind’s eye.
He could not see the sniper, but he knew where he was.
He already had a good sense of the range from the other shots that he had put on the two other enemy snipers. He put the crosshairs right where he wanted them, started to squeeze the trigger.
Another shot hit the watchtower, but Cole hadn’t even seen the muzzle flash.
“I didn’t see him,” Miller said, binoculars still on the hilltop through one of the arrow slits. “There’s nothing to shoot at up there.”
Cole didn’t respond. He was too focused on a spot back in the rocks that seemed like it didn’t belong. Maybe it was a shadow, or maybe it was the enemy sniper.
Miller was telling him again that there wasn’t any target, but Cole wasn’t listening. What he might have told the lieutenant commander was that instinct is what we have when the facts fail us.
He fired.
Wu watched through the binoculars as the arrogant sniper had displayed himself through the gap in the wall. It had been the same sniper with the flag on his helmet. Deng’s shot at him had just missed.
“You missed!” Wu pointed out. For once, he was not smiling.
“Yes,” Deng said through gritted teeth as Wu pointed out the obvious. “I will not miss again.”
Wu gazed through the binoculars, but the sniper was no longer there. “You won’t get another chance like that.”
Deng fired again, this time raising a puff of dust near one of the arrow slits. Surely, the enemy sniper was watching them through one of these.
“You missed again,” Wu said.
Major Wu had just turned to further chastise Deng when the bullet came in and hit Deng square in the forehead. The neat hole appeared just beneath the brim of Deng’s ushanka cap.
Wu ducked, his heart hammering. The other two snipers that the enemy had claimed had been forward of this position. Deng and Wu had set themselves farther back, well hidden in the rocks. He could see the watchtower below, but it seemed impossible for the sniper in the watchtower to see them.
However, Deng now lay slumped over the rifle, his eyes bugging out from the force of the impact.
The bullet had come out of nowhere and killed Deng. Wu was incredulous. He looked at Deng’s dead form in disbelief. How was this even possible? The American sniper had killed not just Deng, but Liu and Huang, both capable snipers in their own right.
In a fit of rage, Wu reached for the rifle and began to wrest it from Deng’s dead hands. It would now be up to him to return fire and eliminate this enemy for once and for all.
Keeping low and out of sight behind the boulder, Wu fumbled with the unfamiliar weapon. Was it even loaded? He wasn’t sure how to check. How was the scope sighted in? Would he hold low, high, or right on the target? He realized that he had never been schooled in the actual use of this rifle.
As these questions swirled around Wu’s mind, he came to the realization that perhaps he was not the best man for this job. He was a political officer; he was not a sniper.
But then, a deeper emotion began to take hold. For the first time, a frisson of fear went through Wu. The American sniper had managed to kill Deng, who had been tough and competent, seemingly unstoppable. Wu had been stingy with his praise of Deng, but the man had been highly capable. If he had fallen, would Wu be next?
Not if he could help it.
Wu slung the valuable rifle across his back. Deng’s rifle with its telescopic sight was hard to come by. It would be up to him later to find a man who could put the rifle to good use.
He crawled toward the edge of the steep slope leading back down to the road. One good thing was that he was out of view of the sniper. But getting off this hilltop wasn’t going to be easy. First, he had to work his way around the jutting lip at the top of the cliff, his feet dangling beneath him and his heart hammering. Finally, his legs dropped low enough so that his boots touched the steep slope.
He soon found that climbing up had been easier than climbing down. It was hard to see past his feet, so that he was moving blindly down the hill. His boots slipped every few feet on the loose patches of dirt and shale so that he nearly began tumbling backwards down the slope to certain death. His head swam, made dizzy by the height, and he feared that he was going to lose his balance. This wasn’t going to work.
He got himself turned around and readjusted the rifle so that it was slung across his front. In a way, this was worse, because he could see how far he would fall if he began to tumble. However, he had more control over his descent.
Using his hands to slow himself, ignoring the fact that they were being scraped raw, Wu slithered on his backside all the way to the bottom of the cliff.
Although there were many dead, he saw that the attack against the fort was now far more organized. The return fire from the defenders had slackened, thanks in part to Wu’s snipers before they had been killed. Even the guns of the tanks had fallen silent, although they still spit machine-gun fire like hissing, cornered iron dragons.
Wu grinned, pleased to see that the tide of battle was turning in their favor.
Chapter Twenty-Two
As Cole and Lieutenant Commander Miller climbed down from the watchtower, it was becoming more evident that the battle for the fortress had reached a turning point. Below, Chinese soldiers swarmed across the road in coordinated attacks. Some troops focused on dismantling the barricade, while others crept closer to the walls of the fort itself, firing all the way.
On the fortress wall, with so many wounded, there were fewer defenders now to shoot back. Those who could still fight were having to scavenge ammunition from the dead and wounded. Whoever had called this place the Alamo wasn’t far wrong.
“We can’t hold out much longer,” Cole said.
“Should we pull out? I guess that’s up to Lieutenant Ballard.”
Cole shook his head. “Ballard is badly wounded, along with Sergeant Weber. They’ve both been dosed with morphine. Lieutenant Dunbar is down in his tank, which means he’s got his hands full. You know what? That makes you the ranking officer up here on the wall.”
“Ranking officer? Hell, I’m the only officer still standing,” Miller said. “But I’ve got to say, I feel a lot more at home in the cockpit.”
