Beautiful Assassin by Michael C. White

settled in over the cemetery, out of the corner of my eye I caught the faintest movement toward the northeast. A figure in khaki detached itself from the woods and approached stealthily over the uneven terrain, moving up the hill through the now sparse orchard. Moving toward me. I could make him out only from his chest up. He carried a rifle and moved quickly but cautiously in a crouch. I wondered what to do. Where Zoya waited, she might not see him approach from this angle. I remained still until the German dipped momentarily out of sight, then I grabbed my rifle and rolled behind the headstone of Elyzaveta Fedutenko. I flicked off the safety and fixed my sights on the general area where I’d last seen the kraut. It was barely a hundred meters, so I wouldn’t need the scope.
    I didn’t spot him for a while and panic seized my chest. He was a clever one. What if he were trying to outflank me, come around from the side? But just at that moment, I saw the top of his head bobbing as he approached from the northeast. He was flitting from tree to tree, moving cautiously. He waited at the last tree, surveying the cemetery. From this vantage point, he still couldn’t quite see the ground beneath the tree from which I’d fallen. He paused there for a moment, and I found myself doing that odd thing I sometimes did—entering my enemy’s thoughts, trying to imagine what he would be thinking. The Russian whore thought she was so clever! The Germans were a prideful lot, I’d come to understand. They did not like to be bested, and certainly not by a mere woman. It brought out in them a boyish bravado, a recklessness that made them vulnerable. If I had been a male sniper he’d have been satisfied, I’m quite sure, to leave things as they were, simply to chalk me up in his kill log and call it a day, go back to his German lines and celebrate with some warm food. But my being a woman compelled him to want to stand over my dead body, to take something that was mine. My cap, my Red Banner medal, my leather case containing my personal effects, the letter from Kolya, the lock of hair of Masha’s. Something to possess, to show his mates.
    So this led the German to make his own foolish mistake. Without seeing my body, he took several quick steps into the cemetery, out into the open. When he could finally view the ground beneath the tree and he didn’t see me, he froze. Nervously, he scanned the area, his gun swung up to his shoulder, his knees bent in a position to fire. It took him only a moment to understand the full measure of his error, but when he did, he whirled and started to run back toward cover. He and I shared one thought: he was a dead man. Before he’d taken three steps, I had him in my sights. Quickly but calmly, I aimed the rifle and kissed the trigger. As always when a bullet strikes true, I could feel it before I saw its effects, could feel it in my right shoulder and in my trigger finger, in my bowels, in some part of my brain, too. I could usually tell as soon as I fired, the sweet certainty of putting a bullet exactly where I’d meant to. The impact spun the German halfway around. He staggered sideways and dropped to one knee. His rifle had fallen to the ground before him, and he struggled to get to it. Even now he was a soldier, and I felt a grudging admiration for that, despite the hatred I bore him. Without thinking, I worked the bolt and chambered another round. I was prepared to put a second bullet into him, but he suddenly collapsed onto his face and lay still. As our ammo was becoming scarce, we Soviets knew to be frugal. This one was dead. Then I told myself what I always did after killing a German: For you, Masha . For you, my love.
    I got up and trotted to where he lay, keeping my rifle trained on his prone figure, my head low so as not to be exposed to the enemy linesbelow. Up close I nudged him with my boot, ready to shoot him again if he showed any sign of life. He didn’t move, so I rolled him over.