"Mikhail Evstafiev. Two Steps From Heaven " - читать интересную книгу автора

... like a fireball ...

it flew from the shelter of the wall, beside the tree, and a moment
later the armour under Oleg jumped. The shell hit the vehicle's tread,
blasting it off.
Whee, whee, whee! Screamed wayward spook bullets on all sides. Soldiers
fell flat, pressing themselves against the ground, into the dust, dived
under vehicles. Everyone took whatever shelter they could.
A machine gun chattered in fury and hatred, striving to kill off as
many as it could of these suddenly vulnerable people, jumping off the armour
to the ground.
Sergeant Panasyuk was caught in mid-leap. He bounded up and fell like a
sack on his back; his helmet rolled away, and his hand clenched his gun.
The sergeant had no time to even shout, he just grunted almost
inaudibly, as if to himself, before his long, bony body struck the ground.
In the all-embracing silence before death, the sergeant was quiet and
relaxed for the first time in one and a half years of war, as if he had
returned home and wrapped himself in a blanket, hid his head and went to
sleep.
Hefty Titov crawled up and dragged him behind the BMP, pulled off his
bullet-proof vest, and only then saw the reddish-brown spot on Panasyuk's
shirt.
The battle cut off the squad from the rest of the world, deafened it
with shell-fire, blinded it with explosions; lead whizzed all around.
Sharagin emptied his second magazine, replaced it and turned, wondering
why the BMPs were not firing. The cannon of the nearest one was swiveling
back and forth. Prokhorov, staggering, as if drunk, could not figure out
where the fire was coming from and where the spooks had taken up their
position. Finally he fired by guess: Kaboom! Kaboom! Kaboom!
Kaboom! Kaboom! Came belated fire from the second BMP.

... serve the bastards right! ... give them another one! ...

Ah, that was better. Now all guns were firing.

Shattered by explosions, the village fell silent. The spooks must be
retreating. But the infuriated soldiers kept raking the area with every
available weapon. Eventually the barrage ceased, hot barrels cooling one
after another.
Death, which seemed to have come from nowhere and almost won, fell back
in the face of the soldiers' desperate resistance, taking sergeant Panasyuk
with it.
He lay there with an expression of faint chagrin or disappointment on
his face, his legs bent and doubled over like a snapped branch, pitiful,
frail, shot through the side just in the spot left exposed by the
bullet-proof vest.
Sharagin railed, swore at the radio operator, who spluttered
desperately, trying to summon a helicopter. There was not a single cloud in
the sky, and not a single chopper. Time was passing, flying away
uncontrolled, and together with it, with those speeding minutes that