Gunpowder Dance

[Serbovia]

26 Kalevankatu
Counter-Sabotage Section
Security Department (TuOs)
Fennian Union Military Police
Kalevala
Kingdom of Kalevala
The Fennian Union

Major Juho Hauhio lit up a cigarette as he gave a glance at the initial report from the scene of the assassination of Interior Minister Joensuu-Kaleva. Neither the Minister or the policemen in his security detail had stood a chance, that much had become obvious when the Major had witnessed the crime scene and the spot from which the assassin had fired his lethal rounds.

Anyone remotely familiar with the dynamics of marksmanship and urban combat would've realized that the spot the assassin had chosen - on the rooftop concealed by ledges, ornaments and advertising boards, at the time of the day behind the sun and just at the right position to provide an effective kill zone to the route the Interior Minister had taken from his doorstep to the parking lot where his car had remained parked overnight - had been a superb sniping perch. And by all accounts the fire he had directed from there had been lethal and effective. The surviving bodyguards had described initial two rounds which had felled the Baron and a third which had been the end of the policeman who had positioned himself as a human shield, and then well-placed covering fire that had prevented the remaining three from reacting to the ambush.

The murder weapon, a 7,62x33mm Kar47 was of a type used extensively by the Fennian Union Army. Lightweight, it was a favorite of rear-echelon troops, parachutists, marines and paramilitary troops for whom a full-length semi-auto would've been impractical as a service weapon. Most significantly, it was not available for purchase by civilians anywhere in Fennia Proper or the Protected Territories. This, compared with efficiency of the assassination, worried the Security Department. By the very least, the rifle along with the ammunition had originated from a government stockpile. At worst, it could well be that there had been Communist penetration of the Army and that the shooter had been a member of the military. As much as the TuOs tried to filter potentially disloyal individuals from entering the services, the Union Army was still a conscript service.

In addition, Hauhio surmised as he drew in from his Rajankävijä cigarette - Frontiersman - had this been the act of an organized armed cell of the Communists their extensive infiltration of the divisionist underground would not be of much use. Disgruntled workers and idealistic university students were easy to identify and turn, if not by other means then at the threat of hard labor in the colonies, but smaller and more organized cells were relatively difficult to penetrate. And that they had been able to carry out an attack at the heart of the capital, even if just against a regional minister...

The phone on his desk rang, and the TuOs investigator picked up the receiver.

"Major Hauhio, Counter-Sabotage."

"Captain Särki here, sir", the voice belonged to the second-in-command of his investigation team, "The city police just notified us that there is a likely eye-witness."

"Alright", Hauhio replied, "I'll be on my way."

Major Hauhio recalled that he'd promised to get his wife to a department store today to buy one of them television sets which had become more and popular as of late. Alas, work awaited. As he got up to grab his greatcoat from his office's coat hanger he had a feeling that he'd be cashing in overtime today.

 

[Serbovia]

Quartermaster's Office
FUMC Upinniemi
Porkkala
Republic of West Kalevala
The Fennian Union

"Saatanan saatana!", Major Jussi Reichardt exclaimed as he completed the reading of the telegram that had come in from the Marine Corps headquarters up in Yrjönlinna. The realization he had made upon comparing the two documents on his desk - the aforementioned telegram and a report of the investigation he had conducted two months ago into irregularities in the garrison's arms depot - prompted first a string of curses that'd have made even a sailor flinch, then phone calls first to the garrison's provost marshal and then to the commander of the 2nd Marine Brigade.

In a matter of fifteen minutes, both Colonel Erik Lampela - commander of 2nd Marines - and Major Risto Lahdenperä - Upinniemi's provost marshal - had arrived to the offices of the garrison's chief quartermaster with all the urgency they managed to muster given the seriousness with which Major Reichardt had presented his matter. For anyone that knew Reichardt the fact that he now considered himself in need of a double vodka - hell, perhaps more than one - spoke of the urgency in the situation. After all, he was a rarity in the Fennian officer corps in that he enjoyed the vice of alcohol very lately, only occasionally in courtesy to his superiors and fellow officers.

"Upon a request from headquarters to check reports of any misplaced firearms in relation to yesterday's assassination in the capital", Reichardt begun, "I reviewed the reports over the depot theft earlier this year..."

It had been covered up well by the Defense Staff, but in May as a shipment of new firearms from the Valmet - State Metal Manufactory - factories had arrived to Upinniemi, a review of the received weapons against the amount shipped had reviewed that several of the weapons had gone unaccounted for. That list of missing firearms had included eight pistols, three sub-machine guns, two carbines and several hand grenades. Suspicion had pointed out to arms traffickers catering to the Union's prominent criminal underworld, especially after one of the Kp44s had surfaced in the Northern city of Lahti in connection with the murder of a local liquor bootlegger. Now, however, it appeared that the Kar47 carbine used yesterday in the murder of Kalevala's Interior Minister had originated from the same stockpile.

"The serial number of the rifle used in the assassination matches one remaining unaccounted for from that theft", the garrison's chief quartermaster continued, "There's the incident report and a request of information from headquarters."

Major Reichardt reminisced on that as the two officers went through the papers. He remembered the episode well, for he'd been the deputy quartermaster then and had been the one responsible for discovering the irregularities. Eventually off-duty spending at the bar too lavish for a soldier's pay by a certain non-commissioned officer had caught the ear of a Security Department informant. He'd been arrested and interrogated before admitting to carrying out the theft with an accomplice. Reichardt's predecessor had been demoted to Second Lieutenant due to negligence and sent to a border outpost in the Protected Territories, while the two soldiers responsible had received twenty years of hard labour.

"That may not mean anything other than that the gun found its way into the hands of the assassin through someone connected with whoever ordered the theft in the first place", Colonel Lampela said while adjusting his spectacles.

They'd never found out if someone had ordered the theft or if the soldiers had sold the guns themselves. Reichardt could master all things military logistics from running the peacetime maintenance of a full marine brigade to supplying it in the field too, but he knew nothing of criminal investigation so he left those things up to the professionals. From a layman's view, however, he wasn't surprised especially if the two had been connected to the gangsters up in Yrjönlinna.

"Or it could mean Communist penetration of the garrison", Major Lahdenperä retorted, "We need to notify headquarters and the Security Department and commence a review of all garrison personnel connected with the missing firearms."

 

[Serbovia]

Yrjö Laihon Katu Underground Station
Munkkimäki
Kalevala
Kingdom of Kalevala
The Fennian Union

The sight of the two men in their familiar brown greatcoats and peaked caps bearing the Fennian lion, Kp31 submachine guns in their hands, brought a stir to his mind. As he passed the pair of military policemen overlooking the mass of morning travelers heading to the stairways leading to the underground platforms, the anonymous man struggled to regain his composure. His decision to leave the hotel he'd spent the night in just for the busiest rush hour had proven right. In the mass of workers taking the underground from Munkkimäki and other such portions of the city to the factories concentrated along the Northern part of the city, he would truly remain anonymous. The fascists, he knew, would be on the lookout. But it would also be a fool's errand to check the identities of everyone traversing the Kalevala Underground, much less everyone on the move in the city during such a busy day.

The ignobility of it all, the lies, deceit and the manipulation, they had all ended when he had pulled the trigger and fired those fatal shots just days ago in this very same city. At that moment he had almost been overcome with elation, for his quest of vengeance which had forced him to serve this system of reactionaries for so many years had been completed. He had received his opportunity, and he had thus used it. Only more remained to be done, that much he knew. And the old lies and deceit would have to be replaced by new ones. He knew that he could not return anymore, not after what he'd done. Luckily there were still friends who could help him, even after fifteen years of persecution. Good men whom his brother had trusted those years ago, when the man himself had been just a boy.

Yes, his brother. His parents had sheltered him from the knowledge then, but later his father in a drunken ramble had told the tale about why his brother hadn't come home any more after being taken away by the Browncoats. He'd been hanged, his father had told, at the Talvilinna Army Penitentiary - for its gallows and high walls a symbol of Häyhist terror for all desiring liberation of the Fennian workers - and the message they had received had come a week afterwards in the form of a note together with the few personal belongings his brother had been allowed to take with him to the prison.

The man stopped, only his body continued moving along the queue of men and women waiting to buy their tickets to the Underground, and he forced himself to snap out of these thoughts. He had felt this yesterday as well at the hotel, and for it he had opened the bottle. He felt the desire to do that again, only the rational side of him told that it would do no good. At worst, such things would destroy his better judgement and he would risk giving himself to the hounds. That wouldn't happen, not here, not now.

He suddenly found himself at the ticket desk, the plump middle-aged female train attendant regarding him with boredom, and he forced himself to open his mouth.

"Ticket, please."

"Five Marks", the attendant said after a brief pause. The man, digging out the coins from his wallet, wasn't sure if he'd seen recognition. He had made every effort to change his appearance from that which he'd had on the day of the shooting so as to avoid detection, but he was unsure if it would work. By the very least, the hotel manager hadn't realized anything odd, and if he did he had given false information anyway. Then again, given how the manager had smelled of old booze he probably didn't notice anything but his well-developed alcoholism.

"Thank you", the man said quietly to the ticket attendant, and proceeded to the stairway which led him into the sprawling Kalevala Underground.

Yet again hiding in plain sight.

 

[Serbovia]

26 Kalevankatu
Counter-Sabotage Section
Security Department (TuOs)
Fennian Union Military Police
Kalevala
Kingdom of Kalevala
The Fennian Union

"That's not exactly helping us, is it?", Hauhio said dryly as he viewed Captain Aleksi Särki, seated on the other side of his office's big oaken table. Särki seemed surprised at the reaction from his superior, and Hauhio almost instantly regretted the tone of voice he'd taken with the Captain. A career officer, he should've had been able to restrain his inner desire to channel his frustration with the way the investigation was going into something other than his subordinate.

It was admittedly true that the communist mop-up the Sotilaspoliisi had started in concert with local law enforcement had yielded significant results in form of arrests of underground Reds in the region. However, the glory for that would go to the Political Section. The Politicals, as they were called, were in charge of persecuting the activities of banned political groups. Unless, that is, those activities involved violence in which case it fell under Counter-Sabotage. The lines often overlapped necessitating cooperation between both of the sections, but in case of the Joensuu-Kaleva murder the investigation was entirely handled by Counter-Sabotage. Finding the culprit was the thing primarily interesting Major Hauhio at the moment, not the rebellious university students with poorly printed Marx writings that the Politicals usually mopped up.

"At least we know where the firearm used in the killing originated from, sir", Särki said in response.

"True".

Major Hauhio remembered that case. It briefly occurred to him that - theoretically speaking - the fact that some of the other weapons from the same group had surfaced in the hands of Yrjönlinna's criminal underworld might have pointed out to perpetrators other than the communists who were the main line of inquiry. Still, it didn't seem likely. Indeed, at least they had the weapon to go on, as well as the eyewitness statements collected from several people who had seen the apparent assassin make his escape. However, the trouble there was that even if they'd release a sketch to the public, the results could be uncertain. His investigators had showed the eyewitnesses images of known violent communists and people who'd made threats against Joensuu-Kaleva, but to no avail, and no fingerprints had been recovered from the crime scene owing to the fact that the assassin had likely used gloves.

"Our people up there are already in Upinniemi", the Captain continued.

"Good", Hauhio nodded, "I want all the details of the gun theft reviewed, also bring in everyone who had access to the weapons at the time they went missing."

"Already done."

As usual, his assistant had taken care of this for him. Though a man hard to impress, Juho Hauhio was convinced that the Captain would have a long career ahead of him with the Security Department. By far the best partner he'd ever had since his transfer to the feared Security Department, Särki was a patriotic Fennian and a loyal Häyhist to the core, and it was certain that unless the thirty-year old would screw anything up he'd have a long career ahead of him. Perhaps he'd succeed Hauhio in case of a promotion - Haukio's official position was Deputy Head of Counter-Sabotage in Kalevala - he was gunning for. Though, the Major noted to himself, if this investigation went south then gaining a promotion seemed like an unlikely prospect at best.

He paused to think for a moment, then continued, "How about the two soldiers convicted during the gun affair?"

Captain Särki reached for his leather briefcase, which had laid on the side of his chair for the duration of their conversation, and took a dossier labelled with the Security Department coat of arms and a big red Salainen stamp. (Secret in Fennian) The Army liked to bury it's fuck-ups, as evidenced by the classification all papers in the Upinniemi arms case had been given.

"Corporal Pertti Laine killed himself in custody two years ago, and Senior Sergeant Mika Heiskanen is continuing his sentence in Oksa Penitentiary Work Institution."

Protected Territories. Senior Sergeant Heiskanen was, it seemed, a fuck-up buried very far away by the War Office.

"Call our office in Pyhä Henrik, he needs to be interrogated right away."

 

[Serbovia]

Oksa Penitentiary Work Institution
Fifteen kilometers east of Ratsukylä
Ratsukylä District
Protected Territories of New Fennia

"Heiskanen, Mika Olavi!".

The tired ex-Marine sharpened up, or at least tried to, when the guard lieutenant in charge of the morning roll call shouted for his name. The unforgiving Himyari sun was beginning to rise over New Fennia and the work camp where Heiskanen and a hundred others stood in the courtyard of their section for the roll call, watched by stone-faced guards in their Protected Territories Police khaki uniforms, some on the courtyard with them and others in the guard towers bearing machine guns and semi-automatic rifles. And, he thought as he noticed a group that accompanied the lieutenant and his thugs, strangers too. Four of them were like flashbacks from his former life, bearing the khaki uniforms Fennian soldiers usually wore around here.

What struck him were their armbands, the white SP letters on black background - abbreviation of Sotilaspoliisi, the Fennish word for Military Police - distinguishing them from regular soldiers. Hounds. The fifth one was in civilian dress though, the his short-sleeved dress shirt and the sun helmet telling Heiskanen that the man was someone important. And, though his Aviators didn't reveal much from beneath them, the civilian glared right at Heiskanen.

"Present, lieutenant SIR!", he shouted in response, or at least tried to. He was pretty sure that he was getting ill, a consequence of the double hours the camp's rubber plantation - where he was assigned - had recently instituted as some deranged form of collective punishment. The constant humidity in the prisoner barracks and hell, the entire colony, didn't help.

He knew that the strangers had something in mind for him the moment the lieutenant didn't move on with the roll call. Instead the civilian and the four Hounds in his tail walked up to him, the civilian again examining him. His dulling mind sharpened up, for attention was usually a bad thing at the labor camp. For all the smugness the plainclothes one regarded him Heiskanen wanted to punch the man in the face. But then, he knew that it wouldn't help. When he had been confined at the camp, the ex-Marine had been like a caged dog, striking at everything and everyone within his reach. After the guards had put him in the camp's infirmary ward a few times, he had learned to restrict his aggressions to other inmates. They cared about that only if there was a riot. Some fellow inmate had told him that it was because if there were a lot of tension between the inmates, they wouldn't come together to plot escapes and uprisings. He supposed that it held true.

"You're coming with us", the Aviator Man replied in a calm tone.

Really now? What was that all about?

"Why?", he asked quizzically.

The man's response was a curt nod to two of the MPs, who proceeded to seize Heiskanen by his hands, their hands finding firm grips. In the old days he'd have beaten them both. But not after years in this hell-hole of disease.

"That wasn't a question", the Aviator Man replied with another gesture to the direction of the gate leading not to the inmate compound, but to the administrative section of the labor camp, "Let's go".

As the two Military Policemen half-dragged him to the direction of the gate, it briefly occured to Mika Heiskanen that whatever they wanted with him, it was probably better than another day toiling away at the rubber plantation. Not bothering to resist in any manner of significance, he was led through the gates to the twenty-meter corridor, from both sides blocked by barbed wire fence, leading to the administrative compound of the labor camp. Past another gate and inside, and he eventually found himself in the camp's vehicle depot, before a black bag covered his head and he felt himself forced into the backseat of a car. Even given the rather uncomfortable conditions, he still guessed that the destination would be better than the Oksa rubber plantation.

Alas, his guess was to be incorrect.

 

[Serbovia]

District Headquarters of Military Police
Ratsukylä
Ratsukylä District
Protected Territories of New Fennia

Forty-five minutes and fifteen kilometers later in one of the MP station's basement rooms and amidst his curses and grunts of pain, Mika Heiskanen regretted having thought that this might be better than the rubber plantation.

"Haista vittu!", he grunted under his breath and spat blood at the Aviator Man - no longer wearing his aviators - who promptly dodged the ball of blood and mucus which landed in the concrete wall in the back of the room. The plainclothes man nodded at the direction of the sergeant holding a wooden truncheon, who then struck Heiskanen in the groin followed by a gut-stab as the two military policemen holding him by hands let him collapse to the floor in pain. Pain which, by this point, had grown to encompass his four broken fingers, broken nose, pretty sure at least two broken ribs and his balls which he suspected wouldn't be of much use in any future attempt of reproduction.

"I already fucking told you", Heiskanen said as he gasped for breath, all of it having escaped from his lungs as a consequence of the gut blow, "I don't know anything about any communists!"

"The weapon used in the killing came from the stockpile which you and your friend took from the Marines, explain that", the interrogator replied in a calm tone. The lack of emotion unnerved him, at least as far as he could think about it.

"I...don't...know!", Heiskanen shouted again. The progressive reduction of his ability to think and its replacement with the constant feeling of pain led him to even entertain the fact of concoting some random story to give to the interrogators, though that'd only be a brief respite until such a story would be proven false. And then the pain would return in greater and far more excruciating terms. Still, even a brief respite would be enough.

"That's it for tonight", the interrogator then - to his surprise - replied with frustration, then gesturing to the sergeant, "Take him back to holding, keep the lights on overnight."

It was...over?

After he had watched the uniformed military policemen take their prisoner away from the interrogation room, Major Jussi Laine himself stepped out, to be greeted by their local man in the Ratsukylä District in the corridor.

"Jesus Christ, sir", Captain Anssi Launisto broke out, "Is he okay?"

"He will be", Major Laine noted dryly, "Have a doctor see to him. He is to be maintained in holding for now."

"Yes, sir."

As he watched the local - head of the entire Security Department in Ratsukylä as the mainland section divisions commonly didn't apply in New Fennia, almost everyone did everything with the exception of a few bigger offices such as the Pyhä Henrik one where Laine himself was from - scurry off he lamented that the interrogation had not quite resulted in anything. The former Marine NCO had told a lot, but none of that had been of relevance except perhaps for the purposes of broadening Laine's stock of available expletives. Still, it wouldn't be his problem. His superior had merely told him to go here to carry out the interrogation, and he had just done that, if only to ascertain that with all likelihood Mika Heiskanen had no knowledge of any red cell that might have been involved in that assassination in the mainland a couple of weeks ago.

He entertained the thought of having the prisoner transferred to Pyhä Henrik, where the Security Department's specialist interrogators could've "attended" to him with their stocks of various creative instruments and chemicals of coercion. However, Laine suspected that Heiskanen was a dead end.

 

[Serbovia]

53 Vasarakatu
Kokonlinna
Grand Duchy of Pohjanmaa
The Fennian Union


Though the secret police of the Häyhist regime did not by any means have claims to similar extents of terror as those exercised by similar services in countries such as the Mezhist Union and Miroslavl, its familiar emblem still brought a stir to the mind of Marjaana Niska. Her recognition was instant the moment the two strangers on her doorstep showed her the badges of their service, the Security Department of the Military Police. That gilded shield depicting a Fennian lion grasping a fasces - the old Tiburan symbol of authority - was recognizable to most Fennians, depending on their point of view either as a symbol of a key line of defense against subversion or as a symbol of Häyhist state terror.

To Marjaana, it was the latter. And it brought painful memories back to her mind, memories which she thought she had dealt with a long time ago. Still, she struggled to regain her composure at the sight of the two Security Department agents. It reminded her of the turbulent period of Fennian history fifteen years ago. Of the dawn of the Häyhist regime, when Juhani, the elder of her two sons had been involved in the activities of the Fennian Communist Party. The Browncoats had come to this very house to take him away, and all that she heard from him afterwards was a note in mail - together with his returned personal effects - notifying that Juhani Niska had been executed by hanging for the charges of treason and insurgency, the body having been exhumed in the crematory of the infamous Talvilinna Prison.

"We are looking for your son", the senior Security Department agent spoke and Marjaana snapped out of her thoughts, "It is vital that we talk to him immediately."

"I...I haven't seen him", she replied in a quiet tone, reminding herself to be careful around these men. Both with their penetrating stares, their implacable suits and their outward appearance, as if they were some Kalevala businessmen or something, stood in difference from the usual goons of the secret police that she was familiar with. These were a different breed, of a far more dangerous kind, "Not in a long while."

Her other son. Marjaana and her husband Mikko had dropped out of contact with their remaining son Olavi after he had chosen to embrace the regime they had all fought against, Juhani in the ranks of the Communist Party and Mikko and Marjaana with the Social-Republicans. For her, Olavi had ceased to exist on the moment he had made that choice. Still, she couldn't help wondering if the boy was in trouble. No, a man, twenty-five by now.

"Has something happened to him?", Marjaana finally managed to ask.

After a moment of silence and glances exchanged between the two regime agents, the senior of them replied, "He was supposed to return from a leave to his post five days ago, but did not check in. His unit hasn't managed to locate him and they're worried that something may have happened to him."

Marjaana sensed a lie. In spite of the humble trappings the couple had found themselves living in after being removed from their academic posts after the Häyhist takeover, in a very proletarian part of Kokonlinna they could afford with her cleaner's salary and Mikko's salary of a cab driver, she wasn't an idiot. Though they must have been well aware of that. She flinched, and was sure that the men had realized that she hadn't believed them.

"Has he been in contact with you or your husband?", the agent inquired.

"No".

And had he been, Marjaana wouldn't probably have known what to say.

"We'll have to come in", the man finally replied.

Marjaana Niska knew that she had no choice but to comply. Under the laws that the Häyhists had enacted since their takeover fifteen years ago, the Security Department and other similar agencies were empowered to do almost everything that they desired. Resistance, she knew, would only make it more difficult for her. Thus she had to watch in impotence as the sanctity of their home was so violated, when the two agents spent the remaining thirty minutes rummaging through their one-floor house and its attic and its basement in search of...what exactly? Her son? Clues to his whereabouts? And why? Had he merely gone missing as they claimed or had he deserted or done something more serious? She didn't know. Their departure took place with a lack of ceremony, and she watched from her attic as the two government men drove off in their black

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As she went back in, she could sense the prying stares of their neighbors, though with courtesy only made from the protection of their own windows. It was perhaps the worst thing. They had already experienced so much ostracization when the government had publicly declared Juhani a traitor of Fennia, and Marjaana and Mikko the mother and father of a traitor. All that, the loss of their jobs, their friends and their downtown house had been so painful. They didn't deserve to experience all this a second time. They just didn't. She decided to deny her husband, when he'd return home from work, the knowledge of this encounter. She'd spare Mikko from having all that resurface again.

When Marjaana got back to their living room she barely managed to sit down on the couch before she broke in tears.

 

[Serbovia]

26 Kalevankatu
Counter-Sabotage Section
Security Department (TuOs)
Fennian Union Military Police
Kalevala
Kingdom of Kalevala
The Fennian Union

Inspectorate of Personnel
Marine Department
Union Defense Staff

VAIN VIRANOMAISKÄYTTÖÖN - OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Surname:Niska
First names:Olavi Kristian

Date of birth:23rd of February, 1927
Place of birth:Kokonlinna, Grand Duchy of Pohjanmaa

Family:Father Mikko Kalevi Niska, Mother Marjaana Elisa Niska (néé Särkinen), Brother Juhani Tapio Niska (deceased, see notes)
Census number:230227-295P
Services number:M298314

Religion:Christian, Fennian Evangelic Church
Blood type:A+
Illnesses: None acute

Personal education:1933-1939 Northwest Kokonlinna Primary School, 1939-1942 Kokonlinna Lower Secondary School of Our Christ the Redeemer, 1942-1945 Kokonlinna Technical School (metal crafts, GPA 4,5/5)
Military qualifications:Rifleman (Marine), Infantry Weapons Maintenance (Marine), Non-Commissioned Officer Training

Present assignment:/9th Maintenance Company, Service Battalion 4, 2nd Marine Infantry Brigade

Service history:
January 1945:Attends conscript mustering in Kokonlinna, volunteers for Marine Corps service as an alternative to regular conscript duty.
March 1945articipates in Marine Corps selection tests in Pohjanlinna, score: physical 83%, interview 78%, accepted into service.
August 1945:Enters service with the 2nd Marine Infantry Brigade on a 1½ year volunteer contract, designated for rifleman training after completion of basic training period in October.
December 1945:Selected to undergo training as non-commissioned officer.
March 1946romotion to Corporal, completion of Non-Commissioned Officer Course. Assigned as Assistant Squad Leader, B Company/Marine Infantry Battalion 9/2nd Marine Infantry Brigade
February 1947:Transferred to regular service, promotion to Sergeant. (Recommendation by Captain Lauri Rokka, C.O BKom/MJvPa 9/2.MJvPr) Assigned as Squad Leader, , B Company/Marine Infantry Battalion 9/2nd Marine Infantry Brigade.
May 1947:Volunteers to undergo qualification training in Infantry Weapons Maintenance. Accepted.
September 1947:Completes IWM qualification training. Assigned as Weapons Maintenance NCO, 9th Maintenance Company, Service Battalion 4, 2nd Marine Infantry Brigade.
August 1951romotion to Senior Sergeant.

Disciplinary record:Was ticketed for speeding violations on 19th of March 1949 while on Upinniemi base grounds by Military Police, along with forfeiture of a week's pay. Investigated in 1952 after theft of arms from 2.MJvPr depot (TuOs report 14/221/1952, designated SECRET) and detained between the 20th and 23th of March for interrogation, no charges filed.

Military commendations:Marine Rifle Marksmanship Clasp (Gold), Marine Pistol Marksmanship Clasp (Silver), Non-Commissioned Officers' Cross, National Defense Medal 2nd Class, War Office Gunsmith Proficiency Award
Operations participated in:None overseas.

Notes:
Note 1: Staff Sergeant Niska's brother Juhani Niska was sentenced to death in 1938 for treason and insurgency, penalty carried out by hanging on 7th of January 1938. Juhani Niska has been identified as a member of the Communist Party of Fennia. Olavi Niska has been in contact with persons in acquintance with his brother several times at least between 1944 and 1946. (TuOs report 6/25/1938, designated CONFIDENTIAL; TuOs report 6/47/1946, designated CONFIDENTIAL)
Note 2:Staff Sergeant Niska's parents Mikko and Marjaana Niska have both been classified as known monitored subversives. (TuOs report 6/35/1938, designated CONFIDENTIAL)

Major Hauhio didn't need to look further than the general Inspectorate of Personnel overview of Senior Sergeant Olavi Niska's service record to notice that it was filled with more red flags than Rijeka on a May Day. What shocked him the most was the fact that though the Marine had been under the Security Department's radar especially during the time of his entrance into the Marine Corps, he had still managed to enter what was - with justification - considered an elite corps of the Fennian military and even put in a position where he had enjoyed access to almost the entire arms and equipment stockpile of a full brigade. Juho Hauhio didn't want to think of all the damage the man could've caused in that position. Stealing small arms was just a tip of the iceberg compared to that.

When the Upinniemi Provost Marshal had reported the Security Department that Senior Sergeant Niska had failed to report to his unit at the conclusion of his leave, and the attempts by Hauhio's field agents to locate him as part of the attempt to interrogate all those involved with Upinniemi's missing guns had failed, he had quickly started to connect the dots. What lay before Major Hauhio in his office desk was a literal pile of documents that painted an extensive picture of the man that was Olavi Niska. On top of his service records from the Marine Department, Hauhio had attained the TuOs file on him and his family members, along with the investigation reports related to the chain of events that had eventually led to the man's elder brother being executed. Though his evidence consisted mainly of strong hints and circumstance, Hauhio was beginning to get a picture. He did not believe in coincidences.

The NCO who had been imprisoned for the arms theft had been a dead end, almost literally given the interrogation tactics that had been applied by Hauhio's collagues in New Fennia. Though the treatment did not concern him. Someone who betrayed his country for motives even lower than those of ideological traitors, in this case pure greed, deserved all the punishment that the Fennian security apparatus could muster. The only thing that Major Hauhio regretted was that they'd spent time in pursuing that obviously false angle. Now, however, his instincts told him that he was on the right track. Olavi Niska had suspiciously gone unaccounted for at the same time when Kalevala's Interior Minister Joensuu-Kaleva had been assassinated by someone who by all evidence had been a trained marksman, and the weapon used had gone missing from Upinniemi at the same time when Olavi Niska had been assigned to its arms depot. And the man himself? The son of a couple disgraced and removed from their social standing after 1937 for their opposition activities, and the brother of a man executed for treason.

After his team had put the pieces together, Major Hauhio had gone to his superiors with the details. As a result, the Security Department had been mobilized to the fullest extent with the intention of capturing this man. In Kokonlinna, officers would go through any of his local family, friends and contacts, and the same would repeat anywhere else where the fugitive could be. Hauhio was confident that even if Olavi Niska had not fired those lethal shots, he would know who had. However, it had been decided that the shameful fact of a relatively distinguished Marine being involved in a Red assassination plot should never reach public light. As a result, the arrest orders that had gone out to the uniformed Military Police and their civilian counterparts merely listed him as a military deserter. Secret orders had come from the War Minister himself, Admiral Aminoff, that Niska and any of his compatriots privy to the knowledge of his actions would need to be terminated with extreme prejudice.

The hunt was on.