Cole’s eyes had never left his scope. He was looking for something, anything, that might give away the enemy sniper’s position. The bastard was dug in good. He was well aware of Cole’s hiding place. But Cole had yet to figure out where the enemy sniper was hiding.

Down below, one of the medics trying to help a wounded Borinqueneer suddenly slumped over. He was behind a solid section of the parapet, sheltering him from enemy fire coming from the road. The bullet could only have come from the hilltop.

The sniper up there knew his business. Considering the distance, he was also a damn good shot. He had Cole pinned down in the watchtower, and he was still managing to pick off the defenders.

“There’s still another sniper up there,” Cole said. “The only reason we ain’t seen him yet is because he’s smarter than the others.”

Cole decided that he’d had enough. There was no time for patience in the middle of a battle. “Sir, I’m about to do something foolish.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes, the best way to bait a trap is to act the fool. That sniper could keep me pinned down all day and we ain’t got time for that.” Cole nodded toward the gap in the wall made by a mortar round. “I’m going to stand in front of that big hole and see if I can lure him out. Short of that, maybe I can see where he’s shooting from if I’m standing up.”

Cole started to get up, but Miller dragged him back down. “No, you don’t. I’m not letting you do that and get yourself shot.”

“Sir—“

“Shut up and give me your helmet,” he said. The pilot was still wearing the bush hat. Reluctantly, Cole traded, then watched as the pilot made his way to the gap and crouched beside it, ready to expose himself to the enemy’s view. “Ready?”

Still on the rifle, Cole grunted.

The pilot stood up and stepped in front of the gap. He raised the binoculars to study the hilltop. Nothing happened. “How long—“

A bullet snapped past his head and he dove for cover before the sniper could fire again.

“I saw him through the binoculars,” Miller exclaimed excitedly. “There was a muzzle flash right at—“

“Twelve o’clock,” Cole said. “Now, give me back my helmet.”

“Wait, you’re not going to stand in that gap, are you?”

“Hell no, I ain’t as dumb as you,” Cole said. “The helmet is for good luck.”

Cole settled the helmet with its Confederate flag back on his head. He touched the flag with his trigger finger, then pressed his eye back to the scope. He held the sight picture he had seen earlier in his mind’s eye.

He could not see the sniper, but he knew where he was.

He already had a good sense of the range from the other shots that he had put on the two other enemy snipers. He put the crosshairs right where he wanted them, started to squeeze the trigger.

Another shot hit the watchtower, but Cole hadn’t even seen the muzzle flash.

“I didn’t see him,” Miller said, binoculars still on the hilltop through one of the arrow slits. “There’s nothing to shoot at up there.”

Cole didn’t respond. He was too focused on a spot back in the rocks that seemed like it didn’t belong. Maybe it was a shadow, or maybe it was the enemy sniper.

Miller was telling him again that there wasn’t any target, but Cole wasn’t listening. What he might have told the lieutenant commander was that instinct is what we have when the facts fail us.

He fired.

Wu watched through the binoculars as the arrogant sniper had displayed himself through the gap in the wall. It had been the same sniper with the flag on his helmet. Deng’s shot at him had just missed.

“You missed!” Wu pointed out. For once, he was not smiling.

“Yes,” Deng said through gritted teeth as Wu pointed out the obvious. “I will not miss again.”

Wu gazed through the binoculars, but the sniper was no longer there. “You won’t get another chance like that.”

Deng fired again, this time raising a puff of dust near one of the arrow slits. Surely, the enemy sniper was watching them through one of these.

“You missed again,” Wu said.

Major Wu had just turned to further chastise Deng when the bullet came in and hit Deng square in the forehead. The neat hole appeared just beneath the brim of Deng’s ushanka cap.

Wu ducked, his heart hammering. The other two snipers that the enemy had claimed had been forward of this position. Deng and Wu had set themselves farther back, well hidden in the rocks. He could see the watchtower below, but it seemed impossible for the sniper in the watchtower to see them.

However, Deng now lay slumped over the rifle, his eyes bugging out from the force of the impact.

The bullet had come out of nowhere and killed Deng. Wu was incredulous. He looked at Deng’s dead form in disbelief. How was this even possible? The American sniper had killed not just Deng, but Liu and Huang, both capable snipers in their own right.

In a fit of rage, Wu reached for the rifle and began to wrest it from Deng’s dead hands. It would now be up to him to return fire and eliminate this enemy for once and for all.

Keeping low and out of sight behind the boulder, Wu fumbled with the unfamiliar weapon. Was it even loaded? He wasn’t sure how to check. How was the scope sighted in? Would he hold low, high, or right on the target? He realized that he had never been schooled in the actual use of this rifle.

As these questions swirled around Wu’s mind, he came to the realization that perhaps he was not the best man for this job. He was a political officer; he was not a sniper.

But then, a deeper emotion began to take hold. For the first time, a frisson of fear went through Wu. The American sniper had managed to kill Deng, who had been tough and competent, seemingly unstoppable. Wu had been stingy with his praise of Deng, but the man had been highly capable. If he had fallen, would Wu be next?

Not if he could help it.

Wu slung the valuable rifle across his back. Deng’s rifle with its telescopic sight was hard to come by. It would be up to him later to find a man who could put the rifle to good use.

He crawled toward the edge of the steep slope leading back down to the road. One good thing was that he was out of view of the sniper. But getting off this hilltop wasn’t going to be easy. First, he had to work his way around the jutting lip at the top of the cliff, his feet dangling beneath him and his heart hammering. Finally, his legs dropped low enough so that his boots touched the steep slope.

He soon found that climbing up had been easier than climbing down. It was hard to see past his feet, so that he was moving blindly down the hill. His boots slipped every few feet on the loose patches of dirt and shale so that he nearly began tumbling backwards down the slope to certain death. His head swam, made dizzy by the height, and he feared that he was going to lose his balance. This wasn’t going to work.

He got himself turned around and readjusted the rifle so that it was slung across his front. In a way, this was worse, because he could see how far he would fall if he began to tumble. However, he had more control over his descent.

Using his hands to slow himself, ignoring the fact that they were being scraped raw, Wu slithered on his backside all the way to the bottom of the cliff.

Although there were many dead, he saw that the attack against the fort was now far more organized. The return fire from the defenders had slackened, thanks in part to Wu’s snipers before they had been killed. Even the guns of the tanks had fallen silent, although they still spit machine-gun fire like hissing, cornered iron dragons.

Wu grinned, pleased to see that the tide of battle was turning in their favor.