David Robbins - War of the Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad

Well, Rabbit, he thought, you have an audience for the rest of the day. What would you like to show me? I’ll put a bullet in it for you. I see you, but I don’t think you can see me.

For the next three hours, Thorvald lay still, watching the wall where the jumping man had appeared. After the shock and anger of the morning, his stamina seemed to treble. He could now gaze through the scope for an hour at a time, needing only a few minutes of rest before he lowered his head back to the task. I can do anything, he thought. The Rabbit knows it.

Gazing down the scope past the fine black lines of the reticle, Thorvald indulged in an intuition. He sensed he could smell the Rabbit’s fear flowing across the park. It was an acrid, rotten smell, like urine.

The sun shone straight overhead now. This was the time of day when neither Thorvald nor Zaitsev was in danger of reflection. The buildings around the perimeter and the debris sprawled in the park stood on their shadows. Thorvald’s hole was at its darkest during this time; he felt invisible and bold.

Thorvald envisioned killing Zaitsev. He imagined the Rabbit in his sights, his finger hauling back the trigger. He saw Zaitsev take a bullet in the head but not fall. Zaitsev just stood where he’d been struck. Other Russians came and poured concrete over him and made a statue, right on the spot. At the bottom of the statue it read, Killed in action by Heinz von K. Thorvald, colonel, SS, 11/17/42. Thorvald saw himself telling the story in the Berlin Opera House to the fashionable ladies and men, recounting his grueling duel on the Russian steppe, in the hell of the ruined city at the spearpoint of the German invasion. I will tell them of the cat-and-mouse game between the two super-snipers and how extraordinary my enemy was. German intelligence will later find a copy of the Red newsletter that sadly reports the famous Rabbit’s death. The article exhorts all Russian soldiers to avenge their hero’s murder at the hands of Heinz von K. Thorvald, colonel SS. Someone will coin for me a nickname that will stick, a flattering, one- or two-word sobriquet. All the real heroes have them, like the Rabbit. I will be the Teacher, the Sniper Master, something of the sort.

And Nikki. Yes, Nikki. What to do about the young corporal? Will Nikki be an asset to me back in Berlin? He, too, will know the true story of my duel with the Russian supersniper. Will he tell his version accurately, how my cunning trapped the Rabbit and blew off his head? What if he lies and tells his mates in the barracks how it was really his knowledge of the battle and the city that nabbed Zaitsev? “I pointed Thorvald at the Russian,” he might say. “All he did was pull the trigger.” If I’m the only one who tells the story back in Berlin, then I will control it. No worries there. Yes, I promised to take Nikki back with me. But what’s the value of a promise to an admitted traitor, a liar, and an uncooperative dunce who almost got me killed this morning? We’ll have to see. We’ll talk, Nikki and I, when Zaitsev is dead.

While Thorvald’s mind paraded images of his own celebrity, his tireless body and eyes stayed acute for any motion on the far wall. When the movement came, it didn’t seem sudden to him, even after his long wait. There it is, he thought. Zaitsev’s move. Or Zaitsev’s mistake. It doesn’t matter which.

A white shape appeared above the wall. It was too small for Thorvald to tell exactly what it was. From the way it moved, it was part of a man, a hand inside a mitten perhaps, the side of a shoulder or even a white-hooded head. The target stood out well against the mottled scenery. Thorvald swung the crosshairs no more than a millimeter to the left. A voice said to him, Wait—wait until you’re sure what you’re firing at.

He answered the voice: To hell with waiting and to hell with Zaitsev. He doesn’t see me. I can do whatever I choose. I’m invisible. Besides, I’m angry. I feel like shooting right now. It’s what I do best. So let the Rabbit see some more of what I can do.

Zaitsev is the sniper who waits. I shoot.

The white target had been up for no more than three seconds when his aim was centered, perfect. The crosshairs were calm.

“Danilov will not die.”

Zaitsev jerked around, amazed again at Kulikov’s ability to move undetected. He hadn’t heard the little sniper’s return. Kulikov’s hands were smudged with the commissar’s dried blood.

Danilov had been conscious when they reached a field hospital at the limestone cliffs above the Volga. Kulikov stayed only long enough to have a nurse inspect the commissar’s wound. She prodded it with a cloth and a metal tong, drawing Danilov’s ire. He seemed to have a reserve of nastiness left. Kulikov wished him luck and hurried back to the park and Zaitsev. He’d been gone less than three hours.

Upon retaking his place beside Zaitsev, Kulikov asked a question he’d mulled over while making his way along the river and through the ruins.

“If killing you, Vasha, is Thorvald’s only assignment, why would he waste a bullet on a target any experienced sniper would know was not another sniper? Why’d he risk his position just to hit a fat man with a periscope who couldn’t keep his head down?”

Kulikov had concocted one answer in his head, but he wanted to see what Zaitsev thought before speaking.

Zaitsev replied quickly. “Because the Headmaster doesn’t think we can find him.”

“And,” Kulikov said, smiling, “he’ll probably stay where he is until we drag him out by his feet.”

Zaitsev put a finger to his head. “I’ve been doing some thinking while you were gone, too, Nikolay. Take a look at this.”

He showed Kulikov a meter-long plank. He pulled off his white mitten and stuck it atop the board.

“We’ll raise this over the wall and see if it draws a shot. If he hits the glove, we’ll have a hole in the wood we can read a lot better than that mess he made of Danilov’s shoulder.”

Kulikov nodded. “He likes to show off.”

“Right. Maybe we can get him to show us where he is.”

Zaitsev took the measure of the daylight. The sun was high; there’d be no risk to Thorvald of emitting a reflection. He just might take the bait.

“Ready?” Zaitsev positioned the board in his lap. “Let’s wave hello to the Headmaster.”

He lifted the plank. The glove cleared the wall. Zaitsev moved it once to the right. Hello, Colonel.

He counted under his breath. “One… two…”

The end of the plank shook as if hit with a bat. A bullet ripped through the white palm of the mitten. The vibration stung Zaitsev’s hands.

He snatched the board down, pressing an index finger against the wall to mark where the bottom of the board had been. With a bit of soap, he marked a line on the wall.

Cotton stuffing and splinters mingled in the hole in the center of the glove’s palm. The bullet had gone straight through to leave a jagged aperture in the wood roughly as big around as a finger.

Zaitsev slid the mitten off the board and put it back on his hand. The two holes, in the palm and in the glove’s back, let in hard dots of cold against his skin. He made a fist in the glove and shook it at Nikolay Kulikov, kneeling next to him.

“Yes,” Zaitsev said. “Yes, Nikolay.” Then he motioned at the sun. “Let’s wait an hour or so and let him cool down. Then we’ll watch until dark.”

Kulikov pulled back his white hood. He removed his helmet and rubbed his hand through his short-cropped hair.

“Vasha,” Nikolay asked, “did you hear a rifle shot after the bullet hit the board? Or even when Danilov got hit?”

Zaitsev furrowed his brow. “No.”

He thought back to the moment seconds earlier when the glove was struck, and to when Danilov had been knocked down that morning. He tried to part the veil of excitement that is always present when bullets fly; it clouded his memory like the clogged skies overhead. He couldn’t recall hearing even the echo of a rifle on either occasion.