Free Fall (16 page)

Besides obstructing the sewer entrance, the explosion would surely kill a few enemies as well. An F1 model
hand grenade had a lot of explosive power, and could shoot metal fragments up to a distance of four hundred metres. It was a real bitch, that bomb.

Nosov came down and looked at the soldiers:

‘So, you're the only ones left?'

Sergeant Lavrov replied:

‘Yes, Comrade Captain, the others have fallen.'

It was dark and you couldn't see anything, but from our line the Cossack's voice emerged:

‘Does anyone have word of Private Ustinov?'

A cry came from among the infantry:

‘Papa!' A young soldier jumped out from the group and practically threw himself on the old man. The two men embraced, and then the cousin too. They were grinning, happy as children.

‘Let's save the family reunions for later, Cossacks!' Our Nosov motioned for everyone to follow him.

We went fast. It really seemed like everything had gone smoothly, and I was almost happy that we had managed to conclude the operation without having to shoot a single bullet. As we passed under the grates, you could see the first rays of sunlight filtering down to the sewer floor. At those points we crept along against the wall so we couldn't be seen from above.

The infantrymen followed the saboteurs, and Nosov ordered me and Moscow to bring up the rear. Although the group had grown, although our heads were down and
we were hunched over, we moved even faster than we did on the way there.

‘I knew I was going to be okay,' Moscow said at one point, though almost under his breath.

‘What?' I asked, without stopping. I wasn't sure I'd heard him right.

‘My neighbour, the gypsy, she read my future on the cards . . .' He was smiling now. ‘She said I would die an old man, in my sleep . . .'

He told this story every time he got through some serious trouble – that is, all the time. I was about to say something, when suddenly we heard such a strong explosion that for a few seconds our ears were plugged. It was our booby trap.

Nosov halted. We looked at one another, scared, half-deaf, feeling trapped. Our captain said:

‘We have to get out fast, now, wherever we are . . . I'm sure they've already given the signal . . . Now those beasts'll be throwing bombs into every sewer in the area!'

Within a minute we found an exit, also closed by a cover. Without a word Nosov climbed up, moved the cover and went out. Then he peeked in and gestured for us to follow him.

We moved so fast that we looked like a group of navy soldiers used to going up and down the passageways of a submarine.

Coming out in broad daylight in some random place, however, would expose us to any possible attack.

We found ourselves at the end of an empty street facing a cement wall full of holes and rusty shards. Nearby there
was a low building, a small power plant. There was one in every neighbourhood – they were good places for escaping heavy artillery attacks, because they had very thick walls, and sometimes even a tank had trouble knocking them down; they were kind of like little bunkers. The problem is that they were blind, without windows – they had a door and that was it. Many soldiers had lost their lives in those places, because in trying to take shelter they ended up getting trapped.

Behind us there was a half-destroyed, abandoned apartment building. Nosov headed there and we followed. Once inside, we all began trying to figure out an escape route.

Nosov pulled out the map and showed us our location. We had gone in the right direction, but we were about three hundred metres from where we were originally supposed to come out. According to the directions I had copied, we were right in the middle of the enemy's second line of fortifications.

While the others hid in the building, Nosov asked Moscow and me to come with him to explore the area. The silence was unsettling – it felt as if we were crossing a dead city. But as we went through the streets, we spotted several places where machine guns poked out from building windows. Evidently the Arabs felt safe, and that was why they had no ground cover. Still, it was a big stroke of luck that we hadn't come out in a place
defended by the snipers, otherwise we'd have stepped into our own grave.

There was an armoured car, a BTR, inside one of the courtyards, where someone had written something in Arabic with white paint. We looked around, and not seeing anyone, we went in. The back doors of the car were open; inside there was an enemy, sleeping.

Nosov didn't stop to think. He drew his knife and jumped on him like a flash. Without the slightest whimper, the Arab died from a jab right in the heart.

Moscow entered the cabin and started the engine. I hung on the side with Nosov. Obviously when we came onto the street, everyone would notice the car. We had to make it look like we were them, but also had to be ready to get off in case they recognised us.

Moscow drove the car perfectly, nice and smooth. Nosov had put on the dead Arab's hat and was making a weird face – it almost made me laugh to look at him. I had torn the pom-pom off my hat and turned it inside out, so that from far away it would look at least a little like the ones the Arabs wore. We went through the streets and everything around was still – it really seemed like our trick had worked.

We entered the courtyard of the abandoned house where our men were waiting for us, backing up as close as possible to the door.

Nosov suggested to the soldiers a plan to get out of there: they would all squeeze inside the BTR; two would go to the driver's side, another inside the gun turret, while we saboteurs would stay on top, in plain view. His idea
was to dress the dead Arab's body in one of our soldier's uniforms, and then attach him to the car (they really liked exhibiting our corpses – I had seen videos with the half-butchered bodies of Russians being taken around the city streets like trophies), pretending to be their comrades. It was a crazy plan, but it was the only plan possible.

One infantryman took his uniform off without hesitation and took the Arab's clothes. We put the jacket on the corpse, wrapped his head in a rag to cover the black beard and long hair, and tied him up. In the car we found one of their flags, which was entrusted to Zenith; his task would be to shout the only Arabic phrase he knew, ‘Allah Akbar', and wave the flag around like a nut. The rest of us would confuse things a little by shooting into the air and letting out some whoops.

It was already daylight. We had just a few blocks to go. We would dump the car just before reaching the territory under our control; otherwise there was the risk of our soldiers killing us.

Without much ado, we set off. The car barrelled onto the street at full speed; in front, under the gun turret, we had placed the corpse. The head dangled from side to side – it really looked like one of our men. We hollered and shot in the air every now and then, we had all turned our hats inside out. Luckily the road was deserted.

We were almost at the end of the road when we heard some shouting from a nearby house, then fire from a
machine gun and some Kalashnikovs and pistols. Some Arabs came out of the door, jumping for joy, shooting into the air and waving at us, raising their hands high in the air. We kept up the show. I was next to the turret; Zenith was yelling so loud it almost hurt my ears.

We came to a big crossroads where there were lots of Arabs bustling about with heavy cannons and tanks. Some of them fired in response to us, but one group gestured for us to stop the vehicle. Nosov took a hand grenade and threw it right at a cannon, which exploded. Moscow and I opened fire on the Arabs, to their surprise. We wiped them out in no time, and our BTR kept going down the street into the distance.

There were still two small streets of enemy fortifications to cross; then we would come onto a wide street, and after that we would reach our men. We were so close; I could almost see our post.

From the roof of a three-storey house, the enemy started shooting at us with two machine guns. One of the infantrymen who were driving the car made an abrupt manoeuvre, zigzagging around; we couldn't shoot, all our effort was concentrated on not falling off.

At a certain point I felt a tremor going from the armour to the handle I was holding on to, like a little earthquake. It was the machine gun hitting the front of the car. The BTR swerved to the left and, slowing down, went up onto the pavement.

Nosov jumped off the vehicle and we followed him. I fell, did a somersault and jumped back up. I kept on running although my ankle hurt like hell. The car had
broken down a gate, gone through a yard, and crashed into a building. We rushed over, trying to enter the building so we wouldn't be exposed to gunfire.

The rear doors of the car opened and the soldiers burst out. The one who had been sitting in the turret had blood all over his face – part of a shell had hit him, leaving a wide, deep gash from the middle of his forehead to the top of his head. The boys who had been driving the car, however, were both dead, having taken the blast straight on.

We could hear the machine guns approaching, and amidst all the chaos I could distinguish the sounds of a precision rifle. From the deep echo it left in the air, it had to be a Dragunov. Suddenly, one of our soldiers standing in the middle of the yard fell over. His vest exploded as if it were made of glass, leaving him a hole in the chest that went clear from one side to the other.

Only anti-tank shells had that kind of power. They were heavy, had a strong steel interior and were plated with a thin layer of very soft metal that allowed the bullet to slide nicely down the barrel and follow a precise trajectory. Some snipers, to make them even deadlier, sprayed them with Teflon, which made them slip through armour like melted butter. The sniper couldn't be too far away, two or three hundred metres at most.

Backing up against the wall, I yelled:

‘Stay out of the yard, sniper in the area! Keep inside, walk by the walls . . .'

I didn't have time to finish my sentence before another infantryman was grazed in the back.

Meanwhile, our captain was helping a soldier who was limping; his leg had probably been hurt during the accident. He carried him to safety inside the building, going through a window, gripping the ledge with one hand and helping the boy to enter with the other.

Before disappearing inside he yelled:

‘Kolima, get rid of that bloody sniper for me. Now!'

I ran along the wall and at the end I saw an entrance to the basements. I ran in, and with my rifle aimed I went through some of the rooms. They were completely empty, but on the bottom level there were some small windows that looked onto the courtyard. I chose one in the shadows.

Before shooting with a sniper rifle I would cover my left eye with a small piece of cardboard I always carried with me, kept in the fold of my hat. It was an old trick my grandpa Nikolay had taught me; when he shot, he would always cover his left eye with a piece of cardboard – it was simpler to concentrate on the target without straining to keep your eye closed, and above all it didn't damage your sight, because keeping one eye closed and the other open for a long time would throw off your eyes.

I pulled out my VSS precision rifle, took the cover off the scope and unfolded the stock. I took a round table and placed it under the window, knelt on top, and started observing the area outside.

Suddenly I heard somebody coming up behind me and I flipped around, ready to shoot. Then Moscow's voice assuaged me:

‘Come on, brother, take him out and we can get out of here – we still have to get across that bloody yard!'

I was trying to remember how the soldiers' vests had blown up to reconstruct the trajectory of the shot. There's a way to figure out the so-called ‘approximation level', the information that helps pinpoint a sniper's location; you calculate the distance of the shot, which can be determined by the type of wound it leaves on the victim's body, and then its path. This is why the most expert snipers often use modified bullets that become misshapen inside a body – to keep the enemy from making a precise calculation. They use various compensators that reduce the bullet's potency or they lighten the gunpowder charge, so that a shot going off nearby could seem to have come from further away.

About two hundred metres across from me, there were two five-storey buildings. Behind those there was another one, taller, with at least nine or ten floors – only the top two rows of windows were visible. I made a quick calculation; the fifth floor of the two closer buildings could be an ideal spot for a sniper.

I began inspecting the upper level of the two buildings with the scope. Almost immediately, right in the middle of one, inside a small shed that connected the roof with the stairs inside, I found my sniper.

He wasn't set up like a professional. He hadn't created any sort of dummy position – many would intentionally leave small objects sticking out that resembled the barrel of a rifle, or they would plant mirrors to attract attention. I even happened to catch him smoking, relaxed as if he were watching television. He was young and had short blond hair, probably a ‘tourist' from the Baltic countries.
He had to be a mercenary, or an athlete. Even choosing the roof showed that he was no expert; the roof is the absolutely least protected place in a house, and putting yourself there usually meant suicide.

In short, my sniper was what we would call a ‘water boiler', a novice marksman who thinks he's a pro just because he has good aim. He was too sure of himself – it must have been his first experience with war. But he didn't know that it would also be his last.

I calculated the distance; he was really close. I was about to shoot when I realised he was talking to someone. So I hesitated, and in my sight a young woman appeared, with long blonde hair tucked into a military cap. She seemed like one of those American porn stars photographed half-naked stroking a pile of guns. I felt total disgust at seeing two young people who had come here to kill our boys for money. I waited for them to come closer. She said something to him, smiling; he stood up for a moment and touched her face before kissing her. That's when I took the first shot.