We carried on landing, Mani listening to the radio with his ear plugs in, didn't hear us. Nor he didn't notice the turret about 250 yards to the side of the runway, accompanied by men in uniform. The men were becoming clearer now... What! They had vanished. I looked away for a split second and the men had gone, the turret was still there but the men had gone.
"Land it already Mani!"
"It's landing, it's landing."
"Right we've got to run over to the turret."
"But it could be a trap."
"Yes. It might be a trap, but it might not be."
"Are you going to take the risk?"
"Yes."
"Kudos. We'll join ya."
The helicopter landed, the doors flew open. We jumped out, picked ourselves up and ran at our own paces towards the turret in the distance. We were all quite quick, surprisingly, but Moscow would obviously have people that are very highly skilled to help me. We got to the turret, breathing heavily, but at the turret nonetheless.
We went up to the turret. It was plastic, a massive turret to scale, but plastic. A plastic turret? What could this be? A sign of the future or just empty threats? Well we will probably soon find out. I looked to the right and then to the left. Wasteland. Either side of the air base was just rubble and wasteland where there used to be joyous children playing in the streets and loving families in their houses. Now there was just rubble and the odd person wearing a tu-tu they must have knicked. Strange; if you're going to knick something, why a tu-ty? Anyway...
We walked backwards, towards where my family used to live. I looked around, it was a heartbreaking sight. Everything was burned to sinder and everything was beyond repair. I walked ahead, the fountain in sight. I carried on walking, until abruptly stopped by the water feature. Some reason I still had some memories from my childhood.
"Right. So one foot, two foot..."
I measured out how far it used to be to my house from the fountain. I came to a sudden halt and looked to my left. There was nothing there apart from rubble. It was the same as all the other 'houses'. China! They would be paying for this. We walked back past the fountain, on our way to the football stadium, if it was even still built.
"How do you not know if the stadium has been burnt down? Don't you watch their matches?"
"Hey! It's not my fault that SpongeBob SquarePants is on at the same time as the matches!"
"What?"
"I did write to them to just show and omnibus on a Sunday but they declined."
"Ok.."
We came to a turning, I remembered it was a left turning as my friend lived down this road. Perhaps he was with me the night of the crash when I got sent to England? Who knows? Nobody I guess. There was silence, all the time since we had been in Russia so you know how strange it would of been for us when we heard a sound coming from behind us. The sound of a vehicle? The sound of a vehicle in a burnt down part of Russia? We turned around...