The flooded river and marsh covered the tunnel entrance. He could see that the tunnel angled sharply up from the entrance and that the water covered the entrance much in the same way that water fills the bottom of a tilted glass.
If Cole held his breath and swam — hard — he might just make it out.
More chunks of the ceiling pattered down on his helmet like rain on a tin roof. Ping. Ping. Then bigger chunks of brick. Pang! The whole goddamn roof felt about ready to collapse and there was nowhere to go.
Swim or die.
Cole made sure the rifle sling was secure across his back, took a deep breath, and dove.
The water was cold, cold and black, and he imagined something like dead hands reaching for him to pull him under for good. He kicked wildly and flailed his arms, trying to propel himself forward but mainly managing to skin his knees and elbows in the process. Cole ignored the pain. He swam toward the light. His lungs burned. Just a few more feet. His rifle stock got hung up, catching on a loose brick. He paused long enough to wrench it free. The effort meant a few precious bubbles of air escaped his lungs.
Almost there. He shoved forward — and then he was outside the tunnel, about to come up for air.
Mixed with relief was a question — where was the German?
Cole hovered for a moment beneath the surface. The water was not all that deep — definitely not over his head. He got his feet under him. His lungs ached, every molecule in his body wanted air, but he would not let himself come up just yet. He unstrapped his helmet, then holding it by the bottom rim lifted it above the surface, while simultaneously pushing his face out of the water, just enough to get a breath.
Then Cole dove again.
He was just in time. He felt the helmet nearly plucked from his grasp with terrible force. With his eyes open under the water, he saw a bullet leave a contrail through the water.
He swam as long and as far as he could, his lungs burning again, but at least this time he wasn't in that goddamn black tunnel.
Another bullet streaked down where his helmet had been. He was already several feet away.
He picked out a log floating above him and popped up behind it, keeping his head down. Peeking from behind the log, he could make out a small island a couple hundred feet distant. If he were the German sniper, and he'd had time to choose his position, that's just where he would be, ready to pick off whoever came out of that tunnel.
Missed me, you son of a bitch. Now it's my turn.
CHAPTER 27
Von Stenger saw a helmet decorated with a Confederate flag clear the water. He fired. The helmet sank, a black hole in its center where the round had punched through. He fired again into the water just where the sinking body should be.
The natural inclination was to think that's that and call it a day, but Von Stenger did not move except to work the bolt action. Then he settled down to wait.
He had a strong shooting position there on the island. While the river lay in the distance, the dammed waters had flooded the marshes and fields, forming a tremendous shallow lake that spread for hundreds of acres around Bienville and beyond. The water was filled with the flotsam and jetsam lifted by the flooding — logs, fenceposts, mats of straw.
The sun was at his back and the sparkling glare across the water gave anyone approaching from the raised roadway — or the sunken tunnel entrance, for that matter — a distinct disadvantage in having to squint into the diamonds of sunlight reflected on the water's surface.
Von Stenger was using the dead body of the American paratrooper as a decoy. Partially hidden and in the prone position, with a rifle grasped in its bloated fingers, the corpse appeared to be lying in wait on the island. Von Stenger himself was hidden in the brush several feet behind the corpse, hoping that another shooter — half blinded by the sun-dappled waters — would think the body was actually the sniper. With the enemy’s crosshairs elsewhere, Von Stenger could then pick him off.
He believed that there was just one man who would have made the effort to track him through the tunnel. The hillbilly sniper. The distinctive flag on the helmet was proof. Von Stenger realized that he had missed killing the man on the roof top.
By all appearances, he had been more successful this time in killing him. He had certainly hit the American sniper's helmet. But some gut instinct told Von Stenger to hold back.
It helped to be a good shot, but the first rule a sniper learned was patience.
And so he waited.
Cole wondered if the rifle would fire, after getting a good dunking. Fortunately he had thought to wrap the muzzle with a strip of cloth. That kept out the mud. The water would drain out. The cartridges were water tight. But if the scope had water in it, he was out of luck.
Carefully, working behind the shelter of the floating log, he lifted the rifle parallel to the water and took off the cloth. He opened the action to drain any water, but was surprised to find it dry. So far, so good. Finally, he put his eye to the telescopic sight. The seal had held — not a drop had penetrated the scope. Not for the first time, he was amazed by the quality of what the Germans made. An American scope would be junk by now.
The floating log had a kind of knobby fork in it, and Cole rested the rifle there, trying hard not to move the log too much. Easy, easy. He now had a good view of the island where the German sniper must be hidden.
Then he saw him. Partially obscured in the brush he could make out the outline of a helmet. He grinned. Cole settled the crosshairs on the helmet and gently squeezed the trigger.
The dead paratrooper's body shuddered as the bullet struck it. Von Stenger saw that the shot must have come from the log floating near the tunnel entrance. He did not have a clear view of the American. Instead, he aimed for the water just in front of the log and fired, hoping a lucky shot might hit the enemy sniper.
A bullet lost most of its energy almost immediately upon hitting the water. It was like shooting into wet concrete. But all he needed was a few inches.
Other than the splash where the bullet had gone in, there was no movement. A body slumping under the water would have caused enough displacement to move the log. So he had missed.
The American sniper must now have realized that the body he had shot was nothing but a decoy. Now he would be looking for the actual shooter. Von Stenger, however, was confident that he was well hidden.
In spite of the predicament he was in, he had to smile. This is why he loved sniping. It was a game of chess with rifles. The next shot could be a matter of checkmate.
Von Stenger could have waited all day — he was on a dry patch of land. The American was standing in water — it was not a position a man could hold for long, no matter how tough he was. However, the increasing sound of gunfire was a reminder that the attack on Bienville was growing in intensity. It was only a matter of time before the tank shells began to rain into the flooded fields, and Von Stenger did not wish to be around when that happened.
A plan began to take shape. My move.
Working himself backward, one inch at a time, Von Stenger slipped back into the water. Making not so much as a ripple, he began to wade to the right of the island and then toward the causeway. His plan was to approach the American sniper from the side and surprise him.
A couple of factors worked in his favor. The first was that the American sniper's attention and the narrow field of the rifle scope would all be on the area around where the decoy body lay. He would not take his eyes off that. The second factor was the glare on the water that would mask Von Stenger's movements like the best sort of camouflage. Finally, he still had the length of plastic tubing in his pocket. He took it out now and put it in his mouth, and then slipped beneath the water while keeping his rifle held just above the surface. With the glare and some luck, it would look like a piece of wood.