War Photographer's Notebook

On the fourth floor of the shopping mall, four captives with their hands tied behind their backs were separated by a distance of two meters, looking back to back in different directions, each sitting on a big butt TV, with half a towel stuffed in their mouths.

Not far from them, on the side of the stairs, in a space surrounded by three refrigerators and two walls, a kerosene heating stove was releasing warm heat and emitting red light sufficient for lighting.

In this small area of ​​twilight and warmth, people are busy sorting out supplies for redistribution.

Perhaps it was because there were many "retired" extrajudicial soldiers stationed here, so they found a lot of good things on the fourth floor.

In addition to all kinds of food and drink found in a small supermarket, it also included more than two hundred rounds of 40mm grenades, a large number of NATO bullets and dozens of AT4 rocket launchers.

Of course, on the bloody fifth floor, they also found more Famas rifles and other weapons from the corpses, as well as a large amount of US dollar cash, as well as various small items of value and value.

"A total of $64800"

Ruslan shook the cash in his hand, stuffed it into a picked-up children's sock and threw it to the sniper Leva, "You take this money, it's the pension for the driver, the signalman and the deputy shooter. .”

After Leva silently put the roll of blood-stained cash into his pocket, Ruslan continued, "Everyone helps carry 12 extra grenades, and take the rest as needed."

He hadn't finished speaking yet, and the Rezli, which had already stuffed dozens of grenades in the bag, immediately greedily took five from the plastic basin full of American-style broadsword directional mines and stuffed them into various parts of the backpack.

Not to mention that the grenades he had already packed in his bag each weighed more than 200 grams, and these American directional mines alone weighed up to three catties.

What's more, his bag also contained all kinds of odds and ends, such as electric drill batteries, detonating wire detonators, etc., so although his bag seemed not full, it was definitely the heaviest.

But even so, this stocky man of short stature, after fixing the directional mine, greedily grabbed a few more American grenades he had collected and stuffed them into his pocket.

The only one who can compete with the weight of Leizili's backpack is the madman Agni who is stuffing grenades into the bag. This ammunition soldier's bag contains not only the ammunition chains and spare barrels needed by machine gunners, but also Microsonic bullets for the rest.

Wei Ran wouldn't compare his load with them, so after he packed the grenades he helped carry, he just put a broadsword and a few grenades in his bag and stopped in time.Instead, he wrapped the submachine gun spare magazines he had found in twos with scotch tape and stuffed them into the ammunition pouch on his chest.

Beside him, Feschenk was toying with a Remington shotgun with a folding stock.The sniper Leva was also familiar with the FR-F2 sniper rifle.In contrast, Serge, the machine gunner, has no intention of giving up his pkm at all.

After everyone prepared the ammunition and supplies, the canned food and a pot of water heated on the heater also steamed.

Seeing this, everyone worked together, put all the remaining ammunition into the refrigerator next to them, cleared enough space, and invited the girls who were helping the guard at the door of the other stairwell to come over, and everyone gathered together Then, had a warm dinner.

"The new year is less than three hours away." Captain Culp picked up a bottle of vodka he picked up from the ruins and unscrewed it, and poured a glass for everyone except the four girls. "Comrades, Happy New Year."

"New Year's Day"

Including the four little girls holding the same juice they picked up, everyone responded in a low voice, and then drank all the drinks in their glasses.

Next year will be 95 years...

Wei Ran muttered to himself, picked up a piece of biscuit, and stuffed it into his mouth with the heated foie gras.

"Maybe I should bring home a present for my wife," the sniper Leva murmured, holding his cup.

"After dawn, you can search for it on this floor. There are quite a few electronic products from Zhaohe."

Feschenk was the first to give advice, by the way

He also rolled up his cuffs, showed off the yellow and black Western European electronic watch on his hand and said in a low voice, "This is what I found when I was collecting ammunition. It seems to be able to monitor blood pressure and pulse. The ones are much more upscale.”

"It's a good suggestion. I'll take a good look at this shopping mall tomorrow." Leva said quite excitedly.

"boom!"

Before the others could say anything, there was a loud rocket explosion in the stairwell!Even a lot of dust fell from the top of everyone's heads!
"boom!"

In the second explosion that followed, the remaining steps in the stairwell were shattered into large and small cement blocks and smashed down under the TNT blasting that Leizli had arranged in advance.

Before the four girls screamed subconsciously, Karp, Ruslan, Agni and Leva quickly dropped the cans in their hands and covered their mouths. Turn off the kerosene heaters in the crowd!
Immediately afterwards, Wei Ran and Feishanke also ran out of this small warm space, crawled to the door of the stairwell where smoke was constantly emitting, and observed the situation downstairs through a small mirror.

In the palm-sized mirror, the beam of the flashlight was still shining at the bottom of the stairwell, and at the same time there was a shout in Chechen language that Wei Ran could not understand.Moments later, in the stairwell lit by the beam of the flashlight, a few Chechen soldiers carefully climbed up the collapsed stairs to the second floor.

But soon, everyone heard the explosion sound and the continuous screams of the directional thunder from the second floor.

Immediately afterwards, another Chechen soldier wearing an asbestos fireproof suit came up, stood at the stairs on the second floor, and fired a rocket at the inside.

"boom!"

After the dull explosion, the body of the building also visibly trembled, and soon another group of soldiers climbed up to the second floor.

"I hope they like the New Year's gift prepared by Rezli..." Feshank muttered in a low voice, and immediately after that, there was another deafening explosion on the second floor!

Even Wei Ran, who was hiding on the fourth floor, saw a flame rushing into the stairwell from the second floor and the corpse thrown back into the stairwell by the shock wave through the small mirror!
While the two were waiting, those Chechen soldiers did not continue to fill the stairwell with their lives. Instead, they placed a few directional mines in the stairwell in a very sinister way!
"Looks safe"

Feishanke muttered something in a low voice, beckoned Wei Ran to back away quietly, and ran lightly to another stairwell in the distance.

Cautiously, I looked down with my probe, and as expected, someone was also laying mines in the stairwell at this time, and it seemed that they were still using tank shells that I didn't know where to find!

Following Feshank, he leaned over to the window and looked carefully. Under the glare of the light, there seemed to be someone writing something on the wall with spray paint.

"Aren't they coming up to take a look?" Wei Ran couldn't help muttering. "Now they have the upper hand and the focus is on taking the train station."

Feshank retracted his head and continued in a low voice, "There are so many traps in this building, and so many people were killed just now, they won't continue to come up to die at this time."

After a short pause, Feschenk added, "It would be best if the mercenaries in this building could deal with the enemies, even if they couldn't be dealt with, it would be good to be killed by those who came in. After all, dead mercenaries don't get paid. of."

"So during the day..."

"It's hard to say," Feishank said in a low voice, "I can only gamble, the rebel army has many veterans who came back from Afghanistan, now we'll see if they will notice this place."

Hearing this, Wei Ran didn't ask any further questions, and quietly followed the other party back to the original position.

The last meal of the year was interrupted, and the people who had already eaten almost lost the idea of ​​continuing. After arranging the order of the night duty, they turned on the heater again and gave this small space to the four girls. rest.

There was nothing to say all night, and the next morning when it was just dawn, Wei Ran, who was on duty for the last shift, also put down the binoculars that had been pointing in the direction of the train station.

This
At night, the Chechens hardly stopped attacking the railway station, and even the seized walkie-talkies were filled with all kinds of yelling and abuse that Wei Ran could or could not understand.

In the brief cease-fire gap before the sun came out, the defenders in the train station ventured out of their bunkers and went to the destroyed armored vehicles to collect ammunition for self-protection, but at the same time, they also became the targets of the early snipers .

With a distance of several hundred meters, Wei Ran, who strayed into this piece of history, really didn't know how many defenders were still in the train station at this time, and whether they were going through the same experience as described in the movie called Purgatory. The cruelty of war.

But at least, the gunshots from the surrounding buildings can always accurately take the lives of the soldiers on the street.At least, in the binoculars, he has seen more than once those people with a turban under their helmets, doing atrocities that are far beyond the bottom line of war itself, far beyond the bottom line of human beings, and even far beyond the bottom line of girls' reading.

Looking behind him again, Wei Ran took out the Kyiv 30 camera, stuck the lens and the eyepiece of the telescope together, pointed at the cruel battlefield in the distance downstairs and pressed the shutter.

Not far away, the sniper Leva, who had woken up half an hour ago, put his finger on the trigger of the sniper rifle again and again, finally suppressed the impulse and pity in his heart, and gently closed the weapon. Insurance, then turned over and lay down on the blood-stained mattress, covering his head with a blanket in annoyance.

Sighing secretly, Wei Ran put away the binoculars, and in the morning sun on the first day of 1995, amidst the sound of guns and guns, he got up silently, to the people who were sleeping soundly in the distance, and to the four huddled together The Chechen girls together, and even the four captives who had been tied up all night without water or rice, each took a group photo in their sleep.