Sniper's Honor(106)

Patron: At last. Yes, it is acceptable, and the final fee will be paid, with a bonus. All these e-mails must be destroyed, incidentally. But you knew that.

The patron’s e-mail address was Anton1@Toryavesky.net. It didn’t take long for Gershon to learn that Toryavesky was the holding company at the center of a certain Russian oligarch’s empire. That man was Vassily Strelnikov, about to become the new minister of trade of Russia.





CHAPTER 50


The Carpathians


Yaremche


LATE JULY 1944


Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajioon.

To him we belong, to him return.

Having spoken directly to Allah by means of a dua, as such direct declarations were called, Salid came out of his religious trance. It was still the same, only it was five seconds later.

The senior group leader SS lay on his side on the narrow width of the bridge, in a gigantic puddle of blood that soaked his clothes and gleamed in the dull light of the occluded sun; some of it slid through the slats and drained down to the swirling waters below. There was so much blood you could smell it. The corpse’s eyes were open, as was his mouth. Blood ran from his nose and welled into his mouth from his throat but had not overspilled its boundaries yet.

Where could the shot have come from?

It had to have come from a long, long way out, so far out that its noise largely dissipated before it so tragically arrived.

Salid blinked, hoping for the arrival of a clarification. Men looked at him in stupefied horror, waiting for orders. He himself wished someone were there to give crisp, concise, well-thought-out orders. But in the absence of Dr. Groedl, he was the senior officer.

He could think only of himself.

The man I was sent to protect is dead despite my best efforts. I will be blamed. I am, after all, the outsider, the one who does not belong. My greatest sponsor was Dr. Groedl, and now he is gone, the sniper has escaped, I have shamed my father, my grandfather, my cousin the Mufti, my family, my faith, my destiny. The Germans will shoot me for gross incompetence.

Allah, send me wisdom, I pray to Thee help your son Salid at his hour of maximum terror among the infidels, to whom he is nothing really but a nigger of no account who, given responsibility, has failed it utterly.

“Sir, what—”

It was Ackov.

Salid tried to think.

What? What? What?

The dogs.

“The dogs will find her. Nothing has changed. She is up there, somewhere above the burned-out line. No, no, the bullet hit him frontally. The shot had to come from there!” He pointed to a much farther flank of pine-carpeted mountain a full thousand yards distant.“Where’s the field telephone?”

Ackov waved over a man, who had a box containing the Model 33 field phone and the long cord. The field telephone, in its hard-shell Bakelite container, was the primary communications device of German ground forces, as it was far less fragile than the radio, far less temperamental, and wire could be laid quickly to put units at a great distance in contact. Its batteries were more reliable, it wasn’t as heavy, and it never blew a tube. Salid opened it, took out the phone, and turned the little crank to send a signal to the other end.

“Graufeldt here.” Graufeldt was a steady lance corporal, one of the few ethnic Germans in Police Battalion.

“Did you hear the shot?”

“Yes sir. It wasn’t from our area.”

“The dogs, Graufeldt.”

“Sir, I’ve already released the dog teams, and they’re headed in the direction of the shot. They will pick up any scent. Since the shot was so far away, I directed the men to dump their machine pistols and packs and proceed under armament of pistols. I thought they’d have to move quickly and stamina would be the determining factor and—”

“Yes, yes, good. How much wire have you got?”

“Two spools. Another half kilometer. Should I move with them?”

“Yes, stay as close as you can.”

“Yes sir.”

“Keep me informed. I will be moving soon and beyond the reach of the field phones. You will communicate by flare pistol if you catch her, and you will proceed along the high path to the choke point. If nothing else, your presence will drive her into the parachutists.”

“Yes sir.”

“Good man, Graufeldt.”

“Sir, how did—”

“I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. What matters now is only that we apprehend the woman.”

“Yes sir. End transmit here, as I move to new position.”

Now Salid was thinking more clearly. He handed the phone back.

“Sir, should we mount up for the trip to the Gap?”

“Not yet, Ackov. Have the men roust all the villagers and lock them in the church.”

“Yes sir.”