When they hit the road again, the morning after, the medic was praying for not to meet anyone. He was tired of shooting first and thinking later. It was the only way to do, in a war situation: just think how to shoot, who shoots and who reloads, and then shoot and nothing more. But he was sick and tired to shoot, that was all. Because it was not so nice to think, after shooting. To think about what shooting means. "That is that, don't forget it!"
Three days, three encounters, three showdowns. First day, save that damsel in distress, okay. But then? Yes, the targets were not civilians, they were men with a gun. But it was just like to shoot in cold blood. Not really shooting first. Ambushes. Yes, there are ambushes in all wars or guerrillas, since the world has been turning. The Mujahideens did them, every given day. But he didn't go there to play the warrior. And so, what he had to do?
Of course, his prayers were not answered. At the first stopover, when they had just sat down and put their bags and backpacks down on the ground, Katya pricked her ears. Rumors. Unmistakable rumors. Why they were so carelessly noisy?
"Supplies incoming!" she said. Our source of weapons and supplies is the front line, said Mao Tze Tung, hard to bear as a politician, but a crack guerrilla man. Katya likely did not know it, but she would agree about the concept. She crawled to a place where she could look at the road, and waited for the duki to arrive...
"We have plenty of food and ammunitions, now." the medic said. "Let them go!"
She turned her head to look at him. She was not annoyed for his not requested suggestion. She was cheerful, excited.
"In Russia, you take what you can, when you can. You never know when it will be available again!"
And turned back to control the road.
Nothing to do. She could make sex with him, even love him, at night. But in the light of the day, when there were "dukhi" around, she was just the inconsolable widow, yearning for avenging his man. It was useless to insist to persuade her not to fight. And he could not let her shoot alone... Someone had to shoot when she reloaded... And two "someones" were better than one...
So even the medic pushed the selector to "burst". The convoy passed by. And one more time, it was
It was not a convoy, but a group of warriors. whit some mules for the heavy weapons and some crates for ammo, maybe explosives, as usual. A fair target, anyway: no civilians so no qualms, even on behalf of Yuri. He had just started to grieve... And can't wait to shoot, to grieve a bit better...
It was not a lengthy deal. This time, nobody had grenades to throw at, but there was no need for them. Yury shot at the cranes, making them all blowing up, Katya shot the men, and he shot just to cover them. They were too much concentrated to care of such menial things as their own skin... However, in half a minute flat, it was all over. Not such a big group...
They came down to the road. Yuri looked around, but he did not find anyone who could be still alive. Anyway, he shot a dead who looked a bit better than the others. Pays to be sure.
Another "dead" stood up and started running away. Yuri aimed his gun at him, but he did not shoot. Katya shot, but her clip was almost empty, and the "dead" kept running. She cursed, threw away her gun, took the medic's one and ran behind the fugitive. She tried to shoot, but that clip too was empty. so she picked up the bayonet and kept running, shouting at the running man in Russian.
The running man looked behind his shoulder. He had his weapon with him, but he just wanted to run away, to be anywhere else but not there. But even if he had stopped to shoot, that damn woman would have speared him before he could pull the trigger. She was damn closed, with that bayonet, and kept shouting as a devil. That shouting terrorized him, more than the bayonet. And he would have been even more scared if he had understood what that woman was saying.
"Come here! Where do you run? I will chase you to Pakistan! I will stick this to you, if it's the last thing I do! Are you scared? My man was scared too! Maybe he asked for mercy, and you have laughed! And then you have slaughtered him! And now I will slaughter you! Come on, it's your turn!"
The running man looked behind again, and this made him trip and fall face down in the dirt, losing the difle and the Chitrali beret. Katya stopped for breath, and then raised the bayonet over him. while the man on the ground turned on his back...
Man? That bald head, thos dirty few teeth, that beardless face, those little forceless hands...
A kid!
Katya froze, the AK with the bayonet raised over her head. One more second and she would have shoved it in his belly, like she was shoveling a spade into the ground, but now she was a statue. A kid! Stop, calm down, he's just a kid! Yes, a kid with his head full of crap... The holy war, the heaven for those who die in battle... What a heck of a Heaven, you "gavlyuki", shit-eaters! A hole in the ground! That's what there is for those who die in battle! That's what there was for my man! But what has those kid to do with that? How old could he be? 13 years? How I was when I was 13? I don't remember anymore...
Katya lowered slowly the rifle, panting hard, looking at the kid. Then she talked.
"Tikàì..." she said. The kid did not understand, and she put it clear with a kick to his side, hitting him with her instep, as if to kick a football: "Davàì, tikài!"
The kid stood up and run away, almost without feeling the pain to the ribs. Come on, run away, you little fool. And tell everyone that a Russian whore without a fuck of a burqa has allowed you not to end up straight into a hole in the ground... Not even you deserved it...
The kid, Allah knows why, stopped a second when he reached the curve in the road where he came from and looked back at Katya. She cursed, took the rifle the kid has lost from the ground, and shot. The volley raised the dust of the road one meter short of the kid's feet. He got the picture and definitely ran away.
Katya cursed again, then threw away the gun, took back the other gun with the bayonet and came back. She passed in front of Yuri without looking at him, then she passed in front of the medic, looked at him without a word and kept going on.
She sat on the rock on the side of the road, put the rifle vertically in front of herself, and looked at it. Then she looked at the bayonet, gleaming, sharp, pointed.
And then she started crying and weeping.
Ahmad Dekhtah and his group have been back on the road to the north for a few hours, when they met the boy. He was stuck in the center of the road, waving his hands so much that they had to stop and take care of him. He was still shocked as if he had just met Alek AZ Rael, the Angel of the Death. The real one.
