The man, pulled a cigarette out from a silver chrome plated case he kept in his pocket and lit it with a match. The light from the match revealed three red squares on his collar. The Commissar took a deep drag off the cigarette. He savored the taste of the tobacco and slowly exhaled into the frigid cold. Turning to the driver who had just joined him he said, “He was here.”
“The sniper?” The driver asked.
The Commissar slowly nodded, “Yes the sniper. Who else could have lured two of our men to their deaths, stripped them of their gear, and made his way through the country side to kill two more squads of our men?”
A Sergeant ran to the Commissar and saluted, “Report.”
The Sergeant swallowed nervously, “Sir, it looks like some kind of fight took place here.”
“Wow, you’re a genius. Care to elaborate?” The Commissar snapped back.
The Sergeant’s eyes narrowed, “Sir, there are two squads of our soldiers here dead. It appears that a squad of rifleman mainly died facing the house, so the Finn’s must have been holed up there.”
“What about the mortar squad?” The Commissar asked.
“That’s a separate matter.” The Sergeant replied.
“How so?” The Commissar asked.
“It looks like they were engaged by a separate force. Whatever that force had, caused the truck, and the mortar rounds they had with them to explode. I’m afraid there isn’t much left of the squad. One thing was curious.”
“Curious? How?” The Commissar demanded.
It appears that the spot of the initial explosion has been filled back in. Why would the Finns do that?” The Sergeant asked.
The Commissar shrugged his shoulders, “Who knows why these people do what they fucking do. Maybe they had someone to bury. With the soil frozen solid, it would have been the only way. At least we killed one of the fuckers.”
“In exchange for sixteen of ours.” The Sergeant replied.
The Commissar glared at the Sergeant for a moment and then asked, “What about the house?”
“We found the two riflemen that didn’t die with the rest of their squad inside. One had been shot; the other had been stabbed dozens of times.” The Sergeant stifled a shiver as he said the last few words and then continued, “One of them had his pants down around his ankles.”
“Which one?” Inquired the Commissar.
“The one that had been stabbed.” The Sergeant replied.
“Interesting. Anything else?” The Commissar asked.
The Sergeant nodded, “There was a pool of blood on the kitchen floor that didn’t appear to belong to either of our slain soldiers.”
“So they got one of the Finnish fucks in the house.” The Commissar paused and looked around at the chaotic scene, “I bet he was the one out here. The one that destroyed the mortar squad and killed most of the riflemen.”
“Who, Sir?” The Sergeant inquired.
“Hale Karhonen!” The Commissar snapped. Turning to face the Sergeant, his eyes narrowed as he barked, “Anything else?”
The Sergeant’s shoulders slumped and he involuntarily took a step back from this enraged officer, “Yes, Sir. We found a set of tracks at the edge of the cleaning over there. They lead into the forest. One of my men followed them for a short time. He said that they turn north about three hundred feet into the woods.”
“They’re making for the Mannerheim line. Call headquarters, we need a dog team to track the bastard, and at least three more squads. He paused for a moment, put his hands on his hips, took a long look around him at the carnage and added, “Clearly two squads isn’t enough.”
“Clearly not.” The Sergeant agreed.
“Prioritize the dogs so we can run the son of a bitch down.” The Sergeant turned to leave when the Commissar added, “Oh, and one more thing, cancel Pekka’s execution. He may be of further use to us.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Afterword
I hope you enjoyed The Winter Sniper. Getting to know Hale over the last year has been a great experience. I hope you have enjoyed the journey as much as I have and I look forward to seeing you again for the continuation of the tale. The Winter War as the conflict between Finland and the Soviet Union came to be called lasted four months from November 30th 1939 to March 13th of 1940. This leaves plenty of war to write about!
The idea for the story, first occurred to me over a year ago when I was in Barnes and Noble waiting for my better half to pick out some books. Being an avid book reader myself, and a writer one would think that having to wait in Barnes and Noble wasn’t such a bad thing, right? Well yeah, but who actually buys physical books these days? It was like being surrounded by candy you didn’t want to sample, because you were on a diet.
I found myself wandering, as I always do, to the section on military history. I let my eyes scan the rows of books trying to stifle a yawn, medieval books, done that, Ancient Rome, I could probably write my own book on that subject, World War II, yawn. What history nerd hasn’t read eight million books about biggest conflict in history? Then it happened, my eyes landed on Osprey’s Finland at War and my mind said, Hello this is new!
I picked the book up found a seat and started reading it. I got about twenty pages in before I was collected by my wife as it was time to go. Fast forward to November of 2018, I found myself in Barnes and Nobles once again, this time waiting on my parents who I was visiting for the Thanksgiving Holiday. Rinse and repeat, guess where I ended up and continued where I left off? You got it, Finland at War.
At the time I had just finished writing Book 3 in the Byzantium Infected Series Emperor’s Errand. I was on a writing break, while my editor did his thing to make it a better book. By the time my parents collected me to leave, I was hooked, during my break from hungry zombies bent on making a meal out of the Medieval Roman Empire, I was going to write a short story about Finland’s Winter War.
I wrote my short story and put it up on a popular E-Book seller for free. This story became chapter 1 of this book. The results were pretty astonishing. I received more likes and emails for that one short story than I had on all of the short stories combines published on that site set in the Byzantium Infected Universe.
Since I had so much fun doing the research and writing the book, the choice became clear. It was time to write a full-length novel! That result of that thought is the story you just completed.
If you enjoyed the story, I would very much appreciate it, if you would return to Amazon and write or stop by Good Reads and leave an honest review. It is the word of mouth testimony from readers like you, that is the life blood of independent authors such as myself. Let me extend a personal thank you in advance. I appreciate it!
If you enjoyed my style of writing and have an interest in the 7th Century Zombie Apocalypse check on my Byzantium Infected Series. This series follows the adventures of three Roman Infantrymen Athos, Baltazar, and Constan as they navigate their changed world through four novels Scourge of Byzantium, Damascus of the Damned, Emperor’s Errand Part I, and Emperor’s Errand Part II. Following the About the Author section I have included two chapters from the first novel in the series Scourge of Byzantium. All four of these novels are available for Amazon Kindle, and Print.
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