STALKER Northern Passage

by Balazs Pataki

A few of them wear the heavy exoskeletons of Lieutenants with their helmets off, others only a light fatigue. Only one warrior is wearing full combat armor. He is standing at the briefing board with his helmet and face mask on, his M249 slung across his shoulder. Semper Fi is written on his helmet. He stands at attention and salutes when the Colonel appears from the tower.

  “Attention on deck!”

  “As you were,” the Colonel says. He looks over his men. “Warriors, I am irritated.”

  No matter how many battles they have seen, the Lieutenants shun his eyes, ducking like schoolchildren who are about to be reprimanded for doing some mischief. Even the buzz of a lonely fly circling in the tent can be heard.

  “During the past two weeks, our patrols have been constantly harassed by hostile fire. However, this morning was the first time that we suffered losses in an ambush. Three men are dead and one vehicle destroyed because of a small mistake and a great amount of embarrassing recklessness!”

  One Lieutenant jumps from his seat and stands at attention.

  “Sir, I apologize for my men’s mistake,” he says with a gloomy look all over his face.

  “That vehicle crew consisted of idiots, Lieutenant Nelson, and got what idiots deserve. This land does not tolerate mistakes, and I even less so. Remember – for a Lieutenant of the Tribe, a mistake committed by his men is a mistake committed by himself. This applies to all of you. Am I understood?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” the Lieutenants reply.

  “Nelson, only your rank prevents me from handing out severe punishment on you. There aren’t many Lieutenants left and I prefer you falling honorably in battle than being cast out from our Tribe. You are relieved of your command and assigned to base duties until I decide what to do with you. Get out of my sight.”

  “Sir!”

  Lieutenant Nelson salutes and marches out of the tent. His disciplined walk doesn’t deceive his fellow officers. Some of them give him a look of pity, others grin in apparent agreement with his mistake being duly punished. The colonel doesn’t bother to look at the reprimanded officer and continues the briefing.

  “The only thing Nelson did right was to exterminate the ambushers. My suspicion was right: scavengers from Ghorband are behind the latest provocations. Such provocations, warriors, cannot and will not be tolerated. Additionally to the scavenger ambush, more bad news arrived this morning. The ragheads have obviously replenished their ranks after we bloodied their nose at Bagram, because they tried to infiltrate our territory from the south. Here.” The colonel points at a marker on the map. “Before we punish the scavengers, something needs to be done about this nuisance. Lieutenant Ramirez!”

  “Sir!”

  “You will assume command over Nelson’s outfit. With them and your own men, you will move to the southern approaches and establish an FOB, here.” The colonel points at a narrow valley on the map, well south of the Tribe’s stronghold. “From that position, you will scout the area and repel any hostile attempts to infiltrate our territory.”

  “I knew that Ramirez would get the shittiest task,” the Lieutenant with the cigar whispers to his neighbor who has a huge scar over his Asiatic face. “I just knew it.”

  “Yep,” his neighbor replies under his breath. “He always does.”

  Their whisper does not escape the Colonel’s attention.

  “Bauer and Trang! If you have any tactical suggestions to make, please share your wisdom with the rest of us.”

  The two Lieutenants jump from their seats.

  “Sir, no, sir!”

  The Colonel gives them one of his ice-cold stares.

  “Then keep your mouth shut until you are allowed to ask questions.”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “Good. With Ramirez keeping our underbelly secure, a strike force consisting of two assault teams lead by Schmidt and Collins will proceed to the scavenger outpost at Ghorband and secure it. Anderson’s fire support team will assist the assault teams. Together, they will form Strike Force Anaconda and stand under the joint command of First Lieutenant Driscoll.”

  Several Lieutenants frown, especially those who took part in the Tribe’s latest battle—the relief of the Stalker base when it had been besieged by their common enemy.

  “Driscoll in charge? Sounds like an excessive body count,” whispers a Lieutenant with Latino features into Bauer’s ear, who sits just in front of him.

  “You have any problem with that, Ramirez?”

  “Of course not, but is it really necessary?”

  Ramirez slowly shakes his clean-shaven, dark skinned head that bears a USMC tattoo on the nape.

  “This ain’t all, warriors. Once the scavengers at Ghorband have been taken care of, Anaconda will proceed to Bagram and put it in a chokehold. The Lieutenants in charge will personally ensure that no one and nothing gets in and out. When I see the time fit I’ll lead Task Force Boomslang, made up from the teams remaining at the Alamo, against Bagram and take it together with the task force already deployed there. Lieutenants whom I haven’t assigned a strike team will either join the squad leaders as support or stay here until we all join the main strike force. Questions?”

  A moment of silence falls over the warriors. The fly is still buzzing above their heads. Then Lieutenant Trang’s hand flits up. His fist closes and the buzz ceases.

  Bauer raises his hand.

  “Sir, what about me and my squad?”

  “You’re also assigned as reserve and to stay here in the Alamo. Use the time to intensify training the newcomers and devil pups.”

  “Sir, I—”

  “I’ve made my decision, Bauer.”

  Another Lieutenant raises from his chair.

  “Yes, Collins!”

  “Sir, we’re moving out in almost full force against the scavengers. It seems overkill.”

  “I suppose you have nothing against the Tribe stretching itself? We’ve been resting too long.”

  A few warriors laugh, but the blue eyes in Lieutenant Collins’ tanned face remain serious. Bauer, Ramirez and a few other officers nod their agreement over Collin’s concerns.

  “Nothing against a little exercise, sir, but… with all due respect, we are already overstretched as far as defending our area goes.”

  “Permission to speak freely?”

  All eyes are directed at the warrior in full armor. The Colonel nods.

  “Collins, you didn’t get the Colonel’s point. We move out to purge the western approaches from scavenger scum. If you don’t have the guts to do that – this is the time to chicken out.”

  “That’s no option, sir!”

  The Colonel resumes briefing his men. “First Lieutenant Driscoll has summed it up very well, Driscoll. We will teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget. But don’t be fooled by how pathetic scavengers are. A few weeks ago, when we saved their ungrateful asses from being kicked by the ragheads and Chinese, those among us who were there could see that the scavengers can put up hell of a fight with their backs against the wall. As the mistake made by Nelson’s men has proven again, carelessness is deadly. Overconfidence too. There is no such thing as overkill, Lieutenant Collins. Clear?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Bauer, I see you have another question.”

  “Sir! When will the Top and the witch be back?”

  “Whenever he has finished mustering the new recruits and made sure that Nooria is unharmed.” The Colonel halts his words for a moment. “You all know that I was not overly happy when my stepdaughter decided to accompany our Russkie friend on his mission. However, to put it this way: you also know that the women of the Tribe are not entirely subjects to our chain of command.” A wave of low laughter goes around among the Lieutenants. “All I could do was to order the sergeant major to keep watch over her. Until she is back, you’ll need to rely on the corpsmen assigned to your squads. Any other questions? Speak your mind, DiMatteo.”

  “Sir, we have recently received a report about a new kind of mutant. I mean, it�
��s not entirely new to most of us Lieutenants… but that they to appear over ground and in groups of three or four, definitely is.”

  Silence falls over the tent. The Lieutenants don’t smile anymore.

  “Yes, I am aware of that,” the Colonel dryly replies. “If you’d read the report prepared by Staff Sergeant Rush, you must also know that he called them smiters. One has to agree, it’s a fitting name for those walking juggernauts. I’ve already ordered Boxkicker to issue more incendiary rounds for the .50 cals on our patrol vehicles. Same applies for the squad automatic weapons and M27 rifles. You’re also advised to have at least one in every three M4 carbines mounted with a grenade launcher. Though all this is more the concern of Bauer and especially Ramirez than the rest of you who’ll move east to crush the scavengers. So far, smiters have appeared only to the south.”

  “I hate mutants, no matter what they’re called,” mutters the Latino officer.

  “That’s the spirit, Ramirez. No more questions? Make your preparations and stand by for my command. We’ll move out soon. That would be all, warriors.”

  Seeing the Colonel having finished the briefing, First Lieutenant Driscoll barks a command.

  “Ten-hut!”

  The Lieutenants stand in attention and the Colonel lets his eyes go around his most trusted officers.

  “Dismissed,” he says and lights up a cigarette.

  Followed by Driscoll, he walks off towards his headquarters in the tower.

  As soon as they have left, the Lieutenants break out in chatter over what they’ve just heard. Bauer, Ramirez and Collins leave the tent. Standing on a rampart and looking down to the cluster of neatly built stone and mud houses in the Tribe’s living quarters, they stand quietly. None of them wants to be the first to share his doubts. Ramirez offers a box of cigarettes. Eventually, Bauer draws on his smoke and begins to speak.

  “The Stalkers are dead.”

  “Leave that gung-ho bullshit for a second,” the blue-eyed warrior says. “I’m not sure it’s the scavengers behind the attacks.”

  “Those bastards this morning certainly were, Joe.”

  “Why would they attack our patrols?” asks the Lieutenant with the shaven skull. “Stalkers might be unthankful scoundrels but it just doesn’t add up. They know we can crush them easily. Why would they provoke us?”

  “The big man’s right, José,” Collins says, scrubbing his stubble as if his hand was itching. “If it had been two, three uncoordinated attacks, I’d also say it were some renegades doing crazy shit on their own. But that ain’t the case.”

  “Dunno,” Bauer says staring at his cigarette. “I’m with you about us being overstretched, Joe. The whole thing sounds to me like a good idea executed at the wrong time.”

  “That’s right, but would you tell this to the big man?”

  “The only man who could talk the Colonel out of this is the Top, and only heaven knows when he will be back. Damn!”

  “Maybe Tarasov could reason with the Stalkers,” says Ramirez.

  “It’s not about reasoning with the scavengers, José. It’s about killing them as a training exercise.”

  “And all this mess just when both of them are away!”

  “Look at the bright side,” Bauer says tossing his cigarette into the wind. “The plan is good. We take Ghorband first – that place had been a thorn in our flesh long enough. Shouldn’t be a problem. Then we wait. Maybe even the big man suspects that there’s more to these attacks than meets the eye.”

  “Good point, Charlie. Too bad I won’t be seeing any of that. If I get the same shitstorm upon my head in the southern passage like the Stalkers got at Bagram, it’s anyone’s guess how long I can hold on with everyone else gone east.”

  “Till death, or so it’s expected.”

  “Hopefully the ragheads’ deaths.”

  “Don’t worry, José. I’ll be in the Alamo. Just drop me a line if you can’t handle the situation.”

  “Don’t get too bored back here, huh.”

  “I won’t. Gonna be flirting with Saria and busily praying for you for my conscience’s sake.”

  “If you approach my woman you’ll need to pray for your dick’s sake. Saria is all fire and brimstone, hermano!”

  All three laugh. José Ramirez eventually heaves a sigh of concern. “This will be tough and I got the shittiest mission like always. Why, God why? Anyway, the big man has spoken and we follow. The Spirit be with us.”

  “It will be,” Collins says. “Let’s get ready to kick ass.”

  The three Lieutenants make fists and bump each other with their knuckles.

  13

  Motel 6 on South Garey Avenue, Pomona, Los Angeles

  Standing with his back to the wall with a cigarette in mouth, Sergeant Major Hartman appears like any ordinary guest who would enjoy a smoke on the veranda overlooking the courtyard, escaping his uninspired room.

  He stares at the pool in the courtyard and slowly shakes his head. It is vacant at this late hour but the water is still illuminated by lamps below. To him who calls a desert fortress his home the sight of so much pure water, used for nothing, is an incredible waste of one of the most precious resources.

  The room door opens and Tarasov appears. “Mind if I join you, Top?”

  “Hell no,” Hartman says and kills his cigarette in an ashtray.

  “I’m worried about the boy,” Tarasov says.

  “Giving him lots of water and cigarettes is all we can do. He’s going cold turkey.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Ain’t no time for rehab. He either manages to live without that shit or I don’t wanna know his other option.”

  “What worries me is that the kid might be a walking virus container—HIV, hepatitis and who knows what else he could’ve infected himself with.”

  “He’s all FUBAR,” nods Hartman. “That’s why we brought Nooria along. She should know how to deal with things beyond any doctor’s science.”

  Tarasov sighs. “All we can do is to wait. The first few days are the worst during drug deprivation.”

  “Your folks back in Ukraine, they too got a drug issue?”

  “You’ve got no idea. One day I caught a few of my rookie soldiers preparing stuff from painkillers, iodine and lighter fluid. They called it Krokodil. A very cheap substitute for heroin. Invented by Russians, of course. When I asked the medics about it, they were looking at me as if I came from the moon. Turned out that in the Big Land even school kids use that shit.”

  “Looks like your country too could use a big and thorough clean-up.”

  “Which place on earth doesn’t, nowadays? Anyway, about Pete… when we bring him back to the Colonel, what then?”

  “He will probably take the kid down to the Spirit to make a real warrior out of him.”

  “What? I thought I had bound it with Nooria’s stone! You know, the last gem from the big Buddha statue’s crown or whatever it was!”

  “See this wall? The rain has stopped an hour ago but it’s still moist. Same with the City of Screams – the worst might be over but the Spirit’s power still lingers around.”

  “I don’t understand. I blew the tunnels leading to those cursed catacombs. How could anyone get in there now?”

  “There’s a passage from the northern side of the hill. Only the Colonel, I and Driscoll know about it. Nooria too, of course.”

  “Gospodi…”

  “Come again?”

  “Oh my God. Anyway—now that you mentioned Driscoll, what’s the matter with him? I’ve never met a crueler man.”

  “He has been difficult to deal with even before we met the Spirit. Driscoll was the first to enter that chamber and probably got the most of it. If he hadn’t been a brainwashed jarhead like that worthless little junkie called my Marines, he would have gone mad. But our discipline… it goes into one’s nervous system. And into that of our enemies’ too, because they get very nervous when we come for them.”

  “What was his problem?” />
  “It’s a sad story. Maybe I’ll tell you another time. Anyhow, the man has a death wish, just can’t make up his mind what death he wishes for more—his own or that of our enemies. The only death he wants to avoid is that from the Colonel’s hands. It would mean the big man has lost his trust in him for whatever reason, and the Colonel’s trust is all Driscoll has. Many more of us, too. I’d say, if the Colonel was the Godfather, Driscoll would be Luca Brasi.”

  “Krestniy Otets. I know that film,” Tarasov smiles. “And who would you be?”

  “Something between Clemenza and a consigliere. I mean the Abbandando sort, not that pussy Tom Hagen with his queer hairdo. Before you ask—you could make a good Albert Neri. Pete would be Fredo, as I see him now. Glad you know that movie. It’s outstanding, simply outstanding.”

  “Pete might have a Michael Corleone in his heart. He’s got his father’s blood after all.”

  “Right now anything useful in him is hidden under thick layers of shit. We’ll peel that off, though, with a KA-BAR knife if necessary.”

  “Part of it will be to clear up at least part of the truth about his father.”

  “I doubt it will make any difference.”

  “It will, for him.”

  “Maybe. The truth about his father alone will not make him a better man. What if it does, anyway? Soon we’ll be back to the Alamo and everything will go on as it always does, who knows how long and where it will take us.”

  “You sound a bit demotivated, Top.”

  “You know, the Colonel and I have been through a lot of shit. Always living to our Code, always performing at two hundred per cent, always burying some of the Marines under our command. Always fighting with one hand tied to our back… Then we got to the City of Screams and the thin red line. You know that part already – we didn’t step, but jumped over it. You have been to the Alamo. We’ve got everything there, except booze because the big man can’t stand drunk warriors. Indeed, there is something I miss from all this.”

  “Just a little peace, maybe?”

  “Nope. Just a little treason.”

  Frowning, Tarasov looks at Hartman.

  “And a little treason is exactly what I will commit tonight,” the sergeant major replies with a wink of his eye. “Time to get my bottle of jack from the car. Dare to be my partner in crime?”

  14

  Antonov bar, Bagram

  Ashot’s bar in the derelict transport airplane is empty, safe for three Stalkers in the corner in various states of intoxication ranging from being pissed to completely smashed.

  Behind the counter where not even sober patrons could see what he is about to do, the barkeep is busily pouring the third bottle of Stolichnaya vodka into a jerry can. Then he takes the plastic tube protruding from another container, sucks on it and lets the liquid inside flow into the first one.

  Satisfied with what he is doing, Ashot starts humming a slightly altered version of his favorite Bob Marley song.

  I shot Voronin

  But I didn’t shoot no more Duty, oh no! Oh!

  I shot Voronin

  But I didn’t shoot no more Duty, oh, oh, o-oh.

  Yeah! All around in my home base,

  they’re tryin’ to track me down;

  they say they want to bring me in guilty

  for not killing everyone Duty

  for the sake of humanity.

  But I say...

  He is about to light up a joint when he hears the metallic click of a revolver being cocked. He turns around and sees Shrink at the counter, pointing a .45 Magnum at his head.

  “The man himself!” Ashot says, hiding his embarrassment behind a wide smile. “Welcome to me humble establishment!”

  “Listen up, Ashot. Me taking over this place means you’re my druggist. You better stop tampering with our best medicine.”

  “Yes yes yes, I will be the best droggist any shrink had ever had!”

  “I said: druggist. Not droggist.”

  “What you mean actually is called a pharmaceutician.”

  “No. It is called a droggist, and from now on you will sell only pure vodka.”

  “But I no make any profit on selling old Kalashnikovs, you see? Wanna ruin poor me?”

  “I will kill poor you if I catch you watering vodka ever again, is that clear?”

  “I promise! Just put that shooter away from me face!”

  Shrink uncocks the fearsome pistol and holsters it. Relieved that the new commander is not inclined to shoot him over their squabble, Ashot risks one more argument. “It’s still called a pharmaceutician.”

  “If I say it’s a druggist, it’s a druggist.”

  “You mean a pharmacist, you two morons!”

  Shrink and Ashot look to the bar where a short Stalker is impatiently drumming on the counter with his fingers.

  “Moron, you said? Who calls me a moron?”

  Frowning, Shrink is about to deliver a lecture on manners but just stares speechlessly when he sees the new arrival remove hood and balaclava. The Stalker turns out a woman with short, raven black hair.

  Ashot looks at the exoskeleton the female Stalker is wearing. He points his finger at her, opening and closing his mouth again as if trying to recall a name.

  “Yes, Ashot, it’s me. Mac.”

  “Wow, Mac! I thought you went to Stalker paradise!”

  “I almost literally did. Thank Billy I turned back just in time before the dust storm of the century hit.”

  “Ashot, could you introduce me to this… lady?” Shrink asks, still unsure over what he is seeing.

  “Oh yeah! Mac, this is Shrink. He is the new boss in Bagram!”

  “Oups,” Mac says in embarrassment. “That makes you the only moron left, Ashot.”

  “No offense taken,” Shrink quickly says.

  “—and Shrink, he—I mean, she is Mac, Yar’s apprentice.”

  “Apprentice no longer, hiding my face longer. I got bored of both. You serve food?”

  “I can give you some ‘tourist’s breakfast’ and even warm it up for you!”

  “Cold is good. It’s for Billy.”

  Ashot peers over the counter, then recoils. “No entry for jackals and pseudodogs in me bar!”

  The mutant jackal patiently sitting at Mac’s feet gives him a growl. Mac pats his furry head.

  “He’ll not bite your butt, Ashot.”

  “It’s not about biting me butt but pooping in me bar! I no will clean up radioactive mutant poop!”

  “It’s not radioactive.”

  “But it’s still smelly!”

  “All right, all right. Get out of here, Billy. Wait outside.”

  The mutant yelps with disappointment but obediently jogs out to the lowered ramp of the old airplane where he sits down like a well-trained watch dog.

  “You said the jackal warned you of an impending dust storm?” Shrink asks.

  “Billy gets very nervous when a storm comes,” Mac explains. “He can sense it, yes. Like any dog, because he is a dog.”

  “If you say so,” Shrink replies with a jovial smile. Mac returns the friendly look, apparently happy that the base commander has spared her the usual discussion over her pet’s breed. “In any case, I would say that keeping him as a pet is a reflection of your inner desire for company. Mind if I offer you a drink?”

  “I can’t believe it – at last a male with manners. Too bad I’m not much into Ashot’s poisoned sewage water.”

  “Uhm… with Bone and his Dutyers gone, at last I can serve the real stuff, see? No more water in me vodka!”

  “Let me try, Ashot.”

  “That will be twenty dollars.” With a wide smile, Ashot takes a bottle of Cossacks vodka and fills up a shot glass. “But since you are me first customer today, I’m givin’ ya a discount!”

  “And I thought the folks back at the Asylum were nutcases enough,” Shrink says shaking his head. He waves in Ashot’s direction. “What brings you to our desert airplane, Mac?”
r />   “I’m back here for the job.”

  “At last there will be again someone helping out Mister Fix-it,” Ashot says. “We can expect proper repairs now!”

  “It’s about that signal tower, actually.”

  “Yes,” Shrink nods. “From now on, PDA signals will be available to everyone. No more monopoly over communications with me in charge. Yar has already extended the signal range over a range of ten kilometers around Bagram.”

  “Yeah, that’s how I got the news.”

  “Next step is to extend it to the north where most rookies are travelling through on their way here. Do you know your way around there?”

  “You could say that.” Mac sends the shot of vodka down her throat and smacks her lips. “Much better than before. It was about time for a change of management around here!”

  “Na zdrowie, Stalker. Pour me one, will you Ashot?”

  Ashot fills another shot glass. Shrink gives its content a close look, then gulps it down, closes his eyes for a heartbeat and then emits a satisfied sigh. “See? You can serve decent vodka if you want… not as good as Zubrovka, though. So, Mac—guess you’re here to find someone to watch your back in the wilderness outside. Aren’t you?”

  “For me to watch his back, actually.”

  “Don’t gimme that look, dear! I no can leave my bar!”

  “I was just wondering why the Antonov is so deserted, Ashot. Maybe your unkempt dreadlocks scare your customers away.”

  “Just wait for the evening! Stalkers will pour in, pouring vodka down their throats and telling ya how they single-handedly finished off a pack of jackals and found dozens of Heartstone artifacts! Ya can make your pick then!”

  “I don’t need little boys with big mouths, Ashot.”

  “Judging by your pet and the F2000 you carry, you’re prepared for close quarters. Let’s see if I know someone reliable with a skill for long weapons,” Shrink says studying the Stalker’s equipment. He strokes the stubble on his chin. “Mac, you like men who talk too much?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Then an assistant of mine would be just the right choice. Calm guy, keeping his thoughts to himself if he believes it’s useless to reason with someone. Otherwise, he speaks his mind.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Got to admit I could never memorize his call sign. Something like ‘axe a little’ or ‘box a bottle’—it breaks the tongue of even a Polish. Sometimes he talks to his rifle, calling it by an even more tongue-breaking name.”

  “Sounds like a weirdo to me.”

  “I’d rather say, eccentric. For snipers it’s like an occupational disease. First I tried to heal him out of being a natural born loner, but when I saw him shooting a dushman from a distance of three hundred meters didn’t bother anymore. He’s beyond my skills. If human brains are broken watches and me a watchmaker, I’m not up to deal with a fine Swiss chronometer.”

  “Come on, boss,” Ashot says with a skeptical smile while he cleans the counter. “Maybe ya wanted to say three kilometers? Not as if I’d believe that either.”

  “Ashot, give me one more vodka,” Mac says. “I’m with you on this. With a good rifle, even a rookie could hit a target at three hundred.”

  “At pitch dark, without night vision, aiming and adjusting range only by the noise the dushman was making in the bushes?” Satisfied with the impression his words have made on the Stalker, Shrink proudly smiles as if he was the sniper himself. “If anyone of you guys do it after him, I’ll analyze you for free.”

  Ashot expresses his respect by giving a whistle. “Maybe it was him who shot that sheriff in me favorite song!”

  “Is this guy in Bagram now?” Mac asks, now much more curiously.

  “He’s up in the lookout tower. Loves to be left alone, you know.”

  Mac is about asking for another drink when Shrink’s radio set starts crackling.

  “Shrink here,” he says taking the receiver fastened to his body armor.

  “Commander, you asked me to keep calling the Asylum but I still get no copy from them.”

  “Keep calling them.”

  Shrink’s face darkens as he puts the receiver back to its holder. “It’s the Stalker manning our communications gear in the tower. Mac, there is a change of plans. I want you and that box-in-bottle find out what’s going on in the Asylum. Can you repair a radio?”

  “Sure, but do you really think the silence is because of a broken radio?”

  Looking genuinely concerned, Shrink drums his fingers on the counter. “I think of their radio being broken because I don’t dare thinking of anything else.”

  15

  Motel 6, South Garey Avenue, Pomona, Los Angeles

  Pete’s night had been a horrible one.

  Every pore in his body was screaming out for stuff. Writhing on his bed with his skin turned gooseflesh and covered with cold sweat, he didn’t even try to sleep. Every minute or so he switched the air-con on and off, pulling a blanket over to warm himself, only to tear it off himself a few seconds later because he was suffocating from heat. Realizing that he had left his notebook in the abandoned house makes him even more upset.

  Time appeared to stand still. He zapped through the TV channels with the voice down for minutes – or was it hours? He walked up and down the room, bashing and kicking the walls, cursing his father, the world, the people who came for him. The window could be opened only ajar and he found himself fighting for breath.

  Then, just like in the car before, the desire to escape was all over him again. If he could only get away, he would find a way to obtain opiates—any opiates at any price.

  He expected the door to be closed. Sneaking down the veranda and the stairs, he arrived at the vacated motel lobby and stopped at the cube ice-making machine, staring at it with an unfocused gaze. The faint blue light in the display window appeared insanely beautiful. Pete served himself one portion of ice after the other until melting ice cubes were all around his bare feet. He stepped on them, wondering why it felt like stepping on glowing coal.

  The main door too stood open, letting the smell of wet asphalt stream into the lobby. Pete looked at the street lights outside, hesitating. He wished he would be able to run but already breathed heavily. Then the call was too strong to resist – somewhere outside there had to be stuff and he had to get it.

  Pete was barely outside when someone blocked his way. He wanted to just punch him and push away, cursing, but the piercing blue eyes of the huge man in front of him made his curse turn into a whimper. I fucking hate you, Hartman was all he could utter. Hartman didn’t care to reply, just shoved him back to the motel where another shadow was coming down the stairs. Pete whimpered once again, this time in fear – the mess of red and white calluses covering the right half of the strange girl’s face appeared to squirm and twist. You must be feeling dizzy, little bother, she said. Taking Pete’s hand she lead him back to their room where she sat down in the sofa, pulling Pete closer to her until he was lying there with his head in her lap. I’m dying, Pete whispered and she replied yes you are. Then Pete felt her hands on his forehead from where she wiped off the cold sweat; her touch was soft and warm on his skin and Pete felt as if it would drain the ache off his whole body. You are dying but will be reborn, she said, caressing Pete’s forehead which perspired no longer, and he felt like sinking into a pool of darkness with redeeming sleep in its depths.

  _____________________________

  Pete awakes in his own small room where the muted TV is still on. He has no watch but the bright light falling through the window tells him that it’s late morning already.

  His throat feels parched. He takes the Dasani that someone had caringly put on the bed stand; it still tastes cool as he greedily draws on it. A drop of water falls to his chest, making him aware that he is all naked. His clothes, cleaned and by now almost completely dry, are neatly arranged on a chair.

  He quickly puts his clothes on. They smell of disinfectants and washing po
wder.

  He tries to remember the last night, unsure if all had been for real or just a nightmare. It must have been real because he feels strangely light-headed, without the aches and nausea. Maybe it was just the sleep. It was his best in a long time, though he still finds it hard to believe that he was able to sleep at all.

  Yet it all feels as if something had been taken from him; together with the thought of being virtually a prisoner, this feeling still leaves him in a dark mood.

  He opens the door but almost shuts it again, seeing Tarasov sitting half-naked in a chair with Nooria kneeling in front of him. For a second, he gazes at her amazed—it is the first time he sees Nooria without her raincoat on, and the sight of her loosened, curly hair that coats her back like a silky, chestnut-colored robe down to her waist, impresses him beyond measure. Embarrassed over having interrupted a moment of intimacy, Pete is about to step back into his room but Tarasov waves to him.

  “Come, kid. We’re almost finished.”

  Thinking wild, perverted thoughts, Pete walks up to the couple.

  “Good God!” he exclaims upon seeing what Nooria is doing. “Did you get that from Sancho’s men?”

  Tarasov looks at the wound on his chest Nooria is treating.

  “No petty thug could inflict such a cut on me. How did you sleep?”

  “Restlessly.”

  “No wonder. The Top told me you have a sleepwalking problem. Outch!” Tarasov scowls. “That wound hurts enough without you biting my nipple.”

  “Sorry, I’m just playing a little.”

  Nooria leans closer to the wound she is sewing up and bites off the yarn protruding from the stitch. “Here you go—done. You behaved very bravely.”

  Tarasov gives a long sigh of relief and kisses Nooria’s hand as she stays. She giggles, nonchalantly adjusts the jeans on her hip and wipes off a short piece of yarn from her red sweater. In Pete’s eyes, the strange couple looks as if they’d be way beyond niceties like saying thank you to each other.

  “Tea or coffee?” she asks, making her way to the kitchenette.

  “Coffee. Pete?”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Little brother will get herbal tea,” comes her reply from the kitchenette. “I prepared it myself.”

  “You better don’t contradict her,” Tarasov says with a smirk, seeing the disappointment on Pete’s face. “Sit down. Let’s have a chat.”

  “Tell me first—is she really my stepsister?”

  “Yes, she is—”

  “She looks hot in those jeans and with all that long hair.”

  “—and Nooria being my wife makes me your stepbrother-in-law. That’s our proper degree of kinship. We found it out last night with the Top over a bottle of whiskey.”

  “Geez. Could this family get any queerer than that?”

  “Let’s forget the in-law part. Just listen to me, as your stepbrother—”

  “I want to know more about her. Who is she, actually? And what happened to her face?”

  “To answer your questions I need to tell you your father’s story in a nutshell, although a cartridge shell would be more appropriate.”

  “Tell me one reason why I should be listening to that.”

  “You think I came to see Disney World, huh?” Tarasov asks with a hint of anger in his voice. “Your father saved many good people to put me in debt. Finding and telling you what I got to say is what I have to do in exchange. Better listen up, Pete.”

  “I already know his story,” Pete says with a shrug but sits down. “First he went on a killing spree with his Marines, then mutinied. Sorry if I’m not too proud of him.”

  Tarasov sighs and drums his fingers on the armrest of his chair. “First things first—you’ve been a Marine yourself and know how the drill goes about being the most badass fighting machines in the world.”

  “I call it brainwashing.”

  “During the Bush war, he struggled with the idea of fighting with one of his hands tied to his back. He believed that a brutal enemy can only be beaten by displaying the same brutality.”

  “I know where the story goes. He lost it and massacred a whole village. It’s been all over the news back then.”

  “Did you ever reflect on why it was on the news?”

  “Why should I have?”

  “Because that ambush was to provoke your father’s Marines into fighting back with full force, and staged such way that a news crew could record it from a perfect angle. It started with setting a nurse school on fire and… let’s say, abusing a girl who stood up against them. It was that girl who warned your father’s men about the bad guys. The village was destroyed in the fight. Once your troops left, the bad guys came back and littered the ruins with bodies of civilians they had killed themselves, arranged in a way to look even more disturbing on TV. That news crew paid them well—and then paid with their life too when they fell out with the terrorists over money. All that was witnessed by a shepherdess who managed to escape. It wasn’t easy, but with her help I found proof of all this.”

  “That may be so, but then they revolted. Marines! You get that? Jesus, what a fucked up war. Marines never ever revolted. They are the semper fidelis, for chrissakes! It makes me sick to think of my father being part of that! Afghanistan—fuck that place.”

  “Your father was between hammer and anvil, so to say. On one hand, he was faithful to his country and on the other, he knew that his country demanded an impossible victory from him. In his eyes, achieving victory for America was impossible because America itself prevented him from dealing with the enemy the proper way.”

  “This doesn’t give me anything.”

  “In his opinion, the war could have been won only by being fearsome and brutal because that’s the only language they understand. But he saw that whenever your soldiers behaved like that they got punished—for painting obscenities on bombs, pissing on the bodies of killed enemies, burning their bodies and ’holy’ books… As he said, to be invincible one must be feared—kill one man, terrorize a thousand. But in that war, whenever his country killed one man she apologized to ten thousand. He said, America is more afraid of judgment than her enemies and that war proved him right—in the end it was judgment that defeated his country. I’m not saying that subscribe to his point of view entirely but merely repeat his words.”

  “You Russians were less squeamish during your own war there but still got your ass kicked. How about that, huh?”

  “First, I’m not Russian but Ukrainian. Second, our ass wasn’t kicked. We were on the brink of victory when you Americans, in all your naivety, thought that anyone fighting the USSR must be a good guy and delivered Stinger missiles to the dushmans. It compromised our airborne operations which proved very, very effective until then and— ” Tarasov waves. “Oh never mind, I got carried away. Shortly after that incident, your father’s unit was sent to clean up a place called the City of Screams. It’s a ruin in the middle of nothing, called that because the Mongols massacred there a whole town several hundred years ago—”

  Nooria enters with two mugs of steaming coffee and tea, then leaves without a word. Pete sniffs at the beverage that has a dark brown color and smells of herbs. Even the vapor carries a calming effect.

  “But what’s really dreadful is what lies below the ruins,” Tarasov carries on after sipping on his coffee. “It’s a node of the Noosphere or so I believe, something that we have in our own Exclusion Zone, but this one is about pure evil.”

  “The—Noosphere?” Pete asks and wrinkles his forehead.

  Tarasov reflects for a moment. “It’s something to all humanity like a signal is to cell phones. We don’t understand its nature. Just like an ordinary user wouldn’t know much about cell phone signals. Anyway, in the New Zone, it reduces people and animals alike to their primordial instinct of aggression and mutates their souls and bodies into mere tools of such destructive instinct. It was bound by an ancient power that the bad guys destroyed in 2001. The rest is history. Your father an
d his best men were exposed to this evil but it did only partly overcome them. It pushed them over the edge though and they revolted, but were too disciplined and too loyal to each other to start killing each other.”

  Tarasov’s face darkens as he recalls his own experiences in the catacombs.

  ”Anyway, what they ultimately did was the only way to win a war in Afghanistan. Picking a loyal ally, giving it its own little land and ruling over the rest together. It doesn’t go without going native, and that’s what happened to your father and his men. It seems they’ve found a new homeland there and consider it the only place in the world where they can live with their honor intact. In the Tribe’s understanding, loyalty to a corrupted country run by self-righteous bureaucrats, lawyers and activists was corrupting their honor to which they had pledged.”

  Sergeant Major Hartman’s voice comes from the bathroom where he is singing the Yellow Rose of Texas, very cheerily and horribly out of tune. Tarasov and Pete share a grimace.

  “Strange understanding of honor,” Pete eventually says.

  “For the Tribe, it’s like religion and they deserve respect for that.”

  “And who are you, Mikhailo? By what I saw last night, I guess you’re some KGB assassin.” Pete looks into the bottom of his mug where the tea has left a strange, thick sediment. “You sure this stuff is safe to drink?”

  “Nooria’s concoctions usually are. Just don’t ask her what’s inside.”

  “What’s inside?”

  “She wouldn’t tell, just mumble something about herbs and artifact powders. They don’t call her a witch for nothing, you know?

  Pete looks puzzled. “What? Artifact powder? What the hell’s that—artifacts?”

  “You’ll see. Back to your question – there’s no KGB anymore. In my country, it’s called SBU now. I used to work for them occasionally, but now I’m just a Stalker. This stands for many things: scavenger, trespasser, adventurer, loner, killer, robber, of which I’ve been everything except for the last one. Before that, I was the commander of our troops securing the Exclusion Zone around the Chernobyl NPP.” Seeing Pete stir, Tarasov laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m not radioactive! To cut a long story short, not so long ago I was sent on a classified mission to the New Zone, as we Stalkers call what’s left of Afghanistan. One thing led to the other, and I would’ve been killed by your father’s people if it hadn’t been for Nooria’s mother – and ultimately, for Nooria.”

  “How romantic.”

  “Maybe from hindsight… anyway, the shepherdess who witnessed the set-up that framed your father was Nooria’s mother. The abused girl warning your father’s unit was Nooria.”

  “Got to admit I find her very peculiar.”

  “What’s your guess, how old is she?”

  Pete shrugs. “Don’t know. It’s difficult to judge age by such Middle-Eastern faces. My guess would be something between seventeen and twenty-five.”

  “Correct. In terms of years, she’s twenty-three. In terms of lore and wisdom, she might be a thousand or even more.”

  “Now you’re exaggerating. That’s fantasy, dude.”

  “You’ve probably noticed the tattoo on her forehead. The only similar one I’ve ever seen was on a wall painting in a room that’s been sealed for almost nine hundred years, and probably built another nine hundred years before that.”

  “Gosh! Okay, maybe I’ll let her call me her ‛little’ brother even if I’m two years older than Nooria.”

  “Yes. The girl who is now washing up our tea cups bears the wisdom of—”

  The bathroom door opens. Hartman enters with the vigor of a wild elephant, still wiping his upper body with a towel.

  “We still got some coffee left?”

  “You’re late for that, Top. Nooria has even finished doing the washing up.”

  “Too bad for me. Anyway, there’s plenty of drive-thru’s on our way. Let’s get our gear and shove off!”

  “What exactly is that Meat Market where we’ll go?”

  “You’ve been always wondering where we get our supplies from. Today you will see.”

  Nooria arrives from the kitchenette, holding her curved blade and pulling it from its jeweled scabbard.

  “Mikhailo, are you finished talking to Pete? I need to cut his hair. My brother must not look like a sister.”

  “You will not touch my hair with that weapon of mass destruction!”

  Pete is about to jump up from the sofa when the Top grabs his shoulders and pushes him back to his place. Nooria starts cutting Pete’s black hair, ignoring the cusswords he utters under his breath.

  “I always wanted to have a baby doll,” she says with a chuckle. “Now I have a baby brother. Don’t move, Pete! My knife is very sharp.”

  “Don’t cut the kid’s ears off, Nooria,” the Top replies, slowly releasing his grip on Pete’s shoulders as the youth accepts his fate. “He’s got a big enough problem listening to me already.”

  16

  Mountain range around the former asylum at Ghorband (Stalker outpost), New Zone

  In the United States Marine Corps, rifle squads usually consist of thirteen men. When the remnants of Colonel Leighley’s recon battalion rebelled and took the Hazaras under their protection, they found themselves at war with everyone around them strong enough to wield a Kalashnikov. Their stretched defense meant that single squads had to perform what had normally been a platoon’s task, and they rarely massed their forces to reach the numbers that would justify calling them a company. The Colonel had each squad commanded by one of his men who were with him in the catacombs of Shahr-i-Gholghola and became his most trusted and fierce warriors. He referred to them as his Lieutenants, regardless of their earlier ranks save for Sergeant Major Hartman. No matter what, the warriors of the Tribe hung on their past as Marines and a Marine force needs a sergeant major as much as a body needs a backbone.

  Later on, as their strength grew with recruits flown in and the martial Hazara youth beefing up their ranks, the Colonel could have refer to his units as companies and platoons but the term ’squad’ stuck. It could by now mean any force between that and company level, organized in task-force manner as the objectives require. The nature of fighting in the wilderness where small skirmishes are the norm rarely makes big operations necessary , and it doesn’t happen too often that a Lieutenant moves out with a ’squad’ of three hundred men which would more or less equal the fighting force of three rifle companies.

  Hence it is to First Lieutenant Driscoll’s great satisfaction to look over the column of Humvees and trucks carrying the three hundred men of Task Force Anaconda. The vehicles stand still on the narrow road below the hill from where he observes the Stalker outpost through his binoculars. Lieutenants Collins and Schmidt are at his side.

  “Looks like the scavengers did half our job already,” he observes.

  Though the road block at the end of the ruined village is manned by Stalkers, they appear busy looting the dozen bodies strewn around their position. Black smoke rises from behind the Asylum’s all but impenetrable mud brick walls.

  “Never seen them fighting among themselves before,” Lieutenant Schmidt says.

  “Scavengers,” Driscoll grumbles with disgust. “At least we can save some ammo. Let’s get this show on the run!”

  “Sir, there’s something weird about this.” Collins lets his own binoculars down and points to the men looting the bodies. “They look different. The bodies have the standard scavenger kit. The looters though—look, it’s trench coats.”

  Schmidt nods his agreement. “Yeah, I wonder how they could run over that place without heavy weapons. Most of them only have shotguns but those Ghorband guys were all armed to the teeth.”

  “So what? Trench coats seem to be the new scavenger fashion,” Driscoll says. “Doesn’t matter much what they’re wearing when they die. Collins, call the Gunny and let his Javelin team move up here. I want them to blast that place before the assault team moves in.”

  “
Aye, sir,” Collins replies and takes his radio set to convey the order.

  17

  Bagram, New Zone

  Mac leaves Billy at the bottom of the lookout tower and swiftly climbs the metal stairs. She is about to greet the sniper on the platform when he raises his hand, without turning back to look at her.

  “Stay behind me,” the sniper says. “We better talk like this.”

  “What?”

  “It would be like talking to myself. But if you step into my aura, we start interacting. Exchanging glances. Gesturing. It would interrupt my concentration. Besides, I already know who you are and what you are, Mac.”

  “How could you?”

  “I hear the noise your exoskeleton makes. Your voice is hoarse now it betrays that normally, it is very soft. It sounds very young, too. I’ve heard of only one young Stalker who owns an exoskeleton, because rookies cannot afford one. He was Mac, Uncle Yar’s apprentice.

  “Correct, so far.”

  “Then I can smell soap on you. You smells better than Stalkers usually do. Adding this to your soft voice, and removing from the equation the not very likely possibility of you being gay, results in the probable assumption that you are a woman.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No. Some of the best snipers in the world were women.”

  “Does anything else exist for you apart from sniping?”

  “Sure.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let’s talk about it another time.”

  “Will you tell me at least your name?”

  “Call me Ahuizotl.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Ahuizotl.”

  “What does it mean? “

  “A kind of spook, much like a ghost. Several ghosts, actually, such as the Headless Priest, the ghost dog Cadejo, or the Carreta Nahua, a wooden cart carrying chained lost souls—and some more.”

  “¿Eres de América Latina?”

  “Sí. Managua, Nicaragua.”

  “Vamos a hablar español, porque soy de Argentina.”

  “No. I prefer English if you don’t mind. I need some practice and yours is very good.”

  “Ahuizotl… For a sniper it’s a great call sign since you are supposed to be like ghosts.”

  The sniper nods.

  “Now that you know so much about me and me about you only that you’re a hardcore sniper—”

  “I preferred you saying, over the edge.”

  “—maybe it’s time to tell you what I originally wanted. Shrink wants us to pay a visit to the Stalkers in the Asylum. Their comms are down and I may need to repair it, if that’s why they don’t reply to our calls.”

  Ahuizotl shrugs. “All right. Let’s go.”

  “Just like that?”

  “The boss told us what to do and off we go. What else do you want, a farewell party?”

  “Uhm, okay. If you are ready, I am ready.”

  Mac is about to descend the ladder when the sniper scans the hills around Bagram once more. Then he fixes his binoculars to the northwest, where the road to the Salang Pass and the Asylum runs through a sparse forest.

  “Look at that, Mac.”

  Peering through the sniper’s heavy binoculars, Mac’s first reaction is to emit a surprised wow.

  “These binocs are fantastic!”

  “I know. Zoom in on that road intersection, about two kilometers from here, left from that ruined bus stop.”

  “I see—I see a Stalker. He appears wounded. And—Jesus, I see a pack of jackals just a few hundred meters away, between him and the base!”

  “He’s dead already,” Ahuizotl coldly observes.

  “Shoot those damned mutants! You are supposed to be a sniper!”

  “No. Even if all my shots were kills, there would be still enough mutants left to finish him. It makes no sense to waste precious ammunition.”

  “You are a coldhearted bastard, you know that?”

  Ahuizotl keeps watching the scene.

  “Those are not jackals!” he says but Mac doesn’t listen to him. She grasps her PDA and switches to the emergency channel that every Stalker in the range of a few hundred meters receive.

  “Wounded Stalker approaching Bagram base from the north-west. Jackals will attack him within a minute. Help! Brothers, help him!”

  After a long moment, replies start pouring in.

  “Is there a reward for risking my skin for him?”

  “Tell him to send me the coordinates of any hidden stash before it’s too late.”

  “I’m cleaning my rifle. By the time I get there he would be dead. Too bad, but the New Zone is about taking another life.”

  “If he was a good Stalker, we’ll drink to him once more!”

  Then at last Shrink’s reply comes and he seems to be the only one who cares.

  “Mac and Axe-in-a-Bottle. Get to the URAL immediately. Guards, raise that container and open the gate!”

  Praising Uncle Yar for welding the steel ladder such way that the guards can simply slide down, Mac gets down and runs to the armored truck which has a twin-barreled ZU-23 anti-aircraft gun mounted on its flatbed. Shrink has already started the engine and the truck is slowly rolling towards the opening in the container wall surrounding the Stalker base when Ahuizotl reaches it. He grabs Mac’s hand and jumps to the flatbed. Billy follows him with a huge leap.

  “Switch to your intercom!” Shrink shouts while he drives the truck through the gate. “You better know how to use that autocannon!”

  “You have no one to handle this shit?” she shouts back.

  “Of course I have! You!”

  Mac almost falls off the flatbed as the truck speeds up but Ahuizotl grabs her arm at the last moment.

  “I know how to shoot this,” he yells at her. “Hold on to the handrails!”

  Shrink accelerates the massive truck and drives straight ahead towards the intersection. The shortcut through the bushes wins them a few minutes, but also prevents Ahuizotl from firing the cannon forward where the truck’s cabin blocks the cannon’s line of fire.

  “Keep right, keep right!” the sniper shouts. “I can’t fire from this angle!”

  Ignoring him, Shrink drives the truck directly into the mutant pack. They have meanwhile sniffed out the bleeding man and move in for the kill.

  Holding tight on the handrails on the left side of the flatbed, Mac watches the pack. The canine mutants that looked like jackals from the distance are actually twice their size and boast an enormous snout with fangs as long and curved as a saber. That would make them appear fearsome enough, but their red eyes glow with a rage that is insane even for a blood-thirsty mutant.

  “These are not jackals,” she yells.

  “Told you so. It’s wolves! Shrink! Turn the truck to the right! To the right!”

  Putting his trust into the 15 tons of steel driving at full speed, Shrink attempts to run through the pack but the mutants are on their guard. The pack splits and lets the truck drive into their middle where they don’t only keep up with its speed but encircle the vehicle.

  “Mac! Keep those beasts away from us!” the sniper shouts. ”I can’t hit them at this range!”

  Mac doesn’t need to be warned: she’s already holding herself with one hand and firing bursts from her F2000 rifle with the other. On the flatbed of the speeding and bumping truck, aiming is impossible but she hopes to hit at least the mutants running up the truck before they can leap onto the flatbed. Ahuizotl has also drawn a pistol with his left hand and fires at the wolves closing in on the truck.

  “Hold on,” Shrink’s yell crackles in the headset. “We have almost reached the patient!”

  “Keep driving instead of trying to be funny!” Mac shouts back.

  At the same moment, one particularly agile mutant makes a leap and lands on the flatbed. Billy jumps at its throat but wouldn’t stand a chance against the wolf even if he were a fully grown jackal. Mac pulls the trigger, only to realize that the magazine is empty. The wolf’s mass
ive fangs are about to tear into the yelping jackal’s neck when three rounds from Ahuizotl’s pistol hit it. The mutant shakes its head, as if trying to get rid of the sudden pain, and turns on its human attacker with a growl. Billy snaps after it, his sharp teeth getting hold of the wolf’s foot and interrupting its attack. Mac puts all her strength into the kick she delivers to the drooling mutant. For a second, the red glow disappears from the wolf’s eyes. In the next moment, a long burst from Mac’s rifle tears into the wolf’s head and makes sure that it doesn’t return.

  Once more, Mac desperately grabs the handrails when the truck suddenly slows down.

  “Grab him! Pull him up, pull him up!”

  The wounded Stalker is kneeling on the ground. He looks up, and for a heartbeat Mac sees the pain on his face so clearly as if nothing else existed in the world.

  “Your hand! Day ruku! ¡Dame tu mano!” she shouts in several languages and grabs the Stalkers outstretched hand as the truck approaches him at reduced speed.

  The Stalker must have realized that his saviors will not stop and politely ask him if he needs a ride. Ignoring his exhaustion, he runs a few steps holding Mac’s hand aside the truck and then jumps. With her free hand, Mac grabs the belt on his armored suit and pulls him up to the flatbed. Then she unslings the weapon once more and starts firing at the mutants closing in.

  “Nice catch,” she hears in the intercom. “Now brace yourselves, this will be bumpy.”

  With the Stalker in safety, Shrink accelerates the truck and reaches the road embankment in a few seconds. The massive wheels tear into soft mud and toil up the steep ascent. If lifeless rubber and metal could act desperately, the wheels wouldn’t act much differently now from the Stalker who had pulled all his strength together to get into safety. Mac needs both hands to hang on and prevent herself from falling off the truck.

  By now, the wolves won’t need to be particularly to jump on the flatbed, but the asphalt road gives the truck an advantage not even the most resolved mutants can match. The truck accelerates to a speed that threatens it with falling apart, bumping over potholes and rocks amid the cloud of dust now blowing from its tires and chassis. The distance between the URAL and the wolf pack quickly grows.

  But the mutants don’t give up easily. Running at incredible speed, the quickest ones are almost catching up with the truck when at last the twin-barreled cannon starts firing. Its muzzle blinds Mac who loses any chance to effectively fire her assault rifle, but it is no longer necessary – Ahuizotl swathes their rear with short bursts from the cannon until the hard-hitting 23mm cartridges melt into an arc of fiery steel, decimating the mutants and suppressing the painful yelps coming from their scattered pack.

  In a minutes, the truck rolls through the open gate into safety. The guards have barely lowered the container blocking the entrance, and the engine is still idling when Shrink jumps off the cabin. “Is he still alive?”

  Mac glances at the Stalker she has held in her lap for the past few minutes. “Yes, he made it!”

  “Bonesetter!” Shrink yells. “Where’s the doc?”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming!”

  A round-headed man appears among the Stalkers gathered up around the truck. He is the only one unarmed and wearing only a light brown jacket, appearing almost like a civilian. He checks on the wounded man whom Mac and Ahuizotl have carefully lifted off the truck.

  “Get him into the infirmary! Do you want me to treat him here in the dust, you idiots?”

  Inside the steel containers that might have once accommodated transiting visitors when it was still an air base, the Stalker is laid on one of the dozen makeshift surgery beds. Bonesetter cautiously removes his torn body armor. Two gun shots have penetrated the body armor but the integrated Kevlar plates have absorbed much of the impact, turning what would have been deadly into painful, but non-lethal flesh wounds.

  “Our Asylum—Ghorband is fallen,” the wounded men mutters. “It was overrun. All dead!”

  “What? Overrun? By whom?” Shrink’s face turns pale. “Mutants? The Tribe? Speak up, Stalker!”

  The Stalker sighs as the effect of the painkillers administered by Bonesetter begins to set in.

  “No. Bandits. They came out of nowhere and slaughtered everyone—I was returning from an artifact hunt and all I could do was to seek cover, stay put and watch how they looted the place… The Bandits saw me. I had to run away—”

  “Bandits? There are no Bandits here!”

  The Stalker tries to lean up from his bed. Apparently angered about Shrink not believing him, he grabs his arm and pulls him closer. “I have seen enough Bandits in the Zone to recognize not one but dozens of them.”

  “Shrink, you know the drill,” Bonesetter calmly says. “He needs rest. You have heard enough for now.”

  Shrink grazes his stubble. “Bandits? Then we should have left this sucker to his fate. There’s no need to piss off Bandits if they show up here!”

  “Who said that?”

  A Stalker steps forward. Shrink narrows his eyes and opens the folder of incoming messages on his PDA.

  “Is there a reward for risking my skin for him? Vaska Bulldog, did you send this message?”

  “Uhm, yes. Why?”

  Shrink’s blue eyes sparkle with anger. “Because you need some cowardice management, Stalker.”

  He gives Vaska Bulldog a head-butt and the selfish Stalker collapses with a yell of pain.

  “That’s a lesson for all of you,” Shrink says. “This is our base now. A Stalker base. We will not let each other down, neither will we let ourselves be bullied by thugs in ridiculous trench coats. We will fight whatever the New Zone throws at us. If anyone disagrees—he can join Vaska on his way to the wilderness. He is cast out and shall never again set his foot in Bagram!”

  The Stalkers gathered in the infirmary look at each other. Some faces lighten up upon hearing their new leader speaking. Others frown, thinking that they might be drawn into a conflict interfering with their plans of staying out of any trouble. But no Stalker sides with the humiliated coward who is moaning on the floor.

  Shrink nods. “That’s what I thought. All right, men, let’s Bonesetter do his job. Mac, Box a Little – you spread the warning about Bandits in the northern approaches. Uncle Yar and the rest of you—prepare the defenses. Dima Toad, Mishka Bear – on me. You are old Ghorband hands and will be my first assistants. Let’s prepare the defenses! Those bastards won’t catch us with our pants down!”

  The sniper shakes his head as he watches Shrink leave the infirmary with his Stalkers.

  “It’s Ahuizotl,” he sighs. “Not Axe-in-a-Bottle or Box a Little.”

  Mac gives him a pat on the shoulder. “Cheer up, hermano. Not everyone can be called Mishka Beekeeper!...”

  18

  Ontario Freeway, California

  “Never believed I’d ever see a road sign for Las Vegas,” Tarasov says as their Jeep takes exit 58A from Interstate 10E and merges into the heavy morning traffic on Ontario Freeway.

  “We’ll leave the freeway long before Vegas. In exchange you’ll have a glimpse of AFB Andrews,” Hartman replies. “Not as if you could see much from the distance.”

  After thirty miles they take an exit toward Adelanto and continue northward on Three Flags Highway.

  “Love this landscape. Reminds me of the sandbox. The New Zone, as you call it,” the Top says with a reference to the Afghan wilderness. “Wide and open. Makes me feel free… Doesn’t look it like home, Nooria?”

  “I miss our valley, Top.”

  Hartman takes a bottle of mineral water from the holster and draws on it. “Where we’re going is as close to the Alamo as it gets.”

  “Must be some secret boot camp where you brainwash perfectly normal kids,” Pete grumbles.

  “You almost got that right, kid. Almost.”

  “Guess we’ll meet a bunch of rednecks with a vocabulary limited to Semper Fi and gimme a mag, oorah.”

  “Listen, kid—instead
of making us aware every minute how miserably you feel about us, give me your MP3 player. I prefer listening to music than your moaning.”

  “Don’t think you’ll like my tracks,” Pete says handing over his iPod to the Top. “You’ve been warned.”

  “You have any Metallica?”

  “Metallica was yesterday.”

  “Say that again and I’ll throw you out of my car.”

  “You ever heard about Slayer? Songs like Raining Blood or Have no Mercy?”

  “Nope, though the titles sound promising. Mikhailo, plug it in, will you?”

  “Pop up the volume,” Pete says. “I want to see the pain in your face, Sergeant Major.”

  The Top begins to grin and pat the rhythm on the steering wheel. Pete sees Nooria and Tarasov sharing a tortured grimace in the rearview mirror.

  “Slayer,” he says with a shrug. ”You’ve been warned.”

  “That was enough,” the Top says. “Switch it off.”

  Tarasov gladly complies.

  “Told you wouldn’t like it,” Pete triumphantly says.

  “Son, this stuff makes me want to drive with at least a hundred and fifty but speed limit is sixty-five,” the Top replies. “Pedal to the metal and a highway patrol will be on us in a second. We can’t risk that now. Let’s have something more relaxed.”

  “I don’t have any music you’d find relaxing.”

  “Then let’s just stay quiet.”

  “Good idea,” Nooria observes.

  A mile after the featureless town of Red Mountain, the Top takes a turn to the right, following a road going straight on a dull plain. Reddish brown hills loom in the distance beyond the mirage, making Tarasov wonder if the Tribe had chosen this wilderness for its similarity to the Afghan landscape.

  Expecting some kind of military base, he is surprised when the Top steers off the road and halts at a one-story building with three gas pumps in front of it. The place must have been abandoned for quite some time, because shrubs have grown around the pumps and the windows of the building are boarded. Nonetheless, he notices tracks left by dusty wheels on the broken tarmac, telling of recent visitors.

  “You have seen America’s worst yesterday,” the Top says releasing his safety belt. “Today, you’ll see her best.”

  “You got to be kidding,” Pete says. “This is a bikers’ bar! But where are the bikes?”

  “Look at them,” says Tarasov noticing the door swing open and two stoutly built men step out. They wear desert fatigue but no armor or weapons. “I’ll be damned if I haven’t met those guys before.”

  “Any hard feelings towards the Brothers, Mikhailo?”

  “Strange. I’m actually kind of happy to see them again.”

  The Top switches off the engine. Before opening his door, he gives Tarasov a serious glance.

  “You have no idea how much trust we place in you by letting you come here. You are our friend, but should the Ukrainian soldier inside you suddenly wake up and do some funny Spetsnaz stuff, or should you ever, wherever and for whatsoever reason get lose-lipped on what you’re about to see—I will kill you myself.”

  “That’s fair enough, Top.”

  “I’m deadly serious. Do we have an understanding about this, Major Tarasov? Because bringing you here means I vouch for you, and by trusting you I risk my honor.”

  “You have my word as an officer that I won’t disclose anything about this to anyone, Sergeant Major Hartman.”

  “If that was enough for the Colonel, it’ll suffice for me as well. Let’s go.”

  The Top marches to the abandoned bar with huge steps that are difficult for even Tarasov to keep up with. The two men – one with a red beard, the other with sky-blue eyes – stiffen their stance as he approaches.

  “Good to see you again, sir!” the blue-eyed man greets the Top.

  “I hate it when my sergeants grin at me as if I were Miss November,” the Top replies. “Both of you no-good pranksters, follow me.”

  The guards open the door and let the Top enter the bar.

  “Hello, Spetsnaz,” the blue-eyed guard whispers to Tarasov with a wink of his eye.

  “Sergeant Polak! How do you and Brother Hillbilly like this view?”

  “Dust and sand, sand and dust. Feels like home.”

  “I’m lovin’ it,” Hillbilly ads.

  “Zip it, Sergeant,” the Top snaps. “You make me feel hungry.”

  With the two sergeants in tow, the Top moves directly to the bar where a young man wearing civilian clothes is waiting. His stubbed hair and USMC tattoo on his strapping arms tells enough of his real background. He nods his head in respect to the Top and opens a lid on the counter. A palm-reading device appears. The Top places his hand onto it. A green beam runs down the screen. After a minute, the noise of several heavy locks being disengaged comes from a door with a RESTROOM sign. It slowly opens and what appeared an ordinary door reveals itself as a metal gate fit for guarding the vaults of a bank.

  “Close down the place and follow me.”

  The fighter acknowledges the command with a nod and presses a button under the counter. Heavy, bullet-proof shutters descend and bar the light beams falling in through the wooden planks covering the windows. With the bar darkened, a blue glow emanating from behind the steel door becomes visible.

  They all follow the Top who marches down a staircase. It takes several turns and leads deep below ground level, ending eventually in a narrow corridor. Another massive door is at its far end.

  The Top presses a button on a metal plate fastened to the concrete wall. A pleasant but resolute female voice sounds from the speakerphone above.

  “Voice check. Say the password.”

  “Tarawa,” Hartman replies.

  “Voice check successful. Welcome, Sergeant Major. Now identify the three elements you have with you.”

  “I vouch for Major Mikhailo Tarasov on the Colonel’s orders. The other one is Corporal Peter E. Leighley, USMC. Last but not least, it’s the witch.”

  “Please repeat.”

  “Yes, you heard it well enough, Second Lieutenant Stone. It’s the big man’s son and Nooria. Let us in at last, unless you want to remain an usher for the rest of your life!”

  The metal door slowly slides open. No matter what Tarasov and Pete might have expected, what they see is just a large room with yet another door at the far side. It is guarded by three warriors armed with M-4 carbines and wearing the Tribe’s sand-colored combat armor. A brunette female officer steps forward and performs a perfect salute.

  “Sir! Second Lieutenant Stone reporting, Sergeant Major, sir!” “Stop screaming into my ear, Stone, I ain’t deaf,” Hartman replies. “I want to see the list of recruits.”

  “Sir!”

  Tarasov frowns. The respect the apparently senior officer shows to the sergeant major, who is after all below her rank, again reminds him of the unorthodox pattern of life in the Tribe. If the old saying of one saluting the rank and not the man is true, it certainly goes the other way round in the Tribe.

  They are led into a cavernous, round room that buzzes with life. A round computer terminal is located in the middle, manned by a man in civilian outfit. Soldiers in fatigue appear busy everywhere – two fixing one of the many neon lights illuminating the hall, another driving a trolley loaded with open crates holding strange machine parts, while others tend to the devices that cover almost every inch of the concrete walls. With all the gauges and pipes running along the walls and under the ceiling, the place appears like a submarine being prepared for leaving port. This impression is even strengthened by a massive metal door at the far end of the hall. It appears as if it could withstand even a nuclear blast.

  When Tarasov gives one of the machines a closer look, he realizes that what looks like an old-fashioned computer actually is one—built probably decades ago but still in perfect condition, even though they appear to be no longer in use. In contrary, the computers on the central terminal appear as state of the art as it get
s with their large flatscreens displaying maps and muted news channels. He is surprised to see that the screen closest to the technician manning the terminal has a chat channel open.

  “What the hell is that guy doing on AK47.com?” Pete asks. “And what’s this place, anyway? An old stage set for Starship Enterprise?”

  Taking a sheet of paper from the Second Lieutenant, the Top goes through the long list of names printed on it. “Outstanding… outstanding.”

  “Sir… permission to speak freely, sir?”

  “Speak your mind, Stone.”

  “Sir, during the last recruitment you promised me an assignment to the Alamo. I want to fight our enemies at last!”

  “Forget it. Are the recruits ready?”

  “Sir, the first dozen recruits are already lined up.”

  The Top ignores the disappointment in the female officer’s voice.

  “Let me see them. Sergeant Polak, Sergeant Hillbilly, you know the drill.”

  “Sir!”

  “I’m going to see the recruits. You guys can join me if you wish,” Hartman tells his companions.

  Following the ’brothers’, Hartman enters a smaller room where a dozen of young men are lined up in the middle. Judging by the fitness machines pushed into the corners to make space, the room serves as a gym and the faint smell of sweat tells that it is intensely used on other days.

  The recruits are lined up in the middle of the room, with their backs to two closed doors where Polak and Hillbilly stand.

  “Ten-hut!”

  All men stand stiff when Hillbilly barks the command to stand still and the Top enters the room. It becomes instantly obvious who among them had ever served in any armed force.

  Hartman looks over the men. “At ease. In the Tribe, they call me Sergeant Major Elliott Hartman. For you dewy-eyed manchildren my name is Sir Yes Sir. I don’t care about knowing your name, because for me you are nothing but raw meat and raw meat has no name. The Tribe, my Tribe will be the meat grinder that will break your bones, squeeze your flesh and turn you miserable manchildren into warriors. And then, maybe, I say: maybe one day you’ll have the unequaled honor of calling our Colonel your leader.”

  The Top looks around at the men.

  “You look like a bunch of parasomniacs who in their sleepwalk got to the wrong place. Let me make one thing clear – you are about joining my Tribe. You can still change your mind. If you’re getting cold feet over it, now’s the time to leave.”

  Seeing that nobody moves, the Top carries on.

  “Looking at your bunch of baby-faced manchildren, I’m sure only very few of you will actually make it. Those who do will leave everything behind. You will forfeit everything about your pathetic life outside – social security numbers, passports, nationality, family ties. You will disappear from this world. Once you join us, there will be only the Tribe and we want men who want nothing but the Tribe. Your umbilical cord will be cut for a second time and I will be the Ka-bar slashing it. By the time you will make a Tribe warrior, you will forget about alcohol – you will get drunk on our enemies’ blood. You will forget about hamburgers because you will eat the meat of mutants you kill…”

  “Such a liar,” Pete whispers to Tarasov. “As if he wouldn’t be burger addicted.”

  “Can’t blame him,” Tarasov breathes. ”They do eat mutant meat over there.”

  “The thought makes my stomach turn.”

  “It’s not so bad. Nooria knows some good recipes.”

  “…and you will forget about TV because the glorious shine of swags will make you forget about your hopeless little screen. Do you think you are up to it?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “Even a litter of starving desert mice sounds more convincing!”

  “Sir yes sir!”

  “I don’t want to waste more of my Tribe’s precious time on you manchildren, so let’s get this over as soon as possible. You! First in the line from the right! Step forward!”

  “Sir!”

  The first recruit to be mustered is a brawny, young Caucasian male with a shaved head, wearing fatigue leggings and a white t-shirt.

  “Why do you want to become a Tribe warrior?”

  “I want to kill sandniggers, sir!”

  “That’s good for a start, but exactly why do you want to kill sandniggers?”

  “I hate’em, sir!”

  “Why do you hate sandniggers?”

  “For everything, sir!”

  “In particular?”

  “Nine-Eleven, sir!”

  “And what about the cholos?”

  “I hate’em too, sir!”

  “All of them?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “And what would you do if you are given an order by a Lieutenant called Ramirez?”

  “Follow it, sir!”

  “What would you say if a black gunny called Anderson asked for your helmet to puke in it?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “I’ll give you a chance to prove that. Left door!”

  The recruit turns around. He is about to walk to the door guarded by Brother Polak when the Top sees a tiny double-8 tattooed on the recruit’s nap.

  “Back to me, double time!” he shouts.

  When the bald recruit stands still in front of him once more, Hartman grabs his tee shirt and tears it off him. The recruit’s bare skin reveals a huge swastika tattooed over his heart.

  “What the fuck do you think that is, manchild?”

  “The sign of the brotherhood of all white men, sir!”

  “Wrong! It’s a sign saying ‘watch out, asshole approaching’! It’s stinking skin disease! A disgusting birth defect! I’ve no need of mouth-breathing, basement-dwelling, white supremacist scumbags in my Tribe! Get outta my sight and take the right door!”

  Brother Hillbilly opens the door and follows the failed recruit out of the recruiting hall. The door shuts behind him. After a few seconds, the sergeant is back and resumes guarding the door, standing at ease but with a face as hard as cast iron. Meanwhile the Top steps to the next recruit, a thin youth with a pale face, and gives him a stern look.

  ”Give me twenty push-ups, manchild!”

  The recruit eagerly assumes a prone position on the floor and starts doing push-ups. His breathing becomes heavier with each push. At the eighth his arms begin to tremble. When it comes to the twelfth he gives up and stays prone.

  “Get up,” Hartman sneers. “Who the hell has let you into my recruiting hall? Or did you got lost on the interstate on your way to Disneyland?”

  “No, sir!” the recruits replies. He has sweat all over his blushing face.

  “Where do they breed such a miserable stock of fish-eyed half-human beings like you?”

  “Sir, I am from Iowa, sir!”

  “You lie! The Hawkeye State would never produce such a walking inventory of failed genetic experiments! You better come up with a super-convincing reason about why you want to join my Tribe!”

  “I hate Iowa, sir!”

  “And what’s your problem with the great and noble state of Iowa?”

  “It is boring, sir! The whole US of A is boring, sir!”

  Hartman glances at the list of recruits in his hand. “Your file says you’re a nerd. Can you hack computer networks?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Can you repair equipment like an RQ-11 Raven small unmanned air vehicle?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Then how the hell did you get into my recruiting hall?”

  “I… it was a mistake, sir! I want to go home!”

  “Let me see your hand!”

  The Top pulls a bank note from his pocket and puts it into the recruit’s palm.

  “Here’s ten bucks, go and get yourself a discount video game. We are going to war and war is not about entertaining bored adolescents! Right door!”

  The Top steps to the next recruit, a young black man with a thousand yards stare. He apparently makes a better impression on Hartman because h
e doesn’t start addressing him with an abuse.

  “I loved the way you stood at attention. Tell me you practiced it in your mother’s dress room mirror and I’ll cry in disappointment! Do you want to make me cry?”

  “Sir! No, sir!”

  “What’s your story?”

  “I was with 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Infantry Regiment, sir! Honorably discharged after Operation Whiskey Hotel, sir!”

  “Never heard of it. What was it about? Bringing democracy to Belgium or what?”

  “Sir! Not at liberty to say, sir!”

  “Are you at liberty to tell me the ranger motto?”

  “Sir! Rangers lead the way, sir!”

  “And what’s wrong with that?”

  “I… We all have lost the way, sir!”

  “Outstanding! You have a good take on how things are going in this country. Name?”

  “Foley, sir!”

  “Rank held?”

  “Sergeant, sir!”

  “What do you think of becoming a meaningless green private in boot camp once more?”

  “Sir! In the Tribe – yes, sir! Proudly, sir!”

  “You’re aboard, Foley. Haul ass to the left door!”

  The sergeant major seems to be in his element as he rants at the hapless recruits. Tarasov soon gives Nooria and Pete a sign to follow him out.

  “Guess this might still take a while,” he tells the female officer outside.

  “Is there something we can do around here till he’s finished abusing those who were stupid enough to volunteer for it?” Pete asks.

  Second Lieutenant Stone gives him a disapproving glance. “Yes. You are free to move around in the base. And it’s an honor to meet you, uh, sir, but watch your tongue. Even if you are the Colonel’s son. We don’t like being insulted.”

  “But, I mean…”

  Tarasov gives a mental nod to the Second Lieutenant for reprimanding the cynical kid. “Is there a restroom where the kid and Nooria can have a chat?”

  “You must mean the recreation room,” Stone says with a little smile. ”It’s signposted. Follow that corridor to the left.”

  “And what’s behind that blast door?” Tarasov curiously asks pointing at the massive door that had caught his attention earlier.

  “Care to see?” Stone asks and turns the iron handles to unlock the door. It opens surprisingly softly. Following the wave of Stone’s hand, Tarasov enters the room beyond.

  He recoils. A sudden sense of dizziness comes over him as he looks down into the circular, deep shaft gaping ahead.

  “Once a Minuteman-II intercontinental ballistic missile was standing here, always ready to deliver a nuclear warhead to Moscow. Maybe Kiev or Leningrad, whatever.”

  “A W56 warhead with a yield of 1.2 megatons of TNT, to be exact,” Tarasov says under his breath. “Sixty times Hiroshima.”

  “Yeah. A real whizbang! This silo stood abandoned for decades. It’s listed as dismantled and filled up with concrete in official papers. We’ve made a few tech upgrades to the silo and the bunker complex around it and moved in. Ain’t nuclear disarmament great?”

  “One of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind.”

  “Agree. Imagine if it would go on…”

  “That would be truly great.”

  “Yes. All those missile silos in the States becoming abandoned!… We could take over a few more and then have the whole country covered by a network of bases!”

  “That would be… outstanding. Thanks for the tour, but let’s now get out of here. I feel kind of dizzy.”

  Stone closes the door. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

  Tarasov nods agreement. “How do you finance all this?”

  She reflects for a moment. “See… since the Top is vouching for you, probably there’s no harm in telling you that from time to time we receive a shipment of swags from the Alamo.”

  “Must be big artifacts… I mean, swags. At least big shipments if you can afford all this.”

  “The last shipment weighed more than fifteen tons.”

  Tarasov almost jumps hearing this. “What? Fifteen tons of artifacts?”

  “Yes, that was a big shipment. Usually, we receive only about ten-eleven tons of various swags every three weeks or so.”

  “And you spend the incredible wealth you make from artifacts on buying weapons, hiding in this missile bunker here and in your fortress in the New Zone?”

  “Yes,” Stone says with a smile. “For the time being.”

  “I’ve seen all kinds of desperate men wanting to join your ranks, but with all due respect – what does a charming, intelligent, young woman like you do here?”

  “Sir – I might be young, charming and intelligent but not the kind of woman you take me for. I am a Second Lieutenant in the Tribe and privileged to keep up our Code of Honor, Courage and Commitment against all odds in the world. And if all my wealth were a dime, I’d gladly give it away to support our cause and follow the Colonel’s call!”

  Although Tarasov can only guess what a dime means, he is well impressed by the Second Lieutenant’s dedication to the Tribe, even though she was obviously not among the Colonel’s Marines who turned into fanatic warriors after being exposed to the evil beneath the City of Screams. Not for the first time, he wonders whether his own defection had also been induced by that evil. Being used for bait to expose a general gone traitor, implicitly sacrificing him and his men, would have tested the loyalty of any officer; but what he really feels he betrayed is not Ukraine, even less so its army. It is the Exclusion Zone. Nooria, who appears to him as if she were holding all the mysteries of the New Zone in her dark green eyes, always had been a reasonable justification for his decision. Yet something keeps nagging at his conscience and now stirs up a sudden wave of homesickness.

  “I have a PDA on me. Is there a facility where I could download messages?”

  “Staff Sergeant No-Go can help you with that.”

  “Staff Sergeant—who?”

  “Not Hu. Ng, but we call him No-Go. He should be at his terminal over there. Only leaves his computers alone when he needs going to the restroom.”

  “His name is… what?”

  “Hiu Ng. Joined us all the way from Taiwan.”

  “I see. Thanks for the tour, Second Lieutenant.”

  The female officer nods and gives Tarasov a respectful glance but gives him no salute when she hurries off.

  He walks to a horseshoe-shaped workstation with large computer screens, several laptops and desktop PCs. A short Chinese man is sitting behind them on a huge chair. Despite his thin eyeglasses, No-Go doesn’t look at all like Tarasov would imagine a computer freak—the lean face and sinewy, tattoed arms rather remind him to a kung-fu fighter. With all the screens and computers around his workstation, he appears like a Bruce Lee who by some mistake wandered into the set of a science-fiction movie.

  “Staff Sergeant… uhm, No-Go, I need logging on to a special server in Ukraine through my PDA,” Tarasov says.

  “What does it have apart from a router and firewall?” No-Go replies barely looking up from a disemboweled PC he is mending. “VPN, IPS?”

  “Come again?”

  “I’ll need a little time to snuffle around before I can hack into a server, you know?”

  “No need for that. I still have my password.”

  “Oh.” No-Go sounds disappointed. “Help yourself. There’s an USB hub – plug and play!”

  “Is that a secure connection? I mean, can it be tracked?”

  “Course it can be. The question is what they find.” No-Go leaves the gutted computer alone and takes a wireless keyboard. He appears like a musician who’s about to play a challenging piece on piano knowing that it’s well within his abilities.

  “If they try to nail the guy who made the call, a clueless geek somewhere in Beijing will be in for a surprise… look! I can see him hosting a guild party in World of Warcraft right now… geez, not only that. Seems like he’s running a gold far
m! Damned cheaters… Now give me just ten minutes and all that gold will be mine, only mine!”

  No-Go starts tapping his keyboard with fingers telling of routine.

  “By the way, I presume it was you who provided us with Pete Leighley’s police file. Thanks, we would’ve never found him without that.”

  No-Go sneers. “LAPD… gimme a break. We had police servers for breakfast before LulzSec got busted… oh yeah, those were the times!”

  Tarasov logs on to the server of the Ukrainian military storing the messages during periods of an officer’s PDA being switched off. Back at the Tribe’s stronghold he did it a couple of times already, wondering if his old account is still available because the military hasn’t given up hope on his return. Knowing how things are run back in the army, sheer negligence is his other guess.

  Intended for short periods during missions in locations where there’s no signal or during a leave, the log stores only messages from senders whom Tarasov or the system automatically has flagged as important. Now, after almost two months of absence, Tarasov is glad for this feature. It spares him the trouble of going through dozens of outdated emission warnings and status reports.

  “Promotion to Lieutenant Colonel denied,” he reads out one of his messages, shrugging. “Looks like Degtyarev’s influence does have its limits after all.”

  Most of the news is about usual events in the Exclusion Zone: supply lists, mission reports from his former comrades like Freedom patrol sighted at Pig Farm, Dark Valley. Area secured. 2 KIA. Lt. Priboi. A few Stalker warnings about mutant sightings.

  All seems quiet in the Zone. Seeing how life went on without him, Tarasov is disappointed. The messages almost make him feel as if he were dead and looking back from the afterlife to the world of the living where he is no longer needed. Not even the thought of his impending return to the New Zone can cheer him up.

  Only three messages are interesting. A report by a junior Duty commander shared with the military tells of an increased number of Bandits appearing. Strangely enough, they seem to avoid any confrontation with free Stalkers and other factions. The other two come from the same sender— Strelok.

  Condor. Heard about your mission. Whenever you get back, come and see me. Back in my days I found something in X-18 that I want to show you now. Doctor and Barkeep are still reliable. Look for me in the Bar. Avoid Sidorovich.

  The second, sent only a few days ago, makes Tarasov frown.

  Condor. Got the SBU on my tail. Need your help. Hurry.

  “Wow, yes! I’m rich!” No-Go shouts and thrusts his fist into the air, triumphantly. “All I have to do now is to re-route the server—hey, why so serious? Bad news?”

  Tarasov reads the messages again, carefully. “Strange… first, an old friend says he has something important to talk about. A few days later, he says he’s in trouble and needs my help.”

  “Who’s that guy?”

  “An old friend, one of the last ones I still have in the Exclusion Zone.”

  No-Go’s smart eyes wink behind his glasses.

  “Let me know if there’s a change in your itinerary, okay? I’ll need to book your tickets, you know…”

  “I need a moment to think this through. By the way – are you allowed to play video games all the time?”

  “It’s part of my job.” Seeing Tarasov’s surprise, No-Go carries on. “Smaller part, though. The bigger part is monitoring YouTube and some forum threads—AR15.com, Marines.com and so on. Facebook too, of course.”

  “How come?”

  “Ever since the Bush wars, why do you think the bad guys were allowed to post hate videos showing our guys being blown up by IED’s, and worse? The NSA and all the other spooks were watching. As soon as Mahmud and Rashid started to praise those vids, the spooks ID-d them through their IP address and put them under surveillance. Extremist sites—ditto.”

  “And?”

  “We do the same, just looking at it from another angle. If Jack or Joe starts ranting about killing all the baddies, we flag them, check them, and if they seem to be clear Judging by their net traffic, we reach out for them.”

  “There was a kid among the recruits. Fond of computers, apparently. Did you find him like that?”

  “You must be meaning the all-American Counterstrike champion.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Never mind, someone like you wouldn’t like it anyway. Though it made that kid a fucking millionaire. What door did the Top send him through?”

  “The right one, I think.”

  The hacker’s face darkens. “Uh-oh.”

  “Why?”

  “Well… anyway… so, as you see, our recruiting methods are much more efficient than Uncle Sam pointing his finger at you from a poster. But it’s just one part – there’s also the NRA, Probation Service, veteran and suicide help lines, Alcoholics Anonymous… lots of good people who’d get lost for the right cause without us.”

  “All this must be top secret but you tell me everything without a second thought. How come?”

  “The Top vouching for you makes you almost one of us.”

  Although he is still curious about what this means, Strelok’s messages overwhelm Tarasov with desire to return to the Exclusion Zone. He is so much lost in his thoughts that he almost walks into Harman as he exits the recruiting hall.

  “I see you are impressed by our little base, Major!”

  “Net, ya… I mean, uhm, yes… You done with recruiting?”

  “Twenty-four out of thirty-six. Good catch. Even got a Canadian and an kiwi among them. Outstanding stock.”

  “Top, I saw and heard things I was probably not supposed to. Everyone kept telling about you vouching for me. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Follow me. I need you to see something.”

  The Top opens a door. As soon as they enter the dark room behind it, an almost blinding light is switched on. A striking red stripe on the ceiling catches Tarasov’s attention. Then, as he looks down, a ghastly cry escapes him.

  “Gospodi… it’s the recruit’s you’ve rejected! All dead!”

  “Here they lie, one by one finished off by Sergeant Hillbilly’s silenced Beretta 92. They enter the room through that door from the recruiting hall. Light goes up and they instinctively look up to that red area on the ceiling, just like you did – and are dead before hitting the floor. A head jolting backwards makes for a perfectly clean headshot.”

  “That’s horrendous!”

  “Necessary, too. Now you know to what lengths we go to keep this place secret. We don’t want anyone talking about this base to the wrong person, be it for revenge or frustration over not being chosen. Though I feel kinda sorry for this kid here.” Hartman takes his ten dollars from the hands of the dead Iowa youth.

  “No-Go said he was a millionaire,” Tarasov dryly observes.

  Hartman shrugs. “So what? He was too weak to hold even a combat knife. I gave him a chance and asked if he has any skills we need. Well, he hadn’t. I’m tellin’ you, Major, if all these nerd types would make ten push ups every half an hour they spend video gaming or downloading porn we’d live in a better world. Anyway, you’re alive to see all this – that’s what vouching for you means.”

  Tarasov is relieved when they leave the room. “I supposed you don’t have any alcohol in here.”

  “We don’t but you can have a fix of caffeine. Hillbilly, Polak! Don’t stand there supporting that wall, it won’t collapse without you leaning against it. Show our friend to the next coffee machine and make sure he gets a real one. He’ll put his finger inside and if it doesn’t burn his skin off, I’ll get you reprimanded!”

  “Aye, sir!”

  “There’s something we need to discuss, Top!” Tarasov says.

  “Later.”

  Hartman hurries off. Brother Hillbilly gives Tarasov a gloomy smile.

  “Our coffee recipe is classified beyond top secret but since the Top vouches for you, probably you can have one.”

  �
��Only if no one gets hurt in the process,” Tarasov replies.

  “Depends on who’s drinking it,” Brother Polak says as they walk down a narrow corridor. “It’s not for the faint at heart.”

  “You know what that Scottish guy keeps telling me? That back in Somalia he once killed a whole bunch of skinnies with his coffee. Made it so strong that they got a heart attack.”

  “Come on, Brother Hillbilly. I’m not buying that.”

  He courteously opens a door to Tarasov and they enter a small, undecorated room where a few plastic chairs are the only sign of comfort. There is a chromed espresso machine on a table next to the wall that is decorated with an NRA poster. Tarasov finds the smell of freshly boiled coffee more than relaxing, as well as seeing Nooria and Pete sitting there. The Colonel’s son has a grin all over his face.

  “That thing looks like a spaceship from an old sci-fi flick but makes decent coffee. Help yourself,” Brother Polak says. “We need to do a little clean-up after the recruiting. If you miss our company, we should be back soon. We’ll both deserve a cup of good coffee afterwards, don’t we Brother Hillbilly?”

  “You bet, Brother Polak. I hate that part of the job.”

  “Let’s get that shit done.”

  Tarasov steps to the espresso machine. “I haven’t got the faintest idea how to use this.”

  “Let me help you,” Pete says getting up from his chair. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, why?”

  “You’re looking like shit.”

  “It’s just that the Top reminded me of what the Tribe is about, actually.”

  “And? What is it about?”

  “The best people I have ever known doing the greatest evil I have ever seen to achieve something that’s beyond my comprehension.”

  “I’ll need another coffee to understand even half of what you just said.”

  “Suffice to say, your father holds the greatest imaginable power over people on this planet. God have mercy on him if his power ultimately turns into evil. I’m afraid he has no soul anymore, though… unless you give it back to him.”

  Pete chuckles. “Sounds like mission impossible. Though he used to be normal once… I think I can faintly remember him petting a dog twenty years ago.”

  “What have you two been doing?”

  “Being bored to death. My only entertainment is to see the self-proclaimed saviors of America hiding in this concrete warren like a bunch of rabbits.”

  “Soon you’ll see them from a different angle, Pete… Thanks, that much coffee should be enough.”

  “Are we going back?” Nooria asks, barely able to conceal her hope for a positive answer.

  “Yes, Nooria… but we’ll make a detour. Let’s go, we need to have a word with Hartman.”

  They find the Top at the computer terminal where he and the No-Go are going through some Excel sheets displayed on the screen.

  “I feel for you,” Tarasov says. “Guess you hate administration.”

  “Yeah, making inventory is a pain in the ass,” Hartman agrees with a grimace. “Thanks God I’ll take the newcomers to a few days boot camp. I love boot camp. You will fly back to the Alamo with Nooria and Pete. Bringing him back to his father will complete your mission, Mikhailo.”

  “Not exactly,” Tarasov says sipping his coffee. “My deal with the Colonel was to tell Pete everything I know and have seen about the Tribe. Taking Pete back goes beyond that.”

  “I love you, dude!” Pete shouts happily. “I don’t want to go there!”

  The Top frowns. “Zip it, Pete. You want to stay here in California where the whole Florencia gang is hunting you now? I know you can’t turn to the police either. Don’t give me such a look! I know you’re wanted for one case of aggravated assault, two cases of attempted robbery and about a dozen times of petty theft. I wouldn’t want to have the choices you’d have if you stayed, son.”

  “Do you have any idea how much I needed the money?”

  “You will go back to your father. Period.”

  “He is not yet ready to face him, Top,” Tarasov interjects.

  “The hell he ain’t.”

  “Listen, Top. Something has come up and we’ll make a little detour. I will take him to my kind of boot camp.”

  “What? To the Ukrainian army? You gotta be kidding me.”

  “An old friend of mine is in trouble in the Exclusion Zone. I must go back there, just for a short time, and will take Pete with me. Once we’re done there, he’ll be more than ready to meet his father.”

  Surprised and terrified at the same time, Pete looks at Nooria. “Hope at least you’ve got your wits together! What do you think of this craziness?”

  “I’ll follow my man wherever he goes, Pete,” Nooria smiles. “And to be honest, I’m excited about seeing his homeland.”

  “Your enthusiasm is duly noted, Nooria, but I might have a problem with that plan,” Hartman says.

  “Nothing to be worried about, Top. I will bring Pete and Nooria safely back to your Alamo but we’ll take a little detour on our way.”

  “I don’t doubt you’re more than capable of keeping them safe, but I have my own orders from the big man.”

  “About bringing him back?”

  “About protecting him and Nooria, with my life and even against you if need be.”

  “You’ll need to shoot me if you want to stop me.”

  “Why is this guy so important to you, anyway?” the Top says wrinkling his forehead.

  “I got two messages from him. The first was about something important he wanted to discuss with me. My friend, Strelok is his name, is one of the greatest Stalkers who have ever walked the Exclusion Zone. Suffice to say, the Zone has a dark history with all kinds of experiments conducted there first by the Soviets, then by the Ukrainian government.” Tarasov stops for a heartbeat before he continues. “Strelok knows all the secrets, or at least most of them and if he says something is important, I better believe him.”

  “But why you?” Hartman asks. “He couldn’t possibly know if you’re alive at all.”

  Tarasov nods. “Yes, this crossed my mind already. Sounds like he’s desperate. Because a few days later he sent me another message, telling he’s in danger with Ukrainian KGB looking for him.”

  “Could be a trap to lure you back,” Hartman says.

  “Maybe, but there’s another possibility,” Tarasov replies stirring the coffee in his cup. “There’s more connections between the two Zones than one could imagine.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well… without going too far into esoteric stuff, one thing comes to my mind. Secret experiments conducted in the Exclusion Zone were partly responsible for what it became. We know they began in the mid-Nineties but such science doesn’t come from nowhere. Maybe Strelok thinks I’ve found an early X-lab in the New Zone, or even knows about one. Don’t know… just speculating.”

  “Maybe there actually is such a secret lab in the New Zone,” Pete says. “That would explain how such weird species like the Top and the Tribe were created.”

  He obviously intended this as another sarcastic remark but unknown to him, his guess is almost spot on.

  “Finding a lab preceding the Zone’s creation would be like… finding a needle in a haystack,” Tarasov says with a bitter reference to the code name of his mission that had originally led him to the New Zone. “Anyway, no matter what – I must help Strelok.”

  The Top thinks for a moment, then shouts for the base commander.

  “Second Lieutenant Stone! Come over here for a second.”

  “Sir!”

  “Whenever I come here, you start pestering me about a combat assignment. Are you prepared?”

  Stone gives him a beaming smile. “Sir, yes, sir! Very much so, sir!”

  “Outstanding. You will take the fresh meat to boot camp. If I’ll like how they turn out, you’ll get your combat assignment. To give you a little motivation – you might be assigned to First Lieutenant Driscoll’s squad
. They’ve lost a few warriors recently and need replacements anyway. Do we have a deal, Stone?”

  “Yes, sir! Thank you, sir! I will give them hell in boot camp!”

  “No doubt about that. Keep your eye on that black guy, though. He might have got what it takes to be a good warrior. Besides, Lieutenant Collins could use another ex-Ranger in his squad. That would be all. No-Go!”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Put the satellite maps up on that display.” The Top turns back to Tarasov. “Now tell me, where exactly is your Zone?”

  Tarasov recites the coordinates that every true Stalker knows by heart.

  “Its center lies at 51 degrees 23 minutes 18 seconds north longitude, 30 degrees 06 minutes 12 seconds east latitude… and our infiltration point will be on the western edge of the Swamps, below the railroad emplacement with the wrecked freight train, opposite to the spot where the path to Agroprom begins and where a three meter stretch of the barbed wire fence is missing. No satellite map will show you that.”

  Pete protests. “Hey! Wait a minute! Why did nobody ask me about what I want to do? To hell with this, I don’t want to go there! I heard about that place – it’s irradiated and infested with mutants, anomalies and all that! Not even decent people there but crazy Russian shooters who jerk off on their Kalashnikovs!”

  “I will be there too,” Nooria tells Pete with a reassuring smile. “At least we will get to better know each other.”

  “We’re going to the Exclusion Zone,” Hartman concludes. “Outstanding! Let’s go to the property shed. We’ll need weapons, ammo, armored suits!”

  “Sure, Top. Let’s see if there’s something we can use in the Zone.”

  Hartman gives him a proud smile for a reply.

  The room where the Top leads him has a stronger door than the others. When Tarasov steps inside, he feels a tenfold of the awe that came over him when he saw the Tribe’s armory at the Alamo. Walking down an aisle between two racks full of first-class weaponry, the Top points to the racks.

  “Assault rifles, sniper rifles, silenced rifles, anti-material rifles, machine guns, chain guns, Gatling guns, bunker-busters, tank-busters, frag grenades, smoke grenades, stun grenades, incendiary rounds, armor-piercing rounds, tracer rounds, regular rounds, sniper rounds, light gear, assault gear, exoskeletons,” he raps as quickly as a machine gun fires. “Welcome to warrior paradise!”

  They halt in front of a workshop that seems to have all the gear of a weapon factory massed up on a few square meters. A merry-looking man wearing a technician’s khaki overall is standing behind a work bench and aims a futuristic assault rifle at them.

  “Bang! You’re blown away!”

  “I am, actually” Tarasov replies looking at the rifle in the technician’s hands. The behavior of the grinning technician is disrespectful at best but Hartman doesn’t seem to mind. They even exchange a handshake.

  “Major Tarasov, this is Jimmy the Nut. Best gunsmith in the world, although Boxkicker makes for a strong second.”

  Tarasov looks at the weapon in Jimmy’s hands. Overall, it looks like a slightly bigger version of the M27 carbine that he has seen back in the Alamo’s armory. The no-nonsense design tells of German origin.

  “That’s a Heckler & Koch, isn’t it?”

  “Not just a HK but the HK. 417, latest version. Mimics the AR-15 with a few gimmicks. Ergonomics über alles. This one’s got a 20 inch barrel, telescope and detachable bipod. Fires 7,62x51mm NATO, emptying a 20 rounds magazine in two seconds. Yes, this one makes Kevlar a part of yesterday!”

  “That probably means two seconds of fun and two minutes to let the barrel cool down,” Tarasov observes.

  “The barrel is cold hammer-forged. Can be replaced in a few seconds, even with simple tools in the field. By the way, our version has an accuratized barrel. Just make sure you use the proper ammo.”

  “Selectable fire?”

  “Are you kidding? Single shots and full automatic mode.”

  “Short burst option?”

  “You’re hard to please, you know that?”

  “I’ve heard that before,” smiles Tarasov.

  “Jimmy, when will these arrive to the Alamo?” the Top asks eyeing the weapon.

  “The first few hundred or so in a matter of weeks, maybe a month.”

  “Jesus, Jimmy! What takes so long? Anyway, is that one over there what I think it is?”

  “The fishgun?”

  “No, that piece looking like an XM25.”

  “It also feels like an XM25 because it is one.”

  “I’ll be damned. Let me try it – I mean, just holding it for a sec.”

  Tarasov studies the black weapon that the Top cautiously takes from its rack. It looks like streamlined, with its designers having eliminated almost every chance for dust and dirt getting inside. It has a bulky, non-demountable scope, apparently usable under any light condition.

  “It’s heavy,” the Top says, assuming an aiming position.

  “Twelve pounds. Won’t be an issue if you wear your exo.”

  “How much does a single one set us back, Jimmy?”

  “Thirty-five thousand bucks plus the ammo. Sorry Top, don’t reach for your credit card. This one’s not for sale yet!”

  “Too bad. When and how many?”

  “Depends on if the big man lets Allied Techsystems know the witch’s recipe. You know, her strange-smelling stuff that repels dust on gun metal. We might be in for a huge discount then.”

  “What’s so special about this one?” Tarasov curiously asks.

  The technician gives the Top a questioning look. He replies with a reassuring nod and Jimmy the Nut bursts out an enthusiastic presentation.

  “This, my friend, is the modern version of the English longbow. We call it the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System. It has a range of eight football fields, meaning that you can stay out of the effective range of hostile assault rifles. You could do that with an RPG or scoped rifle too but this is far more accurate than a grenade launcher and takes a heavier punch than a long rifle, of course. That’s the long part. Once the trigger is pulled and the 25 mike-mike leaves the barrel, a computer chip inside the projectile communicates exactly how far it has traveled, allowing for precise detonation behind or ahead of any target. In practice, it will go through a wall before it explodes. That’s the bow part.”

  “The longbow was a Welsh weapon, not English,” Tarasov wryly replies. “But I get your point.”

  “Outstanding,” the Top says, handing the weapon back to the technician. “Truly outstanding. At last we have something useful that wasn’t designed by krauts or made by Belgians.”

  “I knew you’d be impressed, Top,” Jimmy says, carefully putting the high-tech weapon back to its rack. He gives Tarasov a self-confident smile. “What about you?”

  “Very impressive stock,” Tarasov replies.

  “So, what would you like to have here? Now that the Top mentioned Belgium – care to try a SCAR? One of their new H-PR precision rifles? Perhaps something else?”

  “Let me think… Do you have a Vintorez?”

  The enthusiasm disappears from Jimmy’s face.

  “Fuck. You.” Sinking in himself in front of their eyes, Jimmy the Nut looks rebuffed like a salesman who tried hard impressing someone with his stock and now realizes that he can’t deliver what his customer really wants. “A Vintorez… that’s sick, man!”

  Tarasov doesn’t get Jimmy’s remark. “Sick?”

  “He means, it’s outstanding, fabulous, great,” the Top explains. “Now he feels bad for not having any. You’ve stepped on a sensitive nerve there, Mikhailo.”

  “No offense, Jimmy,” Tarasov says.

  “All right,” the Top says clasping his hands. “Let’s decide which goodies we take with us. I would personally have a…”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Tarasov interrupts him. “We travel light.”

  “Come again?”

  “No weapons, Top.
No grenade launchers, flame throwers, machine guns or sniper rifles. Neither exos nor armored suits.”

  “You must be joking. If only half of what you told me about that place is true, then…”

  “Everything is true, but probably you’ve no logistics in Ukraine to get such gear in and there’s no way to carry an arsenal in our checked-in luggage.”

  “The man’s got a point about that, Top,” Jimmy the Nut says. “Sorry.”

  “Damn,” the Top cusses. “Now that’s kinda anticlimactic.”

  “Then, once there in Ukraine it isn’t exactly like here. You can’t just drive around with a trunk full of weapons. Most people can’t even own them legally.”

  “Sounds like a dull place. Listen, I’m beginning to have second thoughts about this trip. What can we take with us?”

  “Many things. Jimmy, we’ll need a dozen medikits or so for each of us. Lots of bandages and haemostatic drugs because bleeding can be a real pain in the neck… there’s something in the Zone’s air that hinders coagulation. Anti-radiation drugs, water purifiers, daily food rations…”

  “Yikes,” the Top says with a grimace.

  “Just about the same survival kit you use in the New Zone. I mean, in the sandbox, or whatever you call Afghanistan now. Then, some light but tough wear with a woodland pattern. Normal foliage green, not digital.”

  “Now what’s wrong with that?”

  “First, it’s ugly and second, it would cry ’the Americans are here!’ We’ll need light rucksacks, sleeping bags, overboots, protective gloves for picking up artifacts, I mean swags and a gas mask for each of us.”

  “Yeah, gas mask… but which type?” Jimmy asks. “We’ve got MR40s and 95s stocked.”

  “M95,” the Top cuts in. “Smells better, fits better. Don’t forget spare filters and extra cartridges.”

  “The M95 comes with full NBC proof filter already. No need to swap them as the wind changes, Top.”

  “I don’t know shit about gas masks, Jimmy. I’m more into things I can shoot with.”

  “Let me see one of them,” Tarasov says.

  The armourer disappears in a storage room behind his workbench and returns with a brand new, black gas mask. Inspecting it, Tarasov slowly shakes his head. Compared to the obsolete GP5 masks commonly seen on Zone Stalkers which makes their wearer appear like an elephant, or even the military’s more sophisticated PMK-2 type, their NATO counterpart was obviously designed with not only utility but at least a modicum of comfort as well. The M95’s silicone-covered material feels much smoother, yet fits tighter and the mask even has a hydration port where a canteen can be connected. Nonetheless, the most useful feature to him is the close-fitting overall design and the wide angle of view through the two large eyepieces. Aiming a shoulder-fired weapon while wearing a gas mask is any rifleman’s nightmare but at least this one would make it a little easier.

  “They come with standard 40mm screw-in NATO cartridges, don’t they?” Tarasov asks. The two Americans nod. “Good, let’s take a few extra cartridges then. Could be useful should we ever need to trade with Freedomers.”

  “Freedomers?”

  “Zone faction using NATO gear. Will explain later. Last but not least – we need bolts. A few dozen at least.”

  “Bolts? Do you think this is a DIY store?” Jimmy asks. “We’re drowning in guns here and you ask me for bolts?”

  “Bolts can do lots of things your guns can’t. Like detecting anomalies. Can your XM25 detect anomalies? No. We need throwing bolts, not grenades.”

  “But what kind of bolts?”

  Tarasov heaves a frustrated sigh. “Any.”

  “Listen, Major. I’m a precise man and take this kind of things seriously,” Jimmy explains. “There’s many kinds of bolts. Do you mean 1/4-20, 1/2-20, 1/8-20 or which caliber? Huh… size, I mean. What about screw-nuts, anyway? Those ain’t good enough?”

  Tarasov sighs and exchanges an impatient glance with the Top.

  “Something like this, ” he says showing the size with his thumb and index finger.

  “5/8-18, then. Okay. That would be 16mm x 1,5 for you in the metric world. Give me a few minutes to arrange all that.”

  Among the long weapon racks holding all kinds of rifles in several rows, they are already walking back to the lobby when something comes to Tarasov’s mind.

  “Ten thousand pounds of education fall to a ten rupee jezail,” he recites the Kipling quote he had heard from the Colonel when he met him first.

  “Spot on,” the old warrior replies. “You know, I never told Jimmy but should I ever find myself in a really bad clusterfuck, I’d rather have my trusty M1911 pistol on me than any of his high-tech gadgets… but I still have a bad feelings about going there without weapons. Any weapons.”

  They make their way to the lobby where Nooria and Pete are waiting at No-Go’s computers.

  “We’re into a challenging trip,” the Top says. “Mikhailo insists on not taking guns.”

  “We’ll need to keep a low profile,” Tarasov adds. “I’d hate to shoot at the same grunts I was commanding until just a few months ago.”

  “But they are your enemies now,” Nooria says, surprised.

  “My only real enemies are certain high-ranking officers and you won’t see any of them lurking in the Zone. That’s for sure!”

  “And all the mutants you told me about?” she asks. “Those… snorks, pseudodogs, controllers and all?”

  “We’ll need to avoid them, at least in the first days. Rest assured – when a Stalker has a destination in the Zone, he is usually pretty well equipped by the time he gets there. You can’t approach the Zone with heavy gear, but you’ll need heavy gear to survive there.”

  “Sounds like a damned Catch-22 to me.”

  “What do you mean, Pete?”

  “What I mean is that the whole idea is bullshit.”

  “Surviving there is not only about weapons and body armor. If you go in with gun barrels blazing and try to shoot your way through, the Zone will punish you. If you treat the Zone with humility and respect – it might just allow you to survive. We’re going to take a chance on that.”

  “Sounds like a challenge and I love challenges. As for you, Marine – it might be a good opportunity to learn both humility and respect.”

  “Top, stop calling me a Marine.”

  “Once a Marine, always a Marine. Even if you went AWOL, even if you’re all but an empty shell of a Marine in your present state of a half-debilitated junkie.”

  “Seeing you, a Marine doesn’t need to become a junkie to act like crazy.”

  Scornfully, the Top steps towards Pete but Nooria stops the huge warrior by gently putting her hand on his chest.

  “Are there swags in Zone, Mikhailo?” she asks Tarasov and darts a disapproving look at Pete who looks down to his shoes, shunning her eyes. “Like my glowing stones?”

  “You will be in your element, I promise.”

  “I want to leave right now!”

  “Outstanding,” the Top observes. “When do we leave, No-Go?”

  “Gimme a sec,” No-Go replies without looking up from his computer screen. “Thanks goodness, no visa’s needed with your US passports. That speeds up things. You can leave… let’s say tomorrow at 9.30 AM from LAX, stops at Chicago and LHR, arriving in Kiev at 1.15 PM the day after. With all the luggage you’ll have probably you’ll need business class or better.”

  The Top and No-Go share a mischievous smile. “Once in a while we can afford a bit of comfort, can’t we?”

  “Are our passports okay?” Tarasov asks.

  No-Go glances at another computer screen.

  “No noise from CBP and Interpol yet, but I’ll warn you if something pops up in their internal protocols.”

  “Can you really hack into everything?” Tarasov asks in awe.

  No-Go gives him a self-satisfied grin. “You want to see the self-nudes Lana Del Rey keeps in her smartphone? My gosh, that girl is… talented.”

 
; “Who is Lana Del Rey?” Tarasov asks, innocently enough but still causing Nooria to give him a disapproving look.

  “That’s enough bragging,” the Top snaps at No-Go. “Make the arrangements. Nooria, you check with the infirmary if they have something we’ll need. Tarasov, go through our gear once it’s assembled to make sure Jimmy didn’t forget anything. Pete, you stay put and keep your cynicism to yourself. Clear? Now I need to have a word in private with Stone. See you in an hour. On second thought, let’s make it two.”

  “Sir!”

  No-Go jumps from his chair and salutes. As soon as the Top has hurried off, Pete leans over the terminal to have a closer look at the screen.

  “Hey dude,” he whispers. “You serious about Lana Del Rey?”

  “Pete, on me,” Tarasov sternly says. “Let’s see if our gear is ready. Come!”

  No-Go starts tapping on his keyboard again. “Didn’t even tell you that your trip will be sponsored by Shell… not as if they’d ever realize I’ve tapped their system. Go well, you’re going into hell… hey guys, you want travel insurance with the tickets?”

  Tarasov gives him a laugh while he walks toward the storage rooms with Pete and Nooria.

  “Guess that means no,” No-Go says to himself. “And like usually, no one cared to say thank-you to the local computer wizard. Tough boys, tough boys… what would you do without my magic?”

  He hits enter and starts humming a song. It’s you, it’s you, it’s all for you, everything I do, I tell you all the time…

  After an instant the melody is suppressed by the buzz of the laser printer ejecting e-tickets and boarding pass printouts.

  19

  Panjir Valley, northeast of Bagram, New Zone

  Back at Ashot’s bar in Bagram it all had appeared so easy.

  Two days ago, when the brawny stranger appeared at Ashot’s bar, he soon gathered himself quite an audience of bored Stalkers, all raving for stories about adventures, new mutants and artifacts. He claimed to have not only been to Panjir valley but a secret bunker or laboratory facility too. They all listened to him like idle knights must have listened to tales about the eastern realms before setting out on a crusade. The stranger’s words flew like the vodka they were knocking down, and the next day, just like those knights of old times, two dozen adventurous Stalkers set out to find the promised land of artifacts and followed him to a wide, anomaly-infested valley beyond the forests covering the Shamali plains.

  The stranger, wearing battered Duty armor beneath his ragged, long leather jacket, proved a perfect guide. The closer they got to their destination, the more fantastic his promises became. Oh yes, all those new and mysterious artifacts—the Emerald, raising stamina; the Heart of Gold, projecting its owner’s image; the Heartstone, boasting health and preserving life. Unlike in the Exclusion Zone, every artifact is useful. The stranger’s words made sense after all: a hidden area in the godforsaken wilderness far from Bagram, which he, as he himself had said, knows like the back of his hand.

  A few Stalkers turned back with their premonition being stronger than greed. Their leader just laughed it off, saying that the less Stalkers arrive, the more artifacts the remaining men can keep for themselves. If their march had taken one more day, the Stalkers would have believed even a promise of artifacts growing on trees which only need to be shaken off to harvest. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, or just the hope that a trek as perilous and hard as theirs must be rewarded with treasures well worth the efforts. But two days after leaving Bagram, they arrived at what might have been an electronic sub-station once. Leading directly into the hill behind it was a bunker entrance, still half-buried with dust and rubble.

  Now, in the underground vaults, the remaining Stalkers—about twenty of them—are exchanging looks of concern as they proceed deeper and deeper through this labyrinth of decaying concrete and rusting steel. One of them pats his PDA, as if the device could display a map without a signal. Another keeps looking backwards, checking if he could still find his way out if he got lost.

  “Keep moving, boys,” a Stalker says. Judging by his improved body armor and powerful Saiga shotgun he is a veteran of many raids.

  “Where’s our guide, Cougar?”

  The voice of the young Stalker walking behind him tells of fear.

  “That’s why you should keep moving, Pashka!” replies Cougar. “We don’t want to lose each other from sight!”

  “This place is just too darn creepy,” another Stalker whispers looking at the ceiling where water is dripping from thick, rusty pipes. His battered armor has a strange, blue and brown camouflage that betrays him as a former member of Clear Sky, a faction decimated in the Exclusion Zone years ago.

  “Jesus, Willow,” the young Stalker says. “You’ve been everywhere, even to the CNPP. If you got shit in your pants…”

  “I haven’t been to the CNPP, ” the former Clear Sky member says. ”That’s why I’m still alive.”

  “Stop gum-beating, guys,” Cougar sneers. “Let’s move!”

  More eerie corridors follow. Rusted signs and faded Cyrillic letters on the wall remind the Stalkers that this place had been a scientific facility decades ago: Secondary Laboratories. Ventilation Maintenance. Library. From this point ahead entry in protective suits only. Long Live the Achievements of Socialist Science.

  Blue glow of anomalies on shrieking metal catwalks that threaten to collapse under the men’s weight. A seemingly bottomless cavern lies below with massive pressure tanks.

  “What the hell was this place?” a Stalker whispers anxiously.

  Cougar doesn’t care. His thoughts are fixed on the back of their guide. He doesn’t allow anything to distract him, unless he wants to lose him from his sight. In this huge underground labyrinth that would be fatal.

  “We have arrived,” their guide says at last when they have passed yet another long corridor and through a steel door, ducking and bending to avoid the rotting cables hanging from the ceiling.

  “Here?” Cougar skeptically asks looking around. “Where are all the artifacts you promised?”

  Wherever he looks in the darkness, the light of his headlamp reveals only debris on the concrete floor.

  “Give me a minute,” the guide says. “There’s a command post up there. I’ll switch on the lights.”

  Alarmed, Cougar tries to grab him. “Hey! Wait!”

  But the guide is already at the steel door. Before the Stalkers could stop him, he disappears outside and slams the door shut.

  Cursing, Cougar and three Stalkers jump at the door and try to ply it open. No matter how hard they try, it wouldn’t move.

  Fear makes the skin of even the most daring Stalker creep.

  “No…” mumbles Pasha then shouts out, “no!”

  “Calm down!” Cougar shouts, trying to sound reassuring. “Let’s follow the walls. There must be another way out of here!”

  There is none. The Stalkers are lost in darkness. No matter where they look, no door, no exit appears in the weakening light of their headlamps. Only tubes and electrical fittings leading from the wall toward the center of the hall.

  The Stalkers can hear their own hearts beating. The only other noise comes from water slowly dripping from the rusted tubes above. The concrete walls echo every step they make. It sounds fearsome and Cougar has to take a deep breath before he starts walking deeper into the darkness, following one of the pipes.

  “Come with me,” he whispers. “Watch my back.”

  “What the hell is this place?” Willow asks in a low voice.”

  “Let’s hope it’s like X-16 was,” a Stalker behind them says, nervously peering left and right and holding his AKS-74U ready to shoot. “Been there once. Huge vault, just like this, and something weird with a staircase in the middle leading up.”

  “Halt!”

  They all obey Cougar’s command. The veteran points forward. If the Stalker who mentioned X-16 has hoped for something weird, he got it – but it is not a staircase leading out of he
re.

  The pipe leads into a stasis tube, one of twelve arranged in a circle. The electric fittings are torn out or rotten away; the glass in the tubes is broken; and the tubes themselves appear like massive cages where the captive inside had bended the bars and escaped.

  “Oh my God,” Pashka mutters.

  “There he is!” a Stalker shouts, pointing upwards. “You bastard!”

  Cougar yells at the shadowy figure appearing on the command post high above them. “Let us out of here, now! Let us out or I kill you, you fucking son of a bitch!”

  The Stalker with the carbine aims at the guide and fires a burst. Several more join the fire before Cougar can make himself be heard.

  “Don’t shoot him, idiots! Only he can open that goddamned door!”

  But the trapped Stalkers cease their fire when they see that their shots barely do any damage to the bullet-proof glass. Faint laughter sounds at the command post.

  “What are you doing to us?” Cougar yells. “Why did you bring us here?”

  The guide appears busy. They can see him through the cracked, but still solid glass plates tampering with the gauges and valves fitted to the wall.

  “You bastard!” Willow screams in horror, “I curse you! You traitor, you damn traitor!”

  Whatever the guide is doing, he stops for a moment to shout back.

  “Just call me Skinner, brothers!”

  “We are not your brothers, motherfucker!” Cougar yells.

  Skinner’s reply ends with an evil laugh. “Soon you will be, hahaha!”

  Then he disappears.

  The horrified Stalkers start shooting at the command post. Then, with ammunition wasted in vain and the bitter smell of gunpowder lingering in the darkness, they look at each other in terror.

  Cougar swallows hard. “Okay, guys. I want every second of you switch off the headlamps. Let’s save battery power. Place all your grenades at that steel door. We’re gonna blast it open!”

  The Stalker in Duty armor tears the gas mask off his face. “It opens to the inside, you idiot! We need a fucking RPG!”

  The veteran is not easily intimidated. “Do you see any?” he shouts back at his despaired mate. “No? Why? Because we haven’t any! Put your damned grenades at the door, now!”

  “That’s never gonna work,” another Stalker says. “There must be another way out of here!”

  Chewing his lips, Cougar looks around. “You see any other exit? Whatever this bloody place was, it was made anyone from escaping and now it’s us trapped here. Move!”

  After a minute, two dozen F-1 fragmentation grenades are piled up next to the steel door. “Stand back!” Cougar yells as he grabs a grenade of his own, pulls the safety pin’s pull ring with his index finger and tosses it at a low arc toward the others.

  The splinters of the detonating grenade penetrate the steel casing of the others, pass through the explosive filler and strike the detonators. A series of blasts follow.

  When Cougar looks up from his cover and sees the steel door blackened by the blasts but standing as firm as before, only one thing comes to his mind.

  We’re doomed.

  20

  LAX (Los Angeles International Airport)

  “Where’s Nooria gone? Oh, there she is,” Tarasov says waving his hand.

  Appearing among the crowd in front of the tax free shops at Los Angeles International, a big, ear-to-ear smile is on her face and two heavily loaded bags in her hands.

  “Jesus, woman! What’s all that?”

  “I have been shopping for perfumes.”

  “You could open up a perfume shop with all that! Couldn’t you make up your mind over which one to buy?”

  “They don’t smell very good. I took a few and will mix them together. My own perfume will be much better.”

  “Oh gosh,” Pete exclaims covering his nose, “I was supposed to sit next to you but that smell on you makes me sick… no offense, but how many did you try?”

  “All.”

  “Holy Mother of Jesus Christ – all?” Hartman asks with not entirely feigned horror on his face. “The only thing I love about airports is the smell of kerosene. Second best only to napalm. Now I won’t be able to feel a single molecule of it!”

  “I am sorry, Top.”

  “Pity that our gas masks are in the checked-in duffels… I could use one of those M40s right now.”

  “I’ll need a full NBC suit once you start smoking those cigarettes,” Tarasov says looking at Hartman’s own bag, holding several cartons of non-filter Lucky Strike cigarettes.

  “Those ain’t for me but the big man. It’s his favorite brand.”

  Tarasov walks down the gangway with mixed feelings. He cannot suppress a certain excitement over flying back to his homeland and the Exclusion Zone, but he also regrets to leave America, this big and intriguing country he had never hoped to see one day, so soon and after barely seeing any of it.

  Keeping in mind that they might have lots to discuss during the long-haul flight, Tarasov and Hartman pick two neighboring berths while Pete and Nooria make themselves comfortable in berths behind them. Meanwhile a middle aged woman, wearing lots of heavy golden jewelry, courteously helps Nooria to store her coat. Her smile vanishes when she sees the scar on Nooria’s face.

  “Glad to fly business,” the Top says storing a tax-free bag with an oversized bottle of whiskey inside. “I’d hate to spend six hours squeezed in economy class.”

  “That female officer in your secret base,” Tarasov says making himself comfortable in the berth, ”she’s quite a character.”

  “Who? Oh, you must mean Katie. Katie Stone. Sure as hell she is.”

  “Why don’t you let her join your combat units? She seems extremely committed to your case.”

  “For that alone? We all are. No, Major, we need no females in the line of fire.”

  “I bet she’d do as well as any male warrior.”

  “Her rifleman skills are fine, but that’s not the point—”

  The pre-flight announcement interrupts him. By the time it is over, and the airplane lifts off the tarmac, Tarasov has already forgotten his question. It seems to have touched a sensitive point in the Top’s heart, however, because when the engine noise becomes lower at travelling altitude he finishes his reply.

  “Yeah, women in the ranks… You know, when you see a friend die, that can devastate your heart. If you see your love die—that can bring the wild animal out from the bottom of your soul. We don’t need anyone going into a killing frenzy to revenge a dead woman, or taking on too high risks to get her out of harm’s way. Both are bad for discipline. That’s why we don’t tolerate any homos in our ranks either.”

  “I get your point, but the ancient Greeks even promoted homosexuality among their soldiers. They thought, a man will fight harder and never behave like a coward if his love is seeing him. Matter of honor, too.”

  “Your ancient Greeks were pussies. Neither did you get my whole point. In our ranks, not fighting hard enough is simply not an option. Being a coward even less so. Period.”

  “I have to admit to feel a certain respect for your way of thinking, Top, even if it is rather old-school.”

  “Yes it is,” the Top says yawning like a lion. “That’s why there’s no place for people like me in any of our forces anymore, not even in the Corps. You see, during the Korea war, a colonel told his Marines: ‘Not all the communists in Hell can overrun you!’ and damn right he was about that. He forgot to add, unless the Commies make it into the White House and use an army of lawyers to force you into their yoke, abusing and twisting our Constitution. It was judgment that destroyed us…”

  The Top adjusts the pillow under his head and puts on his eye mask.

  “But the true spirit of your country will be preserved until the Tribe’s flag flies over the Alamo,” Tarasov replies under his breath, not entirely sure if he actually meant his sentence as ironically as it sounds. Either way, Hartman probably didn’t hear it. When Tarasov looks at
him after a minute, he sees that the sergeant major is in a deep slumber already.

  Following suit, his mind has almost sunk into a peaceful half-slumber when he hears an annoyed voice from behind. Then someone pokes on his shoulder.

  “Sorry to disturb, but is this woman with you?”

  “She is,” Tarasov replies to the woman sitting behind him, next to Nooria’s berth. “What happened?”

  “Sir, she is opening the twentieth perfume bottle and is mixing them together in an empty mineral water bottle. Please tell her to behave or I’ll call the flight attendant.”

  Tarasov looks at Nooria who shrugs and gives a giggle, holding an Amarige de Givenchy and a Kashaya Kenzo in her hands.

  “Is she disturbing you?”

  “No offense, sir, but she’s behaving like a retard and the smell is nauseating!”

  “I see… Nooria, could you please put those away and wait until we get to a place with more air? Thanks, dear. Would you like to drink something? Oh no, please don’t order mineral water. Try some champagne.”

  Nooria frowns. “Sarap?”

  “We’re on honeymoon and I insist. I’ll also take a glass… or rather two. It’s a long flight, so maybe three.”

  The lady murmurs a thank-you but Tarasov grabs her hand before she can sit back. “Ma’am, do you see something on my hands?” he asks, softly but irresistibly drawing her over to himself.

  “No, why?”

  Tarasov leans closer and starts whispering in her ear. “That’s correct, because from the four men I killed in the last forty-eight hours, none did splash a single drop of blood on my hand. Now, for calling my wife a retard, I wish I could throw you off the plane but since we travel business class, I’m trying to behave. That’s my part of the bargain. Your part is to pay for everything, I say: everything my woman wants to drink and eat until we touch down. Do we have a deal, ma’am?”

  “I’ll call the flight attendants,” she hisses. Tarasov’s grip on her hand tightens. “No… I mean, yes!”

  “Attagirl,” Tarasov says releasing her hand from his iron grip and patting it. “Is that correct in English language to say? Attagirl?”

  “I don’t know… I am from Latvia!”

  “Nu tipa, slushay. Sit back and do as I told you, labushka, or you will have a very rough flight! Ponyal?”

  It is only now that the lady gets genuinely scared— more by Tarasov’s choice of rude words than his sudden Russian.

  “Tvor zakon?” she asks with her face growing pale.

  “Huzhe, tipa. Sit back now, people are staring already.”

  With a wide grin, Tarasov cuddles back into his comfortable chair.

  “Mikhailo! There are six champagnes on menu,” Nooria asks from behind. “Which is best?”

  “Let me see… now what would a genuine Ukrainian mobster drink? Dom Perignon maybe? Never heard about it but sounds promising. What’s Pete doing?”

  “Sleeping.”

  21

  Ghorband, New Zone

  “Good job, Bruiser. When will you send the first artifacts?”

  Even through the miniature loudspeakers of the laptop where Bruiser has Skype open and the not so good connection through the satellite phone attached to it, Sultan sounds exceptionally pleased. Bruiser returns the smile of the Exclusion Zone’s Bandit kingpin as he replies.

  “Matter of days, boss. The boys are eager to move out but we ought to be careful. This place… it’s huge.”

  “Don’t get too lazy, Bruiser. Is the airstrip safe?”

  “We had no problem landing there. Yoga’s crew is holding it now and waiting for the reinforcements.”

  “I want to see results before I bring more men down.”

  “Understood.”

  “One more thing, Bruiser. You sure about that burer business?”

  “I asked our partner the same question but he insisted. He kept his word and it would be a shame if we didn’t do the same.”

  “Agree. Such a weirdo… anyway, tell him it’s been done. I will send that beast with the next flight I can arrange, together with a few more men and equipment.”

  “We could use more Svarog detectors. ”

  “Those are expensive. Barkeep asked me a fortune for that burer and you know very well how much money this operation has cost me already. Keep your eyes open. You’re in the New Zone where there’s more artifacts than rocks, goddammit!”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “How are you dealing with the men?”

  At this point Bruiser swallows hard. “Everything under control, boss.”

  “Very well. Remember, I wanted to send Jack first. Don’t make me regret listening to your begging and letting you go with the first wave. Report your progress tomorrow.”

  Sultan’s fat face disappears from the screen as he finishes the session. Bruiser is relieved that the kingpin cannot see the skepticism which now appears on his face. The makeshift bar where he now powers the laptop down seems to him even more rudimentary than the 100 Rads. His trigger-happy men have riddled the wall with bullet holes and turned the place upside down in search for loot. Sun shafts fall in through holes in the ceiling and make the swirling dust visible. In the courtyard, two dozen Bandits are celebrating—as if taking the defenders by complete surprise and overrunning the place through an unguarded underground passage would have been a victory to be proud of. Bruiser carefully bags the laptop and shakes his head over the bragging audible from the courtyard.

  “… but dat sonofabitch didn’t tell datta passage leads right into da latrine! Damn, ya should’ve seen dat douchebag Loner’s face when he was about to piss and looked right into my gun barrel! He says, whaddafuck! And my shotgun replies, boom!”

  “We really caught them with their pants off, mwahahaha!”

  Walking to the courtyard where his men are relaxing after this morning’s fight, Bruiser realizes that no one is manning the walls. He shouts over to the bragging Bandit who sits on the wreck of a US-made personnel carrier in the courtyard, surrounded by several other men in equally high spirits.

  “Hey! Senka! Put down that damned vodka! Instead of getting drunk, take a few guys and keep a watch on the walls!”

  Senka just laughs at him. “Got shit in yer pants, bro? Relax! Ya safe with us!”

  “Barking orders doesn’t become ya,” another Bandit grins. He pats his empty artifact holder. “Tell us instead where all da loot is dat Sultan promised!”

  “Damn right, bro!” Senka passes his vodka to the grinning Bandit and points at the pile of dead Stalkers next to the entrance. “We didn’t come ‘ere for a few lousy Kalashnikovs!”

  Next to a dead Stalker he has just finished looting, another Bandit looks up. A white skull printed on his black balaclava makes him appear particularly tough.

  “Three conserves, a few mags and a few hundred rubles, Bruiser. If that’s whadda New Zone’s got to offer, I’m already on my way back!” He looks at the wallet in his hands and gives the photograph he finds inside a grimace. “Tough luck, little girl. Yer daddy came, saw and sucked major cock—but I’ll have my fun with you, haha!”

  He licks the photograph through the balaclava’s mouth hole and puts it away.

  Bruiser swallows and curses the moment when he volunteered to come with such an undisciplined and disrespectful bunch, even though they were supposed to be the Bandits’ so-called ’elite’. A true-blooded Bandit commander would have just kicked Senka’s teeth out but Bruiser is not up to this. To his further embarrassment, he feels his face blushing in shame.

  “Uh-oh,” Senka’s buddy says. “Gettin’ angry? Let me guess— someone stole your dried sausage?”

  Bruiser desperately tries to act as a Bandit commander is supposed to. “I’m in charge here! Now get to those walls or I’ll… I’ll just shoot you!”

  The Bandits laugh. “Didn’t ya just see how we kicked Stalker ass?”

  “Chill out, man. There’s nothing to be scared of!”

  He reaches for t
he vodka bottle that the other Bandit is about to pass him back but doesn’t get a chance to touch it.

  A bell rings out not far from the Asylum. The deep sound echoing in the valley is as foreboding as it is unexpected in this wilderness.

  Senka turns pale. “Whadda hell is that?”

  The Bandits are looking at each other in surprise and fear. The bell rings again.

  “Grab your weapons!” Bruiser yells. “At arms, you idiots!”

  Now the Bandits scramble to take up defensive positions. Half a dozen of them frantically load their shotguns and freshly looted Kalashnikovs as they run up to the ramparts. The few of them with better armor put on their assault helmets.

  “Whatever this…”

  A hard guitar riff cuts into Bruiser’s words.

  “Metallica? “ Senka asks with utter bewilderment all over his face. “Whadda…”

  Before he could say hell, a whizz sounds in the air for a split second, and then a massive detonation shakes the western wall. The impact kicks Bruiser off his feet. A second later the wall is hit again. This time, the weakened construction yields to the blast and a long section of the wall goes down, burying and killing the Bandits on the ramparts.

  Lying on the ground and half-covered by dust and debris from the blasts, Bruiser’s ringing ears can barely hear the third that is coming from the direction of the road block outside the Asylum. Though their enemy hasn’t let themselves be seen yet, he is smart enough to understand that his men stand no chance against anyone with such firepower.

  He staggers to his feet and dashes into the relative safety of the building as fast as his trembling limbs can carry him. One of the men who run up to the ramparts lies on the ground with a leg torn off by the blast, his horrible scream muted by the ringing in Bruiser’s ears. He recognizes Senka’s cheeky buddy.

  Several mortar rounds impact in the courtyard, followed by heavy machine gun fire hammering the western wall. Dust and stone splinters fly around everywhere.

  Bruiser jumps over the wounded man and brutally kicks the hand trying to grab at him. He collects his rucksack, quickly puts the precious laptop inside and is about to reach the hole leading into the sewers when he feels a strong hand on his shoulder.

  “Running away, huh? Not without me, asshole!”

  It is Senka who wants to grin but his lips are trembling with fear. “Move, Bruiser! I saw soldiers coming!”

  Though Bruiser wants to at least know who had rooted them so quickly and brutally, he leaves any questions for later as he squeezes himself through the hole and descends back into the sewers from where they had emerged just a few hours ago. Neither he or Senka think for a second about saving anyone who might have survived the onslaught.

  The sound of the frightful music is receding, though the handful of Bandits still alive can hardly realize it. Blood trickles from their blast-stricken ears. Rendered incapable by the shelling, they helplessly watch on fighters in desert camouflage appear through the breached wall and secure the ruined Asylum with well-trained movements.

  22

  Abandoned scientific facility beneath Panjir Valley, New Zone

  Skinner’s sense of time tells him that enough time has passed since he had locked the Stalkers in the hall with the stasis tubes. He might even have slept a little bit, since a while ago he was imagining what would happen if one day he’d bring down jackals, wolves or even bears and this thought could have made for a nice dream. What would the laboratory do to them? Maybe adding the sneak ability of a snake to a bear? Or turn jackals into wolves with the size of a bear? Too bad he had so few gas at his disposal, and even so, he could counted himself lucky to have found enough of the mysterious substance at all. As of yet, there was no way to lead this group of unsuspecting Stalkers to the northern passage and down into the Catacombs beneath the City of Screams. The Tribe was blocking the approaches leading there from the south and east. Soon, they will be annihilated but for the time being, he had to settle for what he found in these vaults where experiments to emulate the effects of those fateful catacombs had once been conducted. And now it’s time to see if it worked out.

  He estimates that the Stalkers were exposed at least half a day longer to the substance than he was in the catacombs, after he left the soldiers to fare alone on their suicide mission. While he walked down to the tightly shut metal door, it came to his mind that he still doesn’t know if that major and his men survived. Probably not, but it’s been long ago and without any importance to him.

  Where there was quiet when the Stalkers had entered the vault, now heavy steps are thumping. No one bangs at the door, demanding anyone outside to open it. This probably means that whatever is inside has no fear of being there – as it would fit a mutant.

  So far, so good, Skinner thinks and cautiously opens the door.

  23

  LHR (Heathrow Airport, London)

  “The big man will cut your balls for letting Nooria get pissed, you crazy Russkie!”

  “You should better see yourself carrying those two bags full of female perfumes, Top,” Pete laughs. “It’s incredibly devastating to your tough guy image.”

  Tarasov himself has to smile when he watches the brawny sergeant major carry Nooria’s tax-free bags to an empty set of chairs. London Heathrow is even more crowded than the lounge in Los Angeles was, and it appears a miracle to find free seats not yet unoccupied by travelers who appear to talk in all the world’s languages to him, and many of them even looking as exotic as the words that hit his ears.

  The champagne Nooria had had during the long flight has apparently put her in a mood beyond ordinary bliss. The words of song she is singing aloud don’t stand out in the mix of languages around them. It still makes Tarasov wary. The last thing they need is unwanted attention.

  “Damn,” the Top says looking at the electric board listing departures. “Our flight has a one hour delay.”

  “What shall we do until then?”

  “I’ll have one of those roast beef sandwiches,” says the Top jerking his thumb at a café with delicious-looking sandwiches piled up in big glass cases below the counter. “Maybe more.”

  “Is there a smokers’ room here?”

  “Don’t think so, Pete.”

  Shaking his head, Pete plugs the earphones back. Tarasov gives a long sigh.

  “I need a drink. Nooria?”

  “I don’t want more champagne. I will stay here with Pete.”

  Tarasov moves to a crowded bar. He has barely gotten to the counter when the Top appears beside him and yells over to the waiter manning the bar. “Wild Turkey! Two shots in one glass, neat! What’s your poison?”

  “Stolichnaya will do. I’m thirsty. Fill up a whiskey glass.”

  Suddenly, the patron sitting on Tarasov’s right pokes his side with his elbow. He is wearing an outfit that looks as if he were preparing for a long stay in the wilderness and a hat with the brim turned upwards. He gives Tarasov the friendly grin of a man who the more he drinks, the merrier he gets.

  “G’day mate! Sorry about that, it’s awfully stuffy in here! I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “Watch out, man…”

  “Mate, that’s exactly what I was talkin’ about to this Frenchie here! He says, one of you blokes could hit a razorback with a slug round from around a ninety yards as nicely as Tendulkar can bat a throw by a bloody beginner. You know what was the last words of the hunter who wanted hittin’ a razorback from ninety yards with a slug round? ‘Watch out!’”

  “What’s a razorback and who is Tendulkar?”

  “Bloody hell, you don’t know a thing ’bout hunting and cricket, do you? Noblest things in the world! If it weren’t for my plane being delayed, I’d be already on my way to hunt razorbacks in Ukraine! Speaking of which, I wonder if they play cricket in Ukraine.”

  “You do what in Ukraine?”

  “Mate, your accent is wicked. You’re Russian, yeah?”

  “Ukrainian, actually.”

 
Tarasov regrets his words as soon as he has spoken them, but hopes that no one in the loud crowd would pay attention.

  “Christ, guess that means you’ve got no cricket.”

  “What are you up to in Ukraine, anyway?”

  “As told you, I go hunting for razorbacks. That’d be boars to you, mate.”

  “You’re into hog hunting?” the Top asks with his eyes kindled. “How? By making them look at your hat and fall dead from laughing?”

  “I got four rifles in my checked-in luggage. And as to my hat, mate—have a little more respect of my trusty old squashy, will you?”

  An idea comes to Tarasov’s mind.

  “Top,” he whispers, “a solution for our weapon problem might have just come up.” He turns to face the traveler with a wide smile. ”So, mate, where do you go hunting?”

  “Crimea.”

  “There’s better hunting grounds elsewhere.”

  “But the thing is, I’ve already booked my trip and I paid the advance. It’s a good company, found ’em on the net. They organize hunting trips and all that.”

  “And what did they say about the ninety yards slug shot issue?”

  “Aw, you know, I’m to meet the local hunters only in Odessa. But really, Odessa? I don’t know mate, it kinda sounds like a girl’s name. Maybe it is. Heck, I’ve got the names of a few girls… Ukrainian-bride dot com or whatever was that site… is Odessa a town or a girl?”

  “Instead of Odessa or an Anastasia, would you be interested in meeting such a fellow?”

  Tarasov opens his PDA and shows the file photograph of a Zone boar. Thick-hided, enormously sized ferals with tusks protruding from the mouth as long as a strong man’s hand span, boars are probably the Zone creatures most resembling the animals from which they had once mutated.

  “You’re kiddin’ me, right? That damn thing’s a hogzilla!”

  “I assure you it’s for real, and quite common where we are heading.” Tarasov notes growing interest on the patron’s face. Satisfied over him being about to get hooked, Tarasov continues. “No shot will stop it from ninety yards. Its hide and skull are too thick. I mean, if you have an automatic shotgun like a SPAS 12 or an Armsel Protecta, your chances are a bit better but…”

  “Jesus Christ! The way you’re going you might as well use a Kalashnikov? Who the hell are you to use such gear on animals? Fascists?”

  The Top intervenes gently pushes Tarasov away. “Ninety yards is a good range if you use a good old Triple Deuce and score a headshot.”

  The outlandish patron turns his attention to Hartman. “Yeah, but what about close brush hunting? It’s almost impossible to get a clear shot. You need a cartridge taking a real big punch like the 44-40 Winchester. With that, it doesn’t matter where you hit’em, be it head or arse!”

  “Agree to disagree. It all depends on where you place the round. When hunting in Tennessee back in my days, I’ve used simple .308 rounds on hogs. All six went down within fifty yards with just one shot. If broadside, lower shoulder. If quartering at you, vitals. Anyway, first and last thing a hunter needs is good luck.”

  Tarasov suppresses a smile, seeing that the Top has by now got the hunter’s full attention. At last their drinks arrive. The hunter—if he is what he seems—raises his beer glass.

  “To good luck, mates!” They toast. “I see you blokes know a thing or two about hunting.”

  “Contrary to your hunt organizers, it seems,” Tarasov cautiously says. Just like any other soldier serving in the Zone, he had never handled anything else but assault rifles. To him, hunting boars means mowing them down with assault rifles or machine guns. Even worse, all he knows about hunting weapons is that an enemy with a hunting rifle is no match for anyone armed with an assault rifle – at least if fighting on equal ground. He decides to let the Top do the hunter’s talk, who has just proven himself surprisingly knowledgeable on such matters. “Myself, I am just a tour guide but my friend here is a real hunter.”

  “What’s his choice?”

  “Uhm… really big, nasty beasts.”

  “Like what?”

  “I mean, like desert boars.”

  “There are no boars in the desert, mate. At least not in the Tanami where I come from. Then there’s the Simpson, the Gibson and of course the Great Victoria but I’ve never met any boar there either.”

  “I meant as a manner of speaking…”

  Seeing that Tarasov is about to make a fool out of himself, the Top once more intervenes. “You’re an Aussie, ain’t you? I heard that a good kangaroo steak is even better than a Kobe!”

  “Not sure about that—”

  An announcement calling passengers of British Airways flight 0882 to Kiev interrupts the conversation.

  “Sorry fellas, that’s my flight. The drinks are on me,” the hunter says. “Have a good hunt! Oh, and how rude of me, name’s Sawyer. Don’t be strangers, should you ever come down under.”

  “My name is Jack, and my friend’s Joe. Easy to remember, thanks goodness,” the Top says and winks an eye to Tarasov. “Actually, we’re on the same flight. I’d love to carry our conversation on.”

  “Really, mate? That’s great news, I hate ’em boring flights!”

  They exchange a quick glance behind the Australian’s back.

  “He’s in for the hunting trip of his life,” Tarasov whispers with a grin. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  24

  Ghorband, New Zone

  “Javelins kick ass,” First Lieutenant Driscoll says eyeing the carnage in the courtyard of the Asylum. “I can hardly wait to see more of this at Bagram.”

  Lieutenant Collins nods agreement. “Yup. Though I suppose their main base will be a harder nut to crack, should it really come to that.”

  “Of course it will.”

  Driscoll looks at their dead enemies who the fighters have lined up in the courtyard like hunters would with their prey.

  “Thirty-three scavengers and there might be more under the rubble. No casualties on our side. The big man will be pleased.”

  “Agree, sir. With all the tasks we have, losing even one man would be—”

  Driscoll interrupts him. “That’s not what I mean.”

  He kneels to inspect the bodies.

  The Lieutenant bites his lip, forgetting that Driscoll can’t see the concern on his face covered by the exoskeleton’s full helmet.

  “You were right,” Driscoll says and waves Collins to look closer. “Appears that a band of scavengers, let’s call them trench coat gang, fought it off with the regular gang and won. Look… those we have killed all have an arm patch I’ve never seen before. Have you?”

  He lifts a dead enemy’s arm to show the badge sewn to the sleeve of the jacket. It shows a black skull on white background.

  “No, sir” Collins observes. “Scavengers usually have patches with the radiation sign, a red shield or something like that… a green wolf’s head, occasionally. This is something new.”

  Driscoll touches his exoskeleton’s built-in intercom to call the other Lieutenant. “Schmidt!”

  “Sir.”

  “Any surviving hostiles?”

  “Positive. We fished him from a hole in the latrine.”

  “Is he a Ruskie?”

  “Affirmative. Staff Sergeant Novikoff is already squeezing him for intel inside the main building, over.”

  “Continue securing the perimeter. Out.” Driscoll waves Collins to follow him. “Let’s have a chat with that scavenger.”

  They move to Shrink’s abandoned bar where half an hour ago Bruiser was skyping with Sultan. On the same spot, a tough-looking Bandit lies on the ground with a fighter manhandling him from behind. His abdomen is bloody where the light, Kevlar-padded armor beneath his leather trench coat failed to protect him from shrapnel. A balaclava with a white skull printed on it lays next to him on the ground. The crude features of his face make him appear like a textbook criminal.

  “Ask him why the scavengers were fighting each
other,” Driscoll tells the Staff Sergeant towering over the prisoner.

  “He says it was just between them and free Stalkers… they are bandits but don’t seek trouble with anyone else.”

  “Bandits?”

  “That’s what he said, sir. Seems to be another faction or something.”

  “Is he from Bagram?”

  The Bandit doesn’t need translation to understand this one and shakes his head.

  “Ask him where they have their base.”

  The Bandit replies with a curse. “Vot khui te v rot, pindos!”

  A grimace appears on Staff Sergeant Novikoff’s dust-clad face. “You don’t want to have that translated, sir.”

  “Guess I don’t,” Driscoll replies. “Ask him once more about their base.”

  The Bandit replies with another cuss and spits towards the First Lieutenant to prove his resolve. “Tak chto davai na khui, tvoia ochered!”

  After a heartbeat of menacing silence, Driscoll takes the Bandit’s balaclava from the ground and wipes the saliva from his leggings.

  “It makes me very angry when this happens,” he slowly says and looks at the balaclava with the white skull. “Is this supposed to frighten people?”

  Novikoff translates. The Bandit shakes his head and says something in Russian.

  “He says, it is just a joke.”

  “Yeah, I thought so. A complete joke like scavengers are.” Still speaking calmly, Driscoll waves for Lieutenant Collins. “Get a devil pup over here.”

  Collins barks a call into his intercom. While waiting, the First Lieutenant studies the Bandit’s face. Though Driscoll’s face is covered by his helmet’s face mask, there is something foreboding about his calmness that makes the Bandit turn his eyes away in fear.

  “Sir!”

  A Hazara boy wearing light armor appears and salutes. He might be about seventeen, though the look in his eyes is hardened.

  “Novikoff, translate,” Driscoll says and draws his jagged combat knife. The artifact-alloyed blade emits a red glow. “You scum are just children playing men. I feel tempted to cut your nose and ears and send you to those ‘bandits’ to tell them: do not fuck with my Tribe. Too bad children like you wouldn’t survive for a day here alone. It would spoil my honor to kill you myself. You will be killed by a child like yourself.” He hands his knife to the young fighter. “Pup, finish this lowlife.”

  The Bandit starts screaming in Russian.

  “Please don’t hurt me and so on,” Novikoff translates dispassionately. “I have a little girl back home, she’s so sweet and needs me, look at her photograph, it’s in my pocket.”

  “Let me see that.”

  Novikoff opens the breast pocket of the Bandit’s jacket and fishes out the photograph taken from the dead Stalker.

  “You must’ve been cheated on,” the First Lieutenant says after glancing at the picture. “This girl looks way too intelligent to be your daughter. Now what smells worse – your fear or your lies?”

  The Bandit tries to crawl backwards but the brawny arms of the fighter behind him hold him down. He bursts out in Russian.

  “They have a forward base five klicks east of the Charikhar ruins,” Novikoff translates. “He begs for mercy, he will never come back if we let him go and so on, it’s all the fault of someone called Bruiser and whatever.”

  Driscoll stays and nods to the young fighter. The Bandit’s eyes open wide in terror – few things can be more dreadful than a killer’s dispassionate gaze before he slashes one’s throat without fluttering an eye.

  “Stop,” Driscoll commands. A relieved grin appears on the Bandit’s face.

  “Sir?” asks the Hazara fighter.

  “Not like that,” Driscoll coldly replies. “Use the jagged edge.”

  25

  Tribe outpost, New Zone

  Two hours of driving have left the ten Humvees of Lieutenant Ramirez’ss column covered with a thick layer of dust. When they at last come to a halt in a valley running almost exactly from the north to the south and climb off the vehicles, he and his men are all wearing face masks and shemaghs wrapped around their face. The swirling dust would just be annoying but here, on the southernmost edge of the Tribe’s territory, the Geiger counters begin to crackle.

  I hate this bloody outpost, Ramirez thinks in the column’s second Humvee. It is not his first time here and the caves in the steep hillside to their left bring back bad memories. A long time ago, he was reckless enough to recon one of them on his own. The jackal pack inside almost killed him, and if it hadn’t been for Nooria’s treatment he would have soon succumbed to his infested wounds.

  The men manning the outpost appear to have similar feelings about this godforsaken canyon. They greet the arriving fighters happily, knowing that they can return to the Alamo now. Their leader trots to the Lieutenant and salutes. Even through the eyepieces of the M40 gas mask, Ramirez can see the relief in his eyes.

  “Second Lieutenant Jackson reporting, sir!”

  “Give me a sit-rep,” Ramirez responds.

  “No movement, no events. Would have called in, sir. Not as much as a single jackal.”

  Ramirez snorts. “Guess this place is too boring even for jackals.”

  “Did you come to relieve us, sir?”

  “Yeah. Help my guys unload the supply trucks. Saddle up and RTB once done.”

  “Aye, sir!”

  Jackson sounds happy. Ramirez climbs out and surveys the area. The dirt track follows the left bank of a creek that runs in the canyon. Where the rocky slopes narrow down to a few dozen meters, a rusty iron bridge spans over it; probably it was built by the Russians decades ago. The road continuing southward on the right side of the creek is heavily mined. A strong roadblock is situated where the bridge reaches the other side, built from rocks and reinforced with sand bags. It’s a perfect position to greet any approaching enemy with effective fire from the .50 caliber fixed behind it.

  Behind a few huge boulders that have fallen from the mountainside ages ago, three stone huts serve as shelter, first-aid station and command post. Only sniper fire from the jagged hills above could pose a serious danger to this well-defended position. To deter any such threats, the defenders have two 81mm mortars at their disposal, safely located in a ruined house next to the bridge, that was once a police checkpost or toll collecting point for the local warlord. Parts of the iron plates covering it have been removed to provide space for the mortars to shoot through, otherwise the roof offers the mortar team adequate protection from sniper fire.

  Sets of camouflage net are spanned over the fortifications. They offer both shade and protection from hostile rifle scopes. All in all, the outpost is perfect for its purpose: scaring enemy patrols away and delaying a stronger assault force until reinforcements arrive.

  Yet when he has finished surveying the outpost where he will spend the next few days, if not weeks, Lieutenant Ramirez has a strange feeling in his gut.

  Must be those damned caves, he thinks, trying to rationalize the premonition that has suddenly come over him. They are like eyes… eyes in the hills, watching us.

  Dusk is approaching and there’s still a lot to do. Ramirez unslings his M27 automatic rifle and turns to his men who patiently wait for his command.

  “All hands, listen up!” he shouts. “Let’s get this show on the run! Unload supplies, take up positions!”

  26

  Borispil Airport, Kiev, Ukraine

  “Welcome home,” Tarasov says, sniffing into the chilly evening wind outside the featureless glass façade of Kiev’s Borispil airport.

  “Where to now, Mikhailo?”

  Tarasov would prefer to stand there for a few more minutes, smelling the air and listening to the familiar language spoken around them. After his long trip took him all the way through the New Zone’s perils, and then not only Los Angeles but a missile silo turned secret base too, it is hard for him to realize that he is home—to the extent Kiev is still his home.

  “Too bad
you couldn’t talk our Australian friend into leaving for the Zone immediately,” he tells the Top. “To be honest, I don’t know where to go… it’s my first time in my home town without a place I could call my own!”

  “It is beautiful here,” Nooria says curiously looking around. Seeing the bitter smile on her man’s face, she caresses Tarasov’s hand. “Like America… just smaller.”

  “Cars especially,” the Top says watching the mostly German-made cars in the huge parking lot, separated from the terminal by a cabs-only lane where newly arrived people wait for a lift between steel pikes and red plastic blocks that are supposed to make the cab drivers drive slower.

  “You got no friends? No nothing?” Pete asks. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “Why should you be, indeed?” Tarasov asks back in a low voice, ignoring the sarcasm. “I am a deserter, kid. Our forged passports have worked fine so far but I don’t want to run into anyone shouting ‘Mikhailo, privet!’ This country is still… anyway, how much money do we still have on that credit card?”

  “Not enough to buy an airplane, but more than we need for a cozy place with mini bar and jacuzzi if there’s any.”

  “Let’s go where probably no one expects me.”

  “Where?”

  “The hotel where Sawyer is staying will do.”

  “We take a cab?”

  Regardless of his mixed feelings about Kiev, being back to his home land fills Tarasov with self-confidence. “Negative. Taxis here are worse than jackals. Let’s rent a car that we can dump later.”

  “I want a Russian car,” Hartman says. “Do they have Alamo here?”

  “Yeah, I think I’ve seen their logo somewhere in the arrival hall.”

  “Can we pay by credit card?”

  “You’ll be amazed, Top, but we even have running water.”

  “No offense… it’s just a little strange here. Evensmells different. Smokier, somehow.”

  “It’s all right. Okay, let’s get a car—and now I will drive.”

  “Your turf, huh?” Hartman asks with a smile of understanding. “Fine with me.”

  Ninety minutes later in downtown Kiev, driving a Skoda Fabia chosen for being inconspicuous enough and as much Eastern-made as possible for the Top’s sake who wished for a Russian-made car that no car rental agency had in its fleet, Tarasov slows the car down. They have just crossed the short Rusanovka Bridge over the Dnepr river. For a moment, he seems to hesitate. Then he turns left on Davidovka Street.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Home, Nooria… or what had once been home.” He halts the car in front of a grey apartment building. “Wait for a moment. Top, give me your baseball cap.”

  Tarasov walks up to the gate of the building where his mother lives. He looks around cautiously. Being sure that he is wanted for desertion and that the only place in Kiev for him to go is therefore under surveillance, he tries to act as inconspicuous as possible. At daytime he wouldn’t risk this visit, but evening has fallen and the street seems dark enough to prevent anyone from recognizing him. Just in case, he pulls the cap with the flaming T of the Tennessee Titans into his eyes to cover his face even in the dimly lit gate of the building.

  The gate is locked, unlike when he was here for the last time, and the intercom’s panel is rusty and gutted like it always was. He is thinking about turning back to the car when a woman appears, carrying a bulging shopping bag. The little boy with her is proudly holding a new soccer ball.

  “Vybachte, I am with Titan Parcel Service and have a delivery for Mariya Valeryevna Tarasov.”

  “Mariya Valeryevna…” The woman gives the name a moment of thinking while fishing for her keys in her coat pocket. “Oh yes, the old lady from the sixth floor. She is not home.”

  “Any idea where she went?”

  “Yes. She is in Europe.”

  “Shto?”

  “You heard me well! She won the lottery or whatever a few weeks ago and went travelling.”

  “Do you know by chance when she’ll be back?”

  “Here? Never.” At last, she finds her key and opens the gate. “Rumor has it that she bought a new apartment on the Kreshatyk.”

  “The Kreshatyk? That’s posh,” Tarasov says, biting his lip. He wanted to prevent himself from smiling but the woman gets the wrong impression from his grimace.

  “Yes, some lucky ones get it all,” she says with a frustrated, tired sigh. “If I were in her shoes I wouldn’t buy an apartment but go west and never ever come back!”

  The boy looks up to her with concern.

  “Ne boysa, Vova,” she tells him, “I’d take you with me but only if you behave. Will you?”

  Tarasov can hardly hear the boy’s reply. Neither can he see how the boy follows him with his eyes while he hurries back to the idling car. Holding the plastic mesh with the new ball inside, the boy starts kicking it with his knee.

  “Vova! Will you come?”

  Reluctantly, the boy called Vova follows his mother up the stairs.

  “Mama, I think I have seen this man before.”

  “Really? He didn’t even look at you, how could you tell?”

  “I recognized his voice. But last time he was wearing an officer’s cap. I think his new cap is much cooler.”

  “Silly boy. A postman with an officer’s cap…”

  “Ne znayu,” the boy shrugs as they step inside the elevator. “Maybe he is no postman. Or no officer. And last time he was… much shorter. Now he is even taller than papa.”

  Screeching and threatening its two passengers with leaving them trapped in the dirty cabin at every floor it passes, the elevator begins to ascend.

  “You have a very vivid imagination, Vova,” the exhausted woman says, seemingly nerved by her son’s daydreaming.

  “Maybe he is a criminal hiding from the police! Maybe he even has a reward on his head, dead or alive! A bank robber of mafia boss! That would be cool.”

  This time, the woman doesn’t reprimand her son. Her bagged eyes sparkle up with greed. She caresses Vova’s blond head.

  “We will need to talk about this once we get home.”

  27

  Central mountain area between southern badlands and Tribe outpost, New Zone

  The overcast sky over the New Zone blackens out the stars. It is almost pitch dark over the hill where Saifullah and Skinner meet. A Nissan pick-up idles nearby, its headlights dimmed.

  “Did you bring what I asked?”

  Saifullah gives Skinner a nod and points to the flatbed.

  “Five hand-held RPKs, three NSVs and two DShKs, all belt-fed with enough bullets to bring down a dozen helicopters.”

  “Bullets are for muskets, Saifullah. Try to sound like a soldier and call them rounds, for God’s sake.”

  “You want to lecture me?” Saifullah snorts. “If you’re thinking you can use them hand-held, you don’t even know how to deploy them!”

  “I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

  Skinner emits a gurgling growl, sounding so much like that of a mutant that Saifullah and his three men in the vehicle reach for their weapons, afraid that one of the New Zone’s more dangerous creatures might be lurking nearby. Their concern is proved right – but it’s not one mutant appearing in the darkness but at least twenty. The sandy ground is shaking under their heavy steps as the lumbering hulks approach, each of them twice as tall as a human. Skinner grabs Saifullah’s AK-47.

  “Shoot at my brothers and we’ll have you for dinner,” he warns him angrily. “Tell your men to unload the weapons.”

  “Gora! Daa tseshai di?” a Talib fighter shouts. “Laas ma raawrra!”

  Skinner notices his discomfort with a grin. “Scared of your new allies, huh?”

  “Yes,” Saifullah admits.

  “Imagine how scared the Tribe will be once my brothers appear, hip-firing the weapons you’ve brought….”

  “Very,” the Talib says and begins to mutter a prayer in Arabic.

  Following Skinner’s
mental command, each mutant grabs a machine gun. The half-mutant notices that although they can hoist the heavy weapons without effort, using them properly will require a little practice – their brawny hands hold the weapons as awkwardly as someone, who had never fired a weapon before, would hold a Kalashnikov.

  Poor brothers. You still need to learn how to master your new strength.

  Proving Skinner’s thoughts, a mutant trying to get the best grip on a DShK anti-aircraft machine gun accidentally presses the trigger. The burst of heavy 12.7 millimeter rounds hit the Talib standing on the flatbed and tear his upper body to shreads. The mutant looks at his index finger and the weapon, and then growls as if he were chuckling.

  “Oups… sorry,” Skinner says, himself laughing. “The boys still need some practice.”

  “May God forgive me to deal with you and your ungodly creatures,” an ashy Saifullah says.

  “You better get out of here now. I need to gather a few more friends.”

  “More such… demons?”

  “Jackals, though it remains to be seen if I can. They’re dumb, you know? Compared to them, my brothers are fucking Albert Einsteins.”

  For the first time since they met, Saifullah sees a little self-doubt appear on the half-mutant Stalker’s face.

  “Jackals?” he asks with disgust. “What do you need those unclean dog-like beasts for?”

  Skinner points at the gory remains of the mowed down Talib. “If you use gunfodder, why shouldn’t I?”

  28

  Upmarket residental area, Reitars’ka Street, Kiev

  The honey-colored designer lamp casts a cozy light over the room where Captain Maksimenko is sitting at a make-up table, blowing a smoke ring from his cigarillo. He watches it slowly fading away when it touches the mirror reflecting Agent Fedorka’s naked body on the king-size bed. Two wine bottles stand on the table; one empty, one missing just as much as there is in Maksimenko’s glass.

  “Was he rough on you, Verka?” he asks, directing his question more to his cigarillo than the woman. Vera Fedorka lies on her belly, playfully moving her feet, very much immersed in working on her nails with a long, pointed file.

  “Yes, Dima,” she absentmindedly replies.

  “How rough?”

  “Not in the way you are.”

  “Why? How am I?”

  “Rough, too… but in a more sophisticated way,”

  “Be more specific for once.”

  She shrugs, not looking up from the nail file.

  “You do it because you enjoy it. He does it because he has an urge. Maybe it makes him forget certain things for a few seconds… I’m not psi-ops to know what’s going on in the head of Zone freaks.” Vera Fedorka blows off the dust from the nails on her right hand, and starts filing those on her left. “Is it true that Tarasov has hooked up with a dirty Afghan girl and is hiding now with some pindos deserters?”

  “At least that’s what his last message to Degtyarev was.”

  She chuckles. “Alex Degtyarev… he’s handsome. But Tarasov even more so.”

  “Really? Why are you so interested in Tarasov?”

  “I am not interested in him. It’s that woman who interests me, actually. Do you know what she looks like?”

  “No.”

  “Come on… you know everything.”

  “We had a good asset in the New Zone—a very good one. Not even he could get close enough to those deserters.”

  “That’s disappointing.”

  “Indeed. You know, the briefing note I got from Kruchelnikov says Tarasov has valuable intel about two things: the results of the lost expedition and the American renegades.”

  “I can guess why we want to have the scientist’s reports, but why would we care about those deserters?”

  “In the latter case, we actually means us, Verka. Getting intel on the Tribe would be more than appreciated by their government. They are probably a haven for criminals. That’s one thing. They must also have their supporters for smuggling weapons, trafficking criminals to boost their numbers and all that.” Drawing on his cigarillo, Maksimenko narrows his eye and lowers his voice almost to a whisper. “Imagine, Verka… just imagine. We get that intel, you and me. Then the only choice we’d have to make would be getting promoted in the Service or making the Americans happy on our own account. We could ask them for a ranch in Montana. Imagine, spending the long winter in a cozy ranch with a big fireplace, making love until spring comes—all sponsored by the US government.”

  “We are doing that already, Dima, and on our own taxpayers’ money. But I dig your idea. It’s brilliant… and just reminds me what I love about you.”

  “So, if opportunity comes, can I count on you?”

  “Perhaps,” Verka replies with an enigmatic smile. Before Maksimenko can express his disappointment over such a display of typical female vagueness, she asks him something else. “What could Tarasov love about that girl?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Tarasov’s got the Za Zaslughi… it sounds so much better in English: Chevalier of the Order of Merit. The highest reward, just for saving a low-life like Strelok. Guess she doesn’t even know she’s being fucked by a Chevalier.”

  “Is that what’s on your mind while being with me?”

  “Right now, I ask myself how a stinking tribal girl could have wrapped a man like Tarasov around her finger.” Vera shudders. “She must be irradiated, too.”

  “That would just be a turn-on for a Zone freak like Tarasov.” Maksimenko stays and takes a big gulp from his wine glass. “Verka, could you please stop filing your nails? It makes me shudder.”

  “I’m not finished yet.”

  “Please.”

  “You love me?”

  “No.”

  “You hate me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hate you too.”

  Vera laughs quietly and gives Maksimenko the finger. He walks over to the bed, takes her hand and sucks off the nail dust the file has left on her finger. He washes the fine dust down with a gulp of red wine.

  “You could kill with that long file, you know that?”

  “Of course. Will you light a candle and put it here, please?”

  “No.”

  “Yes you will.”

  “No I won’t.”

  “Yes you will… I keep them in that drawer, next to the TV set.”

  Maksimenko ignites a long, thick candle, making sure that it burns with a big flame. Vera Fedorka chuckles while she watches him pushing the candle into a chandelier.

  “Harder… deeper… Good so. Bring it here, please, Dima.”

  Maksimenko carefully places the burning candle on the bed. Vera’s long red-brown hair glitters in the candlelight.

  “Let’s assume that we put that girl into the washing machine, soak and disinfect her,” Maksimenko says. He steps back to the make-up table. Leaning against it, he lets his eyes feast on Vera Fedorka’s body. “What would you do with her?”

  “First, you tell me whose turn is up first.”

  “Mine.”

  “No. Mine.”

  “Yours.”

  “Good,” Vera purrs. “So… I would let her stand naked where you stand.”

  “In attention?”

  “Your yalda is already standing in attention. Enough discipline.” Having finished her manicure session, she gracefully tosses the nail file to the make-up table. “I’d like to see what she has to offer. Come closer, Dima.”

  She begins to run her hands over Maksimenko’s body, exploring it intimately.

  “And after that?”

  Vera Fedorka turns on her back, stretching out and playing with her manicured fingers like a cat opens and closes her claws.

  “I would tie her hands and legs to the four corners of this bed.”

  Maksimenko crushes his cigarillo in the ashtray. “And then?”

  “Kiss her mouth.”

  “And then?”

  “That depends on… if she’s clean shaven, I
’d put my tongue inside her to feel how she tastes… but I guess the women over there don’t even wash themselves.”

  Watching his mirror reflection, Maksimenko moves the muscles on his shoulders and chest, as if warming himself up for a demanding physical exercise.

  “Keep talking, Vera.”

  Fedorka takes a small vial from the bed drawer, pours massage oil on her body, first applying it on her stiffened breasts, then her belly, inner thighs and sex.

  “I would put some of this oil on my fists and penetrate her until she screams.”

  “Would you?” Maksimenko opens the drawer of the make-up table and removes a pair of handcuffs.

  “Yes I would.”

  “Why?”

  A handcuff closes on Vera Fedorka’s right hand, fixing it to an iron bar. She caresses her tied-up arm with her left hand, letting it slide over her immaculately shaven armpit to her breast and squeezes it.

  “To punish her.”

  With a soft click, the second handcuff closes on her left hand.

  “Why?”

  “For not being like me. For being ugly, probably. For being pathetic, surely. For being an irradiated, ugly, hideous little insect.”

  Maksimenko lets his eye scan Vera’s body, her hands now shackled to the hand-forged iron bars, her body excitedly turning right and left, her legs spreading wide and closing. It takes all his self-control to stay in position, to stay in role and not throw her on the bed right now and fuck her till they were both spent.

  “You lie,” he calmly says.

  “Of course I do. Part of my job description, tovarishu kapitan.”

  “And what’s the truth, Agent Fedorka?”

  “To get all the intel from her that I cannot get from Chevalier Tarasov.”

  “Not good enough.”

  “All right, I confess. I would torture her because I envy her.”

  “Envy for what, prisoner?”

  “You know that very well, sir.”

  Maksimenko has already regretted his question. He knows that Vera Fedorka can’t have children. She had her womb removed, probably out of irrational fear of giving birth to a child distorted by the aftereffects of the Chernobyl disaster, a misshapen like the thousands of barely human beings that vegetate in the orphanages and special care facilities in Ukraine and Belarus; though he never really fathomed how she dealt with this ultimate defect of her body that appears so perfect from outside. Although lovers for over a year now, he never asked about any regret she might have; even less so about guilt which would have been his other guess.

  He decides to carry on with their game, hoping that his inconsiderate question appears to be just part of it.

  “You bitch,” Maksimenko says climbing on the bed. “You bad and cruel bitch. It is you who should be punished.”

  “Yes I should… I must,” she whispers. “What are you waiting for?”

  “Suka,” Maksimenko whispers as he takes the candle and lets the hot wax splash all over her body. Vera moans with delight. He deeply penetrates her with one push, softly holding her neck with one hand and giving her a big slap with the other. It leaves her cheek blood red.

  “More,” she moans.

  His grip on her neck tightens. A drop of saliva falls from his grinning mouth to the trembling breasts beneath him. He slaps her face once more, this time much harder. Vera Fedorka’s low moaning grows into a lustful scream.

  No matter how loud she screams, the sudden ringing of Maksimenko’s mobile phone is even louder. The couple freezes and look into each other’s eye, motionlessly. The penetrating ringtone from the TV show 24 is becoming louder with every repeated ring.

  “I can’t believe this shit. Damn!”

  “Don’t answer it, Dima!”

  “I must take this one,” he says climbing off the bed and frantically searching for the phone in his uniform jacket hanging on the back of a chair next to the bed. “This is the hotline dispatcher.”

  “Blyad!”

  Frustrated, Vera Fedorka cusses and rattles on the handcuffs shackling her to the bed. Making sure that the caller can’t hear the noise, Maksimenko takes the call.

  “Maksimenko here. What? Two hours ago? At his mothers house? That was expected… Not the asset? A boy, by his voice? Are they at the HQ? Did they ask about the money reward? Never mind. He has a Skoda Fabia? Got the license plate number? No? Damn, there are thousands of Fabias in Kiev… In any case, send plain-clothes agents to all the cheap hovels in town. Make sure they have his most recent photograph. No, there’s no need for patrolling the Metro… For God’s sake, because he’s from the Zone! Those guys prefer to travel in open spaces… Agree, he’s probably using a fake passport. Good. Will be there within the hour.”

  He gives Vera Fedorka a triumphant glance.

  “My plan has paid off. Tarasov was sighted two hours ago here in Kiev! He got the bait! The trick with Strelok’s message has worked! Am I good or am I good?”

  “You are dumb enough if you leave me here like this, Dima!”

  Maksimenko walks back to the bed and gives Vera Fedorka the look of a real sadist.

  “I’m in a dilemma,” he says theatrically scratching his head. “What am I supposed to do… I could call Kruchelnikov, this time me waking up him in the middle of the night for a change. Or should I finish what I have started with you? Such a dilemma…”

  Vera Fedorka growls like a captive animal. Maksimenko smiles at her. The woman now looks at him, begging, with full submission in her eyes.

  He lies down on her and finishes within a minute. At the same moment, Vera Fedorka’s beautiful face jerks into a painful grimace. She emits a yelp, followed by a long, faltering moan.

  Maksimenko gets off the bed and quickly dresses up.

  “Dima,” Vera whispers, still panting. “Stay. I beg you.”

  He steps to the woman, caresses her sweating body and smears the female moist all over his face.

  “To remind me of you until next time,” he smiles. “That would be within exactly one hour.”

  “What?!”

  Captain Maksimenko glances at his watch. “Agent Fedorka, I need you back at headquarters within one hour. We’ll have a minor to interrogate. Do not be late.”

  Maksimenko ignores her begging gaze. He places the handcuff key on the bed, away from her shackled right hand, yet close enough to reach it if she makes a strong enough effort, even if at the price of badly chaffing her wrist.

  He can still hear Fedorka’s cussing when he shuts the door from outside.

  “I love you too,” he says to himself with a self-loving smile.

  29

  Premier Palace Hotel, Kiev

  From all the hotels in Kiev, Tarasov didn’t pick the Premier Palace Hotel because he desired all the extravaganza that the best hotel of Ukraine offered, neither to enjoy the marvelous view over the high-rise buildings of Kiev’s downtown from the room. With the curtains carefully pulled close to deny any insight to the room he and Nooria occupy, he couldn’t enjoy the view anyway.

  He put himself in the SBU’s shoes, thinking that if he were to watch out for a renegade army officer crazy enough to show up in his home town, he’d look for him in the cheaper hotels and railway station rest rooms where all staff had already been alerted and briefed about his appearance and personal details. The Spirit of the City of Screams might have made him bigger—not as big as the Top and the Colonel’s Lieutenants, though still much above his former height—but his face didn’t change much. Tarasov had no doubts that many people had unexpected visitors leaving his photograph and a telephone number behind, should a taxi driver or hotel employee recognize him.

  His other, even more important reason was that he knew the building inside out. For Tarasov, who had been with the Ukrainian Spetsnaz for several years before he was deployed to the Zone, being prepared for anything that might happen to rich and important people was part of his daily training – rescuing hostages, smoking out terrorists, locating and disarming bombs. T
he Premier Palace Hotel was one of the high-profile locations for which such plans were prepared and rehearsed regularly. He knows exactly which plans SBU commandos would follow if they’d come for him and where they might make a mistake. Keeping this in mind, Tarasov picked two adjacent rooms where he knows that the posh-looking ceiling is only half inch thick plaster, with an air-condition maintenance shaft running directly above. It could be made easily accessible with the fire axe he already took from the emergency case in the staircase, while the Top feigned an argument with a hotel employee to distract the attention of any security guard who might be watching the corridor through the hidden CCTV.

  Hearing a faint knock on the door, Tarasov immediately removes the lock card from its wall case. The lights in the room go out at once, including TV and hair dryer.

  “Hey!” Pete says from his chair in front of the TV. “I was watching this!”

  Tarasov signals him to stay put. He quickly removes the key card from its holster to switch off all lights in the room and takes the clothes hanger that he had already placed close to the door – even the most heavily armed commando would be helpless if unexpectedly choke-held with that.

  After a heartbeat another knock comes. This time it is someone drumming the rhythm of the Garry Owen song with his fingers on the door.

  “Come in,” Tarasov says switching the lights back on. Nooria’s hair dryer starts buzzing again.

  “Boo!” The Top emanates the strong smell of liquor as he steps in and fakes a frightening gesture. “Gotcha!”

  “In high spirits, I see.”

  Hartman collapses into a chair. “Jesus! In the end I was prepared to make Custer’s last stand and die with my boots on. That Aussie son of a bitch almost won our drinking competition.”

  “Is he in business?”

  “Bet he is. He’s an oddball, though. Most hunters brag about what they bagged. Sawyer was bragging about what he didn’t.”

  “Like what?”

  “Among else, he mentioned gonorrhea in Warsaw and HIV in Cape Town.”

  “Gospodi, Top, how much did you drink?”

  “More than necessary, less than enough… anyway, tonight he’s on the hunt again. Masha is the name of the game, or Natasha or whatever… eyes of a cat, body of a panther! I could have taken her friend, a certain Katya but she was looking too KGB to me.”

  Hartman hiccups and makes a face as if he had already regretted his decision.

  “I hope those hookers will not distract him from the trip tomorrow.”

  “Don’t worry. I’d say he’s the kind of fellow who wouldn’t miss a boar hunt, not even for the sake of a dozen top models begging him for sex. And Jesus, the women here must all be top models because the way they look—good God!”

  “Is the hotel bar still open?” Pete asks, amused. “I could use some company myself.”

  “Over my dead body,” Hartman grumbles. “Anyway, what’s the plan for tomorrow?”

  Tarasov pulls the table closer to the Top’s chair and unfolds a map he took from the lobby, found among brochures promoting the sights of Kiev and Ukraine. It has the logo of Chernobyl Tours on it, an agency that organized tourist trips into the Zone before it became off-limits. “We’ll drive to a village called Prybirsk. Dytyatki would be even better, but it used to be the main entry point to the Zone and the army still maintains a big outpost there. I’m not too eager to run into former comrades. So, Prybirsk is where we’ll meet Sawyer. I hope he won’t be too exhausted tomorrow morning to drive there by his GPS.”

  “Why can’t we drive together?”

  “I don’t want to get him into any trouble, should we run into any on our way to the Zone. Once we’re out of the Big Land—we’re in it together.”

  “Sensible.”

  “Look. There’s an abandoned railway yard close by but already on the Zone’s rim. Trains no longer stop there but the rails run through the Zone for a few kilometers. The entry point is heavily guarded, but with a little bit of luck we should be able to get through.”

  “We’ll need more than a little luck.”

  “Exactly. We’ll also need to be on time and catch freight train 314. It goes daily between Kiev and Chernokhov, passing through the entry point at Prybirsk at nine in the morning.”

  The Top hiccups. “By train to where no trains go? That doesn’t give me anything.”

  “We’ll hijack one. Once inside the Zone, we jump off and follow the old railroad north-west until here.” Tarasov points at a position on the map. “We’ll go through the Tuzla tunnel, cross a river and arrive at the western edge of the Swamps. That’s where the real Zone begins.”

  “And once there?”

  “We’ll find my friend. He can be very elusive but I know of someone who keeps track of him.”

  “Fine with me,” Hartman says and hiccups once more.

  “First phase—let’s all go to sleep.”

  “No way for me to sleep with the Top,” Pete scowls. “He’s snoring like a bear.”

  Hartman grins. “Don’t even think of sleeping alone and sneaking away, you little rascal!”

  “Sorry, little brother,” Nooria says. “You can’t stay with us either.”

  Pete sighs. To stretch his legs, Tarasov walks over to Nooria and caresses her freshly washed hair. As he lifts a strand of her long hair, he smells a spicy and sweetish scent coming from her neck. It seems to go directly into his blood, invigorating his body, making all his exhaustion vanish and filling him with burning desire all over.

  “What’s this?” he asks sniffing.

  “I mixed my own perfume,” Nooria says with a mischievous giggle. “You like it?”

  “If I like your perfume?” Tarasov asks taking a deep breath with trembling nostrils. He points to the door. “You two! Get out of here! Now!”

  Sharing a grin, Hartman and Pete hurry out. They have barely closed the door when Tarasov lifts Nooria from her chair, tears off the bath robe from her naked body and tosses her onto the king size bed. Nooria is still giggling when Tarasov jumps after her with his clothes barely removed. After a heartbeat, her giggle turns into a moan. She moans louder and louder while letting the desire she stirred up in her man’s body take her with the vigor of a storm, screaming with desire as she becomes one with the waves of its force.

  30

  SBU headquarters, Kiev

  “Emission approaching,” Captain Maksimenko says looking at his watch. The elderly woman wearing plain civilian clothes and standing at the far corner of the plain office in the SBU headquarters looks at him with surprise.

  “What do you mean, Captain?”

  “Making people wait is a perfect way to weaken their resolve,” Maksimenko cheerfully replies. “We’re into something big tonight, Alyona Ivanovna. Just wait a little longer.”

  Although the blonde woman waiting outside is used to wait for anyone with just a little more power than ordinary citizens, be it at the local municipality, the train booking booth or a bank clerk’s desk, having to spend two hours on a vacated corridor of the SBU’s grim building has taken a toll on her.

  Realizing that her son is to be questioned by the SBU instead of the police was a surprise bad enough. First, she had hoped that ten minutes after her son, who is now nervously shuffling his feet on the wooden bench beside her, had told what he saw they would be soon on their way home with a handsome check in her wallet. As time passed and nobody came to see them, she was hoping that they will get away without too many formalities. After one hour, she wants to leave, thinking that if her son’s information is not urgent for the SBU then they could come back any other time.

  The guards abruptly refused them to leave. By now, mentally exhausted and nervously, she feels as if she has volunteered for imprisonment. The thought that the SBU can prove anyone guilty of anything makes her anxious.

  “Anhela Kirillovna?”

  The sight of the one-eyed officer who at last opens an office door and calls out her name doesn’t reduce her anxiety.
When she arrived with her son, she expected that the SBU would be grateful and friendly for providing them with information about a wanted criminal. But now she feels as if she were the criminal herself, waiting for interrogation.

  The officer repeats his call.

  “Anhela Kirillovna, come in. And this young man is…?”

  “Vladimir Alekseyevich Hrabko,” the boy respectfully replies.

  “We call him Vova,” his mother adds.

  “I am Captain Dmitriy Maksimenko, Security Service. Please be seated.”

  Without any apology for making them wait, Captain Maksimenko shows Anhela Kirillovna and Vova to sit down in two chairs standing in front of his desk. Expecting only Captain Maksimenko, she frowns when she sees an elderly female agent with short, grey hair being present as well. To Anhela Kirillovna, she has SBU written all over her wrinkled face as she leans against the wall next to a large photograph of a heroic monument. It shows the profile of a Soviet soldier from the Great Patriotic War, chiseled into a huge grey boulder. The inscription below says, ‘Defenders of Sebastopol – we will never forget you’.

  “So, Vova… out of curiosity, you checked up the home page of the police. Then your mother saw there’s a reward for providing law enforcement agencies with any hint about the whereabouts of those wanted criminals. Is that correct?”

  “It is, Captain Maksimenko.”

  “Anhela Kirillovna, you have the right to stay here while we question your son but please don’t answer any questions for him. Clear?”

  The woman nervously nods.

  Vova looks around, apparently disappointed at the total lack of anything that would resemble the world of secret services as he had seen in the movies. The Captain’s laptop is the only high-tech appliance in the room, and even that is standing next to a desk lamp that might have already stood on the same desk back in times when the building still housed the KGB.

  “So, it is you who saw the criminal?” Maksimenko asks the boy.

  Vova looks at his mother for encouragement before replying. Feeling his gaze, Anhela Kirillovna stirs. She had spent the last few moments looking at a plastic bucket with a mop inside, standing in the far corner behind the desk, and had contemplated if the cleaning utensils are still used to mop up blood from the floor like she saw in movies featuring KGB interrogations. She quickly nods.

  “Yes, officer.”

  “Call me Captain Maksimenko, Vova. Did you ever want to do something for our Motherland?”

  “Yes, Captain Maksimenko.”

  “Molodets. Do you know that the man you have recognized is a dangerous criminal?”

  Vova nods with a shadow of fear in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry, Vova, you are safe with us. We need your help, though.”

  Before he can continue, the door opens and Agent Fedorka rushes in. Maksimenko glances at his watch. Save for the neatly applied bandages on her wrists, the agent is tidy and her white blouse under the dark grey uniform jacket is perfectly ironed. No one could guess that just fifty-five minutes ago she had still been handcuffed to a bed, bathing in her own and Maksimenko’s sweat who now gives her the stern look of a superior officer.

  “We have been waiting for you, Agent.”

  “Apologies, Kapitan. I burned my wrists when making tea.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Was it hot?”

  “Very.”

  “Anhela Kirillovna, according to our protocols, minors are to be questioned by female agents. Female perception, I guess.” Maksimenko gives the mother a faint smile and turns to Fedorka. “Good that you’re on time. I was about asking Vova to identify the suspect.”

  Vera nods. She looks into the boy’s blue eyes.

  “I am Agent Fedorka but you can call me Vera. And I can call you Vova, right?”

  The boy nods.

  Her mother, who compared to the beautiful agent appears like a rain-soaked little sparrow, studies Fedorka with narrowed eyes. Feeling the elderly female agent’s look on her, she quickly looks elsewhere and tries to make the appearance of a good citizen who has nothing to hide. Even so, the gaze from the grey-haired agent’s dark eyes makes her feel guilty for crimes nobody could ever know, including her – except the SBU.

  “Vova, you are a very brave boy. That man wants to hurt people, like your mother and children like you.” Before she continues, Fedorka assesses the effect of his words on the boy. Vova looks genuinely scared. “Will you help us to find this man?”

  “Yes, Agent Fedorka.”

  Maksimenko turns his laptop towards the boy. The screen shows the home page of the Ukrainian police with the photographs and description of the country’s ten most wanted criminals. Maksimenko points at one of them.

  “Is this the man you saw?”

  “No.”

  Satisfied that the boy didn’t say yes over the photograph of a well-known mafia boss, Maksimenko now points at Tarasov’s file photograph.

  “Was it him?”

  “I don’t know” Vova stammers. “I think so, sir.”

  “He didn’t look like in this photograph?”

  “Yes he did, but he was… different.”

  “In which way? Did he wear a moustache or beard?”

  “I couldn’t see his face well enough in the darkness because last week Sergiy and Oleg were throwing stones at the lamp and the lamp is broken now…”

  Maksimenko and Fedorka exchange a glance.

  “Sergiy and Oleg, they are your friends, right?” Fedorka softly asks. “We will need to talk about this with them. What they did was wrong.”

  “But maybe we’ll skip that if you help us by answering our question properly,” adds Maksimenko and smiles at the boy.

  “He was… tall, very tall. And he had a face like… that one.”

  The agents follow the boy’s outstretched index finger.

  “Vova, this is very important,” Maksimenko says with a hint of impatience in his voice. “Please, if you want to help us catching that man, behave seriously.”

  “Otherwise, he might even come for you, Vova. Maybe for your mother too!”

  Seeing that Fedorka is bound to scare her son beyond measure, Anhela Kirillovna opens her mouth to protest. Then she feels the grey-haired agent’s gaze upon her once more and prefers to stay quiet.

  “But he was looking like that!” Vova exclaims.

  “You mean, like that Black Sea Fleet marine on the Sebastopol monument?”

  “Vova, little Vova,” Fedorka says with a voice sweet like honey. “Tell us the truth. You don’t want Sergiy and Oleg go to the prison for breaking that lamp, do you?”

  “But I am telling the truth!” the boy proudly says. “He had a big, strong chin like in the photograph and his face was very hard, like made from stone and he looked sad, too.”

  “Nonetheless you recognized him.”

  “Yes, because I remembered him. I met him once. He was wearing a uniform like Agent Maksimenko but with more medals on his chest, and even then he was taller—”

  Hearing this, the Captain’s eye flutters. Looking at Fedorka, he can even recognize a faint shadow of amusement in her face.

  “—and he told me that they don’t shoot at people in the army, and I believed him because my parents always tell me that our army is no good and just a waste of money…”

  Vova’s mother whimpers. Covering her mouth with her palm, she looks at the grey-haired agent who hardens her gaze under the black eyebrows.

  Maksimenko nods in satisfaction. “Thank you, Vova. That was all we needed to know.”

  “Can I go now?”

  “Yes, Vova,” Fedorka says with a warm smile. “You have been very helpful.”

  Relieved, the boy jumps up from his chair but now it’s his mother’s turn to ask a question. She clears her throat before beginning to talk.

  “About the—I mean, the reward… the cash…”

  Unseen by Anhela Kirillovna and her son, Maksimenko gives Fedorka a wink from his eye.

  “Oh ye
s, I think you deserve it. If I’m right, it is fifty thousand hrivnya, yes?”

  “Yes. Quite a lot of money,” Fedorka says, still smiling.

  Anhela Kirillovna’s look turns greedy.

  “Is it in cash, or…”

  “I am sorry,” Maksimenko says and closes his laptop. “You didn’t provide us with anything new.”

  “The web site said that any information—” Anhela Kirillovna stammers.

  “Not just any information. It said useful information. I am sorry. You can leave now.”

  Anhela Kirillovna looks from one agent to the other with a mixture of humiliation and anger. She is about to protest and demand the reward when her eyes meet those of the elderly agent once more. To Anhela Kirillovna, her silence is more threatening than anything else. She feels as if anything she had done in her life that might be interpreted as a deviation from a proper citizen’s way of life—stealing candies from a shop when she was a kid, having had too many lovers in her youth, voting for the wrong party in last year’s elections—could become charges against her to which she could only plead guilty.

  “Vova,” she stutters, “let’s go.”

  After the door closes, Maksimenko waits for a minute. Then he hits his palm with his fist.

  “Yes! It’s confirmed! He took the bait and came back! I told you so!”

  “And now what?” Pain is suddenly apparent on Fedorka’s face as she adjusts the bandages on her wrists. “How will you find him?”

  “I won’t need to.” Maksimenko looks at his watch. “Okay… I need to go to the Zone for a few days. That’s where Tarasov will go. Hunting season!”

  The noise of a faint cough comes from behind them.

  “Apologies, but can I go now?”

  Maksimenko turns to the grey-haired woman. “Of course, Alyona Ivanovna. You can continue mopping the corridor now. Your time was appreciated.”

  “Thank you, komandir.”

  The elderly woman takes the plastic bucket and the mop. She gives the two agents a smile that could come from a grandmother and leaves the room.

  “Who the hell was that?” Fedorka asks, puzzled.

  “Verka, Verka, you might be one of our best assets but you’ll never have Aunt Alyona’s gaze. She was housekeeping here even back in Soviet times.”

  “Psychological torture, I guess?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And here’s physical!” She gives Maksimenko a slap on his face. “Leaving me there in… that condition?”

  Fedorka’s hand might be fast but Maksimenko’s is faster. Before she could strike again, he catches her underarm and applies an iron grasp. Fedorka whimpers with pain. He grabs her closer to himself and kisses her.

  “Excellent job with that brat. You scared him shitless.”

  “I love you,” Vera Fedorka whispers.

  “Not here,” Captain Maksimenko whispers back, glancing at a barely discernible, dark spot in the ceiling that hides a CCTSV camera. “At your place.”

  Vera Fedorka steps away from him, but not without gouging her nails into his hand so deeply that Maksimenko can barely suppress a shout of pain.

  31

  Tribe outpost, New Zone

  Exposure to the Spirit means not only a growth in strength and bodily proportions, neither the almost complete exclusion of fears from a man’s instinct. A body thus toughened also reduces the need for sleep and rest, or maybe gives stronger willpower to resist such needs. Lieutenant José Ramirez never contemplated why he and the other Lieutenants could complete long marches during day, spend the whole night on watch and not feel any fatigue when resuming their mission the next day. But by whatever way the Spirit had changed them, it didn’t eliminate the need for something

  to keep them warm during a cold night and now he is pleased to feel the smell of hot coffee steaming from the metal cup in his hand. Enjoying smell and flavor, he wishes for a cigarette to round off this simple pleasure. A glowing cigarette would make him an excellent target for any hostile sniper lurking in the darkness, though. Having finished his coffee, he continues to watch the canyon from the roadblock.

  The fighters manning the roadblock are barely visible but he can smell them. A sharp musk of sweat and sleeplessness weaves through the air, mixed with the heavier scent of gun grease from his own recently cleaned M16.

  Stars abound in the sky. He has a clear view over the canyon where through his night vision binoculars everything appears to be illuminated by the eerie green of St. Elmo’s fire.

  “About one hour to sunrise,” a fighter breathes next to him.

  The last hour of the night watch is so quiet that Ramirez can even hear the howls of a jackal pack far to the south.

  “Jackals or wolves?” the fighter asks in a low voice.

  “Who cares?” Ramirez whispers back with a shrug. “I hate’em all. This place without mutants… that would be quite something.”

  “Yep. Been on patrol to the Amir Lake once… that huge blue water with pink and green anomaly fields all around it, reflecting the red sky before a dust storm hit… a marvelous sight.”

  Ramirez suddenly signals him to stop talking. He raises his binocs again and scans the canyon, but sees nothing suspicious.

  Those howls… they ended too abruptly.

  “Something scared the jackals away,” he whispers. “I don’t like this. Get Campbell over here.”

  Campbell too was a member of the Colonel’s original team, but Ramirez, at that time a staff sergeant, had outranked Lance Corporal Campbell. Although now both are Lieutenants, seniority is still reflected by their positions – Ramirez a squad leader, Campbell his second in command.

  “Sir?” the junior Lieutenant asks when he appears at the roadblock. He is wearing an exoskeleton like Ramirez and an M16A4 with grenade launcher is slung over his shoulder.

  “Something just scared the shit out of a jackal pack, a few hundred meters south of our position.”

  Ramirez hands the heavy binoculars to Campbell. He pulls up his face mask and rubs his tired eyes.

  “I see mutants!”

  “Get the men ready, quickly!” Ramirez tells Campbell. “Move!”

  He grabs the binoculars and looks where his second in command had pointed a minute ago. Still blurred in the distance, a huge pack of ferocious jackals appears in the green vision.

  Muted noise comes from the outpost as fighters wearing heavy combat gear are manning machine guns and rifle positions.

  “All teams, check your comms,” Ramirez says into his intercom.

  The first reply comes from the fighters taking up position at the roadblock. “Rifle One, in position.”

  “Rifle Two, ready,” comes the reply from the other side of the creek.

  “Mortar team ready.”

  “Heavy One, ready.”

  “Heavy Two, in position.”

  “Heavy One and Two, hold fire on the .50 cals,” Ramirez commands. “Rifle One and Two, lock and load! Fire on my command!”

  He waits until the approaching pack gets into point-blank range. When the mutants are just about 250 meters away, Ramirez aims at their alpha.

  “Open fire!” he shouts and fires his assault rifle. The two fire teams immediately respond to his call. Their M16s hit the tightly packed jackals from the front and right side. Though decimated in a few seconds, they keep running towards the outpost.

  Then the first mine explodes, followed by several more as the mutants enter the minefield laid out on the dirt track in front of the roadblock. Instead of turning back or scattering, the jackals keep running up, seemingly ignoring the bullets hailing on them, their heavy bodies releasing more mines as they step and fall on them. Lieutenant Campbell brings the last one down just a few steps before the roadblock.

  Ramirez waves his hand and shouts, “Cease fire!”

  Save for a few faint yelps coming from wounded mutants, silence descends. Unhurriedly, Ramirez aims his rifle and finishes them off one by one. “The sandbox has just said good morning
.”

  Campbell snorts. “Mutants with a death wish?”

  “They got it,” Ramirez replies, loading a full magazine into his assault rifle.

  A bark sounds in the distance. The noise makes the Lieutenant frown. To his ears it sounded more like a human imitating a jackal alpha, though if so, then in a very faithful way. He has no time to ponder over this as one of his fighters shouts out.

  “There’s more of them!”

  An even larger pack appears. Lieutenant Ramirez orders his men to fire and the previous gory scene repeats itself. The only difference is that by the time the last mutant is killed, their bodies lay much closer to the roadblock. A horrible suspicion comes to Ramirez’ss mind and he is not the only one perplexed over what has just happened.

  “Jesus Christ, they’ve cleaned the minefield!” a fighter shouts.

  “Try to decaf, man!” Ramirez shouts back. “The jackals were just hungry and got their bellies filled with lead!”

  “What if they were sent to clear the mines, sir?”

  Ramirez first wants to reprimand the fighter for talking nonsense but then admits to himself that the man has a point. Even if the two packs had attacked them senselessly, the track is now cleared right up to the roadblock.

  “Campbell, set up the Raven. Heavy One and Two, stay alert, mortar team, prepare to fire,” he commands. “Keep your eyes open, warriors.”

  His second in command rushes to the Humvee stationed beyond the cover of the fallen boulders. Hearing a noise, Ramirez glances at the steep canyon wall to his left.

  “Just a loose rock,” a fighter says.

  “I need that SUAV, now!” Ramirez impatiently shouts over the intercom.

  I want to see what’s going on deeper in this goddamned canyon, the Lieutenant thinks. He is about to tell his men something encouraging to ease the tension when he sees a flash not far from their positions. A split second later he hears a muted blast coming from the same spot.

  He screams out. “Incoming!”

  The rocket-propelled grenade impacts on the dust track, just a meter away from the roadblock. A second one follows and hits the fighters’ cover. It doesn’t deal too much damage to the well-fortified roadblock where the weathered sandbags are hard like concrete, but shakes the men behind and showers them with sand and stone splinters.

  Then all the hell breaks lose. Dozens, if not hundreds of Kalashnikovs start to rain fire on the defenders from the canyon walls.

  “All teams, fire at will!” Ramirez screams. “Campbell, it’s too late for surveillance now! Get back to position!”

  He quickly assesses their situation. The attackers have obviously used the distraction by the jackals to take up positions above. They can pin them down from the canyon walls but can’t get closer without leaving their cover. Their left flank across the creek is safe because no enemy, no matter how fanatical, would be crazy enough to wade through the irradiated water. Without the mines blocking access, the roadblock itself is in greater danger but the dirt track leading up can be easily held under fire by the nearby machine gun and the mortars in the rear.

  “Here they come!” a fighter shouts at the roadblock. “Ragheads in the open, one o’clock!”

  “Asking distance?” Ramirez demands.

  “Two-zero-zero, approaching fast!”

  “Mortar team! Fire emission, direction – twelve, distance – one-niner-zero, marker – jeep track,” the Lieutenant yells. “Fire for effect, over!”

  “Fire for effect. Out.”

  A second after the mortar section’s acknowledgement the first 81mm round impacts on the track. Ramirez mentally praises Gunny Anderson’s training skills—the two light mortars fire consecutively in a two-second cycle, sending a devastating HIE round every second into the approaching enemy. The two heavy .50 caliber machine guns also get into action. All in all, Ramirez sees with relief that they are still far from being overrun.

  “Rifle teams, save ammo!” he commands. “Campbell, pass the word!”

  The suppressive fire from the hillside doesn’t cease for a second but the Tribe’s well-protected machine guns and mortars deal carnage to the approaching enemies.

  “Should we report this to the Alamo?” Campbell asks through the gunfire.

  Ramirez grins under his face mask. “We’re an outpost, we’re supposed to be attacked. Wait till things get real dicey!”

  “It’s your call, sir,” Campbell replies and continues firing. He has only fired two bursts when the assault appears to be over. No more ragheads appear from the south.

  “Mortar team, hold your fire,” the Lieutenant commands. ”Hold fire!”

  The suppressive fire ceases on the hillside and Ramirez hears the attackers above shout out. It is not a battle that echoes in the valley but a triumphant cheer.

  “What the hell?” he asks, wishing there had been enough time to set up the surveillance craft.

  Cautiously, Ramirez peeks over the sandbags. Immediately, his instinct tells him to get back to cover but what meets his eye forces him to keep looking, trying hard to believe his own eyes. His fighters must be perplexed too because none of them open fire – even though that would be the natural reaction of armed men when seeing hulky, humanoid mutants lumbering towards them.

  The mutants’ muscles tell of superhuman strength. On the brawny arms, chests and limbs, thick blue veins run under a pale skin. They bend forward as they get closer, as if their limbs cannot cope with the weight of their immense torsos, the disfigured heads slightly hung and having a mouth from where oversized teeth and fangs protrude. Once they might have been humans because they wear rags of protective suits and still know, or have learned again, how to use weapons. Big ones.

  “Smiters!” Campbell screams, “Smiters! Oh fuck, they got machine guns!”

  Apparently ignoring the hail of bullets fired at them, the dozen or so mutants sweep the outpost’s defenses with their machine guns. From the cover of their hulks, hostile humans fire and throw grenades.

  Ramirez understands at once that their own two heavy machine guns are the only hope. “Heavy One, Two, kill those bastards!”

  Tracers mark the arc of fire as the .50 calibers begin to rake the assaulting mutants. The smiters ignore the radiation in the water and cross the creek, forcing the to machine guns to disperse their fire over a wider range. At the same time, a mass of Taliban is storming toward the roadblock. Ramirez’s mortars can’t fire there, unless they want to hit their own fighters who are frantically firing their M16s.

  “Campbell! To that fifty, go, go, go! Heavy Two, direct your fire at the smiters in the creek!”

  The smiter’s walk is slow but their steps are as long as human leaps. They cross the creek in a matter of seconds and the first of them, ignoring the blood flowing from his wounds all over his rags with blue and brown camouflage, has already reached the machine gun post at the bridge. Ramirez hears the .50 caliber cease firing and his men scream in terror.

  His own position at the roadblock is also about to be overrun. The incendiary rounds fired from the heavy machine gun rip into the closest smiter’s body and make it howl with pain. The smell of blood and burnt flesh rises as the rags over his chest catch fire. The smiter trembles and at last goes into his knees. But another already steps up from behind, raising the hand-held machine gun and mows the .50 caliber’s crew down.

  Screaming with rage, Ramirez empties one magazine after the other but his M16 doesn’t have much effect on these huge mutants.

  “Last mag!” he hears a fighter scream. It is the man from the watch who had fond memories of the New Zone’s beauties, and he won’t have the chance to see them again – a Talib jumps at him and holds his neck in a chokehold while another finishes him off with a long burst from his Kalashnikov. Ramirez fires his M16 and downs him, then reaches for another magazine on his assault vest only to realize that he has just finished his own ammunition.

  He flips the M16 in his hand and moves to the disabled machine gun, shat
tering skulls and punching bodies with the rifle butt and screaming as loud as he can.

  “Pull yourself together, men! Fight! Give’m hell!”

  He grabs an M27 from the ground and fires it at a mutant who is about to climb across the roadblock. The smiter’s massive fist smashes into the piled-up sandbags as he begins to tear down the defenses. Ramirez aims at the drooling mouth and sends all rounds still left in the STANAG magazine into the smiter’s head. It staggers for a second, giving a painful and angry roar, then collapses.

  But by now their forward defenses are overrun. Ramirez finds himself almost alone this side of the bridge, and the situation on the other bank looks dire—the Taliban and their mutant allies are already fighting among the stone huts. A fighter is already manning the tower machine gun of a Humvee. For a moment it seems that he can hold back the assault by peppering the fast approaching Taliban, but then two smiters step up and, to Ramirez’ss horror, get a hold on the vehicle, turn it over and let it tumble down the creek. Defeat seems certain to Lieutenant Ramirez, though amid all the carnage he can’t see a single of his men retreating.

  But all he can do now is to issue just that command.

  “Fall back! Fall back, to the Humvees!”

  Then he himself makes a dash across the bridge. Several enemies try to block his way. Ramirez charges into their midst, ignoring the 7,62mm rounds hitting his heavy body and sweeps them away, smashing two hostiles with his rifle and kicking down a third. He is just a few steps away from the Humvees, and sees his remaining fighters retreat there too. Ramirez lets go off the empty automatic rifle and takes a fallen Talib’s AKS.

  A thundering explosion blasts the house where the mortar team is located. He instantly knows that a grenade or RPG shot must have hit the mortar shells, killing friends inside and enemies outside. The radioman, carrying the heavy radio on his back, is slain by a smiter. With bullets whooshing over his cover, a corpsman attempts to give first aid to a wounded warrior, only to disappear in the fiery blast of an RPG shot.

  “To the Humvees! Go, go, go!”

  Ramirez turns back to fire and give as much cover as he can to his few remaining men. He presses the trigger. The battered rifle fires two shots – and jams.

  A grenade hits the closest Humvee where a few retreating fighters were already climbing inside. The blast sends Ramirez to his knees but he staggers to his feet once more. Then a massive fist hits him from behind and he falls forward, face into the dust.

  His last thought is that of Saria letting her tribal gown slide off her shoulders and baring her full breasts, where sweat glimmers like pearls on the olive skin. Then everything goes black.

  32

  Prybirsk village, on the border of the Exclusion Zone

  The small shop at the main street of Prybirsk is no different from the thousands of similar establishments in the Ukrainian countryside. It is half shop, half drinking hole, with a round table in the middle where patrons can lean on because there are no chairs, and a shelf loaded with goods that get more expensive and dustier the higher they are placed. There is an electric kettle on the counter, next to a small rack with chocolate bars and chewing gum. A piece of paper fastened to the rack tells anyone interested that a Nescafé costs ten hrivnyi.

  Ignoring the four costumers standing at the table and talking in a language he doesn’t understand, an old shopkeeper counts his money. Occasionally, he wets his fingers with his tongue. It’s a lot of profit for such an early morning, but the Bear type artifact detector he had just sold to his customers fetched a good price.

  Through the door left ajar, one can see a factory building looming beyond the row of low village houses across the road.

  In front of the house facing the shop, a topless UAZ-469 jeep is parked next to the house facing the shop, soaking in the gray drizzle. Rust spots dot its olive-green paint all over. At dawn, it still belonged to a farmer in a village about forty kilometers away. Knowing that this is the kind of car they need for the first part of their trip, Tarasov hot-wired the jeep by connecting the primary power supply and the electrical circuits. Before driving off, they left their Skoda in the jeep’s place with a hand-written note asking the owner to return it to the car rental agency in Kiev. To cheer him up, the note was accompanied by a handsome amount of dollars, at least twice of what the nearly wrecked jeep is worth.

  “The world is ruled by cast-iron laws,” Pete says looking gloomily into his white plastic cup with lukewarm coffee inside. “It’s horribly boring. I thought by spitting at my father’s legacy, you know, running AWOL and doing things he would never approve of… thinking all that would break those laws. But I no longer know how to break those laws. Looks like my rebellion was useless.”

  “Agreed,” the Top says taking a slow sip from his own cup. “Life’s boring out there. To live in the Middle Ages was interesting.

  iImagine, you step out of your little village and suddenly the world is full of mysteries and unknown dangers.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re about to do,” Tarasov says, touching the Top’s cup with his. “Wait… I think Sawyer is here. Great!”

  He steps out into the rain, but immediately recoils as a red SUV brakes from its neck-breaking speed and splashes muddy water all around.

  “Howdy!”

  The hunter steps out with a friendly smile. He puts his hat on the top of the car and adjusts his hair, then courteously opens the other door. To Tarasov’s bewilderment, an elegantly dressed, beautiful woman appears. She gracefully lifts her long coat as she steps closer.

  “This lady was so kind as to agree to come with us to the Zone,” Sawyer says taking a rucksack and two rifle bags from the back seat. “She’s a very courageous woman. Her name is—uhm, what’s your name?”

  “Are you really a Stalker?” she asks ignoring the hunter and looking Tarasov lasciviously up and down.

  “Wait—I’ll explain everything,” Tarasov tells Sawyer. He slowly skirts the car.

  “Go away,” he rudely tells her.

  “What a cretin!” the woman says. Without hesitation, she sits into the driver’s seat and drives off.

  “Hey! That’s my rented Range Rover!” Sawyer shouts. “And my hat!”

  “It’s here,” Tarasov says picking it up from the mud and shaking the rainwater off. “You did get drunk after all.”

  “Me?” Sawyer says stepping inside the shop. “What do you mean? I had a drink, like one half of the world does. The other half gets drunk. Including women and children. I just had a drink though. Damn it, what a mess here!”

  “It’s our last stop before entering the Zone. Go on, drink. We’ve got time.”

  “How about a glass for the road?” Sawyer asks. “What do you think?”

  “Alcoholism is the scourge of mankind,” Tarasov grumbles. “At least early in the morning.”

  “All right, we’ll drink beer.”

  While Tarasov gets four bottles of Obolon from the shopkeeper, Sawyer rubs his temples.

  “You know, I couldn’t sleep last night with the jet lag and all, so I educated myself. I read a lot about the place on the internet you want to take me to. Thank God for wifi.”

  “Don’t believe half of it,” Tarasov says placing the bottles onto the table. “There’s all kind of lies about the Zone. Some idiots even say it was created by radioactivity.”

  “Yeah, damned internet,” Pete says. “Twitter, Facebook… it’s all bullshit. Imagine, someone says ’I saw it, Lady Gaga has a dick’ and everyone goes oh! and ah! And suddenly it turns out that the guy was lying, just having fun. There’s no real truth anymore, just what people want to hear.”

  “Is it what you think about all the time?” Hartman asks.

  “God forbid! In fact, I don’t think much. It’s not good for me.”

  “Tell me, Sawyer, now that you know where we’re heading—why did you let yourself get mixed up in all this?” Tarasov asks. “What do you need this trip for? You could have stayed in Kiev an
d have whatever fun you want. You seem to have more than enough money.”

  “Money’s boring,” shrugs the Australian.

  Nooria gives him a stern look. “Have you been used up?”

  “What? Yeah, I guess, in a way. I’m not a hunter but a survivalist, actually. You know, my family was always rich. First I was driven by fear over losing it. What if one day I wake up with all gone? You could call it paranoia, I guess. But then it became a passion. I always need a fix of danger. I’m no fear junkie, no, nothing like that. I need the feeling of facing fear and being able to overcome it. Proving myself. If you think I’m your ordinary rich tourist prick – I don’t give a damn, no, but you’d be very wrong about me.”

  “You’ve been SASR?” the Top curiously asks. “Special Air Service Regiment?”

  “Nah. I’d never be able to bring myself to shoot at other human beings. I’m just a nature-loving man needing the odd danger to remind me I’m still alive.”

  “That makes two of us,” Pete says. “Only that I need stuff for that.”

  “I thought you were coming clean, little brother.”

  “Wouldn’t know, Nooria. Being off for… how long? A week maybe? There was a time I thought I couldn’t live without it even for a day.”

  “But you do want to come clean, no?”

  Pete shrugs. “Why should I, anyway? Tell me one damned reason.”

  “To live.”

  “Spare me such clichés, please.”

  Through the splashing rain comes the faint rattle, slowly getting closer. A train engine’s whistle pierces into the quiet morning.

  “Do you hear it? Our train.”

  Tarasov walks to the UAZ, followed by his companions. As if testing if the rusted car could fall apart or not, the Top gives its tire a soft kick. Pete suddenly halts.

  “Dammit! I forgot to buy cigarettes.“

  “Don’t go back,” says Tarasov.

  “Why?”

  “You must not.“

  Tarasov makes a gesture that appears more like ‘brings bad luck’ than ‘we’re pressed for time’.

  “Are you Stalkers all like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Believing such nonsense.” Pete sighs and puts away the box with his last cigarette. “Okay, I’d better leave it for a rainy day.”

  Hoping that the rain-soaked engine will start, Tarasov connects the ignition cables. To his relief, the battery comes to life and, after a squeaks and stutters, powers the engine up. “Keep your eyes peeled for army patrols.”

  The drizzle turns into heavy rain. Driving slowly, he steers the UAZ into a narrow street flanked by dull brick walls. Tarasov doesn’t even bother to switch on the windscreen wipers, presuming they wouldn’t work in this decrepit car. He releases the windshield and bends it forward over to the hood.

  After about a hundred meters, they reach a short section where the wall had collapsed. Tarasov turns left and drives through into an alley between two rows of old, dilapidated buildings. The smell of damp rot coming from the glassless windows can be detected even through the rain.

  They are driving through a gate that appears like the entrance to the factory area beyond the village. The ground is now solely mud, as if it had never seen tarmac, but the silent buildings around tell of many years of heavy industrial activity.

  They have barely crossed under the gate when Tarasov stops the car and switches off the headlights. After a minute, all hear the noise of a motorcycle approaching.

  “Get down!”

  Following Tarasov’s command, the travelers duck. At the far end of the alley between the gate house and a low building that looks like an old warehouse, a motorbike appears. The soldier driving it glances at the UAZ.

  “Don’t move!” Tarasov whispers.

  The patrolman apparently sees nothing particular about the UAZ. In its dilapidated state, the car blends in perfectly with the abandoned industrial buildings. He adjusts the AKM assault rifle hanging from his neck and drives on.

  Tarasov waits a few seconds until the motorbike’s noise recedes, then starts the engine up, reverses the car and drives on once more to the left, in the opposite direction to where the patrol went. Now the village houses have disappeared completely and they drive through a maze of blackened factory halls, following the rails running along. They lead to a massive gate. Tarasov stops the UAZ at the entrance of a factory hall.

  “Top, go and see if anyone’s there!”

  Jumping out from the idling car, Hartman cautiously walks towards the other end of the hall.

  “Move it, for God’s sake!”

  The Top quickens his steps. He looks around in the alley running parallel to the one where the car is waiting.

  “There’s no one here!”

  “Go to the other exit!” Tarasov shouts back.

  They hear the noise of the train again and the reason for Tarasov’s discomfort becomes clear at once. The Top peeks out to the alley and can barely pull his head back when the train appears on the rails. It rattles down the alley at only an arm’s length from the brick walls and shaking them, even though the engine only has a single flat-bed wagon in tow. It carries a strange device resembling a set of transformers for a gigantic utility pole.

  Tarasov picks him up at the exit across the hall, slowing down the UAZ only as much as allows the Top to find a hold and jump inside. He is about to take a sharp turn to the left when the patrolman’s bike appears beyond the corner.

  Tarasov presses against the brake at full force and quickly reverses the car.

  “Where on earth did you look, Top?”

  Luckily for them, the patrolman must have been away to attend nature’s call or gave in to another distraction because by the time he sits back on his bike, the UAZ is already gone.

  Hiding behind a corner, Tarasov watches him leave. Then he rushes back to the car and drives it at neck-breaking speed into another narrow alley. The Top shares a puzzled gaze with Sawyer and Pete—the alley appears to lead back to where they were coming, directly to the rails leading to the gate.

  Then, through a cloud of mist, the headlights of the train engine appear. Seemingly out of nowhere, a sleepy-looking worker appears with a cigarette in his mouth. He opens the gate, giving the gate wings just enough time to fling open before the train proceeds through. Before he can close them again, the sight he sees makes the cigarette fall from his lips—the old UAZ charges after the train as if it were towed by the engine itself.

  The worker shrugs and closes the gate, thinking about all the strange things he has seen here on the outer frontier of the Exclusion Zone.

  Unknown to Tarasov’s four companions, the gate closing behind them now also separates them from the outside world, that Stalkers refer to as the Big Land. Even if their leader fully concentrates on driving, the foreboding mist and the strange industrial shapes lurking in the gloom make them suspect the proximity of the Zone. Nooria is the only one who has the shadow of a smile playing around her mouth, while her eyes tell of exhilaration in place of anxiety.

  Tarasov slows down, leaving more distance between them and the train driving ahead of them. Misunderstanding this, Sawyer pats his shoulder.

  “We’re in the Exclusion Zone already?”

  “No.”

  “So that’s what you meant by hijacking a train?” the Top asks.

  “No. That part comes now.”

  “Oh crap,” sighs Pete. “I thought we were already there!”

  Far ahead, a searchlight shines through the mist and a heavily guarded checkpost becomes visible through the gloom. Tall, barbed wire fences run left and right from the rails which are blocked by a heavy barrier. The barbed wire fence forms a corridor where it runs along the tracks, apparently to prevent anyone to jump on or off the trains passing through. Soldiers in full battle gear man the tower looming above the checkpost and the barrier itself.

  Tarasov halts the car and switches off the headlights. He raises his right hand in a signal to every
one to hold still.

  “We have exactly five seconds to get through there without getting killed,” he whispers.

  The barrier slowly goes up and the train halts in the barbed wire corridor. A dozen soldiers give it a thorough search.

  “Looks like a damn Checkpoint Charlie,” the Top says under his breath.

  The train sounds its horn and gets into motion.

  “Brace yourself,” Tarasov whispers. “Let’s pray this junk doesn’t let us down!”

  He gives full throttle. The UAZ darts after the train, almost slipping off the rails and reaches at in the moment when the soldiers are about to lower the barrier. Barely able to keep the car on the slippery rails, Tarasov engages the differential lock and shifts into second gear. The tortured car emits a thick cloud of exhaustion fumes.

  For a second, surprise seems to render the soldiers motionless. Then a loudspeaker crackles.

  “ALERT! STALKERS DETECTED! OPEN FIRE! OPEN FIRE!”

  Luckily for them, none of the guards has enough time to take proper aim. The fire of their hip-fired AKMs misses, and the precious load of the flatbed wagon hinders the guards manning the watchtower to lay fire on them.

  Or so Tarasov hopes. In an instant, a heavy machine gun starts barking from above.

  “So this is where they put that damned RPK from Cordon Base!” he yells through the whizz of bullets.

  Only a few meters left until the train leaves the barbed wire corridor.

  “We’re sitting ducks!” the Top shouts. “Drive, drive!”

  Two bullets hit the hood. Hot steam jets through the holes immediately. The slow train has not entirely passed through yet when Tarasov takes a sharp turn to the left. The Top watches with dread as the wagon’s rear buffer is about to pierce into the car. Then it only shaves off the right mirror as the UAZ jolts off the rails, slides through the mud and turns right behind the corner of a ruined industrial building.

  Tarasov drives through halls filled with debris and decrepit machinery. Glass fallen from the broken windows shatters and squeaks under the tires. They hit a pile of wooden crates that collapses behind them, one smashing against the UAZ and missing Nooria’s head by a hair. With brakes squeaking, the car comes to a halt.

  Then it is quiet, so quiet that even the drops of water falling from the holes in the roof can be heard. It takes a moment for their ears to detect the faint noise of a siren – coming from a distance seeming safe enough. Then it dies off.

  “I was told people here drive like crazy,” the Australian says climbing off the jeep, “but I didn’t expect… this.”

  “Everyone still in one piece?” Tarasov asks turning back in his seat.

  Pete touches his neck, then looks at his hand with sudden fright. “I’m bleeding,” he says.

  Nooria immediately tends to his wound.

  “You are lucky, little brother,” she says pulling a bandage from her shoulder bag.

  Pete scowls. “Is that my artery?”

  “How bad is his wounded?” Tarasov asks with concern.

  “Bullet just grazed him.”

  “Slava Bogu. Top, Sawyer, go and look if there’s a draisine where the rails begin.”

  Hartman looks around in the hall. “What is this place?”

  “It used to be a railway yard where the machines made in the factories were loaded. We need to find the draisine used for railway maintenance. ”

  “A—what?”

  “Kind of a motorized hand car or train car. You’ll recognize it when you see it.”

  “You must be meaning a rail speeder.”

  Tarasov heaves an impatient sigh. “Whatever. Go now, before Sawyer gets lost.”

  “Yes, sir, Major, sir,” the Top grumbles.

  “You seem to be fully in charge now,” Pete says while Nooria applies the bandage over his wound. “Enjoying it?”

  “No. Neither did I enjoy being in charge of the outpost we’ve just passed.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I was the commander of Cordon Base, and with that all the armed forces guarding the Zone’s perimeter. Including the checkpost we’ve passed.”

  “How things have changed,” Pete quietly says.

  Tarasov looks around in the gloomy hall and sighs. “Yes… things have changed. There was no shooting on sight during my times. Who knows, maybe Squirrel was right… maybe I’m more a Stalker than a soldier.”

  “Who is Squirrel?”

  “He was a good Stalker.”

  Sawyer appears. “We found your rail car. It has no fuel, though.”

  “Where?”

  “Next hall.”

  Tarasov signals him to climb in. He drives through the lifeless halls, turns into the direction shown by the Australian and already sees the Top’s tall figure next to a two-person draisine. It stands abandoned where the rails leave the building through an opening in the wall. If there was a gate once its wooden wings had fallen apart long time ago.

  “Get your gear to the cart.”

  He rumbles in on the floor of the UAZ until he finds the plastic tube almost every driver of such a vehicle keeps in the car. With the car’s armatures being legendarily unreliable, no driver knows exactly how much fuel is left in the tanks. Gas stations are scarce in the countryside and if the tanks run dry, the best help is to wave off another car and buy enough petrol to make it back home. And transferring petrol from one kind to another requires a tube.

  Tarasov plugs one end of the tube into the car’s trunk. He sucks at the other end and, feeling the petrol flowing, quickly puts the tube into the fuel drum on the draisine.

  “Sawyer,” he says, “now would be a good time to prepare your rifles.”

  “What do you got?” Hartman curiously asks the Australian.

  “A Beretta DT-10, a Benelli Super Sport and a Steyr-Mannlicher for .223 cartridges,” Sawyer replies unzipping the rifle cases. “Seeing as this is the former USSR, and Russians knowing a thing or two about bears, I also have a TOZ-34.”

  “I’ll have to ask you to lend me that,” Tarasov says smiling.

  “Don’t mind if you ask me nicely, but I won’t let any of you touch my Steyr.”

  “The Beretta is fine with me,” the Top says. “When did you clean them last?”

  “The Steyr this morning. The others before leaving home. I didn’t expect to get to my hunting grounds so quickly.”

  “You love the Steyr, I see. Oh yes, there’s nothing like a good old bolt action rifle.”

  “Hey guys… I’m really happy to have run into you. You seem to know what’s good in life.” Sawyer takes an elegant, leather-covered hip flask from a pocket on his Gore-Tex jacket. “Want to make it even better?”

  “Give me some cartridges instead.”

  “The ammo is in that shoulderbag. I hope we won’t have to fire ‘em soon, though. I hate firing me rifle sharp before takin’ a warm-up shot.”

  “That’s superstition. Back in Tennessee…”

  “We’re not in Tennessee. It’s Ukraine and bloody cold.”

  While the two gun nuts enter another friendly dispute over hunting rifles, Tarasov keeps his eye on the tube. He wouldn’t want to waste a drop of the precious fuel.

  He pays too much attention to the fuel transfer to spot the shadows appearing in the gloom outside. They grow bigger, take a human shape, and when Tarasov casually looks there and sees soldiers stepping out of the mist, it is almost too late. They fire their AKMs before he could yell a warning.

  “Take cover! Pete, Nooria, get off the car, now!”

  They all duck behind the draisine. Bullets whizz, clinking and clanking as they hit the rusted machines around them and the concrete floor.

  “Let’s get out of here!” Sawyer shouts.

  “No! The fuel drum’s not full yet!”

  “I don’t give damn about the fuel, let’s go!”

  Realizing that the trespassers don’t fire back, the soldiers are moving closer. Tarasov can already hear the commands barked.
<
br />   “Na levo, na levo!”

  “Return fire, but try not to hit them!” he shouts.

  “You mad? They’re here to kill us!”

  “Do what I said, Top!”

  Hartman fires his shotgun to suppress the approaching soldiers.

  “Nazad!” shouts one of the soldiers. “Nakroy menya!”

  “If someone gets hit, don’t shout or rush about!” Tarasov bellows. “If they see you, they’ll kill you! Crawl back to the outpost, they’ll pick you up!”

  A wooden crate crashes as Sawyer pellets it with a buckshot round, forcing the soldier sneaking up behind it to fall back.

  “Heard you, nanny!” he shouts back at Tarasov. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  The fuel drum is now almost completely full.

  “Top! Sawyer! On my command, fire your rifles, barrel by barrel! Then let’s get to the draisine and move!”

  “Wait, my rucksack is in the car!”

  “We have enough gear, Sawyer! Get rid of your rucksack, it will just hamper you!”

  “No way!”

  With a flashing display of recklessness, Sawyer leaps over to the car, grabs his heavy rucksack and fires his rifle blindly towards their pursuers.

  “Get back, Sawyer! Reload rifles! On my command, one, two… fire!”

  Six rifle shots sound off the reel. Using the moments while the soldiers hide behind their cover, Tarasov gives the draisine a push with all his strength, jumps on the slowly rolling vehicle and pulls the string that should start the engine. Nothing happens.

  “Blyad!”

  Cussing, he jumps off. The soldiers recommence firing and seeing that they are about to escape, rush forward.

  “Pete! Pull on that string as strong as you can! Top!”

  Hartman doesn’t need any explanation. He joins Tarasov in pushing the draisine. All of a sudden, the crude machine appears to be much lighter. Sawyer fires his rifle once more. The sound of his rifle being reloaded is suddenly suppressed by the engine coming to life.

  “Chort! Blyadiviy Stalker, kushay blin!”

  Swearwords are the last they hear from the soldiers as the draisine gains speed and drives off with them into the mist. A few bullets still fly by but miss them by far.

  “Phew,” Sawyer sighs. “This ain’t got nothing to do with Ukrainian hospitality I read about in Lonely Planet.”

  “We were lucky,” Tarasov says, darting a concerned look behind. “Those grunts were surprised at us shooting back… Stalkers usually don’t carry guns at this stage.”

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t blame them for killing every damned grunt when they return from the Zone with all the heavy gear they get,” the Top says and wipes sweat from his forehead.

  “Stalkers don’t make it back.”

  “How come?”

  “Real ones do not return. They stay.”

  “Are there women in the Zone?”

  “No, Sawyer. Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Aw! You didn’t tell me that! Because that really sucks, mate. How can a man survive like that? Don’t tell me everyone’s gay there!”

  “Sometimes I think the Zone is a woman.”

  “You mean, jealous and demanding?”

  “Beautiful too,” Tarasov smiles at the Australian.

  “And we’re drivin’ into her at full speed like…”

  Nooria clears her throat. “Can soldiers catch up with us?”

  “Those grunts fear it like the plague,” Tarasov says slowly shaking his head.

  “Fear what?”

  He doesn’t reply.

  The rain has stopped. By now the weak sun has climbed high enough on the southern horizon to make the mist slowly fade away. Gradually, the mist reveals an area spoilt by derelict metal structures, half-ruined buildings, piles of rotting longs and boat wrecks that hint at a river in the vicinity. Broken gantries loom like one-handed giants. A utility line follows the course of the rails; after one or two kilometers, the cables end hanging lose from the towers as if intentionally cut, making their steel structure appear like motionless sentinels guarding over this land that might have been thriving once, but has sunk into oblivion and decay long ago.

  “Wow!” Pete say pointing at a tiny, wrecked car. “Someone dumped his toy car here?”

  “It was called a Zaporozhets,” Tarasov replies looking elsewhere.

  The draisine progresses along the bumpy rails with a monotonous clacking. To Tarasov it sounds like music and his heart beats faster on the thought of getting closer to the Exclusion Zone with each meter they make.

  Gradually, the gloomy industrial structures become sparser. Low hills appear, covered by lush, overgrown grass.

  A brown shape appears through thin fog. Then two more, moving slowly closer to the rails. Stirred by something moving in the lifeless landscape, Tarasov reaches for his rifle. But when the shapes become clearer he smiles.

  “Aw my goodness!” shouts an astonished Sawyer. “Przevalsky horses!”

  The draisine doesn’t seem to disturb the small troop of a dozen sturdy, tan colored, pony-like animals. Hearing the noise of the approaching draisine, a few horses curiously rise their round heads from the thick grass they are grazing. Staying at a safe distance from the rails, the strongest jerks its neck where the black mane stands up straight, snorts and continues with its breakfast. With their lead stallion not signaling danger, the rest of the troop follows suit, calmly wagging their black tails.

  “Don’t even think about shooting them,” Tarasov says.

  “Now why would anyone harm such wonderful creatures?” Sawyer resentfully says.

  “I just wanted to have this said.”

  “Are those mutants?” Pete asks.

  Sawyer breaks out in laughter, but Tarasov only smiles.

  “I think we had such a horse in my village,” Nooria says, pensively.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Tarasov says gently putting his hand on her shoulder. “You’re a Hazara, and if legends are true, Hazaras are Genghis Khan’s descendants. His warriors used to ride this kind of horses.”

  “Tough little sons of bitches,” the Top murmurs.

  “Survive everything and everywhere, yes,” agrees Tarasov. ”One could say, they’re the only thing that remains of Genghis Khan’s empire. Who knows, maybe he himself was riding an ancestor of the horses we’ve just seen.” A sudden shadow comes over his face. ”And what has remained of our empire?”

  He waves his hand toward the decaying ruins they have left behind. His companions don’t reply.

  The rails ascend a low slope covered by a sparse cluster of alder trees. Despite the season only a few have turned yellow. The higher it gets, the more the draisine slows down, until it reaches the top of the hill where it finally comes to full halt.

  Surrounded by tall, lush grass, two half-fallen utility poles stand atop the hill, resembling wooden crosses in a forsaken cemetery. The thick spider webs hanging from their crossbeams appear like ghosts.

  Tarasov takes a deep breath.

  “Nu vot… mi doma,” he says. His voice appears strangely cheerful in this foreboding place. “We’re home at last.”

  Stretching his arms and legs, he gets off the draisine.

  “How quiet it is,” Nooria says.

  “This is the quietest place in the world,” Tarasov says and offers his hand to help her off. “You’ll see for yourselves.”

  “Is this the Zone at last?”

  “We are in a weird place, Sawyer, that’s not the Big Land anymore but the Zone hasn’t claimed yet. Call it the Rim. The real Zone is beyond the hills ahead.”

  “Your Zone is like those wooden dolls I saw at the hotel’s souvenir shop,” Sawyer says. ”You know, you take one apart and there’s a smaller one inside. In the end you’ll show us a tiny room and tell us, ’well mates—this is it!’”

  “Yeah… you mean matryioski. As for me, this is already the Zone. The wind is coming up... Can you feel it? The grass... Excuse me for a minute.”
/>
  With cautious steps, Tarasov disappears in the overgrown bushes. His companions begin to remove their gear from the draisine.

  “So beautiful here,” Pete says. Standing on the draisine, he looks in the direction where Tarasov said the real Zone begins. Beyond patches of mist lingering over the valley, huge oak trees dot a dense forest of birch and alder trees; their striking color appears like yellow explosions in the dark green canopy. “Not a single soul here.”

  “What about us?” Sawyer asks.

  “Five men can’t spoil the place in one day.”

  “Why? They can,” the Top says. “Besides, Mikhailo told me the Zone is full of people… though it seems hard to believe.”

  Nooria picks a daisy from the grass that reaches almost to her waist.

  “It’s strange that flowers don’t smell. Or do you feel anything?”

  Sawyer sniffs at the air. “I feel the stench of a bog.”

  “You should be right,” the Top nods. “He told me we’re heading towards a marsh.”

  Not far away from them, Tarasov touches the grass with a caressing hand. He goes to his knees like he would do in a church, with knees still for several heartbeats. Then with a long, relieved sigh, he lays down into the grass, digs his fingers into the muddy earth and deeply inhales its smell. His head is resting on his arm, as if he was preparing to sleep. Then he turns to his back. With twinkled eyes, he stares at the overcast sky, shielding his eyes with his right hand. Bliss streams into his heart and mind, as if his body would draw it directly from the soil of the Zone.

  I. Am. Home.

  33

  Tribe outpost, New Zone

 

  When Lieutenant Ramirez regains consciousness, his ears detect that the battle’s noise has receded. All he can hear are cheering Taliban, firing their Kalashnikovs in the air.

  He opens his eyes. The ground is littered with the bodies of his men; Campbell’s severed head lies nearby. Enemy fighters are triumphantly dancing on a Humvee’s hood and top, others are busily dismounting the .50 caliber machine guns to carry them away.

  His M16 must have been blown away by the blast. Ramirez reaches for the M1911 fastened to his armor but someone steps on his hand. Looking up, he sees a face between human and mutant, giving him a look of pity mixed with disdain. From the corner of his eye, he can also see that the one trampling on his arm is a raghead, smiling triumphantly in his thick, black beard.

  “Guess your Darth Vader outfit didn’t help you, Lieutenant… Ramirez,” the half-mutant says glancing at the name tag on the black exoskeleton. “My name’s Skinner. That beard with a man somewhere in it is called Saifullah, or something like that. Pleased to meet you.”

  “I fucking hate mutants,” Ramirez breathes.

  “The feeling is mutual. Just to get better acquainted, do you like football? Soccer, I mean? As it seems, mutants versus Tribe – one to nil and the match has just begun.”

  “If it weren’t for these damn smiters, you’d be a smoking crater by now!”

  “Looks like I’m not but you are in deep shit, Lieutenant.”

  “Kill me if you want. You can’t beat my Tribe!”

  “I know, I know… One man can die but the Tribe will always live and all that stuff. Hey, wait a second—you know what? Maybe I surrender to you with all my smiters, just because you are such a badass. Let me think… Okay, I just made up my mind. Thanks but no, thanks.”

  “Go to hell!”

  “To hell?” Skinner looks around in the desolate canyon with all the corpses lying in the bloody sand and the irradiated creek. One of his smiters is dragging a fallen Tribe fighter away, probably to feed on him; a jerk in the fighter’s limbs tells that he is not dead yet. “Hell, you say? Ain’t we all there already?”

  “No… hell is what my Tribe’s gonna give you.”

  Commander Saifullah impatiently pokes at Skinner’s arm. “Let’s put this piece of kafir shit up with the others. I want you to see how we deal out God’s justice over unbelievers!”

  “What are you up to, dushman?” Skinner asks looking up to the bragging Talib. Saifullah points to the bridge where the few Tribe fighters unlucky enough to be captured alive are lined up, all forced to their knees. A grim-looking Talib stands next to them with a long blade in his hand.

  “Unbelievers are pigs, and to pigs, a pig’s death!”

  “If you ask me, I can see nothing wrong about that animal.”

  “Because you—” Seeing anger flashing in Skinner’s eyes, Saifullah bites his tongue. “Well, I mean—anyway, we’re about sending their souls to hell!”

  “Always thought your god is benevolent and merciful,” Skinner says with a shrug. “One of us must have misunderstood the whole thing.”

  “Enough talking! I want the officer watch how his men die one by one, then he will die last!”

  ”I have a much better idea,” Skinner says. “Lieutenant, you Marines or tribals or whatever you call yourselves now, you’re supposed to be men of honor. Ain’t that so?”

  Ramirez nods.

  “You know you gonna die, Lieutenant?”

  Ramirez nods once more.

  “Then you’ll perform a last mission for your Tribe. Do I have your ears now? Good, listen up. You will go to your Colonel holed up in the stronghold and tell him to either get the fuck out of our land or be annihilated.”

  “It’s our land as well,” Ramirez says.

  “It ain’t big enough for all of us. Give him our ultimatum and return with his reply.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we’ll kill you.”

  “You better kill me now because I already know what his answer will be.”

  Saifullah raises his eyebrows. “Skinner, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “Trying myself at diplomacy. So, Lieutenant, will you give us your word of honor to return and meet your fate? You know, I want to give your Tribe a chance to get away.”

  “Forget it.”

  “See those men to be beheaded on the bridge?” Skinner looks at Saifullah. “Is your god in a merciful mood today, dushman? Maybe there’s one option left to make Lieutenant Ramirez co-operate.”

  Catching Skinner’s meaning, Saifullah smiles.

  “I give you my word to let them live, if you agree to be our messenger,” he solemnly says.

  Ramirez thinks for a moment and then nods his agreement.

  “Perfect!” Skinner says with satisfaction. ”Saifullah, get something white and have your men fix it on a Humvee. Probably not your pants, though… Haven’t seen you even remotely close to the fray. Must’ve been diarrhea, huh?”

  “I was praying to God to grant us victory and forgive me for joining up with your ungodly creatures!”

  “Oh, now I know who made a difference.”

  Seeing that Saifullah is about to spit on the Lieutenant, he leans over Ramirez’s body like a predator protecting its prey and snarls at the Talib. For the duration of a roar, his face becomes fully mutant and Saifullah, scared to death by the roar coming from the massive jaws wide open and showing sharp fangs inside, almost swallows his own tongue as he recoils several steps. Then Skinner’s horrible scowl turns into a human grin once more, appearing almost friendly when he grabs Lieutenant Ramirez’s hand and effortlessly helps him to his feet.

 

  34

  Close to Tuzla Tunnel, Exclusion Zone

  When Tarasov walks back to his companions, his thoughts are already revolving around the perils ahead.

  “Oh, there he is,” Pete says. “Did you fall? You’re all mud, man!”

  Without replying, Tarasov walks to the draisine and pulls on the string to start its engine once more. Then he releases the brake and pushing it into motion with a kick, lets the draisine roll backwards.

  “They don’t return from here,” he says.

  Everyone is quiet. Then Pete has something to say.

  “Thinking of those ruins… I don’t mind turning my back to your Big Land.�
�

  Walking ahead of his companions, Tarasov takes the Bear type detector and fastens it to his belt, where the pouch holding a dozen bolts is also at easy reach.

  “Where do we go exactly?” Hartman asks.

  “We follow the tracks for a few hundred meters, cross a tunnel and then a river. Beyond that the real Zone begins.”

  “A big swamp, you mean? I can already smell it.”

  “No, Sawyer. The Swamps are just a small part of the Zone. What do you carry in that big rucksack, anyway? Diamonds? Seems to be more important to you than your life, mate.”

  “My sleeping bag fills most of it. Then, all kind of stuff one needs to survive. Firestarters, first-aid kit, collapsible fishing rod, gun maintenance kit, whatever… you name it. Even a few condoms.”

  “Wouldn’t be you if you hadn’t have any on you,” Pete dryly observes.

  Sawyer waves his head. “It’s very good for collecting water, you know?”

  “What about a portable kitchen?” the Top mocks him.

  “That one too. A wonderful, reliable Camping Gaz cooker with all kinds of powdered food, including red wine powder.”

  “Come again?”

  “You heard me. Pour it in a glass, add cold water, stir, wait five minutes – Presto!”

  “Tastes at least like wine?”

  “Well, it’s more like gasoline, I admit, but at least gives me the illusion of having a cab-sav.”