SNIPER
A. McIntyre
Sergeant Virkov sat in the front of the truck. Legionnaire Stacy drove. In the back, I sat with Donnell, Jrovnic, and Clothard. No one spoke, partly because of the noise of the engine. The barracks receded into the distance as we sped through the city, then the outskirts. Two police cars joined us as we reached the countryside, the ragged Midi, baking dry in the summer heat. Sweat rolled down my brow into my eyes. I squinted against the glare. Jrovnic grinned, Hot? I smiled. He gestured at the police cars behind us. Jrovnic, with his experience in Bosnia. Why can’t they do it themselves, fucking amateurs? Fucking cops. What’re they for? We ought to take them out. It was once my pleasure. Save your energy, I said, Don’t bother. We’ll get this done and go home to dinner. Jrovnic laughed, Domestic. So domestic. I ought to make you my wife. I did not bother to comment. Clothard and Donnell stared at nothing, hearing nothing, as always. They hardly ever spoke. Only God knew where they came from. They were someone’s sons, years ago, somewhere. Hard to imagine them as kids, running around at school laughing. Jrovnic lit a cigarette, smoking in silence, staring at the cops in the car behind us. Ash settled on his dark green fatigues before blowing away. Behind the windshield, two beefy faces stared back.
Sergeant Virkov found us before lunch. He said we were going for a picnic. With rifles. The rifles had telescopic sights. We carried live ammunition. An exercise, we thought, An exercise. But by the truck he told us what was going on. Some creep had taken tourists hostage, in the countryside, about ten miles outside Marseilles. We would sort it out. Why can’t the cops do it? Jrovnic asked, That’s what they’re paid for. Because they asked us to do it, Sergeant Virkov answered, And they’re incapable, you know that. What about my lunch? continued Jrovnic. Sergeant Virkov ignored him, and Jrovnic knew better than to repeat the question. Sergeant Virkov was all right, he was fair. He was a good NCO. Fifteen years service. But he was short tempered. He might say that Jrovnic needed to diet, and Jrovnic knew he would not eat for a couple of days. And Sergeant Virkov seemed unusually tense. It was best to leave him alone. We drove on, and I was glad Jrovnic kept quiet.
I didn’t like it. Something was up. Why were they sending us ten miles out into the maquis just for some jerk taking tourists hostage? It didn’t make sense. And why four snipers? The best marksmen in the regiment. We might be going into a big fight. But Sergeant Virkov knew what he was doing. He had been at Kolwezi. If he needed something else he would have brought it. Still, I was nervous. Not afraid, but nervous. I wanted it to go right, whatever it was, like all those years ago at school before a rugby match. A tension in the pit of the stomach, butterflies they called it. I’d felt the same way before a music exam. I didn’t want to let the side down. If I was afraid, it was a fear of messing up in some way that might get someone killed, or at best make us look like fools in front of the gendarmes. That was inexcusable. I glanced at the police car. The two cops never changed their expression. They were dumb clots, the gendarmes, good for nothing other than cracking Arab skulls, looking tough, and fucking dumb women. Normally we were enemies, but here we were, driving together through the baking heat to something we didn’t know. Jrovnic grinned, Thinking? Maybe, I replied, If you could call it that.
The truck began to slow. Clothard and Donnell checked their weapons, even though they knew they were ready. We’ve arrived, muttered Donnell. The police cars passed us. Jrovnic spat, There they go, the bastards. Now they’ll find they didn’t need us and we’ll have wasted our time, and missed lunch. Let’s see, I said, I don’t think so, something’s up. Stacy stopped. Sergeant Virkov leaned round. Ok, out, he ordered, You’re all ready. Looking forward to it, said Clothard. Everyone stared because he had spoken. Beyond, at a turn in the road, I could see the gendarmes, four of them, kneeling behind a car. Look at them, said Jrovnic, Young ladies. Shut it, hissed Sergeant Virkov, From now on no one speaks except me. You say one more thing Jrovnic, you’re on a charge. One cop had a megaphone. Pistol in hand, he began to shout the usual, Put down your weapons and surrender, we have you surrounded. I repeat, we have you surrounded, you cannot escape. It sounded ridiculous, like out of a movie. Incoherent screaming beyond the fork in the road, then shouting in accented French, a German by the sound of it. Obscenities. The voice vaguely familiar. But it was a long way off. Sergeant Virkov motioned for us to follow.
We reached the cars. The cop repeated his message. This time the reply was a gunshot, then four more. The slugs slammed into the car. Everyone lay in the dust. The heat seemed to intensify. Burning heat and dust. I tried to swallow. A woman’s voice talking over the radio about a traffic jam near the Old Port. This one’s for you, said a cop, You get on with it. Sergeant Virkov motioned for me to follow. He crawled to the edge of the car, peered round the bumper and, like a sprinter at the beginning of a race, he briefly knelt before launching himself into the undergrowth. I did the same, slower because I was lugging the rifle. Clothard and Donnell lay at either end of the car, squinting down the rifles. Stacy remained by the truck. Sergeant Virkov whistled, and Jrovnic squirmed through the dust to the other car abandoned by the cops. The cop with the megaphone spoke again. More incoherent screaming, one of the tourists yelling for mercy, a woman, the sound cut off by a dull thump. More gunshots, bullets shattering the windshield. Whoever it was knew how to shoot. I followed Sergeant Virkov into the trees. He knew exactly where to go. I thought about Kolwezi.
Lying in the fragrant leaves, in the dappled light, we could see the hostages. Above us a bird, shrill, monotonous, repeating hee hee hee hee. An ugly woman lay unconscious by a Renault. Inside, two children sat staring ahead as if they were watching TV. A man sat hunched in the driver’s seat, sweating, pale with fear. The father. I saw the gunman kneeling behind the car, no shirt, lean like a cyclist, very fit. His arms tanned, white at the shoulders where he had been wearing short sleeves. A laborer maybe. You’ve got him, murmured Sergeant Virkov, One shot, he’s yours. I leveled the rifle, arranging the sights, squinting into the lens. The view blurred, then came into focus. My heart jumped. Broken nose, scar, he’d shaved his head. It was Mueller. Legionnaire Mueller. It’s Mueller, I whispered to Sergeant Virkov. I know, he replied, Take him out. When you get a chance. Don’t hesitate.
Mueller. I joined with Mueller. We were in all the trials, basic training, the farm. Out of twenty others, it was just Mueller and me. He was a good man, Mueller. He helped me through some serious shit, I helped him. He never mentioned why he joined. Then again no one talked. It was part of the tradition. Almost a joke. Mueller. One night, he and I fought some paras, pussy career paras in it for the pension, and then we all fought the police. After he insulted the barman’s wife. He was a crazy bastard, he could do fifty pull-ups with his knees at ninety degrees. He never got tired, Sergeant Virkov said he was the best recruit he’d ever seen, and we should all try to be like Mueller. Now Mueller was going to die over some stupid fucking tourists. I wanted to shout, Mueller, it’s me, put the gun down. But I knew it was no use. Even if he gave up, he was looking at serious time, and he wasn’t the type to do that. He was going to go out the way he wanted. I wondered if he knew who we were. Clothard, Jrovnic, Donnell, Stacy, Sergeant Virkov, we were the same company. But he had deserted. He wasn’t one of us any more. One day he wasn’t there, a gun was missing, and they were looking for him. We were all interrogated. Why had he gone? How did he get the gun? No one knew. He just disappeared. That was two months ago. And here he was. He looked the same. I wondered what he had been doing. He’d made few friends, if the tourists were anything to go by. Fucking worthless tourists always getting into trouble. I wondered if the others knew who it was. Sergeant Virkov interrupted my thoughts, What’re you waiting for? Shoot.
I observed through the sights. Mueller was leaning against the car, concentrating in the heat. He looked like he hadn’t been eating. He was pale. I could see the sweat rolling down his face. His ribs. The corrugated muscles of his stomach. He was carrying a large service pistol, the one he had stolen. The cross hairs split his gaunt face into four neat mathematical sections. Hitherto, I had only fired at a target, sometimes water melons to emulate blood. I knew what an exploding bullet could do. I could hear the cop shouting again over the megaphone like a ritual. Last rites, a prayer. Frowning, Mueller raised the pistol to fire. Momentarily, his head evaded the cross hairs. I adjusted quickly. He was framed again. Now. I squeezed the trigger, feeling the jolt, the brief crack of the discharge like a fire work. I adjusted again, watching, knowing I hit him. A sitting duck. Mueller continued to kneel, the gun in his hand. For a moment, terrified about what Sergeant Virkov would do, I thought I had missed. I could see no wound. Time stopped. Then, with a strange smile, Mueller wheeled about, falling back away from the car. Slow motion. As he turned, I noticed that one side of his cranium was missing, completely gone. Now I saw the result, spattered over the side of the Renault. He slumped into the dust. Through the sights, reality speeding up, the cops raced for a shot, trying to get in on the show. Too late. They knew it was over. A farce. Sergeant Virkov patted me on the back. Nice work, he said, Very clean, well done. He stood up brushing off dust.
Everyone was standing around waiting. A cop was calling for an ambulance. Mueller did not have the dignity of returning to the barracks. He was no longer one of us. He would go to one of the state funeral houses. No one would claim him. He would be buried in a community grave. Stacy touched my shoulder, handing me a lighted cigarette. I thanked him, smoking it slowly, hoping Jrovnic would leave me alone.
