Sniper's Justice (Caje Cole Book 9)

by David Healey

Hauer smiled pleasantly. “I am glad that their future is more promising than ours when we were their age. Love is better than war, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I reckon,” Cole said guardedly. He didn’t trust a word that Hauer said.

  “I have been thinking that this is more than a chance meeting,” Hauer said. “Perhaps we have an opportunity to get to know one another better. Let me invite you to come hunting this weekend in the Vosges Mountains. Some old friends have a hunting club that gathers there. The food is excellent, real German food, in a comfortable lodge. No foxholes for us anymore.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Hauer smiled, not ready to give up. “Come now, I hope you will consider it. Last time, you almost bested me. This time, let me best you in hunting. It is a matter of honor.”

  “Honor? I didn’t know you were familiar with the word.”

  Hauer shrugged. “Please, let us put our differences aside. The war is over. You will like these mountains. Fresh air. Boars and stags. We hunt with dogs, you know, and also with beaters who drive the game toward the hunters.” Hauer looked at Hans. “Are you a hunter?”

  “No, but I know that the Vosges are beautiful.”

  “Yes! Yes! It is so true. You and your niece must come also.”

  Hauer sounded so sincere and looked so eager that Hans seemed to waver. “Well—”

  Hauer winked conspiratorially. “I knew you were an old hunter at heart. Most true Germans are. You will love this lodge and the fresh mountain air. Ah, the scenery! Hillbilly, what do you say?”

  Cole surprised himself by responding not with a definite “no” as he had meant to, but with, “I’m not sure.”

  “Come now, what are you going to do, shop for cuckoo clocks and beer steins to take home as souvenirs?”

  As much as Cole hated to admit it, Hauer had something of a point. They were scheduled to be in Germany for several more days, and after the museum opening, their calendar was clear to do some exploring. Hunting sounded better to him than shopping or visiting museums.

  Hauer’s invitation seemed genuine. Cole began to think that maybe he owed him the benefit of the doubt. The war had been a long time ago. He didn’t think that he would ever come to like Hauer or understand him, but maybe they could agree upon a truce. Besides, Cole wouldn’t mind showing him once and for all that he was the better shot.

  “All right then,” Cole said.

  “Wonderful! Bring your grandson. He will have a great time. Don’t worry—I have a shotgun that you can use.”

  “A shotgun, huh?”

  “I’m not sure that I trust you with a rifle, ha!”

  They exchanged information, with Hauer collecting the name of Cole’s hotel and Hauer giving Cole a plain business card with just his name, an address in Berlin, and his telephone number.

  After Hauer left, Hans studied the plain card that Hauer had also given him as if it contained far more information, perhaps hidden between the lines. “What does a man like that do in East Germany?” Hans wondered out loud. “So many are desperately poor who are coming out of there now, but he looked prosperous enough.”

  “I don’t know,” Cole said. “You tell me what he did. He seems like the type who sold used cars.”

  “Or maybe he worked for the Stasi. The East German Secret Police.” Hans rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “He has that look about him. You know, you do not have to go on this hunting trip.”

  “It’s just two old men having a pissing contest,” Cole said. “He’s right that the war is over. Hell, Hans, it’s been forty years. We’ll hunt some boars and see which one of us can still shoot straight.”

  Hans rolled his eyes. “You’re right. Two old snipers with grudges and guns, turned loose in the hills. What could go wrong?”

  Hans borrowed a car, a solid and comfortable new Volvo 740 that belonged to Angela’s father, and they all drove down to the lodge together. The old German proved to be a good driver, but he drove the sedan in the steady, plodding way of a farmer—which he was back in Ohio. German drivers tended to be more aggressive, driving zippy Volkswagens and BMWs and Mercedes. These handled more nimbly than the Ford pickup trucks Hans was used to driving back home.

  “The world just keeps moving faster and faster,” Hans muttered as yet another sleek sedan zoomed past him.

  “Uncle Hans, you need to speed up,” Angela urged. “You are driving too slowly!”

  The trip coincided with a fall break in Angela’s school, so the timing was perfect. Ordinarily, Cole suspected, a hunting trip would not be something that the girl would want to go on, especially not with her aged uncle, but spending time with Danny seemed to be the main attraction. The two sat together in the back seat, deep in conversation.

  Cole kept quiet and let Hans concentrate on the road.

  Hans had turned out to be full of surprises. Not the least of which was that he had agreed to accompany Cole in the first place.

  “I would have thought that you would want to spend time with your family, Hans.”

  “You know what Benjamin Franklin said about fish and company,” Hans replied. “After three days, they both start to smell. So, I am giving them a break until I smell fresh again. Besides, I have Angela with me and she was excited about taking a trip.”

  Before leaving Munich, he had brought Cole around to the trunk of the car and quietly showed him a rifle case, which he opened to reveal a beautiful hunting rifle. Cole realized it was a “sporterized” version of a Model 1903A Springfield. Essentially, someone had customized the military surplus version of the rifle with which Cole was so familiar. Germany’s gun laws allowed hunting rifles and shotguns, but not the private ownership of military weapons. As a result, many surplus rifles from WWI and WWII had been transformed into hunting rifles in order to skirt the law.

  This rifle had been designed with more than function or legal loopholes in mind, because it was a pleasure to behold. The stock was made of burled walnut, intricately checkered, with end caps for the nose and grip done in a blond wood to create an interesting contrast. As a craftsman himself, Cole couldn’t resist reaching down and running a finger along the beautiful grain of the stock. As a nod to comfort, the stock was fitted with a ventilated rubber Pachmayr recoil pad. His old battlefield Springfield had lacked any such niceties, and he’d often had the bruised shoulder to prove it.

  The action and barrel were of polished bright steel rather than blued, which was a little showy for Cole’s taste. Even the bolt had been upgraded to include a jeweled pattern rather than a plain knob. The rifle’s receiver had been drilled and tapped to accommodate a high-powered Leica scope. Such expensive optics had never been in Cole’s budget, but from his perusal of gun magazines, Cole knew that the scope alone must have cost as much as the down payment on this Volvo.

  “She’s a beauty,” Cole said. “Where did you get her?”

  “My nephew is a hunter. Angela’s father,” Hans explained. “He is a banker.”

  “Ah. Well, your nephew has good taste.”

  “I want you to use it for the hunt,” Hans said. “I’m sorry, but I could not get another rifle for your grandson.”

  “I don’t think Danny is so keen on hunting,” Cole said. “But what about you? What are you going to hunt with?”

  Hans shook his head. “What am I going to do, traipse up and down the hills? I am an old man. I have a bad heart. No, I am going to sit in front of the fire at the lodge, drink warm schnapps, and keep an eye on those two.”

  “Then why did you bring me the rifle? Hauer said that he would have a shotgun for me.”

  “I suspect that you are a better shot with a rifle,” Hans said. “Which would you rather have in the woods?”

  “No argument there.”

  “You know, if this was a duel, I suppose that I would be your second.”

  “It ain’t a duel.”

  Hans shrugged. “If you say so.”

  As they left the city behind, Cole was struck by the beauty of the countr
yside. They passed through the heart of Bavaria with its rolling hills and neatly kept farms. When Cole had first seen Germany, it had been been a war-ravaged, defeated, muddy country in late winter. Now, although they had missed the best of the fall colors, he still spotted the pale fire of aspens in the hills. The autumn sunlight gave the landscape a crisp appearance.

  The Vosges Mountains themselves rose to the south of the Ardennes region and straddled the border between Germany and France, in the region known as Alsace-Lorraine. Hans explained that the area had passed back and forth between Germany and France many times over the centuries. They crossed the Rhine into France, drove through the small city of Strasbourg, then continued into the Vosges.

  Cole felt some small sense of relief at leaving Germany and entering France, although he knew that was foolishness in this day and age. But deep down, he had always liked the French and found them to be a welcoming people. After all, it was the French who had helped Americans win the Revolutionary War. Americans had returned the favor in 1944. Spending a few days in France was just fine by him.

  Slowly, the road gained altitude as they climbed into the mountains. Cole felt right at home because these peaks felt more like the Appalachians, with rounded hilltops rising to elevations of around twelve hundred feet. The road grew narrower, following the valleys, with dense forests creeping closer. The afternoon grew darker. In the back seat, the conversation between Danny and Angela grew softer, then fell quiet. The grim mountains and woods seemed to demand silence.

  “Where is this place?” Angela asked her uncle, sounding a bit nervous.

  “It’s just—”

  At that moment, a stag came bounding out of the woods, directly into the path of the car. Hans stomped on the brakes. It wasn’t the best reaction because the car began to skid on the damp fallen leaves littering the road. He fought for control of the wheel as the car slewed sideways.

  From the backseat, Angela gasped. Danny swore.

  Hans had braked, but it hadn’t been enough to keep them from hitting the stag, which more or less ran right into the car. The big animal hit them with a solid thud, then bounced off the grill into a roadside ditch.

  By some miracle, the car stopped skidding just before following the stag into the ditch.

  “Well, I ain’t had a ride like that since my rocking chair fell through the front porch last summer,” Cole remarked. “Everybody all right?”

  “All right,” said Hans, whose hands still gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles.

  Angela and Danny were fine. Like a good German, she had made them both follow the rules and buckle their seatbelts, even in the backseat.

  “What about the poor stag?” she asked.

  “You wait here. Let me go see about that,” Cole said.

  Cole got out, along with Danny. After a minute, Hans followed, although Angela had to help him—he was still shaky after hitting the stag. Cole had the worrisome thought that Hans had complained of heart trouble before.

  The stag lay in the ditch, tangled in the ferns and bracken, still alive, but barely. When it saw Cole, the stag struggled pitifully to rise, but then gave up and lay there, its ribs heaving with labored breathing. Cole studied the animal with interest because he had never seen one up close. He recalled that a stag was more closely related to an elk than to a whitetail deer.

  “Maybe there is an animal hospital nearby,” Angela said, close to tears. “We can get help.”

  Cole and Hans exchanged a look. Cole was a hunter and Hans was a farmer. They both knew what needed to be done.

  “I will get the rifle,” Hans said.

  Hans walked back to the trunk and got out the rifle, then returned and fed a single round into the chamber. Hans aimed down at the injured stag, then lowered the rifle. “I cannot do it,” Hans said.

  He held the rifle out to Cole, who took it, immediately enjoying the feel of the rifle in his hands. Damn, but he would never be too old for that.

  “Danny, why don’t you walk Angela down the road a ways,” Cole said.

  Danny did just that, putting an arm around her shoulders, which were shaking a little, and led her away.

  Cole gave them a minute, then raised the rifle to his shoulder to put the animal out of its misery. His jaw fit tight against the rifle, with the stock fitting comfortably into his shoulder. He took a moment, just getting the feel of the rifle. Through the expensive scope, the stag’s eye showed bright and clear.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  The sound of the single rifle shot echoed across the hills.

  He ejected the shell and reached down to pocket the soft, warm brass.

  “The lodge can’t be far,” Cole said. “When we get there, we’ll let them know in case someone wants to come back here and get the meat.”

  “Good idea,” Hans said meekly. He still looked pale after the accident. Cole thought about that weak heart again.

  “You doin’ OK?”

  “OK.”

  “Why don’t I drive the rest of the way,” Cole said. “You can navigate. I thought trying to read German was bad enough, but these damn road signs are in French.”

  The car’s hood wasn’t even dented, with only some fur caught in the slats of the grill, and nothing mechanical had been affected. The car started right up. The Volvo seemed to be built like a tank. Cole backed it away from the edge of the ditch, got it pointed in the right direction, and headed for the lodge somewhere in the hills ahead.

  Some might have seen the collision with the stag as a bad omen, but Cole wasn’t so sure about that. He’d had the opportunity to fire the rifle and kill with it. He and the rifle were no longer strangers. They had made a bond by blood.

  Tonight, he would dismantle the rifle and clean it carefully. He would get to know it that much better, inside and out.

  Tomorrow, it would be time to hunt.

  Chapter Twenty

  Cole drove them the rest of the way to the lodge, which turned out to be built of stone and timber, making it both stately and comfortable. Woodsmoke trailed from the chimneys, mixing with the scent of fallen leaves and fresh pine needles. Yellow lights glowed in the windows.

  “Nice place,” said Cole. “Where was this lodge forty years ago? I had to sleep in my foxhole back then. Damn near froze my ass off.”

  Hans laughed. After initially being shaken by the Volvo hitting the stag, he seemed to have recovered. “You can be sure some general stayed here, or at least a colonel,” he said. “Meanwhile, you got the foxhole.”

  “Sounds about right,” Cole agreed. “That’s the way of the world, ain’t it?”

  Hauer greeted them as soon as they walked into the lodge. He looked like an outdoorsman in his thick corduroy trousers, chamois shirt, and sheepskin vest. The clothes looked expensive and new, as if purchased for the occasion. “You are here! I was sure that you would get lost in the dark. The roads are not well-marked.”

  “Hate to disappoint you,” Cole said. Briefly, he explained about hitting the stag. The hotel sent two of its kitchen staff to fetch it—no point in letting good venison go to waste.

  They found that all of the arrangements had been made, but there were only two rooms available in the lodge itself, with a single room with two beds available in a converted stable.

  “The stable will be just fine for me and Danny,” Cole said. It turned out that they were staying as guests of Hauer. Cole thought about insisting on paying, but then decided that if nothing else, he could hit Hauer in the wallet.

  “Where did he get the money for this?” Hans muttered. “I am telling you, he was Stasi. Every last one of them lined their pockets at the expense of good Germans while they did the bidding of the Soviets.”

  As they gathered in the grand hall of the hunting lodge, Hans explained that he and his grand-niece would be sitting out the hunt. “Someone needs to stay here and keep the fire going,” he said.

  Hauer took the news in stride. It was clear that his only real concern was making sure that C
ole was equipped for the hunt. Boots had been found, and warm hunting clothes.

  “I have a shotgun for you,” Hauer announced. “A very nice 12-gauge. It is a good weapon for boar, especially. At close range, you cannot miss! However, you do need some nerve to let them get that close when they are charging.”

  “I brought a rifle,” Cole said. “I guess I won’t need that shotgun, after all.”

  A scowl crossed Hauer’s face, then disappeared so quickly that Cole thought he might have imagined it. “As you wish. Perhaps your grandson can use the shotgun.”

  “That’s up to him.” Cole turned to his grandson. “Danny?”

  “I don’t want to hunt tomorrow,” he said. “I mean, I’ll go, but I don’t want to shoot anything.”

  Hauer appeared amused. “If you go into the woods, why would you not wish to join in the hunt?”

  “I don’t like killing,” he said.

  Hauer laughed. “I have to say, you Americans have gone soft in two generations. The boy doesn’t like to hunt! If there is ever another war, you will be in trouble. Are you sure that he is really related to you?”

  “Let the boy be,” Cole said. He felt that Danny didn’t appreciate being belittled in front of Angela, although, to the German girl’s credit, she was glaring at Hauer. If looks could kill. She was clearly in Danny’s camp. “If he don’t like to hunt, so be it. It’s a new world, in case you ain’t noticed. Besides, he can help pack out whatever we shoot.”

  Hauer shook his head, still grinning, clearly amused by the thought that the grandson of none other than this famous hillbilly sniper did not like to hunt—or kill. “Suit yourselves,” he said. “Get your rest. In the morning, the hunt begins.”

  Crossing to the accommodations, Danny said, “I don’t like that guy Hauer, Pa Cole. It’s not just what he said about me. There’s something about him. I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “You don’t like him, huh? Join the club,” Cole said. “I guess that just proves Hauer wrong about us not being related. You’re a Cole, boy. That means you have good instincts.”