Free Fall by Nicolai Lilin

Author:Nicolai Lilin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2011-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

About an hour later, someone knocked on our door. Deer went to open it and found a group of infantry explorers in front of him. Their lieutenant asked:

‘Captain Nosov’s saboteurs? 76th division?’

Moscow replied in a light, almost ironic tone:

‘Yep, that’s us . . . Something bad happen?’

The lieutenant looked confident. He smiled at Moscow, and, entering the barracks like an actor would take to the stage, he said:

‘For the moment nothing particular has happened, Comrade Private . . . but I think that soon all hell’s going to break loose . . .’

Each of us stopped doing whatever he was doing and went over to the lieutenant to hear his explanation. He signalled for his men to come in while Deer went to put the water on to make tea.

The explorers were already prepared for the mission; they were kitted out with vests, weapons, rain ponchos. In the week following our army helicopter’s mysterious accident, they had combed every inch of the surrounding mountains, informing our troops about the enemy’s presence and watching every move that appeared remotely suspect.

At Nosov’s request, they had brought each of us a pair of tall boots, waxed so that water couldn’t get through – in war, having dry feet is very important. Personally, one of the things I hated most was when my trainers became muddy and slipped off. Running often carried the risk of ending up barefoot – not the most comfortable thing.

The explorers were equipped like Afghanistan war soldiers; they didn’t have canteens attached to their belts but had a few bottles of water in their belly bags; their rifle ammo was inside the pockets of their jackets, shortened up to the waist just like ours. They carried their knives sideways, concealed behind their belts. They also had side pouches, handmade specially; they were all armed with double magazine paratrooper rifles, some with optic or dioptric scopes. One had a precision rifle just like mine, a VSS with an integrated silencer, wrapped in a piece of soft cloth so it wouldn’t get damaged.

They didn’t seem anxious. Their faces were the classic faces of people who live in war: tired eyes, deep wrinkles in dry skin, skin corroded by wind, rain, cold and hunger. But behind these men’s eyes there was that mix of humility and wisdom that comes only to those accustomed to dying and coming back to life several times a day. These were people who could witness the death of a friend with the tenderness of a loving mother putting her children to bed at night knowing she’ll be waking them up in the morning . . .

They sat down on the crates, which were scattered around the room. Someone lit a cigarette, enjoying big gulps of hot tea while their lieutenant unfolded a map on the table and started showing us our destination.

We would have to cross the valley, go up into the mountains and reach the point on the map circled in red.

‘Command seems really keen for us to get to the area of the helicopter crash as soon as possible,’ the lieutenant said.

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