Free Fall (34 page)

We went onto the street and joined the paratrooper assault unit, whom we had been ordered to follow. They were all ready and couldn't wait to begin.

A few minutes later came confirmation of the operational order and we set off for the first enemy-defended route. Between us, behind the assault unit, three tanks followed. On the other side of the block, a group just like
ours was entering the enemy zone. We heard the first shots; they were coming from the top of our column. It was the paras firing at the Arabs, and then they moved to the next point. The tanks would come to the places to be liberated, launch a few rounds and then continue on their way, while we covered their retreat.

One of our tanks fired five rounds at a three-storey house where some machine guns were firing. Right after that came a missile from behind a fence that hit the tank full on. The explosion was extremely loud; we were twenty metres away and the powerful wave of heat blew us to the ground. This time nobody was going to deny us a nice fat shock . . .

The turret exploded, and after flying a long way it plummeted into a half-destroyed house. The chassis was in tatters. It was remarkable seeing such a powerful vehicle catch fire so quickly, like a box of matches. The guys inside had burned to death in less than a second.

Nosov stood up and shouted:

‘Onward, onward! Don't stop! Everyone move!' Then he crossed the street and unloaded a blast towards the gate from where the enemy had fired.

Moscow, from behind him, threw a hand grenade, while Zenith fired the machine gun. From inside they responded with a loud RPG blast, but it hit the inside wall of the courtyard. A piece of the wall blew up, raising a cloud of dust, and the broken bricks flew into the street. We rushed into the courtyard, shooting in the smoke and dust, and we took out the enemy.

That's what we did, house by house, following the
paratroopers. They moved very quickly, doing the majority of the work and leaving the survivors to us, tightening the ring even more.

By noon we had liberated almost the entire neighbourhood. The radio announced that the enemy had tried twice to break the ring at multiple points but both attempts had failed. Their losses numbered about five hundred men.

To conclude the operation, the infantry units joined us.

The infantry soldiers in that war were treated like beasts at the slaughterhouse. The commanders over at headquarters didn't give a shit and used them as pawns. Fallen infantrymen surpassed the fallen in all the other units combined. Not because they were incompetent or their officers disorganised – no; simply because in Moscow they were scorned. In Russia they always say the infantry is the queen of the army. Well, if that were true, then the guys in the infantry paid too high a price to maintain that regal title.

Our group, meanwhile, had been given a street to clear. Nosov was talking on the radio with the tankers' colonel, the one with the sad eyes who I had talked to before the beginning of the operation.

‘How goes it, Birch? Your men all healthy?'

‘Yes, all fine, it should be over soon . . .' Nosov replied.

‘Did you see what happened to my “little box”?
*

The paras say that my guys exposed themselves too much . . .'

‘I saw it, we were right there . . . They stopped on the crossroads for too long; they should have fired fewer rounds and hidden behind us . . .'

‘Whore of a war, those were good boys . . . Well, good luck. I've sent you three light tanks for support, with ammo and food. They'll be there within fifteen minutes . . .'

‘I'll expect the tanks. Confirm receipt . . .' Our captain was about to end the conversation.

‘Such shit, my friend . . .' the colonel said suddenly. I could picture the melancholy look he had at that moment.

‘What shit?' Nosov asked, knowing very well what he was referring to.

‘Fucking constitutional order . . .'

‘You know the only place where the constitutional order counts?'

The colonel was silent for a moment.

‘No, I can't say that I do . . .'

‘It's simple, old man: the cemetery!'

Hearing a conversation like that between two officers was like being splashed in the face with ice water – your mind began to replay the events of the last few hours and see things in a much simpler way. We were the ones who established the constitutional order, the ideal we were ready to lose our lives for, the ideal we all hated . . . But
we knew that, in reality, such an ideal didn't exist. At least not for our officers, not for our fallen and wounded, not for the families of the missing in action . . . Because if a soldier is ‘missing', the government doesn't pay anything for the transport of the body or for the funeral – but a missing person could also be a deserter or a traitor who abandoned his unit and went to the enemy side. Those who were truly missing were few, because in the large units the majority of the fallen were left on site – they were referred to as missing because the bodies ended up in common graves and nobody could find them. That was why we no longer had respect for the constitutional order – because we knew there was no order, the entire Nation had plunged into chaos.

About twenty minutes later three BMP-2 vehicles arrived with a group of soldiers sitting on top – they were Cossacks who had come to back us up. They were coming from the other part of town; they must have just finished an assault. The cars were dirty and the men were tired; one had a bloody bandage around his left arm. They were all veterans – there wasn't a single young soldier among them. In order to be a little more comfortable riding on top of the tanks, they had put some old car seats on the armour.

As we approached, they came down from the vehicles and the first thing they did was have a cigarette. After smoking and eating the food they had brought, we
restocked our ammo. As we reloaded our rifles, we exchanged information on how the operation was going. Then Nosov briefly explained the situation, showing them on the map the places where our intervention was needed. The Cossacks listened to him attentively, without asking useless questions, and when he finished we set off.

Within a couple of hours we had liberated three enemy-controlled positions, eliminating their scattered units, who tried to run away by hiding in the cellars.

We came to a very well-defended house and found a terrible spectacle before us. The bodies of our infantry were scattered everywhere; there must have been about thirty dead.

From the way they were positioned it was clear that the enemy had taken them by surprise. Maybe they were tired, and had made the mistake of not inspecting the area well enough, thus exposing themselves without having anyone to cover them. Many soldiers had had their throats cut and no longer had their vests, a sign that the enemy had already come out from their position to pillage them and finish off the wounded.

We stopped in a courtyard, a hundred metres from our dead men.

I examined the situation through my scope. I could see a yard blocked by three cars arranged in a row, and I could see movement in one of the windows.

‘They're waiting for us,' I said.

‘Zenith,' Nosov ordered, ‘go with two Cossacks and two explorers and find a position to place a heavy machine
gun across from the house. They don't know what we're capable of . . .'

Nosov, Moscow, Shoe, the rest of the group and I broke into the house next door. We went up to the second floor. Nosov loaded a round into the RPG and fired directly at the window where I had seen someone moving. After that we opened fire too.

Then Nosov moved to the first floor with Moscow; from there, he fired another two RPG rounds. One hit the wall and made a huge dust cloud, the other one went right into a window and we saw a wave of smoke billow out from inside. Then the Cossacks and explorers went out into the street and fired as they ran towards the house.

We followed. Nosov threw a hand grenade inside the house, then I threw one and Shoe another, each of us shooting at the same time we burst in. Someone responded to the fire; I could hear the bullets very close. Nosov jumped in between us and fired a long blast; Shoe and I covered him, shooting, while he reloaded the magazine.

Room by room, we went on our way; all shouting to identify ourselves so we didn't kill one other. When everyone had stopped shooting, silence fell: we had got rid of them all.

Our men went to help the wounded. One of the Cossacks called for a tank on the radio to take away one soldier who was more seriously hurt than the others. I
checked the halls. One explorer was on the ground with injuries to his face, another was the enormous sergeant who had killed the girl. He was lying down, motionless; both of his legs were bloody. Someone from his unit was opening a medi-kit to treat him.

We went into the main room, a sort of parlour with big windows overlooking the courtyard.

The silence was absolute – it was as if I had entered a church. In the middle of the room there was a table covered with open cans, pieces of fried meat, a few overturned glasses and two big bottles of vodka. There was also some fresh bread, wide, crisp and thin, which was delicious, especially with wine. On one of the chairs at the table sat a dead young Arab, his head bent down unnaturally, his chin almost touching the gaping hole in the middle of his chest. A wide dark red stain spread from the hole down to his trousers, pooling on the seat, then slowly dripping onto the floor, forming a puddle as thick as honey. Under the table there was the corpse of a dog. It was an animal with a large head, a Caucasian shepherd. The fur on his belly and neck was drenched in blood, the tongue that dangled from his open mouth was so long it looked fake.

Past the table there was a sofa; on it sat three corpses. One of them was a boy, no older than fourteen. He was wearing a shirt with American cartoon characters on it, Mickey Mouse and some others; it was bloodied, except for the sleeves, which were white, spotless. He was full of holes at the heart and the belly. He had a wide cut on his neck, like a tear – he must have been hit by several bullets there. His face displayed an expression of slight
surprise, like a little boy about to burst into tears. Next to him was a young man. His chest was one gaping wound. His hands lay at his sides, as if he were sleeping; his legs were clenched together. On his right cheekbone he had a large hole; his face had become completely deformed – it was swollen, his eye bulged from its orbit, ready to pop out. A little blood was still trickling out of his open mouth, thick and black. On the floor in front of them, on his belly, was a man who looked about fifty years old. On his back you could see a series of holes; the bullets had pierced through him from one side to the other. From the position he was in, you could tell that he had been sitting next to the others. Before dying, he had tried to crawl on his hands and knees; there was a long trail of blood that went from his body to the sofa and on the floor were the marks of the bloody handprints he had left trying to drag himself along. Not even a centimetre of the tapestry behind the sofa was left intact; the whole thing had been punched out by bullets. The tapestry had caught fire in some spots; the black burn marks made it look like a work of abstract art . . .

At the head of the table was a chair with worn armrests and a high back. Sitting there was a man with a white beard. His eyes were closed, his head was turned to the side and his arms dangled at his sides. Next to him, leaning against the table, was a Kalashnikov. On a saucer in front of him there lay a half-smoked cigarette, still burning; a wisp of smoke wafted upwards. The man's chest was so soaked with blood you couldn't see the bullet holes.

Shoe went over to the table and began to eat ravenously. His jaws made a very loud noise, as if they were about to snap. He chewed on the meat and tried to shove a thick slice of bread in his mouth at the same time. Moscow went after him; he pounced on the table and took a piece of bread too, chomping on it violently, almost as if more than eating it he needed to kill it. He turned to me with his mouth full, gave me a smile, and grabbing a piece of meat off the table threw it across the room to me. I felt as if I was drunk, without my reflexes, and I didn't put my hands up in time – the piece of meat hit my face and fell to the floor. I took a deep breath and freed myself from the straps of my bulletproof vest.

Just then the corpse sitting in the chair jolted, and then from his mouth came something that would have been a yell, but it drowned in the blood he had in his throat. The man spluttered blood on the floor and the table, started to cough, and then opened his eyes. Moscow, who was closest to him, pulled his gun out of his pocket and fired a round right in his head, without stopping eating. Then he put his gun back in place and grabbing a bottle of vodka said, his mouth full of meat:

‘Get a load of this Arab arsehole . . . He won't even let me eat in peace . . .'

Shoe started laughing and looked out the window. Another unit of ours was approaching quickly. He leaned out and signalled to them.

I didn't feel well. My head was exploding. I knew what I needed to do: clear a place where I could rest. I went past the table to the sofa and grabbed the two
corpses sitting there by the legs. I pulled them until they fell to the floor. The body of the boy made a dull sound when it landed on the wooden floorboards, like wood against wood. The other dead man fell on top; his forehead hit the ground, making a sound like bones breaking. I examined the sofa; there was a huge bloodstain in the middle. I looked around. On the floor by a window, there was a small rug. I picked it up; it was covered in fur and stank of wet dog. I threw it on the sofa and lay on top.

The pleasure of reclining on a sofa was enormous. I knew I couldn't stay for long, but I wanted my body to remember how it felt to lie down on a soft, comfortable bed, at least for a few minutes. It immediately gives you the impression of just having come out of a nice hot bath, being under clean, sweet-smelling sheets . . . I yawned savagely and tears sprang to my eyes. For a moment even the ringing in my ears went away. I felt a light tingle go through my fingertips, which then spread to my spine. My body responded with a long groan; relaxing, the muscles rebelled, it was almost like I was paralysed. I was wrecked; all I wanted to do was sleep . . .