by John Mason
There is a campfire inside, lit up in a fuel drum riddled with bullet-holes, that casts a dim light into the compound. Another wrecked vehicle that Tarasov recognizes as a US-made personnel carrier sits close by. A few Stalkers are sitting under what had been a veranda once upon a time, trying to find cover from the rain pouring through the holes like bullets from a machine gun. From the wilderness outside, jackals’ howls pierce the drumming sound of rain and Tarasov thinks that nothing in the world would tempt him to swap position with the guards walking along the walls. He notices that apart from the Stalkers hiding under the veranda, who look like rookies, most men wear better armor and heavier weapons than those in Bagram.
“Get me out of this hellhole,” a rookie Stalker groans. “I swear to God, I am done with artifacts and stashes and loot. I only want to get out of here!”
“Hey bro,” another one says, reaching out to Squirrel. “I’ll give you my shotgun and two medikits if you guide me back to Bagram!”
“Pull yourself together, man,” the guide snarls back, shaking the Stalker’s hand off.
“I can’t… not since I saw them taking Danylo away. I told him not to wear that damned dushman armor but he said it’s still better than a leather jacket… since then they must have ripped him to pieces!”
“What are you talking about?” Tarasov asks.
“The Tribe… they are close. I heard the bell and ran. I want to get out of here… If only someone could help me!”
“You heard the – what?”
“The bell of the Tribe! Those cannibals must have been out on a man hunt!”
Inside the building a few petroleum lights fight the shadows. Someone has improvised a table from a simple wooden board laid on two fuel drums. The Stalker standing at it, nursing a half-empty bottle of vodka, looks familiar.
“Skinner?” Tarasov asks, stepping closer. “Is that you?”
“Yep,” the renegade Dutier reluctantly replies.
“I’m glad you made it through here. How are you doing?”
“Spare me the bullshit, Major. A buddy of mine, Vaska, was supposed to return yesterday from a raid. Still no trace of him. ‘Nuff said… if you need company, talk to the Shrink. I’m not into gum-beating right now.”
Tarasov shrugs and turns towards the stout Stalker manning the bar. Seeing the major approaching, the barkeeper stops wiping the shot glasses and looks at him with smart, curious eyes.
“At last one who doesn’t smell like he’s shit his pants,” he says by way of greeting to the major. “Welcome to the Asylum, soldier. I’m Borys the Shrink.”
“Why do they call you a shrink?”
“Because I can heal your brains with vodka or your rifle with ammo. Seeing that you still have your wits, it’s obviously ammo that you need.”
“Ammo is not exactly my problem.”
“So you want to talk? Vodka, then. Here you go.”
The local vodka tastes purer and cooler than in Bagram, and Tarasov licks his lips as the spirit flows down his throat, creating pleasant warmth inside his body.
“That’s good stuff you have here. What is this place?”
“It used to be a fortress and then a prison, until some Western do-gooders turned it into an asylum. That was back before the nukes went off. Now it’s a fitting place for those who were crazy enough to go farther out and lucky enough to make it back.”
“Gone farther? I heard there’s a place called Shahr-i-Gholghola to the west...”
“That’s correct. About two or three days’ march from here.”
“Have you been there?”
“No.” The Shrink leans over the bar and lowers his voice. “That’s where Skinner’s buddy went… People say it was freaky enough before the Bush war began, after the Taliban blasted those big Buddhas away, but recently…” The barkeeper cuts his sentence short. “This is no kindergarten here like Bagram. Frankly, sometimes I’m glad we have the Tribe between us and that place.”
“The Tribe? That’s why everyone’s so scared around here?”
“They aren’t scared, they just haven’t had enough to drink… anyhow, to answer your question: the Tribe is a bad enough neighbor but things got really weird recently. A few days ago, a Stalker appeared. He was gone for many days and we all presumed him dead, saying toasts to his memory and all, and then he came back. He was not happy to see us again, though… he opened fire on us. His own friends had to shoot him.”
Tarasov is too absorbed in the vodka’s calming effect to say anything compassionate. “Such is life in the… New Zone. Give me and my guide another shot.”
“Cheers! Wouldn’t be much of an event if killing him had been easy, but he kept standing up again and again like a freaking zombie. I had to apply the strongest remedy I know.”
“And that would be?”
“Emptying a full magazine of nine millimeter bullets into his brain.”
“I see… anyway, have you seen a Stalker called Crow around? He uses an SVD and wears a camouflage coat. Black balaclava, cold eyes, slightly necromantic... I mean, he likes putting half-smoked cigarettes into the mouths of people he has just killed and stuff like that. Well trained, probably ex-military. Know anyone like that?”
“Let me think… Maybe you mean that Loner who was waiting for some soldier boy in a Berill armor suit who was fond of vodka, had a cynical, bossy attitude, and kept trying to squeeze others for information? Sounds like you and must be you,” the barkeeper says with a smirk. “He arrived in a hurry from Bagram two days ago, then went to raid a patrol of mercs – or at least that’s what he said. He was waiting for you afterwards but disappeared again. There’s a pen drive he left here for you… Here it is.”
Tarasov plugs the device into his PDA and a new message appears on the screen.
Hey, Condor. I wanted to make sure this didn’t get to your PDA before you reached Ghorband. It wouldn’t have been nice if the wrong person had found it after killing you. Proceed two klicks to the west, where you’ll find a memorial and the wreck of an APC. Check the engine compartment – there’s a stash. The Shrink is cool but don’t forget to delete this message anyway. I have to hurry back to the Shamali Plains - I have a feeling the place will turn hot soon. C.
“Do you know where to find Crow?”
“No. He’s a strange character, coming and going without telling anyone where he goes and what he is up to. I even heard rumors that he was with the Monolith once.”
“What? He told me he had never been to the Zone!”
The Shrink fills his own vodka glass. “A Stalker with something to hide about his past? Never heard of such a thing,” he says with an ironic smile and gulps down the drink. “But they don’t call me Shrink for nothing. See, he hates Bone’s guts but is too level-headed to be a Freedomer. He is too good a shot to be an ordinary Stalker, but can’t be Spetsnaz or SBU because if he were you wouldn’t be looking so dumbfounded now. So, tell me: what can he be, if he doesn‘t fit into any of the clans here or back in the old Zone?”
“I don’t want to believe what you are hinting at,” Tarasov replies, narrowing his eyes.
“You talk like a Stalker I once treated. He didn’t want to believe that his primordial hate of bloodsuckers was just a reflection of his feelings towards his ex-wife who had bled him dry when they divorced. But after the second bottle of vodka… bingo! Vodka is the ultimate truth serum, did you know?”
Tarasov turns to Squirrel. “Would you believe that? Former Monolithians walking around in the New Zone?”
The guide shakes his head. “Nope, man. But frankly – I would sooner prefer the Monolith than the Tribe.”
Tarasov shrugs. “Anyway… at least Crow, or whatever his real name might be, seems to be on our side. But now, tell me – do you know of a way around the Tribe’s territory?”
“No way, man. I agreed to guide you here, not beyond. Sorry.”
“And you, Shrink?”
“The only safe way to avoid the Tribe is to go back to Bagram and f
orget about the western approaches.”
“Then I do have a serious problem,” Tarasov sighs.
“I’m listening…”
“Never mind, Shrink. Is there a place where we can spend the night?”
“Suit yourself and help yourself. We have enough empty cells… but the rubber room will cost you extra. That’s the only one with its roof intact!”
Wilderness, 2 October 2014, 11:40:52 AFT
“I don’t mind missing the view, seeing as this fog keeps us hidden from any enemies… but I wouldn’t mind a little break either, man.”
Tarasov agrees with Squirrel. The road is shrouded in a fog so dense that a pack of jackals could be just a few meters away and they would never see them. The ghosts of occasional bushes and stunted trees emerge from the surrounding gloom wherever they had grown close to the road, but apart from that there’s nothing to see.
“Should be coming into a built-up area soon, according to the PDA,” the Stalker reports.
Tarasov nods, not relying on his eyes so much as his ears to detect problems. But the world is almost silent thanks to the deadening effects of the fog bank.
Soon the gray walls of a lonely building appear along the road. It might have been a traffic check-point long ago.
“This place is as good as any,” the guide says, sitting down under a bullet-riddled metal sign that says ‘DANGER! MINES! KEEP TO MARKED ROAD’. “I wish we could make a campfire.”
“Later. Let’s move during daylight as much as we can.”
“We better find them soon, man… I have a serious case of itching in my index finger and it can only be relieved by pulling the trigger. Do you have a plan for how we do this?”
“It depends, Squirrel. We have to recon that stronghold first.”
“I only ask because I have a plan already.”
“Please, do share it then.”
“We move in, kill everyone, loot the place and get out of there. That’s step one. Then we sell all the loot in Bagram and become dirty filthy rich. That’s step two. Then I fuck all the whores in Kiev and die a happy man from physical exhaustion. That would be step three. What do you think, man?”
“That’s a very good plan,” Tarasov smirks, “like those taught at the military academy. You ever considered becoming an army officer?”
“With all due respect, man, I might be crazy but I’m not an idiot… Do you have some bread? If I had gear like yours, I’d carry a full kitchen with me!”
“You’d be better off if you didn’t carry that RPG launcher with two warheads.”
“Come on, man. They make me look cool!”
“Why don’t you at least disassemble them?” Tarasov asks, shaking his head over the guide’s inexperience with heavy weaponry. “It would be safer for you to carry that shit with the warheads dismounted.”
“What? You can remove the warheads?”
“Yeah… I’ll show you later. Now, it’s havchik time.”
Tarasov offers a loaf of bread to Squirrel. They have enough resources now.
He’d set out to find Crow’s stash at dawn, following the road west until the APC’s wreck emerged from the fog like a sleeping monster. The huge stone slab serving as a memorial was smashed, an only faintly readable English inscription still bearing a clue to the battle – itself just one of many – that had ravaged the place a few years ago.
When Tarasov had cautiously peered inside the wreck, he’d expected to find the usual stash: ammunition, food or bandages, perhaps some common artifact. He was therefore surprised to find a huge crate with a hand-written note on top of it: This suit rocks! Now I only need to find out who’s killing your soldiers to get these exoskeletons and who’s paying him. He won’t see my bullet coming. Or if he does, I don’t care. I hope you don’t mind that I took one of the two suits I found with the mercs. I’ll consider it your thank-you to me for saving your ass at Salang. We’re quits – for now! C.
When he donned the brand new exoskeleton and the armor’s built-in instruments – radiation meter, anomaly detector, kinetic motors, life-support system – quietly started to hum in the silence of the mountain dawn, with his heavy kit becoming almost weightless once fitted to the titanium-alloy body frame, Tarasov felt as if he had boarded a gunship after many days on a perilous foot patrol: safe at last. With the exoskeleton’s silicon carbide ceramic armor – capable of stopping dozens of armor-piercing bullets – protecting him, he feels as if he has become a walking juggernaut.
Once back at Ghorband he tried to talk Squirrel into joining forces with him. Since he had nothing else to offer but a fight, the major had eventually had to offer his own, serviceable Berill armor, rendered a dead weight now that he had the exoskeleton. Albeit feigning reluctance, the Stalker had accepted it gladly in exchange for joining him on the raid.
However, his period of confidence had made way for concern soon enough when it came to his mind that this wonderful suit had actually been taken from him and his men. There was nothing in Crow’s messages that would give him a hint to the players in the shady dealings going on behind his back. As he walked behind Squirrel to the north, he tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle he already knew – Bone’s men ambushing the squad sent in before them, the mercenaries hunting him, Crow’s hints at danger in Bagram… Crow might be his ally in this game, but the sniper certainly knew how to keep his findings to himself – that is, if he actually knew any more than Tarasov.
“Hey, man, don’t look so down,” Squirrel says, interrupting the major’s thoughts. “Let me cheer you up with my harmonica. Do you have a favorite song?”
“Let me think… I love Steppe, endless steppe for example.”
“Nah, sorry man. I don’t know how to play that.”
“What about The Ships then? You know, that Vysotsky song?”
“Actually, the only tune I can play is the Soviet anthem.”
“Then why did you offer me to play my favorite song? That’s certainly not one of them…”
“I just asked about it. I didn’t say a word about playing it.”
“You are totally crazy, Squirrel. You know that?”
“Of course. After all, I slept at an abandoned asylum last night.”
“Squirrel… where do you come from, anyway?”
“Germany. Berlin, actually. You know, I was a guerilla there, fighting against the oppression of the poor.”
“Sounds like a tough battle.”
“Hell, yes! Each night, me and my buddies used to set a few big fat BMWs and Porsches on fire. Just to show the rich bastards that the resistance was alive and kicking!”
“Setting cars on fire doesn’t really sound fair. They don’t fight back.”
“But it’s fun! You should try it, man. Anyway, then one of our night raids went wrong – I picked the wrong car. It belonged to one of the lawyers defending our comrades from injustice. Things got a little messy, and I decided to join our comrades in arms in the Zone. So I volunteered to deliver another shipment of… let’s call it humanitarian aid to the Ukraine, and two days later I was drinking vodka with all the Freedom guys.”
“Freedom… anarchists and bandits,” Tarasov grumbles under his breath.
“Don’t worry, man. Those days are gone. The Zone changed me a lot.”
“How come?”
“You see… once you find an artifact to sell, you think differently about the distribution of riches. Then I heard that in the New Zone there’s even more to find. Less hunters, more game, you see? And here I am now. Are you sure you don’t want to hear the Soviet anthem?”
“Play it, if that makes you happy...”
Listening to the jarring tune from Squirrel’s harmonica, it occurs to Tarasov that this would be a good time to check out the text messages that Yar had found on the old mobile phone and uploaded to his PDA. The date and time is not recorded, but it’s obvious enough that the messages are from the times of the Bush war.
Hey Frank – here’s why I’m pissed off. They want
to conduct a disciplinary procedure against the sergeant but why? All he did was getting some aftermarket replacement parts for his G3 rifle to bring it at least to semi-modern condition. What was he supposed to do? The new rifles we’re supposed to use are crap. For God’s sake, we can’t switch off the safety on the new G3 DMR while aiming because our thumbs are too short to reach the switch. Did they design those rifles for pianists? Besides, we can’t use them because we don’t have proper sniper ammo. We were told to use MG3 machine gun cartridges but that’s only accurate up to 500 meters. You get it, Frank? They give us sniper rifles which we can only use at less than 500 meters! That’s a true stroke of genius – on one hand, they order hundreds of new rifles but on the other, they don’t provide us with the proper ammo to save money. And as if that were not enough the night vision goggles will not work together with the telescopic sight. Until I find the eyepiece of the scope so I can wear the goggles, the war is over. My army should be performing in a circus, not Afghanistan!
The second message is shorter:
After what happened at Kunduz, we are not allowed to ask for air support. Not as if the Brits nearby would have any choppers available, anyway. We asked the French to beef us up with a squad for this mission but they are low on ammo. The Hungarians wanted to give a helping hand but their Mercedes jeeps are broken down as usual. We must not ask the Americans for assistance because we’re supposed to maintain security in our sector on our own. Now we move out with a company of Afghan troops which is an invitation for trouble. SNAFU like always, my friend! Anyway, I’ll hook up with you later, we’re moving out now. Wish me good luck – in two weeks, my tour of duty will be over.
The major switches off his PDA and looks into the thick fog, sadly, wishing he was a believer so he could say a prayer for the soul of the dead soldier.
Mercenary base, 3 October 2014, 12:39:28 AFT
Lying prone on the top of an ice-cold, rocky hill, Tarasov studies the narrow ridge connecting their position with the mercenary stronghold through his binoculars. Their target encampment lies atop another hill, not quite as high as their narrow vantage point, and overlooks the wide landscape, easily commanding the valley below. Far in the distance, the major can see the flat, sandy plain between the mountains and the Amu-Darya.