The wrong war

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«Why?» the lieutenant-colonel smiled too.

«He resembles Sayid from White Sun of the Desert,» the newfound Abgar helped his friend.

«Okay. And mine?» Sergeyev saw them all just looking at each other and keeping silent. «Well, why are you silent? I also have to change my name. Speak!»

«You know, we call you by name, no change,» said again Abgar, who apparently was the bravest of them.

«Got it. Then you’ll call me Saraga instead of Sergeyev. Got it? Repeat out loud ten times: Saraga!» When they all finished talking, he knocked on the cartridge box and added: «Now listen carefully: we’ve got no names, no surnames. Only the new nicknames. Now we’re going to repeat them a hundred times more to memorize them. But before that, listen to what the mission is: it is necessary to find a downed pilot and bring him back. If we find him quickly, we’ll come back to the helicopters and fly here to „TV-jokers“ to help them carry their shit. If not, we’ll have to spend some time over there. Therefore, we call each other only our new names. Do I make myself clear?»

«Yes, you do!» a discordant chorus echoed in the large hangar. Sergeyev noticed that none of them said «Right you are’. The guys were tense.

«Okay, go ahead. When we’re back, we will all continue to use these new names before returning to main base in Latakia. There’s no need to blow our cover. The „TV-jokers“ shouldn’t know your real names either. I hope it is clear. Now is the most difficult thing what should we do, if we get stuck in there. Things happen. These radio-sets will be enough for five hours, no longer, so keep your distance, stay in sight, don’t go farther than a hundred paces. After five hours we’ll have to go, even if we do not find the pilot. And the last option is just a contingency.»

«Force majeure or a hell of a mess, so to speak», added Captain Nechyporenko but nobody smiled.

«You may say so,» agreed Sergeyev. So, if we are there without helicopters and any support, the third option comes into effect – we’ll have to return to the city on our own. It’s around a hundred kilometers. So, it’ll take a couple of nights to get here. That’s all. Any questions?»

The soldiers stared blankly at their magazines trying to insert cartridges with disobedient fingers.

«I have a question,» asked the captain. «Are they gonna feed us before departure or shall we arrange barbecue upon arrival over there?»

«Keep calm, don’t show off! It’s not the right time for jokes,» sighed Sergeyev. «They’ll feed us before departure. There will be no food at the site.»

«Of course, there won’t,» grinned Nechyporenko. He couldn’t help joking.

«If someone refuses to go, I won’t compel them to. You’ll just wait for the others coming back here. Remember, if you have questions or other issues, I’m always here. Ask me at any time.»

No one refused; there were no more questions. Before boarding they only managed to collect all the ammunition and eat Syrian combat rations because a sort of soup made in a big kitchen truck looked suspicious. Sergeyev did not want to take risks and eat the local hodgepodge fearing for their stomachs. So far everything went according to the plan and no one was worried. He had to just go to the helicopters and talk to the pilots. He formed that good habit of double-checking the equipment after two failed flights in Yemen. After he miraculously survived, Sergeyev started talking to the pilots and listening to the noise of the engine, as if it was a living organism, every time before boarding trying to catch the slightest strange or unusual sounds in its work. This time, everything was alright. Pilots as usual relied on the power of their god and repeated «in sha’a alla» – «with Allah’s help» – after which he amused them by saying: «Kullutamam fi ilamam, kullu hara min alvar» – «all good things to come, all bad things have gone». Then he banged his palm on the metal board keeping his fingers crossed and went for the captain and his soldiers.

Chapter 8

When three points appeared in the sky high above the hill, Harry nearly cried. Several hours had passed and he badly wanted to relieve his bladder. But fear did not let him do that. He saw paratroopers jumping one by one from the planes and heard the terrorists get to their feet at the bottom and begin to shout loudly. They did not shoot from MANPADS but were terribly excited and even fired a few short bursts at the jets in the sky. After some time, their voices started moving away from the rock and Harry decided to raise his head an inch to assess the situation. When his eyes were at the first crack, in front of him opened an incredible picture: almost all the terrorists left the scene of the crash site and headed towards his parachute. They finally saw white cloth and it apparently made a great impression on them. At least, Harry saw them waving their arms and twitching silk and cords. But they were acting weirdly, as if they were not going to fight with the paratroopers. Raising his eyes up, Harry saw that there were big boxes instead of rescue team. It was a pallet drop intending to divert fighter’s attention from him. At this point, the last few people left the hill and walked briskly to the place where the parcels were about to land.

Harry unzipped his suit with trembling hands and rolled to one side so as to direct the stream downwards, between the stones. With every second, he felt easier, tears welled up in his eyes and involuntarily started flowing down his face.

«Carol, dear, if you could see me now, it’s unlikey you’d be that happy,» he said in his heart to his lover calling it the second letter from hell. «I never knew that the worst torture was to endure a full bladder. Yes, it sounds silly but it’s an incredible pain, I sweated, suffered, gritted my teeth and almost fainted. I was constantly sick. It was terrible. I suffered to make sure those barbarians didn’t notice a trickle of urine on the surface of the rock! You won’t believe it, but it’s true. I really want to survive. It sounds strange, I know. So stupid and simple. I want to come back to you and stay with you forever, I want to forget this horror and never recollect it. My words might sound disgusting, I know. But I feel incredibly easy. They’ve run away and I’ve just emptied all of my „fuel tank“ where they were sitting just a couple minutes ago. Our troops dropped boxes by parachutes, but I do not know why. If there is my salvation in them, it is stupid. I can’t even get close to them. They only diverted the bandits’ attention from the hill…» Here the letter was suddenly interrupted because his trained brain got a random tip and immediately made a decision: diverting attention, enabling to help, encouraging to act. While Harry was hiding the pistol, his head looked the other way. The sun had to go down to the horizon soon and then darkness would come. Three airplanes continued to hang over him in the sky, as if they were waiting for a signal. They were obviously looking for him! They needed him to give a sign. But how? A shot towards the sky? His brain was frantically looking for a solution, but he had neither a rocket launcher nor a spare tracker, unfortunately.

At this time, there was the noise of an engine on the other side of the hill. Harry crawled to the edge and looked down. He could see the familiar silhouettes of Toyota pickups down there. Damn, the decision was so easy! Go by car!

He could not remember how he climbed down from the cliff and began to move down the slope hiding behind the rocks. It was far from running or even jogging, it was more a frightened turtle race that he called this rescue leap. The nearest pickup was no more than twenty meters walk away from him when three men appeared. By bad fortune they came up to the hood and began to discuss something whilst glancing at the sky. The planes were still up there. So, he was sure the pilots were waiting for his signal. Harry felt nervous. He could wait for a short while, but not very long. Worst of all was the fact that he had no concept of time. Seconds seemed to him hours, and this felt like panic. In this situation, he could take only one decision – take advantage surprise the enemy and attack first.

He bent and unbent his fingers – they were moving freely as if it was just an exercise. His arms and legs were not trembling. Breathing was calm. His thumb slowly unlocked the trigger lock and he fed a cartridge into the chamber. The only thing left for him to do now was to stand up and do what he had to do.

Harry quietly crawled around the stone, stood up, stretched out his arm forward, and took the first step. Through narrowed eyes, he saw the muzzle-sight overlapping the first target and pulled the trigger. Recoil habitually pushed his hand and went into his shoulder. A second bullet followed the first one and the third found the second victim in mid-stride from the fallen first. At this point, the signal from the eye went to his brain and Harry realized that he could see only two bodies. The third was not there! On the move by inertia he put two more bullets into the second terrorist, later thinking that it was unnecessary. He had to conserve ammo. Squatting by the bumper he quickly examined the dead and then looked out of the hood. The third bandit turned out to be smart. He had seemingly departed in one of the cars. When he heard the shots, he did not want to risk his life, so quickly jumped into the truck and hit the gas. Harry had nothing to do but follow him with his eyes: a cloud of dust was rapidly moving along the hill, heading most likely to the place where he could drive around it and be on the other side. The terrorist was in a hurry to flee the rest of the group. Staying here and signaling the jets was dangerous. Harry looked up and saw that the jets disappeared. This wasn’t good news. He had to leave. Later, somewhere on the plain, he could stop and draw a word with wheels in the sand but then he had to hurry.

One of those killed was about his size. Harry quickly pulled off his clothes, pulled them on over his flying suit, took both the guns, six magazines and threw everything on the seat of white Toyota. A thought flashed in his head that terrorists could come back and chase after him on other machines. He quickly went round all pickups and shot the tires. Then he jumped behind the wheel and froze, feeling the hair on the back of his head slowly standing on end. He was looking at the ignition lock and felt that the pressure skyrocketed and his ears were blocked. There was no key.

«Stop! Don’t panic! The keys must be in the other vehicles!» he said to himself. However, he failed to find them neither in the pickups, nor in the corpses’ clothes. Harry again went round the cars hoping that at the very least one of them would have push-button starting but it was in vain. Out of desperation, he stuck his head against the door of white Toyota and began to think what to do. All he could do was wait for the terrorists to come back and battle here on the ground. Maybe satellites would notice that…

He dragged over the boxes from other trucks to this one, checked the gun and fired a test shot. It worked! The burst echoed a little unusually, and the crackle of gunfire grew louder, until it turned into a noise of helicopter blades. Harry was frantically twisting his head, swallowing saliva, and trying to get rid of unpleasant sensation in the ears. When a grey egg-shaped silhouette appeared from behind the rocks, he was prepared to fire. There was no doubt that it had arrived to help terrorists. Judging by the housing, the model was Russian MI-8 or something similar. But Russians didn’t fly here, nor did the Syrians. So who could fly so low being aware of MANPADS? Only them. So it was the terrorist’s helicopter!