"Nosov looked the mullah straight in the eye and, in that tone we all knew well, the one he used when he didn’t feel like playing anymore, he asked: ‘Where are your wounded?’ The man suddenly went pale, and his hands began to tremble. Trying to keep calm, he raised his hands to the sky, as if he were asking for divine forgiveness, and addressed the captain in a humble voice: ‘What wounded, commander? Perhaps I do not understand the meaning of your words. We are only servants of God. We help the people of the village...’ Nosov smiled with the politeness of an English nobleman, went up to him, and without removing his gloves – he was wearing the tactical Kevlar ones, which are stiff and heavy – gave him a hard slap in the face. The man let out a cry and then crumpled to the floor, sliding down the wall as if his muscles could no longer support the weight of his body. His nose immediately swelled up and started to bleed; his eyes filled with tears. Nosov pulled out his gun from under his vest and pointed it at the man’s head. ‘I need your wounded, now. If you prefer, I can find them myself, but by that point everyone will be dead: old, young, women, cats, dogs...’ The man started to whimper, hugging his knees to his chest. Breathing hard, big reddish bubbles came out of his mouth, saliva mixed with blood. Nosov took a lamp from the table, broke it apart and poured the kerosene over the man, who started to squeal like a pig at the sight of an executioner’s knife, while trying desperately to unwind his kerosene-soaked turban. His dirty hair poked out from the strips of cloth. Our captain took a box of matches and lit one, holding it over the man. ‘If you don’t tell me where you keep the wounded I’ll burn you alive,’ he said cruelly, holding the match in one hand and the gun in the other. ‘I don’t give a shit about your fucking religion; I think you should all be killed...’ Sobbing, the man sputtered out a storm of incomprehensible words, among which we could just make out: ‘In the garden... around the back... under the tent...’ Nosov pushed the point of the pistol into the cloth of the turban hanging off the man’s head and fired; the bullet was muffled, as though he had used a silencer; a cloud of gunpowder spread all around. The man’s head had been pierced by the bullet from one side to the other; the wall he had been leaning against a moment earlier was covered in blood and bits of brain. For a few seconds the dead man’s left foot kept moving over the kitchen’s rough floor, scraping the cement with his fake leather shoe. Nosov spat on the ground and pointed us to the exit. ‘I’ll be right there,’ he said. As I stood by the door, I saw the captain dropping the lit match on the corpse, which immediately caught fire. At that point Nosov looked right at me: ‘I’m really fucking sick of these Muslims...’"