On the other side of the farmyard, the Germans couldn't wait to get a shot at Cole.
"Sir, can you see him?" Rohde whispered. "It is the American sniper. You saw his helmet. Just think what it will mean if we can bag him. Do you see him?
"No. Maybe. I am not sure."
"I think he is wounded. I almost have him in my sights. Can you tell me if he is moving at all?"
Fischer had proven that he was not a bad shot, but he was far from being an experienced sniper. In his excitement, the Hauptmann raised his head to get a better look. Looking on, Rohde started to warn the Hauptmann to keep his head down, but then bit back the words. Rohde was not about to forget that it was Fischer who had withheld his Iron Cross.
As Cole watched, one of the Germans raised his head above the wall they were hiding behind, as if to get a better view of Harper's body. It was the kind of dumb move a greenhorn made.
Cole thought at first that it must be a trick, maybe a helmet on a stick, trying to get him to reveal himself. They must have thought Cole was a dumb Jasper, if ever there was one.
He looked more closely, surprised to see that it was an actual head, on an actual German. The distance across the farmyard was not very great, and through the scope, Cole could see the man's face. Cole put his crosshairs on the German's medulla oblongata and pulled the trigger.
The bullet smashed through the bridge of the German's nose. His body slumped across the wall.
Instantly, two shots in rapid succession struck the water trough, one bullet striking just an inch from Cole's face, sending stone chips into his eye. The bullet had not just struck, he realized, it had detonated. There had been a small but unmistakable explosion, like a powerful firecracker going off. What the hell was the German shooting at him with?
He rolled away from the base of the trough, blinking furiously, temporarily blinded.
He had two thoughts. First, he hoped to hell that he would be able to see again. A blind sniper wasn't worth a damn. Next, he knew for damn sure that it wasn't Rohde that he'd shot. Hadn't looked like him, for one thing. Hadn't acted like him, for another. Killing Rohde would have been too damn lucky, anyhow.
No, Rohde had used the other sniper as bait. Cole was a little shocked at that. Could Rohde really be that ruthless, letting one of his own get shot just for a chance at Cole? The thought was chilling. Then again, this was the same sniper who had staked a boy out in the middle of a battlefield, giving it no more thought than if he'd put out a jar of honey to trap flies.
Now, the German seemed to be using explosive bullets. Cole had heard rumors about such bullets, but thought that they were banned.
As Cole turned it over in his mind, he didn't feel fear. He felt the slow burn of anger. He'd nail that son of a bitch's hide to the barn door yet.
"Cole!"
Lisette? At the sound of the French girl calling his name, any sense of calm evaporated. His heart hammered in his chest. She shouted his name again.
She must have heard the sound of shooting in her farmyard and come out to investigate. Cole couldn't decide if that was brave, or dumb. Right now, he was leaning toward dumb.
With a sinking feeling, he realized that the whole damn situation had gone si-goggly. The water trough was positioned in such a way that he could see Lisette, but that she could not see him. The French girl could not see Harper's dead body or the German's either, for that matter.
She was walking right into Rohde's line of fire.
There was no way for Cole to signal Lisette without getting picked off, and his command of French did not go much beyond non or oui. Once she came around the corner of the cottage, Rohde was going to shoot her for the hell of it, and there wasn't a goddamn thing that Cole could do about it.
Unless. He peered around the base of the water trough through blurry eyes. His left eye stung like hell; there was a piece of stone in there that felt as big around and sharp as an arrowhead, but Cole did his best to ignore it. Wasn't his shooting eye, at least. The rest of his body tensed up as he got ready to make a move.
"You're a dang fool, Micajah Cole," he muttered to himself.
Then Cole leaped up and ran.
He dodged left and right, jackrabbiting across the field, away from the farmhouse. A bullet plucked at his sleeve, but he kept going. If being a sniper had taught him anything, it was how to make himself hard to hit. There was a time to walk proud, and a time to run like a rabbit.
Another shot, and another. That goddamn Kraut had hisself a semiautomatic rifle.
It was one thing to dodge a sniper with a bolt action rifle, and quite another to get shot at by a sniper with a weapon that dispensed a bullet with each pull of the trigger. An explosive bullet, at that.
Got to keep moving. He headed for the laundry hanging on the line, saw a bullet shred a sheet, and kept sprinting. Some low bushes grew at the edge of the yard and he crouched down as he ran. The next three bullets ripped the air overhead.
Then Cole was in among the woods beyond the barn. A bullet exploded against a tree, scattering bark and splinters. The shooting stopped. He wondered if Rohde had followed him, but didn't slow down long enough to look over his shoulder. More shots answered his question. Rohde was coming after him.
So far, the bullets had gone wild, which meant that Rohde didn't have a clear shot. Cole juked left and right, bobbing and weaving as he ran, doing his best impression of a cottontail rabbit. He knew from experience that hitting a running target meant that the shooter had to anticipate the space that the target was going to occupy next. He didn't plan on giving Rohde that opportunity. Still, that hardly meant Cole didn't feel a tingling between his shoulder blades, as if he had a paper target pinned there.
Another bullet hit a tree and exploded, too close for comfort. At the edge of the woods, he hit a tangle of briers that clawed at his clothes and bare skin. He managed to push on through, but not without shredding his uniform in a couple of places.
He emerged into a field. Not much cover here, but if he could just get into some tall grass, he could take a prone position and ambush Rohde as he—
Cole never finished the thought. Immediately to his left, he became aware of a metallic rumbling and clanking. Fleeing from Rohde had given him tunnel vision.
He hadn't even noticed that there was a German Tiger tank coming right at him.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Weighing fifty tons, a Tiger tank was a formidable beast with armor several inches thick, treads three feet across, and a cannon the size of a tree trunk. The sight of it turned Cole's heart into a trip hammer inside his chest. The thing was churning toward him.
All thoughts of Rohde vanished. Cole had more immediate concerns. Like staying alive for the next sixty seconds.
Against that behemoth, his rifle would be of no more use than a peashooter. The only thing that Cole could think to do was to get out of the way. He dodged right and ran, but it didn't do him much good. Moving in tandem on the Tiger's flank was a second German tank.
Though slower than a Sherman tank, the massive panzers still moved faster than Cole could sprint at top speed. For a fleeting moment, he feared that he would be run over and crushed. He felt like some animal caught trying to cross a backcountry road, hoping to avoid becoming roadkill while some bootlegger's car bore down on him relentlessly.
He had seen more than a few guys run over by tanks. What was left of them resembled persimmon jelly. Oozing in the bottom of a tank track.