Chapter 28: Wolf’s Hunt

In this winter, the forests of Karelia had transformed into a vast, white labyrinth. And deep within that labyrinth, a silent hunt was underway.

Harri, a Finnish scout, lay pressed beneath the roots of a massive spruce, looking like a hare driven into a corner. His lungs felt as though they had been seared by fire; every breath brought a sharp, stabbing pain. Sweat had soaked through his innermost wool sweater, freezing into an icy crust beneath his tattered snow camouflage.

He had been running for a full day.

Three days ago, his squad, an elite seven-man reconnaissance team, had encountered this group of Soviets out of nowhere after raiding a Red Army supply depot. There were no shouting charges, no aimless sprays of gunfire. These pursuers were like hounds with a scent, locking onto them with lethal persistence.

Harri closed his eyes, and the scene from last night flickered in his mind.

It was his squad leader, a veteran with ten years of experience. He had only gone to the river to fetch water; there wasn't even a gunshot. When Harri found him, the sergeant was kneeling by the water's edge with a precision slit across his throat. He had bled out completely, and his wide, unblinking eyes still held a lingering, primal terror, as if he had seen something impossible in his final moments.

Then came the machine gunner, his head snapped back by a single round from hundreds of meters away. They had been retreating through dense brush, yet that bullet acted as if it had eyes, threading through the thicket to find the only patch of forehead not covered by a helmet.

One by one.

Seven men, and now only he remained.

Harri had exhausted every trick to shake these pursuers, who clung to him like a shadow on bone. He had walked backward in the snow to confuse them, deliberately navigated frozen creeks and treacherous marshes, and had even swapped clothes with a corpse he found along the way to mask his scent.

He was certain that even the finest hunter would find it nearly impossible to track him through such a blizzard.

Wheeze... wheeze...

Harri struggled to stifle his breathing, his hands white-knuckled around a rifle that had long since run out of ammunition. He knew it was useless, but he needed to hold something to bolster his courage.

This spruce was enormous, its roots forming a natural hollow covered by a thick canopy of snow. It was sheltered from the wind and perfectly concealed; unless someone stepped within two meters, it was impossible to see a man hiding here.

The minutes ticked by.

The surroundings were deathly still, save for the occasional soft hiss of falling snow. No footsteps, no voices, even the wind seemed to have stalled.

Am I safe? Harri asked himself.

He had been huddled in this snow hole for a full hour. Every nerve had been frayed to the breaking point as he strained to listen for any movement.

But nothing happened.

By all logic, if the pursuers were nearby, they should have swept through this area long ago. Perhaps they really had lost the trail? Perhaps this sudden squall had buried the final traces? After all, the forest was vast, and the snow was blinding.

A sense of relief, the euphoria of a survivor, slowly rose in his chest, marginally dispelling the madness-inducing fear. Harri shifted his frozen limbs. His left leg had lost all sensation; if he didn't move soon, he would freeze to death even if the Russians didn't find him.

Carefully, he poked his head out, peering through the gap in the roots.

White snow. Black trunks.

Nothing.

"I'm actually safe..."

Harri let out a long, shuddering breath, his taut nerves finally sagging. He braced his hands against the ground, struggling to crawl out of the hollow.

Just as he pushed his upper body out of the shelter to take a greedy gulp of fresh air…

A cold sensation pressed against the back of his head.

There had been no footsteps. But he knew exactly what it was.

It was a muzzle.

The blood in Harri's veins turned to ice. He froze mid-motion like a grotesque ice sculpture.

"Found you!"

A low voice rasped behind him in broken Finnish, heavy with a thick Russian accent.

Harri slowly raised his hands, his body trembling uncontrollably. He wanted to turn around, to see the face of the man who had hounded him to the end.

But he never got the chance.

Phut!

A muffled gunshot cracked through the silent forest.

Harri's head lurched forward, and his body slumped limply back into the snow hole he had mistaken for a sanctuary. Blood instantly stained the pristine snow, blossoming like a crimson flower.

Behind him, a Soviet soldier in a white camouflage suit lowered a smoking pistol. He didn't spare the corpse a second glance. Instead, he turned and nodded toward a large tree nearby.

From the shadows of that tree, a figure in a brown leather coat stepped slowly into the light.

The man had a weather-beaten face and a scruffy beard. His dark brown greatcoat was of decent quality but was currently caked in mud and patches, with grease stains marking the collar. If you ignored his eyes, he looked like any other ordinary, perhaps even slovenly, veteran.

But within his grey eyes lay a suffocating level of caution. He was like an old wolf that had spent a lifetime scavenging the woods; despite his unkempt appearance, the bone-deep vigilance he possessed made him more dangerous than anyone.

"Captain Wolf," the soldier who fired the shot said, snapping to attention with a low, respectful salute. "This sector is clear. Target neutralized. That makes seven."

Wolf merely gave a slight nod, not even looking at the soldier. He continued to scan the surrounding treeline with hawklike intensity, his PPD-38 submachine gun never wavering from the ready position.

"Was it clean?"

"Very. One shot, fatal."

Wolf didn't speak. He walked over to Harri's body and gave it a sharp nudge with the toe of his boot. Satisfied the man was truly dead, he allowed his tense shoulders to drop slightly.

"Clean it up. Leave no trace."

His voice was soft and raspy, like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

"Understood."

As his words fell, over a dozen figures suddenly materialized from the seemingly empty woods. These men were also clad in white snow camouflage, carrying various armaments. Their movements were swift and silent, professionally scrubbing the scene as if it were second nature.

As the last traces were buried under the falling snow, Captain Wolf led his squad into the depths of the forest.

A few hours later, they returned to a temporary encampment hidden in a secluded valley to the rear. Originally a Finnish logger's camp, it had been repurposed by the Soviets as a forward command outpost. Several dark green tents were half-buried in the snow, draped in camouflage netting. Only the thin plumes of blue smoke from the chimneys gave away the presence of life.

Wolf stepped into the command tent, met by a wave of warmth mixed with the smell of cheap tobacco and moldy wood.

"Mission accomplished?"

The Soviet Major sitting behind the map table looked up, a glimmer of anticipation crossing his exhausted face.

"Cleared out. Seven Finnish scouts, all neutralized."

Wolf pulled off his frost-covered leather gloves and warmed his hands by the stove. "They were resilient and cunning, but against me, it was futile."

The Major nodded, seemingly unsurprised by the result.

"Good work, Wolf. Now, there is a new mission."