Free Fall
Page 24
I set my rifle on the table, sat down and took a look at the map. There were already several marks; I limited myself to indicating the points where I had seen the trenches and the cars that the Arabs had arranged to block the roads.
When I finished, Nosov said that we could go.
‘We start in a few hours… Eat something and get a good nap, and check my weapons and clips, get my vest and get everything in order – I still have quite a bit to take care of here…’
We left the tent.
Our boys were in an armoured car. Some were already sleeping; others were eating or preparing ammo for the operation. After a while we were joined by the infantry night explorer group that was supposed to come with us. I noticed how well equipped they were; the butts of American and European guns poked out from their jacket pockets. Their sniper had a rifle like mine, but his night scope was foreign, a model I’d never seen before. They seemed relaxed – they must have been through lots of battles – and this put us somewhat at ease.
I prepared my things and filled four magazines for Nosov. I tore off a piece of bread, wolfed it down, and went to sleep.
Shoe woke me up with a light tap on the chest. I opened my eyes and realised that I hadn’t dreamed anything, as often happened in war.
Nosov was already mobilising the unit:
‘Everyone get up, listen to the operational orders!’
We formed a circle by the car. Some sat on the wheels, others on crates or right on the ground. I was next to the explorer sergeant, a guy as big as a mountain; he was holding a light machine gun, which, against his belly, seemed little more than a toy.
Nosov and the explorers’ lieutenant major – a young man already ravaged by war, his face marked by a long scar that went across his right cheek down to his neck – sat down in our circle.
They unfolded a battered, crumpled map on a crate. Nosov gave a brief introduction, showing us the areas where enemy defences were likely to be, explaining our moves and predicting the enemies’. He was very skilled at this – all he needed was a little information and he could construct the dynamics of an operation with precision.
‘Snipers, listen up… We have to take the heavy machine guns down first. Logically, they should be here.’ He pointed to two crossroads on the way into the town. ‘Follow the sound and the flash of the fire. If you see a light go on and off in the middle of the fog, keep your eyes there and you can’t go wrong…’
He went on, improvising a mini-lesson on the tactics of war in the fog, insisting on the fact that the most important thing was not to be afraid and not to lose control. Since he didn’t know them very well, he seemed to be addressing the explorers in particular. To us, the ones in his unit, it was clear by then that we were going to spend the rest of the night shooting at each other in the fog.
Then our captain rose to his feet. We knew what was going to happen – in fact, we sat back to enjoy the show, as we usually did on these occasions.
The explorers, on the other hand, were looking around at one another, a little embarrassed. Their lieutenant gestured for them to stay seated and listen.
Nosov pulled a document out of his pocket, the executive order that was supposed to be read before every mission:
‘Comrade soldiers! The Nation thanks you for your indispensable service and cannot conceal the pride it feels in knowing that you will liberate it from the parasitic presence of Islamic terrorists hiding in the city of N—, which, for the sake of simplicity and military ignorance, we’ll call by a name dear to every one of us: “objective!”’ He read a little and made up a little, accompanying his performance with a series of gestures and facial expressions that kept us doubled over with laughter. ‘At twenty-three hundred hours and fifteen minutes, Moscow time – Moscow, the incomparable capital of our magnificent Country – we received the highly anticipated confirmation of our absolutely invaluable order…’
The guy next to me sniggered, his machine gun bouncing rhythmically on his belly.
‘Thus, the Nation orders you to go forth in two independent units directed towards the “objective”, enter by combating within the “objective”, breaking through the enemy defence, physically eliminating all the terrorists, Islamists, Muslims, dogs, cats and every living thing you find, until you reach the main street of the “objective”, where the nexus of communication of enemy trenches is concentrated… Upon arrival, fire three red signal flares to signal your position to the tankers and support units, take your defensive positions and wait for them to reach you… Ah, the Nation also reminds you that dying, getting hit or hurt in any way is strictly prohibited…’
At that last sentence, the sergeant started laughing so hard he lost his balance, falling off the tyre he’d been sitting on.
We had to hold our bellies from laughing, and Nosov concluded:
‘As the ranking officer of this company, I confirm receipt of the order and wish you good luck, my dear comrade soldiers!’
After a few minutes we jumped onto the armour, and in good spirits – thanks to the captain’s comic interlude – we left for our mission, even if we knew that really there was nothing to laugh about…
The car went down the dirt road, jolting up and down at every bump; so as not to fall off we hung on to anything sticking out on the armour. We could barely see a few metres ahead; everything around us was as white as milk. The car carrying the explorers followed us. The cars were equipped with an electronic navigation system that could follow the road even in the complete absence of visual points of reference, and they took us to the exact location indicated by our captain, right in the middle of the fields.
‘Get off!’ Nosov ordered when the tracks stopped. ‘From here on we’re walking.’
The car following us nearly bumped into ours. Braking hard, it stopped suddenly, and an explorer fell on the ground. Some of his men helped him up; he was fine.
Nosov ordered all of us to move in line, following him. He had calculated the exact number of steps it would take to get to the village. All we had to do was stay alert and follow him.
Walking through the dark and the fog gave me the sensation of being totally defenceless; even if I couldn’t see anyone, I was sure that everyone could see me. We went down a path in the middle of the fields. Somewhere out there in the fog were the first houses in town.
Nosov stopped all of a sudden:
‘Everyone get down and don’t move!’ he whispered to Moscow, who was behind him.
As opposed to many non-professional officers, who hide behind the backs of their own soldiers in the event of danger, our captain exposed himself without a second thought. He was like a tiger on the prowl; he perceived and processed every sound and every movement, and if something obstructed our route, while we were still trying to figure out what was going on, he was the first to aim his rifle and shoot, if that’s what was needed.
Moscow turned to inform the others, and we passed the message to everyone in the line, forming a human chain. After a moment we were still, plunged into the most total silence imaginable. I squinted, trying to make out a shape in the fog, but I couldn’t see anything other than the cold, damp substance that surrounded us like an endless white wall.
After a while we heard a series of loud explosions in the distance, from the other side of the town. Our attack had begun. Just after that the Kalashnikovs came out, and we heard the sound of glass rattling very close to us – someone must have slammed a front door. Shouts in Arabic and Chechen came from all around, and then there was a series of footsteps quickly moving away from the shots and blending in with the sound of the battle. Our tanks had entered the town with the assault units – we counted at least ten cannon blasts. Someone near us kept shouting…
Nosov got up.
‘Follow me, there’s a house nearby: their first reinforced position. We have to take it fast…’
Jumping over an old, half-destroyed wooden fence, we entered one of the yards. In the pitch dark, completely enveloped in fog, the house
seemed very small, but that was just an impression.
Part of the explorers’ unit was to stay in the yard and cover the access routes to the house. Nosov pointed out a long wire running to our left: a tripwire to a mine.
Zenith broke down the door – that was his speciality. In fact, Nosov called him the ‘poet of the busted door’ – with minimal effort, he was able to break down almost any door without making much noise. He would push on them with his foot, swift and steady, and they would obediently open.
‘Moscow, Zenith and I are going first,’ Nosov said. ‘You guys break up into groups.’
Once we were inside we noticed that the hallway was long and wide – there had to be lots of rooms, so we split them up. With me there was Shoe, the explorers’ sergeant, and two of their soldiers.
The enemies had arranged a row of speakers against the walls. So as not to attract attention, the windows had been obscured with tarpaulins, the kind usually used to cover tanks. Placed on the ground, in the blind corners away from the windows, were lamps that gave off a dim light. All this gave the place a macabre aspect… The electric plant in town hadn’t been functioning for ages; the light came from a combustion generator. Lots of houses had generators – usually they were kept in the cellar or on the patio, with a pipe system built to carry away the exhaust.
We entered one of the rooms. There were just a few mattresses and some sleeping bags; the floor was covered with clothes, Turkish toiletries, boxes of vacuum-packed food (some still half-full with spoons inside) and a pot with some tea. Next to one of the mattresses there was an unopened pack of single-use syringes; in a corner there was a pile of used syringes with brown spots on them, most likely heroin. On the mattress there was a brick-sized block: a nice fat chunk of hashish. One side of it was burnt and crumbled, and beside it was a box of filters and a bag with some tobacco. This was where our enemies prepared their ‘vitamins’ so that they could get through the attacks without fear and exhaustion.
Suddenly we heard gunshots. We looked into the hall and saw Nosov, Zenith and Moscow rushing past chasing someone.
We broke down a door that opened onto a large room. A few enemies were waiting for us inside. They fired a spray of bullets at us, but we were able to dodge it. After throwing three hand grenades, we entered the cloud of dust, which smelled of burnt flesh. We kicked the bodies a few times – everyone was dead. One was literally disintegrated – only his shoes were left, and his ankle bones protruded from them; his clothes were smeared on the walls, mixed with blood and flesh. The F1 is a very powerful fragmentation grenade, and it could chop you up mercilessly. If you’re lucky you’re just left an invalid, but three F1s in one room definitely won’t spare anyone. The others must have thrown that poor wretch at the grenades trying to save themselves. They were blood-sucking junkies, with no honour or soul.
In the room there were lots of weapons and some crates of RPG-7 grenade launcher ammo, which had remained undamaged. A pair of grenade launchers was leaning against the wall. One was fine, whereas the other had been damaged by the explosion. I took the intact one and loaded a round in it, then passed it to an explorer. The RPG was a very useful weapon; if you knew how to use it well it could change the course of a battle. We only had one single-shot RPG at our disposal, which we called the ‘fly’ or ‘hornet’. But whenever we came across a trophy as valuable as the RPG-7, we took it without a second thought, and after using it we would get rid of it.
We were coming out of the room when the sergeant said:
‘Hear that?’
He turned back, and reaching out his gigantic hand he went over to a sofa where there was a blanket that, in fact, was shaking. With an indifferent face and pointed weapon, he tore off the sheet as if he were doing a magic trick. On the sofa lay a woman dressed in a military uniform, with the insignia of a group of Islamic fundamentalists sewn on the sleeve. The sergeant lowered his weapon and we moved closer.
She stared at us wide-eyed and mumbled something in an accent similar to that of the Chechens, Georgians and everyone who we disdainfully called chernozhopiy – ‘black arses’, or members of the Asian races of the Caucasus. She was speaking Russian, but what she was saying was completely incomprehensible. She was afraid to die, that much was clear.
The explorer sergeant extracted a huge knife from his right boot. It looked like something a butcher would use, very thick and with a wide blade. The woman went even paler, if that was possible, and without trying to get up from the sofa kept spitting out bursts of words that didn’t make any sense.
‘She must be their medic,’ the sergeant said, for no particular reason.
None of us was able to say a word. We were all curious to find out how this romantic little encounter was going to end.
Shoe was behind me, and with a voice weakened by the cold he said:
‘Come on, brother, shove the blade between this Muslim bitch’s legs. Now we’ll show you how real operations are done, we’ll teach you what surgery is…’
Shoe was scaring me, but I was frightened of myself too. All of us were worked up, yet at the same time disgusted at what was happening.
The explorer sergeant grabbed the woman’s neck with one of his huge hands, and held her still. She tried to scratch his face, she struggled, but he was smiling, as if she were his daughter and they were play-wrestling on their couch at home. Without any sudden movements he stuck the knife into her chest, at the left breast. The blade went in easily, and he pushed it in slowly. It seemed like he was enjoying every moment.
With his other hand he kept hold of her neck. She tried to free herself while foam started to trickle out of her mouth, and it quickly turned red. The woman’s face was purple, swollen; she made a sort of deep, guttural moan, kicking and shaking as if she were having an epileptic fit.
When the handle of the knife hit the woman’s uniform, I tried to picture the blade sunk all the way through her flesh; the knife was so long that it must have impaled her, its tip touching the fabric of the sofa. The sergeant lifted her and sat her down. She looked like a broken doll. Her eyes were empty, her arms hung limp, blood oozed from her slightly open mouth, but it was light – perhaps she had bitten her tongue as she was dying. She had the typical face of women from the Caucasus: small, barely pronounced eyes, a long and disproportionate nose. She was young, she couldn’t have been over thirty.
The sergeant, in a calm and almost affectionate tone, as if he were addressing a lover, said to her:
‘There, good girl… See, it was all fast, no suffering…’
Shoe laughed behind me.
The sergeant pulled the knife out of the woman’s body and wiped the blade on her uniform. Then he tore the insignia off her sleeve and put it in his pocket.
We all left the room without saying a word.
Nosov and the others were in the hall. They had captured an Arab. Zenith was holding him down on his knees, on the floor. Moscow kept hitting him on the head with the handle of his combat knife. His entire face was covered in blood. Nosov asked him something in Arabic, repeated the same thing a few times, then turned to Moscow:
‘Sergeant, this warrior of Islam is clearly suffering from a concussion, give him first aid!’
Moscow responded by slitting the Arab’s throat, blood spraying on the opposite wall, then he pressed the prisoner’s head against the floor with his boot, bent down and drove his knife into his left side several times. He was dead; all you could hear was the air, pushed by the blood, coming out of the holes in his lungs.
We went out of the house. Nosov was pleased.
‘We took an important position in their defence, they almost ran out of ammo,’ he said, looking at us seriously. ‘Whoever was here before must have gone to help the others against our assault units…’
‘And what now, Ivanisch?’ I asked. The fog around us had not dispersed.
‘We have to cross the main street, get rid of the other reinforced positions and signal to our tanks where to meet us…’
We left. The houses were empty. We found a mine here and there, but from the way they had been planted it was clear that they hadn’t had time to lay the traps carefully. We moved slowly through the fog; the real battle was on the other side of the city – no one would notice us.
We ran into a group of five Arabs in the yard of a house. Two of them were wounded; one had lost an arm. We took them out with a few blasts of gunfire; they hadn’t been expecting it, they didn’t even have time to lay a finger on their weapons. We inspected the bodies – they had some nice pistols on them. There was an American clone of the Colt 1911 with a few clips.
‘I’ll take this one,’ the explorers’ lieutenant major said, his eyes sparkling in that scar-ravaged face.
Nosov agreed. We divided up the Kalashnikov clips, and hid the weapons in an old kennel. The bodies, on the other hand, we laid along the walls of the house, so as not to leave them in the middle of the street.
The fog had become translucent and we could see much better now; we could make out human figures from a distance of about twenty metres. We went through the yards, one after another, until we reached the main street. The road was wide, with a long row of trees, many of which were broken or uprooted. There was almost no asphalt left; everywhere there were holes caused by bomb explosions. In the middle of several crossroads they had put the wrecked civilian cars, a few carcasses of burned-out armoured vehicles and some old tractors – tall piles of big truck tyres, like mountains, poked out from every angle. Everything had been arranged to keep our units from travelling quickly through the streets, even if a couple of tanks could have cleared the way in a couple of minutes.
We started to move along the walls of the houses, hunched over and not making a sound. By one crossroads there was a house with another enemy position. We were heading there from the opposite side, because as Nosov always said, before throwing yourself onto the enemy, you have to get a head start in order to make a good jump. This metaphor meant that he knew the way the Arabs prepared their defences and positioned their guards, thus he always tried to plan our strategy based on the enemy’s habits. Even though in that conflict everything was so chaotic that the enemy often didn’t follow a pattern, he just acted however seemed best at the time.