His breathing became heavier, the steps more automatic, and more laboured. He began to consider the futility of running, of crossing half a mile when thousands of miles separated him from the people who could help him — no, not help, now; protect, hide. His breath began to tear and sob, like cloth being pulled apart roughly, something human in him being made into rags for cleaning.
He forced his legs on, his body seeming to bend lower, his face closer to the ground — stumbling more now, trying to shift weight immediately so that an ankle wouldn't give, twist. He could feel the body-heat, rising and breaking out in sweat. There was even sweat on his forehead now. He looked up. The hut appeared hardly any nearer than the last time he had looked up — perhaps one hundred strides ago. No, two hundred at least.
One hand pushing away from the ground as he stumbled, and the tiredness stressed as he tried to drive the legs in a [reasserted upright position.
He heard the noise of the helicopter, behind him, and it ' seemed as if the sound was gaseous, unnerving him, causing I the moving legs to quiver as if he had already stopped running.
He turned round, staggering as his body shifted clumsily.
The small scout helicopter, like the civilian one he had flown in, was fifty feet up, and moving across the grass towards him — a black, insect spot just horizoned above the dark lines of the trees.
He whirled round, stumbling again, and it was now as if he moved through some restraining element. The beat of rotors behind him became louder: he stumbled on, careless of stones and tussocks, waiting for the shadow of the helicopter, the waving of grass as it bent before the downdraught.
The hut wobbled on the rise, joggling in his vision as he looked up. The breath tearing, and the heartbeat frenzied. Above everything, the futility of it, the stupid blind panic to run, to keep running, thousands of miles from safety.
The grass leapt with small stones, flying dirt, near his right foot, then ahead and to his side. Gunfire. The noise of the rotors drowned the rifle shots. The helicopter was no gunship, but it carried at least one marksman. Again, flying spots of dirt. He saw the distressed earth scatter on his boot like scuffed sand.
Then his breath was knocked from him, and his shoulder jarred cruelly as he banged into the wall of the hut. He looked up, and the shadow of the chopper passed over him. White plucked splinters of dry wood stung his cheek as the rifleman, with the AK-47 on automatic, loosed a volley before he disappeared behind the overflown hut.
Sobbing, straining to get his breath — one breath, clear and deep would be sufficient, as the blood roared in his ears — he banged against the locked door. Wood splintered — he heard the sound, even as the rotor noise increased again — and he fell into the darkness, redolent of stored fodder, and tumbled against stacked hay bales.
A line of jagged holes, striped across one wall, entry of sunlight in splashes like yellow blood, as the marksman in the helicopter sprayed the hut on automatic. He buried his head, wriggling his body between the spiky, hard edges of the bales. Bullets plucked into the packed earth door, thumped softly into bales beside him. He put his hands over his ears, terrified.
The noise of the rotors came down to swallow him.
He was unsure how long it was, but he was aware of the changing noises outside. The rotors dying away, then the cracking of a voice, voices, as the helicopter's cabin speaker amplified the calls from nearest units in the search. He was stiff with ear, weak and unable to move.
The door of the hut was hanging open. He had to get out. He pushed himself upright, and staggered stiffly to the door, rugging the gun free of its shoulder holster. A ridiculous little thing, set against the AK-47 waiting for him outside.
He pressed himself against the wall, craning round the door frame. The soldier, in olive-green combat dress, was stepping cautiously towards the door. The small MIL was behind him, its rotors turning sluggishly. The pilot was bent forward over his equipment, his head turned to watch the soldier.
Vorontsyev went into the crouch, arms stiff, gun cradled by two hands. He fired three shots, all towards the centre of the target shape that the soldier had become. The man leapt aside, but a movement without volition, only the jerk of impact as two of the bullets hit him in the stomach, the other passing through his upper arm as he fell away. The AK-47 spun in the air, catching the sun along its stubby barrel and curved magazine. The pilot was moving to shut the door of the helicopter when Vorontsyev, still in the same crouch, two paces out of the door, shot him. Red hole in the temple, then the head dropping back out of sight behind the body which had been lifted out of the seat, held in some grotesque position of sexual proffering over the seat back.
He turned the soldier with his boot, then bent to pick up the AK-47. Then, he rummaged in the dead man's combat suit for the extra magazines. They were bulky, unsuitable unless he wore combat dress himself. He threw one aside in irritation, and thrust the other into the deepest pocket of his anorak. Then he went to the MIL, moved the body slightly, and only then realised, as the mood of semi-robotic efficiency left him, that he had killed the pilot, and could not fly the helicopter himself.
His legs buckled under him, and he felt tears prick against his eyes as his thinking returned fully. He could have escaped in the chopper, and instead he had killed the pilot.
Voices, querulous and puzzled, demanded reply from the MIL's cabin speaker. Idem codes, positions, movements, details of force strength — spinning in his head.
He looked around. Specks to the west, lifting clear of a rise. Bigger helicopters. Away to the east, down a long slope, as far as a mile away, dots moving across a field, out of the cover of trees. Men on the ground already. A road away to the north of them. Olive-green APCs moving swiftly.
He was watching his encirclement.
Nothing, as yet, south of him, down towards the village of Nikoleyev that he could now see, nestling in gentler folds of country; not as flat as he had thought from the map, better for him. Dotted clumps of trees. He began to run again, the unfamiliar AK-47 banging against his thigh. The tussocky grass seemed longer on this long downslope — something to do with drainage, he wondered incongruously — and it seemed to wrestle with his tired legs, continually throwing the body too far forward, out of balance.
Bending low as he ran, he watched the sky. Only the air concerned him for the moment. Nothing on wheels or afoot was close enough.
Except that he knew they would put men down in Nikoleyev now. If they hadn't already done so.
Something had happened to him, however. Probably a result of the killing he had done, the evident superiority given him by two dead bodies that belonged to the enemy. He no longer thought ahead more than minutes. He had no sense of distances other than the little way to the village, the seventeen or eighteen miles to Khabarovsk. No promises, none of the luxuries of larger thought. Only the body moving, its imperatives occupying him.
He paused behind a rock, near the bottom of a stretch down from the hut. Below him, the road into the village wound through a shallow defile, cracked with frost, icy puddles in the shadows of trees. Empty. He paused long enough to regain something like casual breath, then jumped down on to the road. The hard earth jarred his legs and spine, and he groaned. More in fear of injury than in pain.
He crossed the road, which was lined with dark trees, and began to trot carefully, under their shadow, towards Nikoleyev. He stopped only once, hearing behind him the dull thump of an explosion. He knew what it was, and shuddered with knowledge. The first gunship at the hut had destroyed it with rocket fire. Probably simply because of the dead pilot, and the dive drab spot of a body below them. Incensed anger transmitted to firepower before reason could interfere. He consciously stopped the trembling of his body.