Satisfied his gear was sorted out and organised, he filled a chipped enamel kettle from the sink tap and placed it on an old stove. He lit the gas that gushed from the ancient cast-iron ring and sat down at the table to sort through his mail.
The majority of it he tossed into a bin without reading beyond the first clue that it was junk, and when the sorting was complete he was left with three letters of any significance.That was about average for the two weeks he had been away walking in the hills.
Zhilev went alone on long camping expeditions at least twice a year, sometimes three. He had left the military twelve years earlier, medically discharged as unfit for duty, and even though he was often in great discomfort he refused to become a ‘soft civilian’. His legacy of pain from those days of service to his country was accompanied by an unhealthy level of hate and loathing for those who had caused it. Looking back, he had loved his life in the Spetsnaz, Russian Special Forces, but he had been cheated out of at least three more years of active service, and perhaps more importantly the opportunity to work with naval intelligence as a rear-echelon field adviser, a posting ideal for older, experienced men, and one that could have kept him employed in a special forces capacity into his sixties. The doctors had given him a zero physical rating in his final report with the added comment that his damaged neck could one day cause him paralysis and perhaps, due to the extent of the damage which was close to his skull, even death. Zhilev refused to accept it and pleaded with them to let him prove they were wrong and that he was strong enough to do any task they set him. But they refused to even consider his plea and furthermore warned him to discontinue any strenuous physical activity for the rest of his life. There was no measure of how much he loathed those fools for first using him like a guinea pig and then, after almost killing him, deciding he was no longer good enough even to teach new recruits from the vast pool of experience he had gained over twenty years and countless operations in the service.
The National Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation was the lofty banner these scientists operated under, and they often used Spetsnaz to test their concoctions designed to do a variety of things such as raise physical endurance, remove the feeling of fear, increase tolerance against harsh environments and allow a soldier to operate for up to a week without sleep. The experimental drug that poleaxed Zhilev was a serum created to delay death after receiving a lethal dose of radiation such as during a nuclear attack. Whereas an untreated person would collapse within hours as their brain and internal organs swelled and rapidly degenerated, and their skin blistered and broke apart causing an horrifically painful death, the drug allowed a soldier to operate almost normally for up to four days, giving him the strength to carry out his mission before suddenly dropping dead.
Zhilev was given the newly developed drug in pill form, one every four hours, and ordered to conduct a gruelling map march with forty kilos of equipment over mountainous terrain to test its effects. After two days he became delirious and fell down the side of a crag fracturing his neck. He would have died of exposure had he not been found that evening by his comrades after he failed to make a checkpoint. He lay in a hospital bed for six weeks recovering from the fall and the effects of the drug. When he learned he was to be kicked out of the military he wanted to blow the entire experimental medicine institute to bits. He might have done so too, for Zhilev was certainly a most vengeful man and he had the knowledge and training as well as access to the explosives and equipment necessary.The only reason he did not was because he was not completely certain the door to the service was shut to him. He had high hopes that his colleagues would succeed in an appeal against the decision.
It took more than a year, while Zhilev moped around his brother’s house, before he learned the appeal had been denied. Only then did he accept finally that his career was truly over. He had been thrown out and tossed on to the scrap heap like so many before him. He always knew it would happen one day, but when he was old, not thirty-eight and in his prime.
After his unceremonious dismissal from the service, a hero of the now Russian Federation, he was given a small amount of money in compensation as well as his pension which, even though it was one and a half times that of a regular soldier, was not much to live on. It was Vladimir who gave him the money to buy the house he now lived in. Not having to pay a monthly rent meant his pension could go a lot further. His brother had been a vital crutch for him in the years immediately after his untimely retirement and the only voice of comfort and reason. Zhilev would be in a military prison had it not been for Vladimir who spent an entire night talking him out of his planned demolition raid against the medical institute.
Zhilev tried to remember when his brother said he might be home. There was never a firm date. So many factors could delay him, the most common ones being the weather and late arrival of his replacement. He checked the cheap plastic clock on the wall. As soon as he was finished with his chores, he would call on Vladimir’s wife. They lived only a few miles away in a nice, large house that backed on to a wood where their children loved to play. Vladimir would have telephoned from the ship and told her when he was coming home. But first, he would go to the shops and buy some meat and potatoes for the supper she would insist he stayed for, and then some toys for the children who loved to see Uncle Mikhail, if for no other reason than he always had a gift for them.
Zhilev held up the letters and read the return addresses. One was from the bank, a statement no doubt, since it was due about now. The second was a gas bill and the third was from the oil company his brother worked for, based in Dubai. Zhilev thought it strange the letter from the oil company was addressed to him. He had never had anything to do with it. It was possible the letter was from his brother, but the address was typed, not handwritten as usual, and besides, Vladimir was not in Dubai. He flew to his ship wherever it was in the world then, three or four months later, he would get off at the first available port and fly back home to Riga.
Zhilev opened the envelope from Dubai that contained a single sheet with the company’s letterhead and no more than a few typed lines. His heart skipped a beat and he filled with dread as he saw the first few words: I regret to inform you . . .
When he got to the part that confirmed his fear that his brother was dead, he put the letter down and spread his hands out either side of it to steady himself. He started from the top again and read it through slowly, and when he got to the end, he lowered his head into his hands and began to gently weep, his heavy shoulders shaking.