War Photographer's Notebook

Chapter 673 Document signed on August 8
In the last few hours of December 12th, with the wind and snow resting, there were rare continuous gorgeous auroras in the night sky.But inside the abandoned building, no one was in the mood to appreciate the magnificent night view unique to the polar region. Even Wei Ran's hard-earned meals were neglected like never before.

In this cold building, Apoli locked himself in the radio station, and Wei Ran could only hear the vaguely eulogized Soviet Union through the fairly thick door.

Also locked in the room were Dr. Murat and his two students, Taras and Sharip, and Gennady, who seemed to be escaping reality.

As for Agwan, since Pavel's body was sent to the auditorium, he has been guarding Pavel's side, under the kerosene lamp, carefully carving the pistol grip patch that is about to be completed with a small file .

Seeing that these people were all turning a blind eye to his food delivery service, Wei Ran simply stopped putting his face on his cold butt, took his things and went downstairs to the workshop where the transport truck was parked.

Compared with the windy and snowy days of the previous ten days, this night was exceptionally quiet, so quiet that Wei Ran could even clearly hear the creaking sound of stepping on the snow.

Walking slowly into the workshop and closing the iron door, the only thing that can be seen clearly in the dark space is the faint red light from the unextinguished stove in the living cabin.

Opening the hatch of the living cabin, the familiar hot air came, and Wei Ran secretly heaved a sigh of relief. Although this place is far less spacious than that building, the atmosphere is not so oppressive.

Without turning on the light at all, Wei Ran threw a few logs of firewood into the hearth, and finally placed the half-full enamel kettle on the edge of the stove, and placed teapots, teacups, and a magazine on the table in advance.

Borrowing the light from the fire, he simply browsed through the stories in the magazine, and then he washed his hands carefully, opened the hatch again, and stretched out his hand to pull out two tough steel wires from the cotton cap on his head.

Naturally, he didn't come here just to hide and relax. Although Pavel's suicide was sad, it was also a rare opportunity to find out.

It was easy to pry open the locked cabinet door, and the inside of the metal cabinet that went straight to the ceiling became unobstructed.

With the light from the stove behind him, Wei Ran can clearly see that the metal cabinet is divided into three layers in total, and the patterned steel partitions made of the same material as the floor of the cab are covered with an additional layer of thick rubber mats.

On the bottom shelf next to the safe, in addition to two typewriters and two bulky laptops, there are also several experimental equipment such as microscopes.

The middle layer, which is almost parallel to the tip of the nose, is full of folders next to each other.The spine of these folders also has detailed time written on them. The time on the first one is September 1991, 9, and the time on the last folder is December 1, 1991. .

Looking out the window, Wei Ran gently moved a chair over, stepped on the chair and looked towards the top floor.

Unfortunately, apart from consumables such as manuscript paper, ink, typewriter ribbons, and boxes of test tubes and various reagents, the only personal item on this floor is a sheet of Murat and Pavel. The two of them were just taking a group photo standing on the left and right of an old man with white hair.

Moving the chair back to its original position to wipe off footprints, Wei Ran picked up the flashlight on the table, covered the head of the lamp with his hand, relying only on a ray of bright light between his fingers, he refocused his vision on the folders on the second floor.

With these little lights, Wei Ran finally found two manuscript papers bound with staples on top of these documents.

Taking it out carefully, he couldn't help raising his eyebrows when he saw the lines of letters typed out with a typewriter.

Slightly open the gap between the fingers to make the light of the flashlight wider, Wei Ran read every word.

To the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics:

In view of the current domestic situation, after discussion and decision by all the scientific research personnel of the Tinder project, we will seal up all the original data of this scientific research task until the situation stabilizes, and restart the Tinder scientific research project.

Head of the Tinder project: Sergey Petrovich Barsukov

Tinder project researcher: Murat Nikolayevich Belov
Pavel Maslenikov

Taras Fedorovich Plishev
Agvan Danilovich Kosarev
Nov. 1991, 8

September 8th?
When Wei Ran saw the last handwritten time, he couldn't help being stunned. He didn't even think about it at all, so he subconsciously thought of the 819 incident that happened three days before this time.

Could it be that the person in charge of this project was also involved in the 819 incident?No, no, impossible, Wei Ran instantly denied this guess.

In contrast, he is more willing to believe that the other party made this decision after the 819 incident occurred or subsided, because he saw through or had a premonition of certain things.

On the other hand, he could also clearly see that the signatures of Talas and Agwan were written in pens of completely different colors, and their respective names seemed to be filled in at a later stage, because only from The position where the pen was written on the last date is known. When this document was signed, perhaps there was no space reserved for the two of them to sign at all.

After thinking for a while, Wei Ran turned to the second page, which densely listed the names of various materials and the corresponding page numbers, and even marked the corresponding time and place at the end.

Among them, the earliest marked time even comes from the Antarctic in December 1982. From this point of view, it is consistent with what Agwan revealed to himself about the origin of the "Tinder Project".

But obviously, these data materials can't be in those folders on the second floor, among other things, the number of pages and thickness alone are not the same.

Almost subconsciously, Wei Ran looked at the safe that was the size of a washing machine directly under the metal cabinet.

However, before he could make a move, outside the half-open hatch, there was the characteristic noise of friction against the ground when the iron door of the workshop was pushed open.

Seeing this, Wei Ran immediately extinguished the flashlight, restored the two thin sheets of paper in his hand and returned them to their original positions, and re-locked the metal cabinet as quickly as possible.

Unhurriedly, he poured half a pot of water into the teapot that had been prepared earlier, and filled the tea cup that was prepared in advance half full, and deliberately shook the cup to sprinkle some water on the table.Only then did Wei Ran pick up the flashlight again and turn it on, and asked loudly while walking out with the gun on, "Who?"

Before he finished speaking, the beam of the flashlight in Wei Ran's hand hit the opponent's face, and then he saw Taras who subconsciously blocked his eyes.

"Why are you here?" Wei Ran and Taras asked the same question in unison.

"I'll put fuel on the stove before the water tank freezes."

Wei Ran pointed behind him with his thumb and actively explained, "Of course, I will start the engine later to keep this big guy warm, how about you?"

"I" Talas took a deep breath, "I just feel that the building is too depressing, and I want to find a quiet place to stay by myself for a while."

"Come in and have a cup of tea." Wei Ran said while walking behind, "If you think I will disturb you, I can go to the cab."

"No, no." Talas quickly waved his hand, and followed Wei Ran into the not-so-warm living cabin.

"Just now there was only a little charcoal left in the stove"

Wei Ran concealed the reason why he kept the door open just now, "I have to wait for it to burn for a while before adding coke, otherwise it will still go out."

"You take good care of this car." Talas sat opposite Wei Ran while speaking.

"If you take care of it, it can take care of us, right?"

While responding to the other party, Wei Ran poured a cup of tea for the other party. By the way, he refilled his half-full cup, and used the already dissatisfied kettle to fill up the teapot, which was also not full.

Using this series of inadvertent little actions to prove that he had been drinking tea just now, Wei Ran sat down by the stove again, picked up the magazine, and continued to read it by the light of the fire.

"Why don't you turn on the light?" Taras asked curiously.

"Turning on the lights consumes electricity, and the car won't start after a long time. I'm just waiting for the stove to fire up. It's not worth starting the engine at all. And don't you think the generator is too noisy?"

Without raising his head, Wei Ran took out the warm story that he had woven in advance, "My grandfather is a forest ranger, and he has a small hunter's cabin in the forest. In winter, I often go to it with him. Hunter's lodge, reading a book by the fire like this."

"Sounds very warm," Taras said enviously.

“A really good memory”

Wei Ran put down the magazine and looked at it, "I remember that the hunter's cabin is about the same size as our living cabin, but I haven't been there for a long time."

"Before coming here, I've been living in the city."

Taras picked up the teacup and took a sip of the black tea with sugar, "At that time, I was also looking forward to living in the wild, and I even bought a Tula shotgun, but in fact, after so long, I Not even a single fox was hit."

"My marksmanship isn't great either"

Wei Ran responded with a smile, "My grandpa never taught me to hunt, but taught me to drive a gas truck when I was very young, otherwise I wouldn't be just a transporter driver."

"Maybe it's a good thing. Although it's colder here, it's better than going to Afghanistan."

Taras put his feet on another table opposite, looked up at the ceiling and said, "I still want to be a Soviet soldier in the future, but it seems that I will never have this chance again .”

"At least you'll be able to go home soon"

While Wei Ran was speaking, he got up and poured a small bucket of coking coal into the furnace.Immediately, the living cabin, which had not been turned on, also went dark.

"Perhaps" Taras sighed, and like the darkened stove, fell into a long silence in the dim living quarters.

"How is the situation of Dr. Murat?" Wei Ran asked while busy.

"Shalip is with him," Talas responded almost dully.

"Looks like you need to be alone for a while"

Wei Ran patted the other person on the shoulder, picked up a small bucket of coking coal again, and took some firewood, got up and left the living cabin infected with "depression".

(End of this chapter)