Sniper's Justice (Caje Cole Book 9) by David Healey (best classic books txt) 📗

church bell to be melted down for the war effort. Brick walls, essentially solid railings, covered each side of the steeple, each about three feet high. There was no way for a bullet to punch through that brick.

Cole didn’t see any sign of The Butcher using the top of the brick wall for a bench rest. That was what any ordinary sniper would have done, but of course, The Butcher was no ordinary sniper.

So where was the son of a bitch? He had to be up there somewhere.

His eye went to the bottom of the wall. All around the steeple, small arches ran along the base of the solid railing. They had been designed to drain water that blew in, similar to the scuppers on the deck of a ship.

That’s where he is, Cole realized. He’s down on the floor of the steeple, looking out through one of those scuppers.

Cole pushed the rim of the sight so hard against his eye that it pressed a ring into his flesh. Moving his gaze from scupper to scupper, he still saw no sign of the German sniper.

Again, Cole considered what he would do. If he didn’t want to be seen, then he would have positioned himself more in the center of the space, where he could see from—and shoot out of—any of the scuppers.

Cole grinned, showing some teeth, but his smile was hidden behind the rifle.

If he could shoot through one of those scuppers, he had a good chance of shooting the German. Considering the distance, it was far from an easy shot to make.

Vaccaro interrupted him before he even started to aim. “Hey, something’s happening.”

All of Cole’s attention had been focused on the church steeple, but Vaccaro had been keeping an eye on the bigger picture of what was happening in the street below.

“What?” Cole asked, annoyed. The last thing he wanted to do was break his sight picture.

“I think you’d better have a look.”

Muttering a curse, Cole pulled his eye away from the scope and looked at the scene before them just in time to see the nun running out of the church door and into the street, toward the two fallen Krauts.

“What—”

“I think maybe those were the guards from the church,” Vaccaro said. “They ran out to join the fight and got hit right away. She’s going to help them.”

“They’re Germans.”

“She’s a nun, Cole. They don’t take sides.”

It was indeed apparent that Sister Anne Marie was running to the aid of the two Germans, both of whom were now fallen in the snowy street. One lay unmoving, but the other was holding his belly and rolling in the snow, clearly wounded.

“Is she trying to get herself killed?” Cole wondered.

“Nobody is going to shoot a nun. Not unless they want to burn in hell.”

For the nun’s sake, Cole hoped that Vaccaro was right. The fight for the village remained intense. Even with the machine gun knocked out, there was still fighting from house to house, brutal and vicious.

The young nun knelt in the snow beside the wounded German, seemingly oblivious to the bloody snow soaking into her cassock. She had a handful of bandages and tried to staunch his wound. However, he was badly hit and too far gone for her to be able to do much more than hold his hand and say a prayer. Sometimes, it was the best that could be hoped for.

Captivated by the scene, Cole’s attention remained riveted on the nun. But out of the corner of his eye, he detected movement in the steeple. The Butcher had finally shown himself. Cole could see him above the brick railing of the steeple, aiming down at the street below, directly in front of the church.

Puzzled about what the sniper was up to, Cole was slow in bringing his rifle to bear. There was nobody down there but the nun and the dying soldier. Who was the German aiming at?

Cole saw the muzzle flash, even heard the crack of the rifle. Instantly, the nun collapsed in the street.

Cole’s heart clenched. What the hell? That sniper had just shot the nun.

He and Vaccaro hadn’t been the only ones to witness the shooting. A young American soldier with a bandage around his head ran from the open door of the church. Keeping his head down, he sprinted toward the still figure of the nun and sank to his knees beside her.

The rifle fired again. The young soldier crumpled, his body falling beside that of the nun.

Cole was still stunned, hoping that the nun or even the young soldier might stir. But the shots from above had been too precise and deadly.

Almost too late, he swung his rifle up at the steeple. He caught a glimpse of a head, maybe a shoulder, disappearing behind the brick wall. Dammit. The German was out of sight.

But he was still there in the steeple, likely crouched right behind that brick wall. Several inches of brick wall, he reminded himself. The sniper could hide behind that all day if he wanted to.

Through the scope, Cole studied the steeple, hoping for any sign of the sniper scurrying away like the rat that he was. But the sniper wasn’t showing himself again.

If Cole could put a bullet through the gap at the bottom, right through the drainage scupper, he might have a chance of hitting the sniper.

He rested the rifle across the windowsill, forcing himself to breathe, to be calm. It wasn’t easy. His heart hammered and he kept wanting to check on the nun, to see if the sniper’s shot had been fatal.

Vaccaro’s muttered curses told him all he needed to know in that regard.

He took a deep breath, held it, let it out again. He lined up the sights on the scupper. Not an easy shot—the target was essentially a half-circle, four inches across and four inches high.

A stray burst of machine-gun fire struck the house, but Cole ignored it.

Cole squeezed the trigger.

There was no puff of dust, no flying chips of mortar. The