War of The Rats - A Novel of Stalingrad - [World War II 01] (52 page)

Zaitsev and Kulikov released their grips. Danilov sat up, his face as red as Zaitsev had ever seen a face not covered in blood. The veins in the man’s temples and neck strained against the skin. Danilov had spasmed in shock not from the wound but from fury. He was livid beyond expression. The tough little bastard.

Danilov looked at the hole in his right shoulder. Gray wool threads stuck up from the tear in the fabric as if air were escaping from the opening in his body. Zaitsev saw no blood, but he knew that beneath the coat and uniform, the commissar must be bleeding badly.

“Shit!” Danilov shook when he said the word. He brought his eyes up to Zaitsev kneeling beside him.

Zaitsev laid his hand on the commissar’s good shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’ll live.” He paused. “I’ve never been shot before. It hurts.”

“So I hear. We’ll have to get you back now.”

“I’d love to stay, but I think I’m bleeding.”

Zaitsev smiled. Danilov blinked and parted his lips in an unsure, weakening smile.

Danilov made as if to lie back. Zaitsev put his hands under the commissar’s neck and back to lower him. Danilov sighed.

“Thank you, Comrade Hare.”

Zaitsev leaned his face close. “What did you see? Where were you looking.”

“I was looking at the wall, as you told me.” Danilov’s voice carried a quiver of displeasure, as if the question implied he could have been looking elsewhere, not properly following Zaitsev’s instructions.

“Yes, of course.” Zaitsev eased his tone. “What did you see? You said you saw him.”

“Yes, I did.” Danilov held up his left hand for Zaitsev to pull him to a sitting position. The
politrook
spit once in the dirt. It was in anger, though it seemed one good spit was all he could muster.

“I saw the bastard’s helmet,” he said. Spittle, veined with crimson, dangled from the commissar’s chin, hanging unwiped and sad. “He was walking along the wall. That’s what I saw.”

Zaitsev was not surprised. Of course. The Headmaster, the Head Gamesman. Still the freshman bit, is it? Still trying to make me mad enough to jump. His game worked, but he bagged an unintended prey.

Zaitsev looked to Kulikov. “Nikolay, did you see anything? A muzzle flash, a reflection?”

Kulikov shook his head. “Nothing.”

Nor had Zaitsev seen anything. Thorvald had made the first move, just as he’d warned Danilov. And Zaitsev had gotten nothing to show for it but a wounded bulldog commissar.

“Commissar, allow me, please. I must take a look at your wound.”

Danilov’s eyes opened a little wider.

“No. It’s all right,” he replied weakly. “I’d rather a doctor look at it.”

Zaitsev stroked the commissar’s shoulder gently.

“Comrade, the wound might tell me something about where Thorvald is hiding. There are ways.”

Danilov squinted his eyes.

“It will hurt a little,” Kulikov said from behind.

Danilov nodded drunkenly. “Yes. Of course. Proceed.”

Grunting through gritted teeth, Danilov helped Kulikov to unbutton his greatcoat, pulling it gingerly off the right shoulder. The sea green jersey beneath the coat was muddy with blood. Zaitsev cut the tunic away from the wound. He carved a piece of cloth for a wipe and another for a bandage.

“Hold still. I need to clean it.”

“As you see fit.” Danilov leaned back against Kulikov.

A red trickle spilled from the wound’s lower lip. Danilov’s meaty shoulder was thick with black hair. Zaitsev toweled the blood from the area, making Danilov wince.

“Only for a moment,” Zaitsev whispered.

The puncture was clean and round. A purple bruise had painted a uniform circle around the hole. This indicated a straight-on bullet path, according to the old lessons grandfather Andrei had taught him on the skins drying on the walls of the hunter’s lodge. Look at the entry wound, Vasha, the old man had said, pointing with his walking stick. The bullet leaves a track against the skin, just like a paw in the snow. Thorvald is probably at ground level. What do you think, Grandfather? It’s hard to tell at what angle Danilov’s chest was turned to the park. But the commissar’s injury has bought us one bit of information, at least.

“You were facing straight ahead, weren’t you?” Zaitsev asked while Kulikov helped Danilov replace the tunic and coat over the right shoulder.

“Mmm-hmmm. Yes, I think so.”

“I’m sorry this happened.”

It’s his own damned fault, but why add insult to injury? Now isn’t the time to lecture him.

He rubbed the commissar’s blood from his hands with the strip of cloth. I shouldn’t have brought Danilov along. I should have refused, even after Tania’s intervention. But Tania will have her way; she wanted Danilov here, and here he lies. This is what she intended, the result she foresaw. She coldly sent Danilov to this bullet, manipulated me into allowing it. Why? To help me find Thorvald or to rid us all of Danilov? In either event, the commissar will be leaving Stalingrad alive. He’s lucky. The doctors at the field hospital will take out the bullet lodged in his shoulder, and then, when the river freezes, it’s a sled ride across to Krasnaya Sloboda for you, Commissar. Ah, well. Whom the gods choose to spare, let them live in peace. Perhaps the commissar has spirits swarming about him, protecting him. If so, then spirits, listen to me: go with Danilov. Repay him for his injury in your service and protect him. He has pluck and toughness, even if he’s dangerous and stupid. In the ways of the forest, like an animal, that makes him an innocent.

Kulikov helped Danilov to his feet, keeping his head low. Zaitsev watched them leave. The two walked in rhythm, attached to each other, skinny and fat like a boy with his hurt pony.

Zaitsev thought of the bullet in Danilov’s shoulder and the blood he knew was warming the commissar’s side and legs, perhaps pooling in his boots. How did this come to be? Batyuk gave me this assignment, to find and kill the Headmaster. Why? He’s just one man. Why all this effort to wipe him out, why the bullets lodged in Shaikin, Morozov, Baugderis, Danilov, the nurses, the wounded? Why am I sitting here, dueling to the death with a single sniper instead of working in the factories to protect Russian troops, furthering the battle for the city?

There in Danilov’s aching, wounded posture was his answer. Stalingrad is no longer just a battle for a spot on a map. It has become a war of ideas between Hitler and Stalin, between the generals of both armies ripping up this land, toppling these buildings. Stalingrad is Hitler’s deepest stab into Russia. He won’t allow himself to be stopped here. Likewise, Stalin is making his firmest stand here in the city named for him. Knowing its strategic importance to Hitler, Stalin has marked the city for death in order to preserve the
rodina
s life. And the real result of these two leaders’ ideas, hatched in the safety of their mighty castles, is dripping out of Danilov right now: blood. Bodies and destruction—these are far more real than ideas, yet so much less important to the leaders. And here, squared off like fighting cocks, Thorvald and I are no longer men but ideas. We’ve been made larger, given importance beyond our bodies. For the watching propagandists such as Danilov, for the opinion makers and the newspapers and the generals, for Hitler and Stalin, it’s the Hare versus the Headmaster, the Russian legend against the German marvel. Whichever of us gets the bullet, he’ll bleed not just blood but a headline and a story; one dictator’s schemes will be furthered, the other’s will be discredited. And one more body will be made cold and dead as the black ink of the newspapers and propaganda that will surely flow with the blood.

Oh, well, Colonel. Musings won’t kill you for me. I’ll need a bullet. So let’s begin in earnest.

Zaitsev took up his helmet and put it back on his head; the steel was cold from lying on the ground. He picked up Danilov’s periscope. I saw nothing. Kulikov saw nothing. Danilov saw the walking helmet.

How could Thorvald shoot without Kulikov or me seeing a flash? The Headmaster is at ground level. But he must be deep in the shadows, hidden in darkness, nestled in it. He can’t shoot without making a flash. Where would he be, to see us but not worry about his muzzle glare or have no fear of a reflection from his scope? He must be in an extremely well disguised spot, someplace I wouldn’t think to look for him, someplace he’s confident I wouldn’t be looking when he squeezed the trigger and his barrel sparked.

Where is that kind of shooting cell out there? Where?

Zaitsev reached across the park with his senses and his intuition, creeping with them like a jungle cat among and under the foliage of facts and perceptions. This was how he’d always hunted, as a boy in the taiga, as a man at war.

He recalled the scene: Danilov was on his feet for two seconds, no more. Thorvald is close to shoot like that, to see so clearly through the mist with the morning light in his eyes. And the even ring around the entry wound? An open mouth whispering in his grandfather’s voice.

Where?

First, he has an assistant. Thorvald told him to put the helmet on the stick again. The Headmaster must be close to the wall, behind it or in front of it, to give voice commands to the assistant. Probably within ten meters. How else could he have set the trap?

Where?

Zaitsev scanned the terrain through the periscope. He selected a range to his left and to his right, a logical perimeter within which the Headmaster must be to fire the shot that hit Danilov and leave a uniform hole and bruise ring in the commissar’s flesh.

On the left edge of his shooting range were several ragged craters, a toppled fountain, and a burned-out German tank. The tank faced east, toward Zaitsev’s position. He’d looked at this tank a hundred times during the past two days, but now the empty metal hulk bore a new significance. Was Thorvald inside? He could be. It was within range and close enough to the wall to work with an assistant. Thorvald could easily slide under the tank before dawn and enter through the emergency escape hatch. He could shoot out of the driver’s view slit or the hole left where the turret’s machine gun had been salvaged.

But this was not a position for an experienced sniper, especially a devious one. He’d have no quick escape route in case of an infantry or mortar attack on his position. His vision of the battlefield would be restricted, limiting his targets, and Thorvald had shown no inclination toward being selective with his victims.

Zaitsev swung his vision north to the right side of the range he’d selected. He concentrated on the wall. He imagined the Headmaster in a lair, calling to his assistant behind the wall. “Put the helmet on the stick and walk with it. Shake it up and down like you’re making popcorn over a campfire. Do it so badly the Hare will feel my hand slapping him in the face!” The periscope brought Zaitsev to the lip of another crater. No, he’s not in an open hole in the ground, he thought. Several humps of snow-covered rubble swelled on the park like white insect bites. He’s not behind any of them, either. On the far right was an abandoned German bunker, a small pillbox made of sandbags, stacked concrete, and wood beams. Could Thorvald be in there? Certainly. Zaitsev leaned into the periscope as if he could send his eyes into the air like hawks, out to the fortification to inspect its features, then carry the details back to him. Zaitsev felt the crevices of the pillbox with his vision, knocking on it, calling out Thorvald’s name: are you in there? How would Thorvald approach this shooting cell? How would he leave it? What were his firing angles? No, he’s not in there. Like the burned-out tank at the other end of the range, Zaitsev could not believe the Headmaster would choose such an obvious firing cell, one a lesser sniper might select. He moved the periscope to the center of the park, inspecting the rubble near the foot of the wall. More piles of bricks, more craters, and some metal sheets littered the ground.

Zaitsev paused in his search to inquire of himself if he were growing tired. He’d been staring through the periscope for two hours now, since Kulikov left with Danilov. The sun had risen to its noon seat. He checked his hands, eyes, his folded legs, his concentration. Don’t make these guesses and decisions if you aren’t razor sharp, he chided himself. Do you need a rest? If so, then stop. Don’t make a mistake. You must be alert, with your ears up, your nose in the wind. You’re all right? You can continue? Good. Then tell me: is he in the tank, the bunker, in a crater, behind a pile of bricks, in a building, behind the wall? Are you sure, Vasily? Tell me if you’re sure. Is it your instinct, or do you know for a fact? Tell me now.