Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

Mikki said, “At the next stride he takes.”

Boris said, “Best for you, better than me – go, drop him.”

They had open sights on their rifles. Those issued to the FSB, through the armoury on Prospekt, did not have telescopic attachments as the front line infantry would have had. They fired on the rare enough occasions that the weapons were issued, over open sights. Mikki had the V and the needle together and calculated the distance and the lever at the positioning for the range; in the distance beyond the sights was the blurred shape of the man’s body. The target was to the left of the officer and a half pace behind. Easy for them both, at that distance, to note that the officer had his wrists tied with a supermarket plastic bag, then he rocked and was unstable. They both knew that reward and praise would follow the successful rescue of the major, that rewards and praise would come, and they would be paid off and generously. Mikki had the necessary elevation. Would have fired, could have, but the officer slipped sideways, only a quarter of a metre, but the target was immediately reduced. The kids – scum brats, criminals, should have been beaten to pulp – trailed by at least fifty metres, outside the loop of his vision. Did not matter, would be dealt with in the aftermath. He had slowed his breathing, readied himself.

“Fuck, but the next time.”

“Do it, do him the next time – heh, if you fucking miss…”

“No chance.”

“Don’t miss.”

“Did I ever?” Mikki murmured.

“When we did Jalalabad, you missed at…”

“Shut the fuck up.” But Mikki had to smile. The target on that day, thirty-three years ago, had been a big hairy bastard with his turban flying behind him having been loosened in a charge over the stones in a dried river-bed. Their detachment had been rushed in to save the lives of a two-man crew from a downed helicopter gunship. Since that day, the target had always been the ‘big hairy bastard’ and Mikki had been on ‘single shot’ mode and not ‘automatic’, had missed and would have been dead but for the big hairy bastard’s own weapon choosing that moment to malfunction. Boris had put him down… A hell of a fucking good story and part of the lore that bound the two of them. Beside him was the granite rock, its surface coated in a froth of pale lichen and on it were Boris’s elbows, but Mikki had the better angle, and it improved for the few seconds of delay. Their man was ahead, the bodies separated, and the aim was clear except for the blurred waving of tall grass.

He squeezed. And saw… Did not know what he saw. A movement among the dwarf birches ahead of the major and the man held in the gap of the V, a definite movement… Squeezed further. Smelt the fumes from the breech, and saw the flash at the barrel tip below the needle, felt the impact of the butt against his shoulder, lost hearing, and saw the target drop, and could have cheered. Had not known the elation of a hit for close on fifteen fucking years, riding the armoured jeeps on the roads near Chechnya’s border with Dagestan.

Like he had been hit with a sledgehammer.

Had been in mid-stride, close to his prisoner, one arm reaching forward to steady him and the other an angle to improve his own balance, and stones under their boots as they crossed a shallow pool and concentrating on his next footstep, and hearing the kids chatter behind and without the energy to shut them down.

The officer froze.

Gaz was draped over stone and stubbed bush growth and some of its flowers were in his mouth. He was aware the water in which his chin rested, was opaque, first pink and then reddening. Something they’d talked about – guys in the regiment. What was it like to be shot? How did it feel? Only Chalkie knew because he had taken a bullet in the upper thigh in some arsehole corner of southern Iraq, and the skills on the casevac airlift had been sufficient to save him from fatal blood loss, and he was fine now: never joined the talk, would say he hoped they’d never find out. After the blow of the sledgehammer had been the fall and no time to break it. Gone down with the impact of the proverbial potato sack. A numbness and a coldness spreading, and not knowing for two or three moments whether he was actually alive… If he’d survived the bullet, was he going to stay alive? Did not know where ‘Bomber’ Harris was, and his big Chinook, where Sam and Arnie were and any of the rest of the gang who did fast first aiding to get him through the Golden Hour when wounded men needed serious medical intervention.

The pool by his face was deep red, colour of the Galway Bay rose that Bobby and Betty Riley grew in the front garden of the farmhouse, and it had thrived from the undiluted horse shit piled over it, and been dug up to go to Criccieth with them… And he was already rambling in his thoughts, and more of the red was on the foliage and he reckoned he was bleeding badly.

He looked up. Could move his head but his upper body seemed crushed. The pain had not started… Gaz knew… that first would be the numbness, and the pain would come later. He was beginning to think about detritus, how much of his jacket had been drilled into the wound, and how big a piece of his T-shirt was in there, plastered against the sides of the bullet’s passage. Did not know yet what had been hit, if an organ had been damaged. Had not tried to move his legs, might have paralysis, what they all dreaded, whether a part of his spine had taken the impact of the bullet and fractured… Talk was that a trooper was better off shoving the barrel of his weapon into his mouth and fiddling for the trigger if his future was a wheelchair. He thought the wound was in his upper chest, right side, and below the armpit… and could not know whether the bullet had broken up, splintered, bits buried in many directions, and if there was an exit wound and whether it had stayed whole.

The officer was beside him, flat down on his stomach. Gaz looked up and past him, and saw them.

Like his life had travelled fast. A fistful of seconds since the hit. Had the training that located where a shot had been fired from. Saw them clearly, one man knelt, and he could see the head and shoulders of a second. They both had an aim, and he reckoned both were about to fire… and recognised one face but was too tired, too screwed, to think from where.

Both about to fire, about to pitch Gaz off his perch. Both barrels had him marked out, were lined on him. Pretty much point-blank, fairground shooting for a cuddly toy, pretty much Gaz’s last moments. He bit his lip, felt the pain, bit hard. And heard the shot.

The bullet struck the granite rock underneath the barrel of his assault rifle, then ricocheted. It cleared Boris’ head, but did a glancing contact with the rock and then sang like a plucked harp-string as it careered away. Mikki did not know, nor Boris, where it had come from. Under fire, the overriding priority was to learn the source of the shot, the position of the gunman, then to take better cover.

“Was that lucky? Or was that aimed?”

A croaked answer. “How can I fucking know? It went under the barrel, had less than a hand span to get through. I don’t know.”

Neither moved. Neither would stand up and look around to try to get a line on a rifleman’s position. To find out whether the shot were luck or skill was to make him fire again.

“You scared, Boris?”

“Not feeling great – that good enough?”

“We going to lie here, have a sleep?”

“Never did, never will.”

“He’s starting to wriggle.”

“Then he’s mine, and cover me good.”

Mikki had seen his target go down and had reckoned the shot good enough to kill but could not deny that the target moved, a hand had gone up and then sank. But they were confused: it seemed as if the officer was sitting up and looking around and then was assessing the state of his captor. Should have been on the move. Pushing up and running, staggering, but putting in distance. He thought the officer was about to get close to his target. An eye behind the V and the needle and a view of the target’s head, not a difficult shot for him, except that he was shivering and the weapon floated in his hands and his breathing was crap, and his finger slid from the outer lip of the guard and found the trigger itself. Would not hurry, would do it in his own time, would bank on the incoming round, from whoever and wherever as a lucky shot, not aimed, and… it whipped in his ears.