Clutching his cigarette in his teeth, he spun the wheel of his chair with his working left hand, trundled out deftly from behind the desk and moved up close to Artyom.
“Permission to smoke?” Artyom requested.
“You flipped out, Artyom! Do you understand that? Back there on the tower! And what you’re doing now … It’s all just your imagination. It’s schizo stuff. No, you may not smoke. That’s all, Artyom. I’ve got a war starting at two stations and you … Go, Artyom. Get out. Did you leave my daughter alone there?”
“I … Yes.”
“How is she?”
“Okay. Fine. Everything’s fine with her.”
“Artyom, I really hope she leaves you. And finds herself someone who’s normal. She deserves better than an obsessive psychopath who wanders about undressed on the surface. So what’s the point of it all? Leave her, Artyom. Let her go. I’ll forgive her. Tell her that and let her come back.”
“I’ll tell her. On one condition.”
Miller blew out smoke and heat through his roll-up.
“What condition? What will you swap your wife for?”
“The three men who are going to the Reich with the envelope. I want to be the fourth.”
CHAPTER 12
— THE ORDER —
They left from Borovitskaya.
A cozy, red-brick space, looking like the reading room of a medieval university. Crammed with shelves of books stolen from the surface, from the Great Library, and wooden-plank desks at which these books were studied and discussed: populated with the book-loving cranks who called themselves Brahmins and keepers of knowledge.
Lamps with cloth shades hung down low over the desks, giving a kind, gentle light—and the Middle Ages, as Artyom had seen them in children’s history books with pictures, were infiltrated by the spirit of Moscow apartments, as he recalled them from pictures ripped out of his own four short years of childhood.
The archways were blocked off to form rooms. As Artyom walked by one, a memory of the past swept over him, from his first visit to Polis: a night spent in a good man’s home, conversation deep into the night, a strange book that claimed there were fiends imprisoned in the ruby-red stars of the Kremlin and there was a little demon in the little star of every Child of October … An absurd book. The truth was always simpler and more appalling than people could imagine.
That good man no longer existed and, and the Kremlin stars had been extinguished.
And the Miller who had met Artyom here, with a “Pecheneg” machine gun slung over his shoulder and his body crisscrossed with ammunition belts, the commander who was always at the front of his troops, who was first into the thick of every battle—he no longer existed either.
And that Artyom didn’t exist. They had both been reduced to charcoal.
But Letyaga was the same as ever: a squinting eye, a back broad enough to block a tunnel, and a smile as if he had just tied your bootlaces together and was waiting for you to stumble; he was twenty-seven, but his smile belonged to a ten-year-old. Letyaga was fireproof.
“Hey!” He unsheathed that smile of his.” So congratulations are in order, then? The old man’s taken you back?”
Artyom shook his head.
“What, then? A test assignment?”
“A swan song. I’m just going to the Reich with you.”
Letyaga stopped smiling.
“What do you want with that place?”
“I have to get someone out of there. There’s a good person I really need to get out. If I don’t go back, there’ll be a hanging.”
“You’re a reckless bastard. Is it a woman at least?” Letyaga winked at him.
“An old man. With a beard.”
“Ah …” Letyaga croaked.” That’s your business, but … aaaaa …”
“You great oaf. Shut up,” said Artyom, restraining his smile; he felt embarrassed by the thought of Homer.
But he ended up laughing anyway. The laughter rose up out of him: chewed up, glutinous, and acrid. The laughter convulsed him, exhausted him, devastated him—and Artyom sank down onto a bench to avoid going down on all fours. Everything that the Metro had forced him to swallow in the last few days came bursting back out of his mouth, undigested, as laughter. He laughed until his eyes watered, until he started hiccupping. He pumped air into his lungs and started again. Letyaga laughed together with him—maybe about something of his own. Or maybe about nothing at all.
And then it passed off.
“A secret mission, definitely!” Letyaga summed up confidently and entirely seriously.” They don’t write off guys like you, brother.”
They didn’t.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you for a long time,” Artyom told him.” Just how do you take aim?” He turned his eyes in towards his nose, in imitation of Letyaga.” You ought to see everything double.”
“I do see everything double,” Letyaga admitted.” That’s why I use up so much ammunition. Every normal guy’s got one target, but I’ve got two. And I shoot at both of them. It’s no accident the old man’s sending me to the Reich. The cheapskate wants to get rid of me.”
“Do you think it’s a one-way ticket?” Artyom chuckled.
“I travel on tokens.” Letyaga winked at him, raising his finger to jingle the dog tags of the medals hanging round his neck instead of a cross so that he could be identified.
“What do you need them for? There’s no way you could be confused with anyone else anyway.”
“Ah, you’ll never see that day,” Letyaga chuckled.” This is for something else. You know how it is, when you wake up sometimes and wonder, Who am I? And what did I drink? And then, okay, well at least who am I?”
“I know,” Artyom sighed.
The other two men walked over. One had high cheekbones, a prickly crew cut, and narrow eyes; the other had a bulbous boxer’s nose and was agile and loose-limbed.
“Well, you take your time getting ready! Like bimbos going on a date! But I can see you were hurrying after all—you didn’t get time to put your lipstick on,” Letyaga told them.” We’ll do that on the way then, all right?”
“Who’s this?” The loose-limbed one prodded Artyom offhandedly.
“That’s no way to say hello.” Letyaga shook his head.” It’s not ‘who’s this’, but ‘who are you,’ Yurets. Artyom was with us in the bunker. This is a living legend, that’s who. You were still chasing rats around Hansa with a rattle when Artyom and the colonel flattened the Dark Ones with missiles.”
“Then where did he disappear to?” the other man asked.
“He’s been building up his strength, Nigmatullin, for new feats of heroism. Right Artyom?”
“He hasn’t built up much,” Nigmatullin remarked, looking Artyom up and down skeptically.
“Every day’s a major feat for me,” Artyom responded.” I don’t have anything left over for myself.”
“Battle yet again, boys, and the girls are just a dream,” Letyaga cited, backing him up.” Okay, guys, let’s go. The Führer’s waiting. And the Führer doesn’t wait!”
He saluted the weedy Borovitskaya border guards smartly, and all four of them went down the ladder onto the tracks. The tunnel enveloped them, at first illuminated, then gloomy, then pitch dark. The other two hung back a bit, letting Artyom and Letyaga go ahead.
“That guy’s from Hansa, right?” Artyom asked.
“They’re both from Hansa. Nigmatullin’s from Komsomol and Yurets is from Culture Park, I think. Normal guys, by the way, both of them. Reliable.” Letyaga thought for a moment.” They’re almost all from Hansa.”
“All of who?”
“All our reinforcements.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, where else can you get guys with training? No point in scouring the dark stations. Or collecting them like the fascists do, with that legion of theirs, all sorts of rabble. That’s not for us. Miller pulled off some kind of deal with Hansa. And they agreed to … Bring us back up to strength.”
<
br /> Artyom gave him a quizzical look. “And he agreed to that? He cursed them. Remember? Back there when we … In the bunker. They promised to help us. And they shafted us. If they’d shown up then—if they’d given us men—maybe we wouldn’t have had to be brought back up to strength … All those boys of ours … To be blunt.”
“To be blunt,” said Letyaga.” They didn’t give us any men then. But they did afterwards. They gave them when they could. And they threw in all sorts of equipment and ammunition too. You know yourself how much money Hansa has. They made the offer themselves. Well and … the old man was in deep mourning, drinking to the list of our men … But there was nothing he could do. There was nowhere he could get another fifty men. Then he consulted the guys. They all understood. So they started recruiting on the quiet. With tests—that only stands to reason—and interviews. They sifted the riffraff out straightaway. And in the end it turned out okay. Hansa Special Forces, mostly. So everything’s peaceful and quiet with them. It’s not like we’re on our own and they’re on their own. We’re all together.”
“Uh-huh,” said Artyom, clearing his throat and nodding at the two men hanging back.
“All in the same boat,” Letyaga insisted.
“I don’t believe it,” Artyom said after a pause.
“What?”
“I don’t believe that simply to exonerate itself, Hansa would allocate us fifty fighting men and throw in equipment on top of that. They don’t do anything for nothing.”
“But it isn’t for nothing. The old man signed on to train their special forces. Because …” Letyaga clicked his tongue.” They’re not really all that special. Especially when it come to the surface. They’re as helpless as kittens up on top. Children of the catacombs, fuck it.”
The last lightbulb was left dangling somewhere far behind, and Letyaga took a torch that looked like a club out of his knapsack. The two men behind moved up closer and clattered their automatics: It was a short tunnel, well known to everyone, but still not much fun to walk. Better to stick close together.
The torch immediately lanced into the darkness in the tunnel, filling it with milk and then stirring it up.
“The catacombs … But you’re the same age as me,” Artyom recalled.” So you were four too, right? When the Final War …”
“Oh no, kid,” said Letyaga.” I’m a year older than you. We already figured that out. So I was five.”
Artyom tried to picture his own Moscow, but those potbellied dragonfly planes soared into his head again, and the little carriage cars drove in trembling, and a fine, warm rain started falling. He shook his head to fling out this tenacious nonsense, this fantastical vision.
“And what do you remember? Your parents? Your flat?”
“I remember the television. I remember them showing the president on the television—we had a great big one. And the president said, ‘We have no other choice. They’ve forced us into it. They’ve driven us into a corner. They shouldn’t have driven us into a corner. So I have decided … ’ And then my mother came in from the kitchen, carrying a bowl of chicken soup for me. Noodle soup it was. She said to me, ‘Why are you watching all this terrible stuff? Come on, I’ll put the cartoons on for you.’ And I told her, ‘I don’t want any noodles.’ I remember that very moment. The very beginning. Or the end. After, there weren’t any more cartoons, or more noodles.”
“And do you remember your parents?”
“I do. But it would be better if I didn’t.”
“Listen, Letyaga,” loose-limbed Yurets interrupted.” It was them who hit us first. We didn’t hit them; they hit us. Without warning. And we intercepted the first salvo before we fired. I’m telling you. I was seven.”
“And I’m telling you. Noodles! Noodles, stood in the corner, and forced to eat it. I thought at the time: There’s the president, and he gets put in the corner too.”
“What difference does it make now?” Artyom asked.” Whether it was us or them?”
“There is a difference,” Nigmatullin objected.” We wouldn’t have started it. Our people are sane and responsible. We were always for peace. Those bastards blocked us in; they dragged us into the nuclear arms race so they could run us into the ground. They wanted to break up the country. Carve it into pieces. For the oil and the gas. Because our state was like a thorn in their side. They didn’t want any independent countries at all. Everyone just lay down and spread their legs for them. We were the only ones who snarled back at them. And those lousy bastards, those assholes pushed us … They just didn’t expect us to go all the way. They thought we’d piss ourselves. But we … They wanted to break us up, that was it. No surrendering to the enemy! Fuck them and their oil-grabbing. They wanted to colonize us. But they ended up shitting themselves, the dickheads, when their TV showed them what was flying their way. That’s what you get for playing the tough guy with us. And we’re still not croaking even underground.”
“How old were you then?” Artyom asked.
“What business is that of yours? I was one. The old guys told me. So what?”
“So nothing,” Artyom replied.” So nothing on that side of the ocean, so nothing on this side either.”
Letyaga cleared his throat to smooth things over. They didn’t talk any more after that.
* * *
“Halt! Extinguish the torch!”
Nigmatullin and Yurets parted and pressed up against the walls, with their automatics half raised; Artyom stayed in the center of the tunnel with Letyaga. A button clicked obediently, and the light fizzled out. Night fell.
“The border’s closed! Turn round and go back!”
“We’re from the Order!” Letyaga shouted into the echoing well.” With a message for your leadership.”
“Turn round. And go back!” a voice repeated out of the well.
“I told you, we have a letter for the Führer! In person! From Colonel Miller!”
The red spots of laser sights leapt out of the darkness, darted about, and then jumped onto Letyaga’s forehead and Artyom’s chest.
“Get back! We have orders to shoot to kill!”
“So that’s all their fucking diplomacy for you,” Letyaga summed up.
“They won’t let us in,” Yurets whispered.
“There was no order to obtain entry by force,” Nigmatullin responded.
“But we were told to deliver the envelope,” Letyaga objected.” Otherwise the old man will rip my head off. I don’t know what’s in there, but he said if it’s not delivered, everything’s down the tubes.”
There was a sweet, putrid smell of musty urine: Apparently no conveniences were provided at the guard post, and when the sentries had to pee, they simply walked down the dark tunnel into no-man’s land.
Artyom looked at the ruby-red spot marking the position of his heart. He thought about Miller, and about his own final mission that was still uncompleted: to go home to Anya and tell her that he was leaving her. Tell her to her face and not go running off secretly, with his tail between his legs, for the sake of great causes.
He had already stirred up more than enough trouble for the sake of great causes. He had left Olezhek to that doctor after doing everything that he could. Just dumped the body with its leaky holes, dusted off his hands and gone off to drink vodka. He had let Lyokha walk down the steps into nowhere, whistling, and decided not to interfere or try to bring him back. Some went left, some right, to each his own. He hadn’t driven the condemned prisoners out into freedom with Svinolup’s Nagant pistol. He hadn’t asked about the woman’s slippers in the major’s office. And he hadn’t jerked the curtain aside. He hadn’t done anything; he hadn’t tried to see if there was anyone there or not. And since he hadn’t seen, that meant there wasn’t anybody. That was what he could tell himself, and he could live very calmly with that. And he’d be able to make up some explanation about Homer too, about that worthless old man and illiterate scribbler. Everyone just lied about the pangs of conscience: A man was strong and he could cope with anyth
ing. And great affairs excused everything.
He tried to cover the trembling spot of light with his palm, and it jumped up onto his hand.
“Final warning!” a voice shouted out of the well of darkness.
“Do we pull back, then?” Letyaga asked himself.
Leave the old man. Leave all your corpses, clear off into this dark well and put the lid on it. You have a more important mission, Artyom. To save the world. You mustn’t waste your time on mushrooms.
“Find Dietmar!” Artyom shouted into those dark depths, and his voice turned squeaky.
“Who?”
“Dietmar! Tell him the stalker’s come back!”
“What’s all this about?” Letyaga turned towards Artyom.” What kind of story’s this?”
“It’s all the same story. About the old man with a beard.” Artyom tried to smile.” And about a certain idiot. My secret assignment.”
And at that moment in their little flea pit of a universe a supernova lit up.
* * *
Dietmar came out to the first machine gun nest of the first checkpoint. He probably looked at the bold, decorated warriors hiding behind their hands and laughed to himself. But he didn’t turn off the searchlight.
“Who called me?”
“I did. Artyom.”
“Artyom?” Dietmar seemed to have forgotten him.” What Artyom?”
“I knew it!” Nigmatullin huffed.
“The stalker. With a dispatch for the Führer. Personal delivery. From Miller! From the head of the Order! Concerning the situation!”
“Concerning what situation?” Dietmar didn’t want to understand him.
“At Teatralnaya! Concerning your invasion!”
“Our invasion? From Miller?” Dietmar sounded surprised.” There isn’t any invasion. There is unrest at Teatralnaya. We have refugees flooding in. The Führer has ordered the establishment of a peace-keeping mission at the station in order to prevent casualties. But it’s after three in the morning now. He’s sleeping. And he’s not expecting any letters from Mr. Miller. But if you wish you can let me have the dispatch. In the morning I’ll hand it on to him at his secretariat.”
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