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

The village elders approached the senior shuravi, a tall, heavily-built
and not very young general in camouflage uniform, which looked like the
green and brown patterns on the choppers. The elders behaved as if the
general were a king or God, bowing and scraping before him and, after
parlaying, surrendered the bodies of three Soviet advisors and the
mujaheddin who had killed them into the bargain. Everything had turned out
just as Ali predicted. Yet what else could they do? The shuravi had
threatened a storming bomb attack on the entire district otherwise.
"Look!" commanded Ali, and said the word that made all the mujaheddin
shudder: "Spetsnaz." Sayeed stared through the binoculars. The soldiers
looked like any other soldiers? Perhaps a bit more lithe and agile.
Certainly nothing ferocious. They had same assault rifles, the same light
brown hair. Why do the mujaheddin fear and hate this "Spetsnaz" so much?
While they waited for the general, the soldiers unbound the hands of one of
the mujaheddin and laid a loaded submachine gun before him.
"Pick it up, you bastard!"
Sayeed and his brother were too far away to hear what the Spetsnaz guy
was saying, and they would not have understood his foreign tongue even if
they had been closer. They saw only the officer's contemptuously twisted
mouth. He was lean, wearing sneakers, beige trousers and beige battle jacket
with sleeves rolled up and with tattoos on his forearms. He stepped back,
pointing at the submachine gun.
"I've only got a knife, and even that's not real." The Spetsnaz man
flexed his muscles, showing a Bowie knife tattooed on his skin. "Take it!"
He shoved the gun closer to the prisoner with his foot. "Shit yourself, eh?"
The Afghan crouched, his eyes fixed on the Kalashnikov. A last chance, he
had been given a last chance to fight back. He looked sideways at the
shuravi, baring uneven yellow teeth in a grin and then, when the officer
turned away casually, as though he had forgotten all about the weapon
offered to the prisoner and seemed to be more interested in the chopper
patrolling in circles overhead, the prisoner made his decision. But the men
in Spetsnaz are not stupid enough to let themselves be tricked by some dumb
Afghan peasant! The officer gave a satisfied snort when a soldier standing
ready at the Afghan's back brought his rifle butt down on the head of the
prisoner as he lunged forward.
"Thought you could escape, spook?" The officer flung himself toward the
Afghan who was struggling to his feet and knocked him out.
"Stop that!"
"He was trying to escape, comrade major," said the tattooed Russian,
justifying himself before a senior officer in dark glasses.
"Move out!"
The blades of the choppers sliced through the hot air, the choppers
rose one after another and flew off. Sayeed Mohammed and Ali got up, shook
themselves and, without a word, startled in unison when a figure of a man
detached itself from the chopper flying a little to the right, and fell to
earth like a stone...

A helicopter circled beside Sayeed Mohammed, frighteningly close. He
flung the blanket away, snapped off the safety catch. "There is no God but
Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet!" Here it was, the heaven-sent trial! A