“I can’t believe our luck, Vlasov,” Maksimenko tells his sergeant. ”Look who’s dragging that body into cover.”
“Holy God!”
“No, it’s just Tarasov’s bitch. That means he’s also somewhere there… Let’s wait until they decimate each other, then we kill the rest. Hopefully our friend won’t get himself killed before we get to him… and yes, there he is, talking to another scumbag! Look — next to the ramp!”
“That’s him! Shoot him, Captain, and we’re on the way home!”
“I want him alive.”
Captain Maksimenko’s aim closes in on the target, wondering how he and several others could lay their hands on armor and fatigues which, though heavier, resemble those of the United States Marine Corps.
“We must take action now,” Sergeant Vlasov impatiently says.
“Relax, Vlasov, relax. Don’t spoil my pleasure of firing such a fine bolt-action rifle after all those shitty Dragunovs!”
Captain Maksimenko exhales and fires the rifle.
———
A smile plays around Sergeant Major Hartman’s lips when the ramp slowly begins to lower and the sunshine of the New Zone lights up the dim cargo bay. He gives Tarasov a wink.
“We’re back at last! All ready?”
Mikhailo Tarasov looks back at Pete and Nooria, whom the Colonel’s son was tasked to protect at any cost, then glances over to the Stalkers picked for the advance team. Ferret looks excited and clutches his G36 with white knuckles. Next to him like always, Buryat grins with self-confidence and pats his light PKM machine gun. The rest of the Stalkers aim their AKS-74Us, AKMs and shotguns, twinkling in the sudden light. Some have their gas masks on to protect them from the dust swirling outside and making its way into the airplane through the lowering ramp. The sinister Stalker called Molotov is among them. His face is hidden by the exoskeleton’s full helmet but he bows his head to signal his readiness.
Hope this SOB doesn’t shoot us in the back, flashes through Tarasov’s mind.
The ramp hits the ground. Clouds of engine smoke and dust swirl up. He waves his gloved hand forward.
“Davai vperyod, bratya! Forward, brothers! Forward!”
The team moves out, fast but not enough for the Top who has already dashed outside. He holds his Bulldog grenade launcher in one hand and waves with the other, yelling commands in English in all his excitement.
“Come on, you lame pussies! Move, move, move!”
Then he lets go of his weapon, gasps at his throat and falls.
Tarasov’s lips move faster than his thoughts.
“Ambush! Zasada! Spread out, spread out!”
“Back to the plane!” he hears a Stalker shouting through the deafening noise of the Antonov’s engines. It is Dima Molotov. Tarasov shouts him down.
“No! Spread out!”
Suddenly, he hears the noise of a rifle — it is not a Kalashnikov’s bark but that of a US-made assault weapon. It is coming from their flank.
“Get down!” he screams, “ambush from our right!”
As soon as he had shouted this, more rifles start firing from the left. A machine gun joins the fire from right, followed by more assault rifles from the same direction. Two Stalkers fall immediately.
“Get back to airplane!” he hears Nooria screaming. With Pete in tow, she appears right at Tarasov’s side.
“You get the hell back to cover!” he shouts desperately. “Now!”
But Nooria is already at the Top, trying to move the body that is more than twice her weight. Pete grasps the other arm.
“How was I supposed to hold her back?” he yells to Tarasov. “Knock her out?”
Pete drags Nooria away and back to the relative safety of the airplane. Held by his arms, Tarasov drags Hartman’s body up the ramp. A glance at the Top’s wound is enough for him to realize that he must have met death even before he collapsed.
“Go and help the Stalkers!” he yells at the Bandits inside.
Pinned down by hostile fire from three sides, they are in a desperate situation. Tarasov makes out the quick bursts of Buryat’s PKM but knows that he has barely a chance to fire the machine gun effectively without seeing the enemy, while the still unseen attackers don’t even have to aim properly to hit—any one of them is a target now, anywhere on the dust-covered landing strip.
“We’re sitting ducks!” he hears Ferret yelling, “do something, for God’s sake!”
Half a dozen Bandits try to rush to their help, only to be mowed down by the hostile machine gun fire.
“Back to that fucking plane!” Dima Molotov screams lying on his stomach and firing the Vintorez. “Now!”
Overcome by rage over his own helplessness, Tarasov fires a long burst from his rifle and is about to shout a command calling everyone back inside the airplane when he is almost kicked off his feet—not by a bullet but a jackal. The mutant that showed up from nowhere amidst all the confusion is not attacking him, however. It jumps up at him, yelping like a dog who sees an old friend. What appears even more astounding is that after a second, the hostile fire ceases.
Tarasov has no time to feel relieved, however. Someone shouts a command in English.
“Lay down your weapons!”
“Slozhit oruzhie!”
The voice repeating the command in Russian is that of a woman. The jackal is still jumping around Tarasov when he puts his AKM to the ground. Any further resistance would be not only in vain but utter suicide.
“Don’t shoot!” he shouts back in English and adds in Russian, “Bratya, lay down your weapons!”
“Fuck no!”
The defiant voice is that of Buryat.
“Hold your fire!” Tarasov shouts back. Through the dust that slowly settles with the propellers now standing still, he can make out the man who commanded them to surrender—it is a Lieutenant of the Tribe, aiming his M16 at him. Next to him, a Stalker kneels, holding an F2000 ready to shoot. The jackal jogs to the Stalker who pats its neck as if after a job well done. Seeing them together triggers distant memories in Tarasov’s mind. He repeats his command. “Lay down your weapons, brothers! It’s the Tribe!”
“One more fucking reason to fight to the end!”
“Don’t be foolish, Buryat! Put that weapon down!”
Reluctantly, the Stalkers and Bandits do as ordered.
“Identify yourselves!” the Lieutenant commands.
This is it then, Tarasov thinks. Oh Gospodi… and their Sergeant Major lies dead in the airplane. Such a fuck. Such a clusterfuck!
“Major Mikhailo Tarasov, friend of the Tribe, back from a mission given by the Colonel,” he exclaims. “Nooria is with us. So is the Colonel’s son, Corporal Peter Leighley, USMC.”
“What?!”
The Lieutenant sounds dumbfounded beyond measure. “Where’s the Top?” he asks walking to Tarasov. “He left with you!”
“What the hell are you talking about with the pindos?” a Bandit asks. He is standing with his hands held up, even though no such command was given.
Before Tarasov can reply to either of them, a faint whizz sounds for a split second, then another bullet from the sniper’s rifle takes a ricochet on the Lieutenant’s helmet and makes it fly off his head. The fighter staggers for a moment, then throws himself to the ground.
“Sniper!” shouts someone behind the ruins. It must have come from one of the Lieutenant’s men. “Sniper at six o’clock!”
It is not another shot from the sniper rifle that follows but a spray of bullets from two well-positioned, Russian-made machine guns on the hill. The bullets hit the already bloody ground around them — the Bandit with raised hands is the first to fall, then a Stalker screams.
“One to all teams,” the Lieutenant barks, “concentrate fire! Hilltop, six o clock! Fire! Fire everything you got!”
The Tribe fighters, until now hiding behind the safe cover of the ruined buildings that line up along the runway, return fire. But now it becomes apparent how few they are, and both Tarasov a
nd the Lieutenant realize in an instant that what firepower had been enough to wreak havoc on the Stalkers in the open is far from enough to fight the new enemy who has the higher ground.
“Grab your weapons!” Tarasov hollers. “Fire at the hill!”
The Antonov’s engines howl up and the ramp is raised — the airplane is apparently preparing to turn around and take off.
“Pete! Pete!” he screams, hoping that he can make himself be heard in the gunfire and the growing howl of the engines. “Stop the airplane! Hold it back!”
A Tribe fighter fires a grenade but it falls too short of the hilltop position. A Bandit goes down without a sound as another bullet from the sniper rifle hits him.
Bandits, Stalkers and Tribals, who have been fighting each other just a few minutes ago, now try to fight off the new enemy together.
“One down!” Dimitry Molotov’s voice almost sounds calm among all the confusion. “Patsan, I told you to get back the airplane, huh? What about now?” He reloads his Vintorez and makes a dash for the nearest cover.
The Antonov has almost turned into take-off position with its pilots having no regard for the dead and dying men scattered on the ground when it suddenly halts. The ramp is lowered once more.
“Ferret! Buryat!” Tarasov yells to the two Stalkers relentlessly firing at the hilltop. “Pass the word — fall back! Move back to the airplane!”
“Bring up your men!” the Lieutenant shouts. “We will storm the hill!”
“That’s just madness,” Tarasov shouts back. “Take your men to the airplane, Lieutenant, and get out of here with us!”
“No! We will kill those motherfuckers!”
The female Stalker’s F2000 fires a long burst from the cover of the radio shack. Ejected cases rain from the rifle’s front.
“If he says so, Collins, we go!” she yells.
Tarasov’s dry mouth opens in surprise. “Mac?!”
“Yeah, pleased to meet you again! Now let’s all haul ass to that damned plane!” Aiming through the built-in scope she fires two short bursts. “Scratch one, but there must be more!”
“What the fuck happened to your sniper buddy?”
“I don’t know, Lieutenant! I’ll worry about him as soon as I’m done surviving this shit!”
“Fucking traitor,” Collins curses and barks a command into his radio. “All teams! Fall back! Get into the airplane!”
Tribe fighters appear from the ruins, some of them firing their weapons as they drag a fallen comrade with their free hand.
“No one gets left behind!”
Tarasov shouts the same command in Russian. “Nikomu ne ostavit!”
He sees Ferret helping Buryat to the lowered ramp; the former Dutyer appears to be wounded in his leg. A Stalker from the advance squad crawls behind. He grabs and pulls him to his shoulders.
“Help me, brother!” another wounded man screams. “Give me a medikit!”
“Get one yourself once we’re off here,” someone yells back at him. Tarasov looks back and sees Molotov lifting the wounded Stalker.
“Don’t know about you, patsan, but I don’t want to stay here! Move!”
With most of the men still alive back to the airplane, the attackers’ machine guns begin to target the Antonov itself. The bullets tear through the wall of the fuselage, killing men who already believed themselves in safety inside. Tarasov immediately thinks of Nooria.
“Here!” Pete yells waving his hand. “Into the cockpit!”
But first Tarasov has to help up a Stalker and a Tribe fighter up the ramp that slowly closes as the airplane, still slowly, moves on the runway.
Having pulled the last man aboard, the two officers share a look of both pain and relief as they battle for breath. Tarasov gets to his feet first.
“On me, Lieutenant!”
Collins follows him forward but when he sees the body that caring hands have put on the conveyor belt and covered with a trench coat, he cries out in despair.
“Oh dear Lord Jesus, this ain’t happening, man — this can’t be happening, man! This isn’t happening!”
“Let’s focus on those still alive!” Tarasov snaps at him. “Mac! Molotov! Keep your eyes on the Bandits! Lieutenant, I want your men do the same!”
“Watch these fuckers,” Collins barks to his fighters. Three of them lie wounded on the floor, but thanks to their better armor they are in better shape than the Stalkers and Bandits.
More bullets hit the airplane.
“Tell that damned pilot to pull her up!” Collins shouts.
“Lieutenant, do any of your men know how fire the tail gun?”
“I do,” Molotov says.
“Get to the turret and suppress those damn machine guns on the hill!”
The Lieutenant yells at his two corpsmen. “Sorensen, Gajda! When you’re finished with our own, see what you can do about the scavengers!”
“We are Stalkers! Not scavengers!” Mac angrily remarks. She has her rifle pointed at the surviving Bandits. Her jackal gives the Bandits a threatening growl.
The aircraft slowly accelerates. Bullets pierce the fuselage and Tarasov’s nose suddenly detects a pungent smell.
“Shit! They must have hit our fuel tank!”
At this moment, the hill gets into the tail cannon’s fire angle, at last enabling Molotov to return fire from the twin 23mm cannons. “That’s it, man!” a Tribe fighter shouts over the earsplitting rattle. “Blast them! Blast those motherfuckers!”
At last the aircraft lifts off. Tarasov and Collins make their way to the cockpit where an appalling sight awaits them: the co-pilot is covered with blood. For a second, Tarasov thinks he might have been hit by a bullet that pierced through the fuselage but then notices the a knife-cut wound across his throat.
“He wanted to leave without you,” a very pale Nooria says. “Old pilot was smarter and listened to me.”
“It’s good to have you back, Nooria,” Collins says and bows his head to her.
“Sure he did,” Pete says. “He had a choice between my bullet in his brain and Nooria’s blade cutting his throat.”
Collins gives Pete a curious look. “Are you — Pete? The son of Colonel Leighley?” Seeing Pete nod, the Lieutenant salutes him. “Welcome to the Tribe. It is an honor to meet you.”
“Yeah. That’s what the Top said when I first met him.”
All fall silent. Their moment of silence is broken by the pilot’s voice.
“Back to Odessa for refueling and then Minsk, I guess?”
The weary question puts Tarasov’s mind back to their current situation.
“No. Lieutenant—Collins, right? Tell him the Alamo’s coordinates.”
“But Hartman said they’re gonna shoot us down!” Pete observes.
“Maybe not if the big man hears your voice on the radio,” Tarasov responds. “We have about two dozen men in the back, half of them friendly, the others secured. No danger to his stronghold.”
Collins buries his face into his palms. “Good God, you don’t know.”
“What do you mean, Lieutenant?” Pete asks with a tone of authority.
“It’s bad news all over,” Collins says with a sigh. “Ragheads and mutants, horrible mutants have wiped out one of our squads. José… Lieutenant Ramirez is dead. The Alamo is under siege. Our main force under First Lieutenant Driscoll is blockading Bagram.”
“Why?” asks Tarasov, perplexed.
“Stalkers began attacking our patrols. The Colonel wanted to punish the Stalkers by putting a blockade around their den at Bagram but as soon as our main force was deployed, the ragheads hit us hard. The big man insists he can handle the situation, even though the ragheads managed to breach our outer defenses. He gave direct orders to Driscoll not to return, and he would never question those. It’s a matter of honor for both of them. We’d hoped for the Top to return soon and talk sense into Leighley, or at least make Driscoll listen to his own better judgment, take the reasonable decision and lead the main force to relieve the Al
amo — and now he’s gone!”
“I will talk to my father,” Pete defiantly says. “Enough blood has been spilt.”
The Lieutenant gives him a look of doubt. “I’m not sure if he’d agree.”
“That wouldn’t be the first disagreement between him and me,” Pete responds with a dire smile.
“Sorry to interrupt but we can’t even make it to Odessa,” the pilot says eyeing the instrument panel. “Our underfloor tank was hit. We’re losing fuel. You better find a place to land within two hundred kilometers or we’ll have to crash land. Make up your goddamn mind and give us directions, people!”
“Is the airfield at Bamyan marked on your GPS or whatever navigation system you follow?” Tarasov asks the pilot.
“Sure, but I hope that’s not where you want to go.”
“Follow the course leading there. Keep a low altitude. Our destination is about thirty kilometers east of Bamyan. You will see a landing strip atop of a mountain.”
“Let me use that radio,” Collins says. “Major, I suggest you team up with my men and disarm the Bandits. Just in case.”
“Done already,” comes a voice from the hatch. It is Molotov.
“Good job,” Tarasov nods his approval. “I’m glad the Dutyer was right about you after all.”
“Why, what did he say?”
“That you’re with the Stalkers.”
“I work alone.” Molotov takes his helmet off, prompting Tarasov to give his sooty face a gaze as if he would be seeing a ghost. “I am Alexander Degtyarev, Security Service of Ukraine.”
In any other situation, their reunion would have been a gleeful one. However, aboard a damaged airplane filled with wounded men, on their way towards a besieged Alamo and with Sergeant Major Hartman dead, only a few simple words come to Tarasov’s mind.
“Now I understand the strange look you gave me, Alex,” he says.
“You’d make a horrible undercover agent, Misha. I recognized you from far by the way you walk.”
“You guys know each other?” Pete asks puzzled.
“Very well,” Degtyarev nods.
“You are Alex?” Nooria demands with eyes wide open from surprise. “And you have been with Sultan’s men all time?”
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