Ghost Sniper: A World War II Thriller Read online

  Cole rolled over and held her, but there was nothing possessive in his embrace. His lean arms were corded with muscle; Jolie was sure he could have crushed her if he had chosen to.

  She wondered how it would have been to have made love to the lieutenant. His body would have been softer, his touch gentler. He would have felt guilty; he would have apologized. He might have proposed marriage. Cole just stroked her contentedly without saying a word. For a night such as this she had chosen the right man.

  They lay there for several minutes, catching their breath. Then the sounds of a countryside at war began to drift in—the distant chatter of machine gun fire, and much closer, in the streets below, the noise of soldiers shouting to each other as they readied their defenses for the German assault that was sure to come at dawn.

  Jolie slapped his bare ass and pushed him off, though she was smiling as she did it. "I have heard from the other French girls that you Americans do not have much technique. You make love like you were storming a beach all over again," she said. "Still, you are not bad for a wolf."

  He shook his hand painfully. Her teeth had left a semi-circle of tiny bruises across his knuckles and a fleck of blood showed where the skin was broken. "Damn, but you French girls have got a bite."

  Jolie smiled. "Maybe there is a little panther in me, after all."

  • • •

  After the French girl left, Von Stenger sat for a long time smoking, looking into the fire, and finishing the wine. It was, quite clearly, a trap. The maquis hated the Germans; the girl had not given him the information for any other reason than to make sure he would be at Bienville in the morning. Once there, of course, she planned for the American sniper to kill him.

  Von Stenger wondered about the American. From what he had seen, this hillbilly sniper was a good shot, and he was too clever by far. He would be some backwoods person, a skilled hunter, a deadly marksman. He would have little education, but enormous cunning. He knew this kind of sniper because he had faced them before, in Stalingrad. And he had shot them. Because while they were talented, most of the Russian snipers were not trained. There were methods and tactics they knew by instinct, but not in the textbook way that Von Stenger knew them. Training beat instinct every time—or almost every time.

  Like the Russians, the American would have had very little real training as a sniper. The American had come to play a deadly game of checkers, but what Von Stenger had in mind was a game of chess.

  The first rule of sniping was to keep one's enemy off balance by doing the unexpected. Von Stenger planned to take part in the attack on the village, but not in the way that the French maquis or the American marksman expected.

  He finished his cigarette and flicked it into the fireplace, then went out into the hall where soldiers slept along the old stone walls.

  It took him a while, but finally Von Stenger found the man whom he had overheard talking about his escape that day from Bienville. The soldier was sharing a bottle of schnapps with a comrade, and both of them appeared well on their way to being drunk.

  "You there," Von Stenger said, and the man blinked up at him in surprise. "Tell me about this tunnel you used to escape from the church today."

  CHAPTER 22

  It took a pot of strong black coffee to sober up the soldier, who sat at a table in the bustling kitchen of the chateau while Von Stenger packed himself some food. Von Stenger put together a ham sandwich, an apple, and a flask of coffee.

  The soldier was reluctant to go out into the night. "The maquis are everywhere in the bocage country," the soldier said. "They would like nothing better than to cut our throats."

  "You can take your chances with the maquis, or I will shoot you now for disobeying an order," Von Stenger said nonchalantly. The look in his eyes, however, was more than convincing. "If you are lucky, the maquis won't ever see you, but I won't miss."

  The soldier did not say much after that, but led him down a road toward Bienville. The soldier was something of a clumsy oaf—noisy as he was, he was probably justified in being worried about the French Resistance—but he tried to follow Von Stenger's example of moving almost silently along the road.

  The towering hedges at the sides of the road pressed against them like a vise of blackness. Normally, Von Stenger would have carried his rifle slung over one shoulder, but he kept it at the ready, his finger on the trigger. At every step, he expected to be ambushed by the maquis or the Americans, or possibly shot at mistakenly by German troops.

  Something skittered in the brush and his rifle flicked toward the noise. Von Stenger caught a flash of liquid blue eyes in the starlight. Feral eyes. He looked more closely at the still, dark form on the ground nearby. The animal was feeding on a corpse.

  "What is that?" the soldier whispered, sounding close to panic.

  "Just a fox," Von Stenger replied. "You see, it must be a good night to be prowling the countryside."

  The hedges fell away as they entered the marsh country around Bienville, and soon the lights of the village came into view. It was not a bright night, but there was just enough light to pick out the roof tops and church tower against the lighter backdrop of the French sky. Von Stenger sensed that they were now surrounded by water.

  "The marshes were flooded to make it harder on the enemy paratroopers," the soldier said. "I saw them coming down in this mess. The water isn't deep, maybe up to chest height. A lot of them drowned when their harnesses and gear pulled them under."

  "Shut up," Von Stenger whispered. "We are almost close enough for them to hear us in the village."

  Over the centuries, the road had been built up into a kind of causeway above the marshes, so that it wouldn't flood when the nearby rivers occasionally overflowed their banks. It was good they were crossing the causeway under cover of darkness; by day they would be an easy target.

  "Here," the soldier said. "I think this is the place. We need to move off the road."

  They couldn't risk showing a light, and so had to grope their way through the dark. The ground here was swampy rather than flooded, covered in thick clumps of marsh grass and stunted shrubs that tore at their clothing.

  Von Stenger muttered a curse as he stumbled for the third time. The mud sucked at his boots and water seeped in, getting his feet wet. "Idiot! Where is this tunnel?"

  "It is nearby, sir! I know it is!"

  "The sooner you find it, the sooner you can get back to your schnapps."

  But it soon became clear that the soldier was doing little more than stumbling around in the dark. They nearly tripped over an old wooden skiff pulled up on the bank. Von Stenger was worried; all that one of them needed to do was fall and make a splash, and that would alert the Americans. They were within machine gun range of the village now and if the Americans heard a noise, their guns would cut Von Stenger and his guide to pieces.

  "I do not understand," the soldier muttered. "I know it was nearby. It was—"

  "Right here," Von Stenger said. They had come to a place where the land sloped abruptly and the flooded expanse lapped at their feet. Cut into the side of the bank was a hole lined with stone, almost like a well shaft turned on its side.

  "We have found it," the soldier said, greatly relieved.

  "Get out of here and try to do it quietly," Von Stenger warned. "The Americans will be listening for any sound."

  "Aren't you coming back?" the soldier sounded surprised.

  "No, why would I do that? You have shown me the tunnel into the village. Now I am going to pay the Americans a visit."

  Von Stenger had not brought his pack, but only the rifle, spare ammunition, a few stick grenades, the food and coffee, canteen, and a flashlight. He had removed any insignia that might catch the sunlight or starlight.

  The opening of the tunnel was no more than one meter high. Even as he waited to see if the soldier would make it back to the road without bringing attention to himself, the water of the marsh had risen so that it now flowed into the mouth of the tunnel. He realized that the dammed-up
rivers were tidal, and the tide was coming in quickly.

  When he judged that enough time had passed for the soldier to have reached the road undetected, Von Stenger moved deeper into the tunnel. It was like moving into the pit of night itself. He switched on the flashlight—it wouldn't be noticed now that he was deeper in the tunnel—and saw that the walls were very wet. Perhaps high tide covered the tunnel entrance? Well, that would make things interesting if that was the case.

  It was hard to say who had built the tunnel, or for what purpose. He had heard that some churches in Germany had similar tunnels—they had been used only recently in some cases to hide Jews or smuggle them to safety. Churches had a history that involved centuries of intrigue. The tunnel could have been built by a scheming priest, a smuggler, or a nobleman who needed a quick escape in times of political trouble. No matter—it surely had served someone well in times past. Von Stenger would now use it for his own ends.

  The tunnel was roughly built, with the flashlight beam revealing where several loose stones were missing so that the earth spilled in. In more than a few places, roots had burst through and formed a tangle that he narrowly squeezed past.

  It was a wonder that the whole thing had not collapsed at some point. Von Stenger was careful to avoid bumping the sides and sending the whole thing crashing down around his ears. The old bricks were slick with moss or slime, but the tunnel itself was curiously free of vermin, though he detected the odor of mice.

  From the tunnel entrance to the church he judged it was not more than one hundred meters—not terribly far, unless one happened to be crawling on your hands and knees, encumbered with a rifle, and trying to navigate by the feeble light of a battery-powered torch. In other words, it felt like kilometers to Von Stenger. It seemed to take forever.

  But it was Von Stenger’s plan, and he stuck with it. As Goethe had said: “Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” He mused that Goethe would not have imagined this maxim being applied to the action of crawling through a tunnel toward a sniper’s nest.

  Finally, he sensed a draft and the air smelled fresher. The dull beam of the battery-powered torch revealed a wooden ladder coming down from above. The ladder looked rickety with dry rot. A couple of the rungs showed signs of being freshly broken—that would have been from the soldiers coming down.

  Von Stenger reached up, took hold of a rung—and promptly felt it snap in his grip. He tried again, reaching higher, and this time the wood held. Gingerly, he put his foot on a rung, keeping his weight toward the edge of the ladder rather than the center.

  One rung at a time, he climbed until he reached the underside of a trap door. Keeping one hand on the ladder, he pushed against the trap door. Nothing happened.

  He fought a momentary sense of panic—what if the trap door was hidden beneath something heavy, like a chest? He reach up again, using two hands, and felt the trap door lift a few inches.

  Struggling mightily—the damn thing was heavy and he felt as if he were lifting the gravity of the earth itself—the trap door budged enough for him to open it a few inches. He realized it was not hinged, but only a loose panel set into the floor. He shifted it, heaving against the weight, until he had moved the panel enough for him to crawl through.

  He pulled himself out of the tunnel and lay on the floor, panting with the effort. He found himself in a kind of hallway with a staircase and realized he was at the base of the church tower. Double doors opened up into the church itself, which he saw had been converted into a hospital. He was surprised to see both American and German uniforms among the medics as well as the wounded scattered on the church pews.

  No one had noticed him yet. They were all far too caught up in the hubbub of treating the wounded. As nonchalantly as possible, Von Stenger got to his feet, walked over to the double doors, and swung them shut. He dropped an old-fashioned cross bar into iron slots to bolt the door shut. There was so much thick oak in the doors that he was sure it would take a battering ram—or perhaps a Panzer—to break through. Those doors were the only way into the tower.

  He started up the stairs. The ancient stone steps were worn smooth and he climbed them silently, keeping the rifle ready in case there was already a sniper in position up there. But the tower proved to be empty. Through the narrow window slits, he had a commanding view of the town below, and by moving from one window to another, he could cover all approaches to the church. The stone walls were so thick that it was like being inside a fortress.

  Von Stenger drank some coffee and smoked a cigarette, relaxing, waiting for it to get light. The spring night was cool and damp, and despite the thousands of troops scattered across the countryside, the night was strangely quiet. In the distance, he heard the hoot of a hunting owl, then the bark of a fox. Night sounds. It was such lovely countryside here, and so close to the sea.

  Gradually the light began to come up in the East, and with it came the swell of birdsong. The birds were soon drowned out by the whir of approaching diesel engines. Those would be the Panzers coming down the road toward town. Below him, in the fading night, he began to pick out shapes moving along the streets. Now it begins, he thought.

  He was the ghost. Das Gespenst. He had haunted the forests of Spain and the ruins of Stalingrad, bringing death one bullet at a time. And now he had come to this little French town.

  He sighted through the scope, which gathered the faint light, and settled the crosshairs on a soldier hurrying to occupy one of the makeshift defenses at the edge of town. His finger took up the last of the tension in the trigger and the soldier crumpled into a heap.

  The second battle for Bienville had begun.

  CHAPTER 23

  "Here they come!" a soldier shouted.

  Cole was sprawled on a second-floor roof, looking down the road, his eye pressed to the rifle scope as he awaited the first glimpse of the enemy.

  No one really needed to shout a warning. They had been able to hear the diesel engines and clanking treads of the approaching Tiger tanks for some time, a sound that was as threatening as a distant thunderstorm. There would be ground troops, too.

  Let them come on, he thought.

  He wondered just where Von Stenger might be. Was he with the advancing Wehrmacht troops? Made up of marsh and water, the countryside surrounding the town did not offer the hiding places of other areas in the bocage. The woods and fields the German sniper could use for cover were at an extreme rifle range. Nonetheless, Cole knew Von Stenger was out there somewhere. Jolie had practically dared—or perhaps a better word was taunted—the German sniper into being there. But where?

  He reckoned that Von Stenger hadn't earned the nickname The Ghost without good reason.

  Cole had chosen his sniping position with Von Stenger in mind. It was up high enough to give him the advantage because the shooter with the higher position held all the cards. He would have preferred to be up in the church steeple, which with its height and thick walls would be impregnable. It looked more like a castle or knight's keep than a church steeple. Lieutenant Mulholland had agreed with the medics that the church should be neutral territory as a makeshift hospital.

  He was using the ridge of the roof as a rifle rest so that the slope of the roof gave him some natural protection. All he had to do was keep his head down once the shooting started.

  And it was about to start.

  It was hard to say how long the beleaguered American force could hold this key town on the road to Carentan. Their best hope would be for reinforcements—or better yet a squadron of P-51 tank busters to magically appear and knock out the Panzers. For now, they would have to depend upon themselves. They were well dug in, and that combined with the fact that the attacking Germans would be channeled down the single roadway into town, gave them a defensible position. The Germans' superior numbers and firepower might eventually wear down the Americans, but they would go down fighting.

  Neville, the lone Brit, was on the secon
d floor at the edge of town with his Tommy gun, while Vaccaro, the lieutenant and Cole had taken up positions on the roof tops of the highest buildings. Jolie and Fritz were in the hospital.

  Cole was a little surprised when he heard the sharp crack of a rifle in town and thought someone was getting antsy, firing before the enemy was even in sight. But then he noticed the crumpled figure in the street below, looking as if he'd been shot. Huh. Cole might have ignored that if a second rifle shot hadn't rung out, the bullet knocking down another soldier. That second shot had definitely come from within town limits, and it had killed a soldier.

  What the hell was happening?

  A third shot rang out, and Cole was fairly certain it had come from the church tower. The tower was much higher up and directly behind him—he was lucky that it was still dark enough that the sniper couldn't see him yet.

  "Sniper!" he heard someone shouting. "There's a sniper in the steeple!"

  It had to be Von Stenger. The Ghost Sniper. No doubt about it. Jolie had thought she was setting a trap for the German, but the sneaky son of a bitch had turned the tables. Somehow, the bastard had slipped into the town. He had gotten into the church steeple. And now he was picking them off.

  On the narrow streets below, men shouted and pointed up at the tower. From one of the slitted windows, Cole saw a stab of flame. There. He aimed and fired, too fast, not thinking through what he was doing. He knew the bullet was wrong before it left the barrel. His hasty shot blew a chunk of rock of the edge of a window slit. The bullet had missed, but it had gotten the Ghost Sniper’s attention. Cole could feel himself in the crosshairs. He flung himself over the ridge of the roof just in time—a bullet pulverized the tiles where he had lain a split second ago.

  Damn good shot, he thought in the back of his mind. His next thought was: I'm a dead man if I don’t get off the roof.