War of the Rats

The novel starts out from the point of view of Nikki Mond. He is talking with a soldier when suddenly the soldier is shot down by a sniper. Vasily Zaitsev and Viktor Medvedev are shown shooting down the soldier and then move their gear a minute later. Medvedev signs Zaitsev's sniper journal as a witness. The story switches to Thorvald who is teaching at the SS's elite sniper school. At this point all of the characters are just being introduced. Zaitsev reveals that he has many unique techniques he learned from hunting in the taiga. Colonel Nikolai Batyuk calls Zaitsev to talk and afterwards has a job offer for Zaitsev. He wants him to start a sniper school. Later the story switches to Tania Chernova on a barge in the 284th division. Her ship gets blown out of the water and she is forced to swim to shore with Fedya, a young recruit, and Yuri, an older soldier. They are forced to crawl through sewers for a long time underneath the fighting in Stalingrad. Yuri collapses from exhaustion and they are forced to leave him behind to die. Just as Tania and Fedya collapse from lack of oxygen they find a manhole and are able to crawl out of the sewers. They make it to the main Russian force and Tania decides to join the school run by Zaitsev. The snipers take a three-day course focused on tactics, shooting skills, and techniques. On the final day they go on their own mission. One night Zaitsev comes and asks a couple members to come with him and blow up an officer's barracks with him. They are almost caught but successfully blow it to pieces.

The Germans decide that it would be great to silence the Russian "hero" Zaitsev that has made many appearances in the Russian papers. They decide to call in Colonel Thorvald, Germany's best sniper, to silence him. Thorvald makes no attempt to hide his presence in Stalingrad. He shoots recklessly at whoever comes within his sights. He shoots a few of Zaitsev's trainees. He put one of his bullets through the opposing sniper's scope just to show his accuracy. After a few days Zaitsev decides to confront the hidden super-sniper and end the "mini war." For three days he searches an open courtyard full of rubble. They both know the other is there, but they do not know where. Thorvald has dug a small hole under a piece of metal so he can relax and can sit in complete darkness away from the sun. It also muffles his rifle shot when he shoots. On the third day Zaitsev brings Danilov along who helps search for Thorvald. He thinks he spots him and jumps up, and Thorvald puts a bullet through his chest. That is when Zaitsev figures out where Thorvald is hiding. He works all night setting up fake posts and his shooting spot for the coming morning. The next day Thorvald immediately notices differences near the Russian trenches. He spots one of Zaitsev's decoys, but also notices the empty mortar shell where he thinks Zaitsev is hiding. Thorvald decides to shoot at the sniper in the decoy and then at Zaitsev. He pulls the trigger, and thinks he hit the other sniper. Meanwhile, Zaitsev watches for the flash of Thorvald's gun. He sees it, waits, then pulls the trigger. Thorvald was never able to fire his second shot. That night Zaitsev goes to check on Thorvald's body. On one last mission, Zaitsev, Tania and some others are sneaking towards a German base when Tania steps on a mine. Zaitsev carries her back to a hospital and they are forced to remove a kidney and she loses a lot of blood. Zaitsev never leaves her side. When she finally wakes up she talks to Zaitsev and her chances do not seem good.

The final chapter features Nikki Mond, Thorvald's accomplice while he was alive. Nikki is wandering about the German camps, talking with soldiers and thinking about the war. The German's are surrounded by a huge amount of Russian troops and they have almost no chance of escaping without being taken prisoner. Their resources were being depleted and some men had resorted to cannibalism. He sums it up with one good thought:

"With duty gone from around your shoulders, you see all the lies clearly because duty makes you blind. Look down at duty, with a broken back now, hissing weakly up at me from the floor. I see everything revealed. Hitler. Stalin. Churchill. Mussolini. Roosevelt. Hirohito. Like the men singing on the radio, a chorus of liars. They must be liars because this war they’ve told us to wage cannot be the truth for mankind. It must be an insane lie!"