The spasm passed and Colin shook his head.
“I used mine up a few hours ago, but one of the section commanders might have some.”
Nikoli unbuckled his fighting order; shrugging out of it he used a splintered branch as a crutch and pulled himself to his feet.
“I’ll be back in a little while.”
“I’ll still be here, sir.”
What had once been a forestry service managed blocks of cultivated pine trees in neatly ordered rows had become a hazardous jungle gym with shell craters, fallen trunks, shattered stumps and amputated limbs of trees amid those that still stood. It took Nikoli time to search this obstacle course before he found what he sought. It wasn’t a Guardsman but one of the generals Spetznaz troops, lying broken and discarded, and who clearly had no further need of the medication.
The soldier who had owned the pack was probably a combat medic aside his other duties, and he did not have single dose self-injectors, but a syringe and small bottles of morphine. Nikoli had picked up enough ‘Jack-of-all-trades’ lore to know how, and what dose to give.
On his return he injected enough to take the edge off the pain and wrote on Colin’s forehead the letter ‘M’, time and dosage with a marker carried in the dead soldiers medical pack. Colin felt a pleasant glow roll away the pain and muttered his thanks.
“It’s not enough to delay surgery, so tell me when it gets bad again, ok?”
Colin made a face to show he understood.
“I will lay you down to make you more comfortable, let me just move this poor fellow out of the way first.” Nikoli rolled the ageing soldier onto his back and froze momentarily, darting a glance at Colin before rolling him clear.
Colin had got a good look at the face in that moment and despite the barbiturate in his system it set him to thinking back, to when he had seen that face before.
Kneeling with his back to Colin, Nikoli went through the pockets of the corpse but they held only ammunition and the bits and pieces any ordinary soldier would have about them. Undoing the smock he found the wearer had on an aircrew shoulder holster worn over a thick woollen jumper, which was now soaked in blood from chest wounds. Ignoring the blood, which had soaked the lining of the smock he rummaged through the inner pockets. They were empty, but something was sown into the lining and taking his pocketknife he slit it open, extracting a waterproof plastic envelope. Twenty pages of handwritten foolscap paper and a CD Rom were contained within, and Nikoli ruffled through the pages.
Only Serge himself could possibly explain why he had not left these behind to burn in Peridenko’s dacha, or instead left them locked in a safe rather than hidden about his person. Most of the sheets contained code names, and contact details for named individuals inside Russia and in about twenty foreign countries, the remainder, about four sheets worth, were covered in Chinese characters, a language Nikoli knew nothing of.
Distant artillery fire and not so distant small arms fire had been continuous since Nikoli had regained consciousness, but a loud explosion much closer to was followed by the crack of 30mm cannon fire, grenades and automatic weapons, announcing that NATO was not far off. Whatever these papers and this disc were they must be destroyed before they arrived. Removing his Zippo lighter Nikoli tried to spin the striker wheel with a thumb to light it, but the wheel would not move the signal that only a tiny nub of flint remained.
“What are you doing Nikki?”
Nikoli looked at Colin over his shoulder, and gave a little smile. “I’m cold… loan me your lighter, I want to light a fire.”
Colin nodded and reached behind himself, his hand feeling around. Nikoli held out a hand but Colin’s came back into view holding the Yarygin, which had been causing his buttock such discomfort earlier.
“That’s your General, the one who was with you at the airport, isn’t it?”
“No Sarn’t major.” Nikoli shook his head. “Just some poor dumb bastard like you and me.”
The pistol was pointing at Nicola’s middle, and Colin had to use both hands to hold it in his weakened state.
“Put whatever you have there down, and move away sir.”
He almost reached for his own pistol, but it was attached to his webbing a good twelve feet away. Nikoli studied the wounded warrant officer, gauging the others resolve, and how fast he could react, he then had to weigh his own resolve and remind himself that his country was at war with Colin’s.
“You aren’t going to shoot me Colin, any more than you could back at the airport, so put the gun down, ok?”
The muzzle stayed pointing at him though, albeit less than rock steady. Nikoli still had his back to him, and slowly he raised his right hand, showing Colin the papers.
“They are just letters his girl wrote him Colin… here, see for yourself.” Tossing the papers at Colin, Nikoli saw Colin’s eyes follow the sheets of paper, and he dragged the pistol from Serge’s shoulder harness, rolling to the left as he brought the handgun to bear.
The sudden movement more than anything diverted Colin’s attention back to Nikoli, registering that the Russian was closing one eye and extending an arm with a handgun coming up into the aim at him. A flash of lightning made Nikoli flinch, snatching the shot
Colin fired a split second later but thunder from directly overhead drowned out the sound of the gunfire. Nikoli’s shot went wild; disappearing well to the wounded Guardsman’s right, but Colin’s entered the armpit below the outstretched arm, deflecting off the collar bone to exit slightly above Nikoli’s left hip, after penetrating both lungs and the heart.
A look of shocked surprise crossed the young officer’s face, and he started to say something but the light of life fled from his eyes, and his head slumped to the wet forest floor.
Colin sat unmoving for a full minute as he looked at his one-time friend, and then tore his eyes away, dropping the pistol to grab up one of the discarded sheets of paper. He couldn’t tell if it was a state secret or the intimate scribbling's of one sweetheart to another, and a sob escaped him followed by tears that coursed down his cheeks as he gathered up the remaining sheets and pushed them into a map pocket out of the rain, before again succumbing to unconsciousness.
The fire fight drew groups of soviet paratroopers like moths to a flame and Jim Popham’s columns both found themselves being engaged from all directions. Mortars, the Warriors Rarden cannon and the US paratroopers hammered each contact as they appeared; allowing the casualties to be carried to the remaining vehicles and CSM Tessler’s crippled AFV was nudged aside by another Warrior, giving enough room for the remainder to continue.
Jim couldn’t raise 1 Platoon on the radio and neither could anyone else, so the chances were that the position had been overrun already and they might have wasted their efforts getting here.
Midway to the fire break junction where both columns would turn right and rejoin, they came upon a scene similar to the wood the enemy Special Forces had hidden in, but there were far more bodies in evidence here. A long column of troops of about company strength had been following the firebreak and they now lay where the MLRS sub munitions had found them, in Indian file with each man ten paces from his neighbour. Away in the trees the rest of this company’s battalion had been in the process of digging in, and the puddles upon the saturated ground were red in the morning sun when the bomblets had landed amongst them. It was no surprise the survivors were taking every opportunity to have a crack at them, having lost so many comrades without warning. The Guardsman driving the lead Warrior slowed when he saw bodies lying in the way, but this was no time to worry about sensibilities.