Free Fall Read Online Free Page B

course. Starting tomorrow you’ll be working with Comrade Sergeant Yakut!’
    From then on, every day for four hours, I would leave the main group and follow individualised training with a small detachment composed of twelve men. The sniper instructor was a sergeant of Siberian origin, like me, and so they called him Yakut, after the region he came from. * He was sharp and knew all there was to know about war.He’d fought in several armed conflicts and was an expert in ‘micro expeditions’, brief and highly risky engagements in special war operations. He seldom spoke, and spent most of our lessons teaching us the basics of shooting with precision rifles. He explained how to make the most of the telescope and how to pick out and hunt down other snipers. The principle wasn’t difficult; you had to move slowly without letting yourself be seen, be patient, and be extremely alert – like a hunter.
    After a month of training exercises, I’d figured out a way to escape from the base. So one night I grabbed a few of my things and crossed two fences watched by the sentry. Like a shadow, I crept along the walls, but when I finally emerged outside the base, thinking that I’d made it, there was Zabelin, eating an ice cream.
    â€˜Want one?’ he asked casually.
    â€˜Might as well . . .’
    I couldn’t imagine what he had in mind, but something told me he wouldn’t get me into trouble. I followed him to where he’d parked his car. We drove into the city, although it must have been two or three in the morning, and we stopped at the sort of diner frequented by truckers, a place where people would sneak off to their cars with prostitutes.
    We sat down at a table and, without exchanging a word, ate a meal together. He washed his meat down with long sips of vodka. He offered me some too, but I declined– I didn’t want to get drunk. After eating in perfect silence, Zabelin ordered two lemon ice creams. Once the obese, exhausted waitress had set them on the table, he finally began to talk.
    â€˜Nicolay, I don’t know what kind of mess you were born into or raised in, but I can assure you that here, in the army, nobody cares who you are. You don’t exist. Here you’re a number, and if you make one mistake they erase you, just as they would erase a number. I’m certain you could become a good saboteur, and I think that this is your only chance to save yourself. You’re going to find yourself in serious trouble, but if you follow my advice you’ll thank me for it one day . . .’ He spoke softly, without a sign of irritation, still calmly eating his ice cream.
    I was eating my ice cream too, and I wasn’t thinking about military prison – where, if he wanted, he could have sent me without much difficulty. The only thing that mattered to me at that moment was figuring out how he’d caught me, when I thought I’d been careful and invisible. He kept talking:
    â€˜You running away from my unit makes me look bad. If this story got out I’d have problems with superior command, and I don’t want any problems with them, understood? You know, don’t you, that all deserters get sent to military prison? You know what that means? Well, don’t think that just because you’ve been in juvie a couple of times you’ve seen all there is to see in this world . . . The point, dear Nicolay, is that starting tomorrow I’m going to send you on clean-up duty for three days. You’llhelp the team that runs the military prison here, not far from our base. When you return, you can decide whether to run away or stay here and do your duty like the rest of us . . .’
    We returned to camp. I went to sleep in the barracks and in the morning a sergeant woke me up with a taunt:
    â€˜Let’s go, Count of Monte Cristo, they’re hauling you off to jail!’
    I got dressed while my comrades were still sleeping, and went out to