“If anyone shoots the pilot, I will shoot him!” Wu shouted.
He saw one of the traitors, an older man, grab his arm and fall into the water. Smiling in satisfaction, he drew his pistol and began firing at the Korean who stopped to help him. To his surprise, Wu saw that it was a woman, and an attractive one at that. It seemed a shame to kill her, but a traitor was a traitor. Wu raised his pistol and fired, but his shot went wide.
No matter. There was nowhere for their quarry to escape, now that they were caught in the open. The jolt of the pistol had thrown off his aim, so he settled the sights on the woman again and held steady. He began to squeeze the trigger.
“I have you now,” he said aloud, chuckling.
That’s when they were attacked from the rear, well-placed shots tearing into his men. The man next to him threw his arms wide and collapsed face-first into the water’s edge. Dead as a stone.
Within moments, two more of Wu’s men fell. He swung his pistol to face the attackers.
Cole and the kid had arrived moments before, just in time to see the four figures struggling in the shallows of the river. Just as he had suspected from the footprints, he saw three Korean villagers and the American pilot wading through the current.
The edges of the river had wide sandbars that made the Imjin a favorite for cooling off. The Imjin was too wide and deep to cross easily, and the current was powerful in the middle of the river, but maybe crossing the river hadn’t been their plan. Maybe they had simply been trying to throw the pursuers off their trail by wading in the river and emerging downstream, making their tracks hard to find.
At any rate, now they were caught out in the open. Their only choice was to try to swim the river and float downstream. There was no going back, because the Chinese pursuers stood on the riverbank, firing at them.
Bullets plucked at the surface of the water. One of the villagers suddenly clutched at his shoulder and went down, sinking beneath the surface. Another villager stopped to help him.
They were sitting ducks out in the open.
“Take the man on the left,” Cole said to the kid. “After that, pick your targets and aim. Take your time. We won’t have the element of surprise after the first couple of shots.”
“If you say so.”
Cole raised his rifle. Normally, he would have targeted the officer first, but the man appeared to be armed with only a pistol. Considering the range to the fleeing group in the river, it was an ineffectual weapon. Cole ignored the officer and aimed for one of the soldiers instead. He had a rifle against his shoulder and was banging away at the group in the water.
Cole put his crosshairs on the enemy soldier’s mid-section. Nothing fancy at this range, he told himself, and not without any good rest for his rifle. His bullet might not kill the enemy soldier, but it would put him down.
He squeezed the trigger, and an instant later, the soldier fell down. Cole ran the bolt and fired again.
Beside him, the kid had followed Cole’s instructions and taken his time with the first shot. Another enemy soldier fell.
“Got him!” the kid shouted.
That’s two down, Cole thought, not looking up from his own rifle.
However, the kid hurried his next couple of shots, which did at least confuse the Chinese, who ran for cover.
Cole wasn’t as hurried as the kid. He breathed in, breathed out, taking his time. When he finally fired, another one of the enemy fell.
Given a respite from the enemy attack, the pilot and his small band escaped the water and ran for the brush at the river’s edge, where they scrambled out of sight.
The attack by Cole and the kid had managed to surprise and scatter the Chinese. They didn’t seem to know that it was just two soldiers attacking them. For all they knew, it could have been a regiment.
With his men dropping like flies, Wu had expected to find a squad of enemy soldiers at their backs. Instead, he saw just two men, crouched behind the driftwood debris on the riverbank. For a moment, he was so taken aback that he didn’t even manage to fire his pistol at them.
The two men had been more than effective in rattling Wu’s squad.
Caught by surprise, the others scrambled for the safety of the nearby thicket. Even Deng ran, leading the way to cover. Deng was fearless, but he wasn’t a fool.
At the moment, the same could not be said of Wu. He stood alone like a deer frozen in the headlights, surprised by how close the Americans were. From this distance, he could even see their grimy faces under the brim of their GI helmets. The helmets made the men instantly recognizable as the enemy because Chinese and North Korean troops did not wear such cowardly headgear.
One of the men had something painted on his helmet. With a shock, Wu realized it as what the Americans called a Confederate flag. It seemed impossible, but this appeared to be the same sniper who had tangled with Wu’s prize protege, Li Chen — and ultimately defeated Chen.
Angry now, Wu squeezed off several shots in the enemy sniper’s direction. When the magazine was empty, it was all that he could do not to reach down and hurl rocks at the sniper. Instead, he started running after his men sheltering in the thicket.
Cole watched the soldiers run off, leaving only one enemy officer by the river’s edge. The officer seemed reluctant to abandon the chase. He stood for a moment, searching for his attackers. He refused to cut and run like the others.
Cole had to admire the man for having brass balls, or the Chinese equivalent. Jade balls? He lined up the crosshairs on the Chinaman.
Through the scope, he could see that the officer had spotted Cole and the kid, then seemed to stare at Cole. Does the son of a bitch recognize me? The officer shouted something and raised his pistol in Cole’s direction. Cole was well out of accurate pistol range, but that didn’t stop the Chinese officer from firing several shots in their direction.
Cole heard the pop, pop, pop of the pistol. Bullets whined around them and Cole hit the dirt.
When he raised the rifle again, the Chinese soldier was disappearing into the brush, following the lead of his men.
Three of the Chinese wouldn’t be going anywhere. Their bodies lay on the sandy riverbank.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Chinaman knew me.”
“Well, did you know him?”
“Can’t say that we’re on a first-name basis,” Cole replied.
The only time when he had been up close and personal with any Chinese soldier had been during the Chosin Reservoir campaign, when he had briefly been captured. That officer hadn’t been there, although the Chinese sniper that Cole had clashed with at Sniper Ridge had been. Things hadn’t turned out so well for the enemy sniper.
“You know, that Confederate flag painted on your helmet kind of gives you away.”
“Huh. I reckon I didn’t think about that.”
“Word gets around, Hillbilly,” the kid said. “They must have figured out by now that there’s an American sniper with a Confederate flag painted on his helmet. I’ll bet those Chinese have a bounty on your head.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll bet you’re worth up to three, maybe four eggrolls by now.”
“In that case, I’m glad that fella missed. Come on, let’s go down and collect our pilot and his friends before them Chinese fellers regroup. That officer looks like he could be ornery.”
As it turned out, the pilot hadn’t gone far. Cole quickly tracked him down in the brush, hiding with the others. They were bunched together, their weapons ready for a last stand.
“Don’t go shootin’ us now,” Cole said.