"Valery Gorban. The taste of war " - читать интересную книгу автора

My body armor is hanging on the door; it had better not fall out when Winnie
brakes.
Pooh is just great - it seems as if he never takes his eyes off the
road, yet he immediately detected that muddled commotion on our route up
ahead.
On the left, at the edge of a large vacant lot, is a small market.
Stalls and simple counters - some laden with spare parts, others with
vegetables and various kinds of canned goods - stand on the narrow square.
But the people are not trading or milling around the counters. Rather, they
are squatting down behind the stalls and hiding beneath the counters.
Several are lying on the ground - some motionless, with their hands covering
their heads, while others try to crawl on their sides behind mounds of
rubbish. Things are even more interesting to the right, where a Uazik is
standing, and behind it - two men in camouflage with automatic weapons. They
have spotted us but are in no hurry to disappear. In fact, just the opposite
is the case - they are waving their hands to stop us. One of them is even
pointing towards the market-place as if to say, "Take a look over there!"
Well, friend, rest assured that we'll look everywhere. Failure to do so
here can mean death. What's more, this is an adverse location - it's too
open. There are only some toppled concrete panels lying on the right, and to
the front - a narrow track with private homes. But we still need to reach
them - that is, unless someone begins shooting from there.
"Prepare to engage - left and right!"
My boys are wide-awake - they are already in position along the sides
of the truck and immediately drop down onto one knee with their weapons at
the ready. The vehicle has iron sides and wooden benches - not great
protection but at least it will shield you from shrapnel. Our helmets and
body armor are not exactly made of paperboard, either. But beyond that, it's
everyone to his own fate.
For my part, I am the commander.
Without fully knowing the situation, I need to make a decision on how
to react within a precious few seconds. It could be that all this is just a
show, a diversion to lure us into an ambush. If so, we need to move out to
the rear ASAP, before it's too late, covering our retreat with fire. It
could even be that friendlies have gotten into trouble and need our help.
But the price of an error is a "load 200", or maybe more than one...
There's the answer!
Flashes come from the roof of a burnt-out building on the left, beyond
the vacant lot, and from the dark recesses that once were its windows.
Rat-ta-ta-ta-ta - rounds impact like beads against the steel frame of
our Ural.
The chatter of automatic weapons fire reaches us only later.
"Dismount! Take cover by the vehicle!"
What's wrong with you studs, couldn't you hear me above the noise? Or
did your brains disconnect at the sound of a standard order?
"Jump, for crying out fucking loud!"
And another thing! Babadya, who weighs a hundred kilograms in full
battle dress (including twenty-five kilos of metal) and carries a
machine-gun with two boxes of cartridges, soars like a bird over the side of
the truck and hits the ground with a force of five on the Richter scale. At