Luring

Poor men... No snow shoes, but they langlaufed. But you can’t langlauf and shoot at the same time. But they would be very careful. Their first S&D had failed miserably. They had white overalls. But that was about it.

“SD1, Nagold.”

“SD2, Ûber-Ass.”

I had opted to code the city just A-city, I really had.

Two search parties were trying to envelop the supposed lone sniper from both sides. But whatever was there, it wasn’t us. Just some hasty scrap from a sniper using ski’s leaving clear tracks to wherever he was going. Just one of course, the others left to surrounding forests with snow shoes. Tom was an excellent skier or langlaufer. All that money spent on holidays was at least good for something after all.

“Are they using search lights?” Emma asked from our point of view.

“Oh, dear, they are. Well, it is getting dark...”

“SD2, Nagold.”

“Oh, look, they must have found the tracks...”

“S3 at G-spot.”

Tom arrived at Grömbach. It took him a while, but he wasn’t shot at, nor captured, so I was happy. Though there were ten men following him. And it was rapidly getting dark. It was time to find out if they had night vision. If they had, we wouldn’t have a break. If they hadn’t, finally some rest, in the snow... in the cold... But we were prepared for that.

Grömbach had two centers, the main one in the west, a suburb in the east. Tom had skied upon the road up to the one in the east. From there he had gone on foot to hide near one of the houses. But upon the road there were tracks going to the main center. Premade tracks. Either they would use night vision, or they would keep following the tracks to the main center. I admit, it was a difficult situation for us. Expose Tom just to test a hypothesis. But we had cleared G-spot and were in firm control of it.

“SD at start road.” Tom radioed.

“Thank the Fates...” I sighed.

Then again, we hadn’t found any night visors at our arsenal. We had them, because we were given them by the French army. Everyone had them, it was a personal item. Not something to be stored in an arsenal. Unless you found them on the bodies of dead soldiers. So they could still have some, but at least not in this S&D team. Not that we would attack them now.

A shot rang through the air... A second shot quickly followed. Then a third, a fourth and a final fifth.

Well, not all of them.

Ours weren’t sniper rifle shots, but we had the range, and they practically came right at us. Let them guess a bit. Perhaps our lone sniper was a cunning man and had gone back on his tracks, or he was not alone. Perhaps they were two now. One with a sniper rifle and one with an **** rifle. Oh dear...

No, certainly we weren’t the dreaded section, we would have shot them all. We are known for that to Gina’s ex. We are without mercy, we kill all who stands against us. We certainly wouldn’t bother with waiting eight freezing hours in the snow. If it were up to us, we would have levelled the city by now. But then again, there could be a nagging feeling in their minds. Perhaps it was us... Or some of us... Or just two of us... Doubt is a weapon. Doubt makes you think twice, doubt in the overconfident man causes recklessness.

“Ah... Hello darkness, my old friend...” I tried to sing.

“Huh?”

“Ella, you are a culture barbarian...”

“You are just old...”

“This old body will warm you tonight.”

“Ha, I’ll be the hot one.”

“True, Ella, very true.”

“But sadly we can’t sweat...”

“Tempting as it will be, we can’t.”

“Dual sleeping bags, what an awesome invention.”

“I agree.”

So we crept in our one sleeping bag, closely together, kissed each other goodnight and kissed some more to make sure it was going to be a good night.