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

chance to avenge his brother, his relatives, himself. The roar increased. It
seemed to him that everything around him shook, as though there were an
earthquake. The chopper had clearly gone off course, gotten lost, and was
searching and circling in the growing darkness. Obviously, the chopper
wanted to be saved, just like Sayeed Mohammed. The chopper flew toward him,
above him, to his right and to his left. If only it would come closer!
Sayeed Mohammed prayed that Allah should send the helicopter right at him!
Then he would not die alone, for nothing! He was ready for battle! He had a
trusty friend - the Kalashnikov. He would avenge his brother! Sayeed
Mohammed laid a frozen finger, like a hook, around the trigger, raised
himself a little and when something dark seemed to appear very close, and
that dark blob started to crawl over him like a monster wanting to swallow
the pitiful, freezing victim and he could see the blur of the pilot's face
through the glass canopy, he shuddered as the Kalashnikov released a string
of bullets and cried: "Allah akbar!!" rejoicing at his victory over the
Russians in the moment before death....


Chapter One. The Paras

Planes appeared out of nowhere. They simply swelled like white drops in
the sky and slid down, like oblique streaks of rain on a window; and
probably because these planes were hurrying to land, afraid of being shot
down by an invisible but omnipresent enemy, in their haste they scattered
gleaming flares that sparkled like Bengal lights and burned out quickly,
leaving a brief reminder of themselves as white trails of smoke above Kabul.
The soldiers messing around in the repair park, and those who were
cleaning their weapons and enjoying the warm sun bared to the waist or in
undershirts, and those who were drilling in the square, and those who were
washing down military vehicles looked up from time to time, expecting to see
these heavy transport planes, nicknamed "cattle carriers"; they waited for
them the way people wait for a ship from the mainland, which they are
unlikely to board this time, but catch at least a distant glimpse of the
ship docking, and indulge in unlimited dreams.
The early morning arrival of the IL-76s had become a daily routine. The
passage of these airborne mediators between the USSR and Afghanistan could
be seen from practically every Soviet garrison and, if the flights were
canceled for some reason , everyone felt sad and deprived, as though maybe,
back there in the Motherland, the "limited contingent" sent to Afghanistan
had been forgotten.
Those who had carried out a long tour of duty watched the planes in
anticipation of their imminent demobilization, and dreamed up sweet
fantasies of civilian life. Those only half way through their service would
sigh, all they could hope for was a letter from home. Those who were new in
the service still had vivid memories of the flight in the belly of such a
transport aircraft and that awful feeling of impending doom when the plane,
packed with people like brainless cattle, exhausted by the night-time
flight, indefinite lengthy delays, customs control and border crossing had
just begun to catnap when they were snapped back into awareness, barely an
hour after takeoff, by the steep plunge of the plane from a height of some