“Go wherever you wish. Whether that means you stay here in this tent till you rot away, or back to this Maria girl I hear you talk of so much.”
Viktor turned to the slit in the tent from where he entered before Joseph could reply and ducked down to exit.
“I’ll leave the briefing on my desk tomorrow for you to look over,” Viktor called from outside as he walked towards his quarters.
Joseph sat back down and soaked in the information he was just presented with. He looked around his tent and then to his leg as if to see if he was dreaming.
He dug his finger into his wound, the pain helping him realize that yes indeed he was awake. Knowing he would never get to sleep, he lay down on his cot, thoughts churning.
Chapter Three
When the next day came he opened his tent to the same grey clouds and same red sky he had grown to know.
He hobbled on his hurt leg past all his fellow comrades, not returning any of their greetings.
He reached his officer’s quarters and very slowly lifted his hand to the doorknob and grasped it. As he did adrenalin filled his body. He turned the knob and opened the door, seeing no one. He wasn’t surprised though. Viktor never seemed to be around. He was always at some brothel or off trying to get more cigars.
Joseph approached the desk one slow step at a time. He could feel and hear his breathing getting louder and harder. He saw a yellow folder that he knew contained possibly the best news he would ever receive.
He grabbed the folder and held it in his hands for a second, thoughts of Maria and his farm rushing into his head. Taking a deep breath, he ripped it open and immediately read what it had to say.
No one was ever excited to get a new mission. Soldiers always waited in their tents and hoped that on that day their commanding officer wouldn’t enter to hand them a dreaded yellow folder.
But today was different for Joseph. He began to weep as he read, something he hadn’t done since he left Maria two years ago.
He was now so close to seeing her. All he had to do was complete one last mission, one that didn’t even seem to be that much work to him. After reading through the briefing, Joseph returned to his tent where he spent the next three days resting his leg and re-reading what was inside the folder.
“All I have to do is find one man. One man is my way to Maria,” he mumbled to himself.
Joseph spent the next two months healing and growing to hate this “one man”.
The man had never done anything to Joseph; they’d yet to even speak. But with every fiber of his being he despised this man.
Joseph stopped talking to anyone other than Vladimir and Viktor. He was too preoccupied thinking of how he was going to kill this man, a German whose only job was to run a factory that produced parts used to build German planes.
Joseph thought to himself that this one man was the entire reason he was away from Maria. He couldn’t just simply kill this man; he had to make this man suffer. Joseph became more bloodthirsty than ever before.
Chapter Four
Another two weeks passed before Viktor returned to Joseph’s tent.
“It's time to go,” he said to Joseph. He immediately turned around and left.
Joseph grabbed his bag, helmet, gun, and more importantly the picture of his wife he kept under his pillow. He followed Viktor to a German truck that had been stolen from a previous operation.
Joseph threw his gear in the truck.
“Do you like it? It was my idea, “a familiar voice called out as he approached the truck.
“Vlad, are you here to see me off?”
Joseph’s face lit up as his good friend Vlad walked up.
“See you off? Always the jokes with you. No man, I’m here to make sure you don’t take another unnecessary bullet to that pretty face of yours.”
“I went over the mission briefing hundreds of times and Viktor didn’t mention anything about a partner. Plus, this is one of the simplest things I’ve ever been assigned.”
“Ah, well I see you’ve lost your touch lately. I mean you did get shot! I’m just here as some added protection. And what? You wanted to go off and finish your final assignment without me? Let me ask you something Joseph. How many times have I saved your ass?”
“How many more times have I saved yours?” Joseph countered
“Clearly that is beside the point. But I couldn’t let you go off and kill this man alone. This could be our last time spilling blood together. Enough of the chitchat—get in the truck.”
Vladimir threw his equipment in the back and quickly jumped into the driver’s seat before Joseph had a chance. Joseph settled for the passenger seat.
“You two pussies done making out over there? Get the hell out of here already!” Viktor yelled at them as he walked towards his quarters. Joseph laughed and prepared himself for a three to four day drive to Berlin, where the factory and the German man Joseph had grown to hate were.
Chapter Five
“So tell me Joseph. How did you manage to take a bullet to your thigh dealing with a MEDICAL caravan?” Vlad asked with a snicker as he drove off towards Berlin.
“Do you want the whole story? Or do you want me to tell you that a German pointed a gun at me and pulled the trigger?”
“Eh, we got time, give me the whole story.”
“That’s the truth.
“Well, it was Nikolai, that tall stupid man Viktor picked up from some deep part of Siberia and me. We were driving to an interception point on some hill where we would be able to see the medical caravan and its escort at a good vantage point”.
“We got there about an hour early so we could set up. We covered ourselves in brush and pointed a rocket propelled grenade or RPG at the road where the leading escort would have to drive past. Time passed until we could finally see the Germans approaching. They were about 45 minutes late”.
“I lined up a perfect shot and pulled the trigger. The explosion blew up only about a foot in front of the lead truck, lifting the front end and sending it crashing back down, breaking the front axle. With the front truck unable to operate, the caravan and truck behind it had nowhere to go. Germans came pouring out of the two escort trucks like a goddamn clown car to see what caused the explosion. So with stupid ass Nikolai next to me we grabbed our scoped Mosin Nagants and proceeded to slaughter the dirty rats where they stood. Shot after shot I blew men’s heads clear off their shoulders. Fifteen soldiers came rushing out of the trucks and I’d say I killed a good eight of the bastards before they even spotted our position”.
“Once they knew where we were they started spraying us with rounds. I jumped up and ran for our truck. But stupid Nikolai just lay there and got peppered in bullets. He looked like he went through a goddamn meat grinder when they stopped firing at him. They literally severed limbs with all the bullets they put into that poor fool. He was just a pile of blood and chunks of meat afterwards. Lucky for me though he managed to kill about three Germans in his, oh I don’t know, 12 shots fired. He always was a hell of a shot.”
“I never did like that Nikolai guy. It was like talking to a damn rock. But go on.”
“So I was pinned down behind my truck and had four Germans slowly marching up the hill towards me. I had one grenade on me, so I pulled the pin on that bitch and hoped to hell it would get them as I chucked it over my shoulder.”
“No way, you’re trying to tell me you killed four Nazis with one grenade?”
“If you’d quit interrupting me, I’d let you know.”
“Sorry, it’s just I’ve personally seen how bad you are with grenades, but go on.”