The bus first took them to a military airfield. There was no waiting at the airfield — they got off the bus and walked straight onto an Il-76 transport.
The flight wasn't long; it touched down after a little over an hour.
Once they'd landed, again there was no telling what airfield this was. This time they waited about two or three hours until a dozen or so trucks turned up. Some of the trucks carried men, some carried cargo, and in the small hours they set off again.
One truck was packed solid with about twenty men. Lying down was out of the question. The men against the cab and the side rails at least had something to lean on; those sitting in the middle could only shove their packs behind their lower backs as padding.
No telling how long the truck drove. Gao Fei didn't know when he'd fallen asleep again, until the whole truckload was shaken awake by the violent jolting — and the long journey finally seemed to be nearing its end.
Faintly, he heard gunfire. Very faint, but very clear.
A man leaning against the side rail lifted the canvas and took a look out through the gap, then muttered something in Persian.
Most of the men in the truck were Russians, but at least three who were probably Iranians had been mixed in. They spoke neither Russian nor English. Samir, who had seen a lot of the world, quietly told Gao Fei they were speaking Persian.
They would all be comrades in arms soon enough, but strangely, nobody in the same truck had any interest in talking to anyone else. Only twenty men, and yet they had split into four clearly drawn little groups.
Four Central Asians — from one of the five "Stan" countries, presumably, though there was no telling which. They spoke Russian too.
The three Iranians were one group. And Gao Fei, of course, was with Samir.
By rights, Samir ought to have been more familiar with those three Iranians, closer to them. But Samir had no intention whatsoever of going over and saying hello.
In any case, going it alone was definitely not an option — which was why Samir had latched onto Gao Fei the moment he arrived. Apart from Gao Fei, there was no one left for him to latch onto.
Suddenly a series of booms rolled out. It sounded close, but not close enough to be dangerous.
Samir said in a low voice, "152s. Five kilometers out. We're fine."
Gao Fei knew every model of 152mm gun there was. No exaggeration: self-propelled or towed, if he laid eyes on one he could name the exact model, and even tell you what year it had been developed and what year it had entered service.
But to identify a 152mm gun from the sound of the explosions alone — that Gao Fei couldn't have done to save his life.
A textbook military buff.
The truck stopped abruptly. The soldier at the rear scrambled up, untied the ropes holding the canvas from the inside, and almost at the same moment people outside began shouting.
The canvas at the rear was thrown open and the escorting soldier got out first. Outside was still dark, but dawn was already showing.
"Get off, get off! Move it!"
The tailgate dropped and the soldiers jumped down one after another.
Gao Fei couldn't resist a look around. They were in a village, with a road that wasn't especially wide and houses visible on either side. The sky still wasn't bright and he couldn't see far, but the houses within sight looked more or less intact.
Once all the recruits were off, they quickly gathered together — no formation, just a big messy crowd standing about.
Gao Fei couldn't help wondering what would happen if a shell came in right now, and then he hurriedly shook his head, because he was standing in that messy crowd too.
When the men had more or less assembled, a tall, lean man in camouflage with no cap, flanked by a dozen men, strode quickly to the front of the crowd.
"Hello. Welcome to the 4th Assault Detachment. I am your commander, Colonel Andrei Bogatov. From this moment on, you are members of this heroic unit. I will lead you from victory to new victory! Work hard!"
Wagner's assault detachments were organized at regimental level, about eleven hundred men. Below that were companies, platoons, squads, and teams — so the commander of the 4th Assault Detachment was the equivalent of a regimental commander.
No preamble, no megaphone. He simply stood in front of the crowd and welcomed his new subordinates. No harangue, nothing else to hand down.
Colonel Andrei saluted, and without waiting for his recruits to return it, turned and walked off.
As blunt as that. Were all Russians this straightforward about things? Or was it only Wagner Group that was this casual?
Before Gao Fei had even come back to himself, he heard someone shouting, "Anyone who only speaks English, come over here! Over here! English speakers, this way!"
Still noisy, but so long as someone was calling them over in English, that was good enough. Gao Fei and Samir exchanged a glance. Nothing to discuss — over they went.
The crowd began to split up now. Most of the recruits were still Russians, and they had their own way of dividing up units; there were far fewer who spoke only English, so they would definitely be put together.
A young officer, in camouflage with a second lieutenant's shoulder boards.
Wagner was a mercenary outfit. Ordinary soldiers had no ranks, but officers did — they often had to deal with regular Russian army units, and without ranks a lot of things were inconvenient.
Seeing that no one else was coming toward him, the lieutenant said loudly, "Hello. I'm Vartlev, deputy commander of E Company, 4th Assault Detachment. Our company is mostly foreign personnel. From now on, you're in E Company. I'll take you to our positions. Now — those of you who can only speak English, raise your hands."
Gao Fei raised his hand, and Samir promptly raised his too. Gao Fei looked around and saw no one else with a hand up.
Gao Fei looked again: a dozen or so men had gathered around him after all. Counting carefully, there were thirteen recruits including himself, fourteen with the officer.
Truly not an auspicious number.
Of this bunch, only two spoke nothing but English — but what surprised Gao Fei was that the three Iranians who had ridden in the same truck were standing in this group as well.
"Good. You'd better learn Russian fast. So — who can speak both English and Russian?"
Everyone else raised a hand.
If you couldn't speak English or Russian, you couldn't join the veterans' units. Take Gao Fei: if he'd only been able to speak Chinese, then no matter how much combat experience he had, he'd have gone into a recruit camp and started with the language. On a battlefield, total inability to communicate was lethal.
Lieutenant Vartlev nodded. He looked fairly satisfied. "Good. Next I'll take you to draw ammunition. If anyone wants to swap his weapon, put the request to me right now. Anyone want to change weapons?"
A man immediately raised his hand. "Sir, I want a sniper rifle. I'm a sniper."
"Sir, I'm a machine gunner."
On the way in, everyone had been issued the same AK74 rifles. Here they could swap.
"I can put in a request for a sniper rifle for you. Machine gun, no need — there are plenty of machine guns on the positions."
Vartlev checked his watch and said, "Follow me."
"Sir, are we going to the positions right now? Then what is this place?"
Someone asked, but Vartlev said without hesitation, "You don't need to know."
"Sir, when do we eat?"
Vartlev, already turning, paused. He turned back, looked at the man who had spoken, and said with a cold face, "You can eat once we're on the positions. No questions now."
No one spoke again. The army is no place for games. There are troublemakers everywhere, but troublemakers aren't fools — nobody was going to provoke an officer who had them under his thumb at a moment like this.
Vartlev might look young, but an officer was an officer.
Samir didn't dare whisper to Gao Fei now either. The two of them followed Vartlev obediently to a heap of munitions.
The munitions unloaded from the trucks lay scattered carelessly over a wide stretch of ground.
"Load up as much ammunition as you can. We'll ride armored vehicles to the positions, so don't spare your strength — take as much as you can carry."
The ammunition crates were piled into a small hill, and there were plenty of loaded machine-gun belts as well. Gao Fei and Samir exchanged a look, then began stuffing boxed cartridges into their packs.
They packed in as much as would fit, until there was no room left in their packs.
Ammunition was only the most basic item. Nearby there were RPG rockets, mortar shells, machine-gun belt boxes, and crates upon crates of grenades. All light-weapons ammunition, but there really was a great deal of it.
Taking as much as possible meant that besides filling your pack, your hands couldn't be empty either.
"Take more machine-gun ammo. As much as you can. Wrap a few 12.7 belts around yourselves — the frontline is short of this. Move it."
Logistics would send ammunition up to the positions, but it was the same old story: never trust any logistics unit. Once the fighting started, whether the ammunition could actually reach the positions was anybody's guess. And once the shooting started you always felt you didn't have enough bullets — you would never complain about having too many.
Gao Fei wrapped two fifty-round 12.7mm heavy machine-gun belts around himself, slung his rifle across his neck, and then had to carry a two-hundred-round 7.62 belt box in each hand.
Busy and chaotic, but you couldn't say the Russians were bad at organizing. This was plainly a temporary command post, and equally a temporary assembly point and logistics transfer point.
From what Gao Fei had read online, regimental command posts these days were either set up well to the rear, or, if set up forward, had to be moved constantly — otherwise, the moment the enemy's drones spotted one, the artillery would come down.
That was why Colonel Andrei, the regimental commander, had said a few words and left. Stay any longer and he might get bombed. Very dangerous.
So it would be dangerous for Gao Fei and the others to linger here too long as well.
Drawing ammunition didn't take long. Three armored personnel carriers came toward them, and when Vartlev spotted them he ran quickly to the front of the vehicles, spread his arms wide, and shouted at them to stop.
Samir said urgently, "You have to grab everything! We need to get on, or it's several kilometers on foot. The APCs aren't necessarily empty — we have to get inside, and fast!"
Before the vehicles had even stopped, Vartlev called to the group, "Quick — get on!"
Samir took off at a run, ahead of everyone else.
Chapter 5