Nicolai Lilin - Free Fall

I focused on a cluster of bushes that was moving strangely. Since there wasn’t much wind that day and all the animals of the forest had certainly run away already, it was obvious that there were enemies hiding in there. When our comrades shot a few rounds, further down, a young man leapt out from one of the bushes I had been watching, armed with a machine gun and an empty RPG around his shoulder. There were fewer than a hundred metres between us; I aimed at his chest and fired. He grimaced with pain and, bringing both hands to his chest, he tumbled to the ground, as if he had lost his balance. I aimed a second round at his head, and he fell backwards, vanishing into the grass.

I showed my neighbour a well-protected spot between the roots of the tree.

‘Go and lie flat over there. Hide so that you can’t see the barrel of the rifle poking out from the other side. Stay low, don’t move and observe everything carefully. I’ll cover the right side, you do the left. If you see a target, take a nice deep breath before shooting. Pull the trigger slowly, almost gently, and when you let go don’t close your eyes. Can you handle that?’

He nodded, then went over to the position I had pointed out to him.

We could hear shots and the explosions of the hand grenades below, interspersed with the shouting of our men and the enemies – the violence of the battle was increasing at light speed.

‘Down here, down here! Help!’ one of the OMON boys shouted, from the group that was the furthest down, almost at the foot of the mountain. ‘They’re pushing, trying to come out into the road!’

‘Zenith, Deer, Moscow!’ Nosov’s voice was agitated, but filled with the desire to win. ‘Get down there, stop those arseholes – don’t let them come out otherwise they’ll be right on top of us!’

As usual, even at the most difficult moments, our captain showed the gusto for danger that a pirate might have.

From somewhere behind the trees the enemy shot an RPG round.

‘Oh God, they shot my leg off, they shot my leg off!’ one of the OMON boys started screaming in desperation. His screams were so loud and high-pitched that they almost drowned out the sound of the shooting.

I tried to spot the place where the Arab with the grenade launcher was hiding, but the trees were obstructing my view. So I fired a few shots at random, near a clump of bushes that seemed to be moving. I immediately heard a bullet fly over my head – they had a sniper too.

‘Let’s go down lower,’ I told the other man.

It was an inferno down below. The soldier who’d been hit by the grenade kept screaming, while Nosov let out a string of curses, trying to call back one of the OMON boys who had gone out of formation and had started shooting uphill:

‘Come back here, you fucking idiot, get back here now… or stop shooting! Fuck, you’re going to hit us!’

‘Reznyak, you filthy bastard, take your position or I will kill you myself!’ the OMON officer commanded. ‘Either come back here or I’ll shoot you in the face!’

We went a few metres further down. I positioned myself next to a brook and sent my comrade a little further ahead. From that position the area could be surveyed more easily – I saw a man armed with an RPG almost immediately – but I couldn’t locate their sniper.

My comrade aimed at the man with the RPG, getting him with the first shot, full in the chest. But the Arab fired as he fell, and hit a tree in front of him.

After the explosion, a young man with a Dragunov on his arm emerged from one of the nearby bushes. He was covering one of his ears and was making strange movements with his head, as if he had a bug stuck in his hair and was trying to get rid of it by shaking his head wildly. He must have taken a hit; the shell had exploded too close to him.

Without a second thought I shot a few rounds and he fell to the ground; the rifle came out of his hands and sailed through the air like a feather carried by the wind. Two other men came out behind him, one with a machine gun and the other with a Kalashnikov. I aimed at the one with the machine gun and fired, and then he leaned against a tree and responded with such a long blast in our direction that his weapon started to smoke. He was shouting like a madman, but his voice was drowned out by the sound of his own weapon. I fired again, twice, because I couldn’t tell if I had hit him. He dropped to his knees, but didn’t stop shooting, even though his bullets were going too high – he was probably wearing a bulletproof vest. I pinpointed his head in my sight; he kept shaking it like a wounded animal that senses the end is near. Without pity, I planted a bullet in his face. The tree behind him was splattered with blood; through my scope I could see a dark stain spreading over the bark like a moving, living substance.

The young sniper took out the guy with the Kalashnikov, landing two bullets in his back as he was trying to run away. The enemies hadn’t expected this kind of attack.

‘Excellent work, friend,’ I whispered.

He flashed me a big bright smile, like a little kid.

We moved again – we needed to move together to push the enemy further down and surround him. And we had to be quick, so as not to give the Arabs the chance to flee in the other direction.

‘Close in on the area, don’t let them get away!’ Nosov ordered.

Our avalanche began turning towards the road. We went downward, inspecting every tree in search of hidden terrorists. The air smelled of freshly cut grass, newly split logs, mould and burned flesh.

‘Don’t touch the corpses – they could be hiding some nasty surprises!’

We knew exactly what our captain was alluding to – often enemies would leave hastily made traps as they fled. They would put bombs under bodies, hiding them between the legs or beneath the backs of their dead, so that if anyone moved them to take a weapon he would get blown up.

‘If you see anything on the ground that attracts your attention, do not go near it!’ Nosov yelled, continuing the accelerated survival course for the OMON team.

The enemies resumed shooting at us. It didn’t seem like they wanted to flee; they were really trying to wipe us out. We dropped down, sticking as close to the ground as possible. When someone shoots at you from that close and you don’t have anywhere to hide, you start to see the ground as a magical substance, ready to change its form just for you, as if it were a blanket that could mould itself to your shape to protect you. A hole, a small pit, becomes a world.

Nosov shot a blast in response to the enemies and hit one; a few metres away from me I heard a short moan, the kind we called ‘the last breath’ – the unmistakable sound someone makes just before he dies.

I stood up and took cover behind a tree, followed by my comrade from the OMON. The enemy fired a series of short blasts, and a few bullets hit our tree – I could see the wood exploding all around.

‘Christ, what do we do now?’ the kid asked.

‘We can’t do anything but kill them… They feel trapped and they’re trying to come out, but there aren’t many left and we can crush them… Now, let’s move ahead and get them from the side…’ I tried to give him a little faith in himself, even if in that situation I needed it just as much.

We scrambled further down and positioned ourselves behind a tree from which we could see three terrorists trying to get to the road. Two of them carried a wounded man on their shoulders. The man had lost consciousness – his head dangled forward, his trousers were completely soaked with blood.

I pointed out the targets to my comrade:

‘You take care of the lone one; I’ll handle the two carrying the wounded guy.’

In seconds we had taken out the entire group. One man, however, didn’t die right away – he was on his knees, screaming. Nosov threw a hand grenade to finish him off. As soon as the bomb went off we raced down.