STALKER Northern Passage

by Balazs Pataki

Two Bandits are shuddering in the cold while they keep watch over the hilltop that is the only vantage point in area around the airstrip. Three dead jackals are proof of a perilous night watch. The guards are apparently relieved when the shapes of three men appear on the path leading uphill.

  “It was about time for you to show up,” one of them shouts. “You cocksuckers were supposed to be here half an hour ago!”

  “This bloody cold makes the shit freeze in my guts,” the other guard adds. “Did you bring us vodka?”

  “Net.”

  The two Bandits have no time to get surprised over hearing a female voice. A short burst is fired from a noise-suppressed F2000 assault rifle and sends the first Bandit to the ground. The other one who asked about vodka is about to fire his AKS-74U from his hip when a 9mm bullet hits his chest, fired from a silenced Beretta M9 pistol.

  The three shadows quickly check the hilltop for more hostiles with a well-coordinated sweep, then exchange muted shouts.

  “Left clear!”

  “Right clear.”

  “Objective is cleared,” the leader says on the radio. ”Squad, keep your position.”

  Two clicks crackle in the radio to signal acknowledgement. Holstering his Beretta, Lieutenant Collins gives Mac a grin. “Good shooting, Stalker.”

  “So far so good,” she replies reloading her rifle. “But don’t get too close to that wreck. My Geiger counter goes off scale only by me looking at it.”

  “If it weren’t for the mist, I could put down suppressive fire from here while you clear the ruins,” says Ahuizotl, the third attacker.

  Collins looks over to the ruins. “Yeah, that would come in handy… We’ll do this the hard way, then. You two stay here while we move in. Should the fog lift, look for targets of opportunity. Try not to hit any of us, okay? I’ll tell you when we move in. The signal will be… let’s say, Geronimo. Brings luck, usually. Once the airstrip is secured we’ll decide what’s to do next. Clear?”

  The sniper nods. “Clear.”

  “Can I go in with you?” Mac asks.

  “I’d have you rather here watching my back,” Ahuizotl replies.

  “Agreed,” Collins says. “Sorry Mac, but the men in my squad are a team and know their drill. A stranger among us would be a liability, no matter what a good shooter she is.”

  “But—”

  “I said no. Stay put and keep your eyes peeled. That’s even more important than having one more rifle in my team.”

  The Lieutenant leaves the hill to rejoin his men waiting below. In a few minutes, he has gathered them around him in the cover of rocks and dense shrub.

  “Textbook breach and clear, men,” he says. “I will move up from the southern end of the strip with Team One. Harper, your team is Two—proceed and take up position hundred and fifty meters to the west. Walker—Team Three, two hundred meters, east. Report when you’re ready. The word will be Geronimo. Infiltrate and clear the ruins. Have grenades at hand. Stay clear of the strip until I tell you it’s clear to proceed. Our objective is probably in the building with a roof, because I’ve seen an antenna that tells of a radio inside. We must take the command element alive. Any questions?”

  “What if he resists?” a fighter asks.

  “If I don’t get there first, use a flashbang when breaching and non-lethal force to subdue him or whoever is inside. Remember – our primary objective is grabbing the commander or at least the radioman. Are we set?” Seeing that all men have understood the plan, Collins nods. “Lock and load!”

  He knows that the fighters spreading out to his left and right have their weapons already loaded, but no self-respecting officer would ever miss an opportunity to bark this adrenaline-boosting command.

  In his estimation, visibility in the fog is limited to thirty meters. Fifty before the southern end of the runway, he raises his fist and ducks behind the sparse scrub. Then he puts his left wrist behind his back, signaling to his men to assume wedge formation.

  Wishing mentally for a scope with infrared capability, the Lieutenant perks his ear to get an idea about the Bandit’s location. The faint Russian chatter betrays three or four of them around the nearest campfire.

  “Blooper!” he calls out under his breath. He points to the campfire and uses another hand sign to tell the squad grenadier: prepare your M203 grenade launcher. Then he waves to the squad automatic weapon’s operator to move up with his M249.

  A subdued voice crackles in his radio.

  “Two. In position.”

  “SAW ready,” the gunner whispers.

  Collins waits for the other squad to report in. He has Team Three move up further for two reasons: first, to avoid the risk of friendly fire; the two infiltration teams had better not meet each other face to face. Second, having the infiltration point further away should also make sure that no hostiles escape to the north or fall into Team Two’s flank.

  At this moment the wind rises and stirs up the fog. Collins sees that his estimation was right—four Bandits are squatting next to the campfire.

  “Three. In position.”

  “One. Two and Three, fog is lifting. You have visuals?”

  Four clicks in the radio come in reply, an affirmative double-click from each team.

  Collins nods to the grenadier who aims his rifle with the under-barrel launcher. At the same moment when the projectile is released with a clack, the Lieutenant yells into his microphone.

  “Geronimo! Geronimo!”

  His second call is suppressed by the detonating grenade that goes off right in the campfire.

  “Fire mission!” he barks to the machine gunner. “Front, traversing! One hundred, sustained! Fire!”

  The M249 begins to sweep the area ahead with a long, uninterrupted burst. The Bandits not incapacitated by the grenade are riddled with the machine gun’s hard-hitting M855 ball rounds. With every fifth a tracer, the arc of fire appears like a deadly fan covering the airstrip between the row of ruins. The three hostiles at the campfire further ahead are equally hit, sticking to the ground and firing blindly into Collins’ direction. Detonations and small-arms fire comes from the ruins where Teams One and Two have begun the infiltration. The door of the radio shack opens but is immediately closed again as bullets impact on the ground and in the mud bricks. A few Bandits foolish enough to follow their instincts and leave their cover to see what’s happening are mowed down. Those staying among the ruins will now be the job of Teams One and Two.

  “Cease fire!” Collins yells and waves his hand in front of his face to ensure that the machine gunner understands the order. “Two and Three, proceed! One, on me! Let’s go!”

  Using the ruins to their advantage, Collins’ team quickly moves forward. The distinctive barking of Kalashnikovs can be heard from where the other teams move among the ruins. The lighter muzzle noise of the Tribe fighters’ M16A4 and M27 rifles answers, but it is mostly the blast of a grenade detonating inside the roofless buildings that makes the final point.

  Three swift-limbed fighters of Team Three reach the radio shack first. One smashes the rotten boards covering the window with his rifle butt, another throws in a flashbang. A deafening blast sounds inside. The third kicks the wooden door open and dashes inside with his weapon aimed, immediately followed by the other two.

  “Freeze! Drop your weapons! Weapons down!”

  Panting and spitting dust, Collins reaches the shack with his men. In a minute he has them arranged around the perimeter. By now, fighting goes on only in the sector to the north west from where defiant Russian and English cusswords mix with Kalashnikov fire.

  “Ya tebya kak sobaku strelayu!”

  “Give it up, suckers!”

  “Kushay granata, pindos!”

  “Grenade incoming!”

  The men sparheading Team Three duck to avoid the worst of the blast. Someone shouts in pain.

  “Fry those pigs! Grenades!”

  “Tvoyu mat’!”

  ”Fire in the hole!”

  Th
ree blasts shake the Bandit’s last point of defense. A long scream ends in Russian swearing, ended with a single shot from an M16A4. Then silence falls.

  Lieutenant Collins’ ears are slightly numb from the firefight, especially the SAW’s deafening bursts. He can barely hear the crackling voices through the radio, though now they are spoken out loud.

  “Two. Clear. One WIA. Gunshot.”

  “Three. Clear. Two WIA. Damned grenades.”

  “One. Objective secured, all clear,” Collins says on the radio. He looks around and is relieved to see that everyone in his team appear unharmed. Then he notices the stinging pain in his shoulder where a lucky bullet went through the exoskeleton’s Kevlar pates. “One WIA,” he adds, thinking: shit!

  The squad corpsman is already there to see to his wound. Collins waves him away. “See to the others first.”

  He himself takes off his heavy rucksack, glad that the painful grimace coming to his face remains hidden under the shemagh he has wrapped around his face, like most of the others.

  The man lying before his feet, wearing a black trench coat with a skull patch on the arm sleeve, has no option to hide his face. The fighters who captured him have already pulled his balaclava off. His eyes might appear intelligent in other circumstances but now reflect the fear of a captured animal.

  “Objective secured,” Collins repeats, now directing his words to the two Stalkers. “Sniper, come down. Mac, keep watching the area.”

  Then he turns to the captured Bandit.

  “You smelling of fear,” he says without exaggerating. A dark stain on the prisoner’s groin tells that he has wetted himself. “You speak English?”

  “I do, sir! Please don’t hurt me!”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Bruiser, sir!”

  A few fighters grin. In his present state nothing justifies the Bandit’s pretentious nickname.

  “Calling me ’sir’ won’t help you, Bruiser,” Collins says, he too smiling under the shemagh. “If you want us to be friends, you have to be cooperative. If you want us to be enemies—”

  “No, no!”

  “Attaboy. First question: is this your only base?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Do you expect more Bandits to arrive, and if yes, when and how many?”

  “Today. About three hundred.”

  Collins frowns. “What? Three hundred?”

  “Yes. With two Antonovs… see, I’m cooperative! Please don’t hurt me!”

  “When exactly?”

  “In about two hours.”

  “Call signs, passwords, landing protocols?”

  “Hitman One and Two. They will make contact before landing. I will tell them if everything is clear on the ground. Hitman One will land first with enough men to secure the area, then the rest will disembark.”

  Collins turns to his two team leaders and Ahuizotl who has just arrived. “Let’s get outside for a minute.”

  Away from the Bandit’s ears, the Lieutenant gives the three men a concerned look and recaps the situation for the sniper.

  “Three hundred hostiles expected in two airplanes, due in two hours. How do we deal with this?”

  “What kind of airplane?” the sniper asks.

  “He said Antonovs. Probably Cubs, since nothing bigger can land here.”

  “You mean the An-12.”

  “Yup.”

  Ahuizotl reflects over their options and shakes his head. “I can take down a chopper by hitting the pilots. An Antonov – no way. Not from this angle.”

  “We could just scare them away if we send enough bullets in their direction,” team leader Walker suggests.

  “Risky,” Ahuizotl says. “They might have tail gun turrets and blast us from above.”

  “Besides, we need to annihilate them and not just scare away,” Collins observes. “The whole thing wouldn’t make much sense if they come back later. Three hundred of these sons of bitches, Jesus! We need more firepower than we have.”

  “It’s a small airstrip,” Harper says. “They can land one airplane at a time. Means we’ll have to face only a hundred and fifty, I guess. If we have good cover, and use the SAW and blooper wisely… it could work.”

  “Those Antonovs have rear ramps, right?” Collins asks.

  Getting the Lieutenant’s idea, the sniper points to the airstrip. “They will probably land from the north. The fighter is right—if we have the machine gun positioned at the right angle, we can hit the tail gun to neutralize it and then the ramp as soon as it goes open.”

  “Gonna be like bloody Omaha,” Walker remarks.

  “I don’t like the idea,” Collins says after a moment of thinking. ”If I were aboard and see this happening, I’d raise the ramp immediately, turn the aircraft around and take off. One SAW won’t be able to stop a big airplane.”

  “Then what do you suggest, sir?”

  “We’ll have to wait until they begin disembarking. The airplane will be a sitting duck while the men and cargo inside are being unloaded. First, you’ll take out their command element with the long rifle. Then we strike from behind the ruins.”

  “What about the second airplane?”

  “We’ll have to deal with that another day.”

  “How will the sniper identify the Charlie Echo?” Walker asks. “These Bandits or whatever look all the same to me.”

  “Bandits are like Neanderthals,” Ahuizotl says with a smile. “Look for the biggest, meanest son of bitch and you’ll find the boss. I’m sure he will make for a nice big target.”

  Collins nods. “Then we mow down the rest. Go back to your position on the hilltop and send the girl down. I need her to listen to what that bastard says in Russian when the airplanes report in.”

  “Will do,” Ahuizotl replies and hastily makes his way back to the hill.

  74

  The Bandit’s Antonov AN-12, somewhere over southern Uzbekistan

  The Antonov An-12, Russia’s reply to the C130 Hercules and bearing the NATO call sign Cub, has a cruising speed of 415 miles per hour. With a normal payload of 44,000 pounds, it would take about five and a half hours to cover the distance between Minsk

  and the New Zone. However, each of the two Antonovs arranged by Sultan have about a hundred and fifty men cramped inside, much more than the ninety passengers the aircrafts would normally carry. The conveyor belt with crates holding ammunition, weapons and other supplies make the cargo bay even more congested. To make fuel consumption cope with the heavy load, the airplanes fly below cruising speed; this adds two more, painfully long hours to the haul.

  Cramped in the cargo bay without any comfort, the Bandits who were in such high spirits when leaving the Zone soon started to grumble. After a while, the first fights broke out over places that appeared just a little more comfortable than the cargo bay’s bare metal floor. A veteran Bandit knocked a former Stalker out when the latter retched next to him, prompting other Loners to take his side. The ensuing brawl resulted in a few bruised noses and blue eyes on either side, making Tarasov wonder if these self-proclaimed conquerors of the New Zone would begin killing each other as soon as they reached it.

  The boring and uncomfortable flight took a heavy toll on Nooria. She became sick twice, using the empty wrappers of the last US-made rations they had as a vomit bag. A Stalker who was about to scold her quickly changed his mind upon seeing the scorn in Tarasov’s eyes.

  At least they had their own corner close to the cockpit, separated from the Bandits by Ferret, Buryat and the few Stalkers on their side. As time passed, Nooria and Hartman looked out of the bullseye window more and more often, hoping to at last see the ochre, undulating terrain of the New Zone’s northern reaches appear.

  Together with the airplane’s sudden descent, Tarasov’s watch tells him that they must be really close when the head of the Belarusian radio operator appears in the hatch leading to the cockpit.

  “Hey, you guys from the New Zone! You better come and see this!”


  Thinking that the crew member only wants to show them the New Zone, Tarasov and the Top follow him indifferently.

  “Termez,” the navigator says, pointing forward in the glass cupola on the airplane’s nose.

  What they see causes the two men look at each other with deep concern. The town appears to have been swept over by a tsunami of destruction; giant waves of sand have buried a long stretch of the Amu-Darya river and the refugee camps next to the town. Smoke rises from the airfield where the runways appear broken, as if torn to pieces by a massive tremor. A long column of vehicles is blocking the road to the north, probably cars trying to escape the disaster-stricken town. Mi-24 gunships are circling above. They appear to fire at targets on the ground.

  “Holy mother of Jesus Christ,” the Top murmurs.

  “What the hell happened here?” the Belarusian pilot asks in English. His accent is so heavy though that Tarasov seriously doubts if any ground control could understand him. Judging by his white hair and equally white moustache, he is not a regular aviator anymore but rather someone hired by Sultan’s cronies; probably eking out his meager pension by flying dangerous and usually illegal missions.

  “That was a dust storm,” Hartman tells him. “My guess is those Hinds were shooting at mutants who crossed the river in the storm’s wake.”

  “Good God!” the pilot exclaims. “Is that like a… vybros in the Exclusion Zone?”

  “Yes,” Tarasov says. ”The local version of emissions.”

  The veteran pilot slowly waves his head. “Last time I saw destruction like this was over Chernobyl, back in ‘86!”

  “You better climb higher and keep clear of here,” Tarasov suggests. “There might be airborne anomalies!”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Trust me, I’m not!”

  “Blyad!”

  Cursing, the pilot pulls on the yoke.

  “It was not just a dust storm.”

  Tarasov and Hartman turn away from the sight below to see Nooria standing behind them white faced.

  “What’s going on?” Tarasov asks.

  “Come… I have to tell you something.”

  Once back to their place, Nooria grabs at Tarasov’s hand. She sounds concerned, if not terrified. “It wants me.”

  “Are you okay?” Tarasov asks.

  “No. I am not okay. I am scared. And this sickness—oh, how I hate it!”

  “We’ll land soon, Nooria,” Tarasov softly says. ”If that’s why you’re feeling bad—”

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “Our child.”

  “Uh-oh,” Hartman says. “You better be prepared for worse than a little sickness.”

  “You don’t understand! The New Zone wants me because—my child. It wants my child.”

  All fell silent. Pete whispers something to himself, but his voice is suppressed by the deep drone of the four turboprop engines.

  “Mikhailo—our child will be stronger than you and more powerful than me. It is our child is who can destroy evil ravaging this land.”

  Fear, disbelief and joy are all mixed on Tarasov’s face as he looks at Nooria.

  “My son! He can end—all this?”

  “No, Mikhailo. She will.”

  “But how? How you know?”

  “I just know. And she also wants to get to the New Zone. She didn’t let me kill Sultan.”

  “Pete,” the Top says under his breath, “give me a thermometer from your first-aid kit, will you?”

  Nooria’s eyes are flashing with anger. “I am not ill!”

  “Okay… okay,” Tarasov reassuringly says and caresses her pale face. “Don’t worry, Nooria. As long as I can lift a weapon, I will protect you.”

  “Not to mention me,” Pete adds.

  “You don’t want to leave me out of this,” Hartman says.

  “See? With the three of us around you’ll be safer than anyone.”

  “I am scared,” Nooria says, but her fear makes way for sadness. “New Zone is in rage—it was reaching out for me. Its evil will try to defeat us.”

  “Business as usual,” Hartman says and gives her a reassuring smile.

  “What do you want us to do?” Tarasov asks.

  “I must talk to my mother. Please, please take me back to our valley. Quickly!”

  “I have an idea,” Pete says. “We’ve hijacked a train and stolen a car. What about hijacking this plane too?”

  Tarasov gives him a smile. “Not a bad thought at all. The Alamo does have a landing strip after all.”

  “Forget it,” Hartman says with a wave of his hand. “AA defenses would down us before we could say hello.”

  “Ain’t there a radio on this junk?”

  “Son, you’re as smart as an Army general,” Hartman says with a snort. “Let me tell you something. Two weeks before the nukes went up we were already busy fortifying the Alamo. Then one night a Chinook appeared. Said it took an RPG hit, has WIAs on board and needs to make an emergency landing. Okay guys, we said, come down, we won’t hurt you. Turned out to be full of Ranger boys coming after us. Since then, the fighters manning the anti-aircraft batteries are under orders to shoot first, ask later.”

  “And what happened to the Rangers?”

  “What’s your guess, Pete?”

  “Jesus! You killed American soldiers?”

  Hartman shrugs. “So did the Rangers, son. Our corpsmen running up to their Chinook to assist the alleged WIAs were the first they killed. Usually we don’t take prisoners but had eventually captured their commander with two of his men. They were given the chance to join us.”

  “Or death, I guess,” Tarasov dryly observes.

  “Leaving in shame and defeat. They stayed.”

  “It was Driscoll, wasn’t it?”

  “Told you already he’d been with us to the catacombs! It was Joe Collins. He’s one of the very few to be made Lieutenant even though joining us after we’d been touched by the Spirit. As a former Ranger captain he’s our SR, ambush and airfield seizure expert.”

  “SR?”

  “Special reconnaissance, avoiding direct combat and detection. Anyway, point is that everything that’s got wings avoids our little airspace except flies and mosquitoes!”

  “What about Bagram?” Pete asks.

  Tarasov waves the suggestion off. “The runway is blocked by wrecks and debris.”

  “Bottom line, we’ll have to use our feet to get to the Alamo,” Pete observes.

  Tarasov caresses Nooria’s hand discreetly. “Can you do that?”

  “I am just worried and feeling weak. You won’t need to carry me yet!”

  “Dunno about you but I can barely wait to feel solid ground under my feet again,” Hartman says. With anticipation all over his face, he stares through the window to the snow-capped Hindu Kush range and the dark Shamali plains beyond where their destination lies.

  75

  Abandoned airfield, New Zone

  “Ubiytsa Odin. Namechennoe vremya pribitiya – pyat minut.”

  “This is Hitman One, ETA five minutes,” Mac translates the pilot’s transmission.

  “Uzhe slishim kak vi priblijaetes,” Bruiser replies, feeling very uncomfortable with Lieutenant Collins’ Beretta held against his nape.

  “We can already hear you approaching.”

  “Chista li zona prizemleniya?”

  “Is the landing zone clear?”

  “Da. Ubiytsa Odin, prichodi.”

  “Yes. Hitman One, proceed.”

  “Prinyal, zhdem.”

  “Roger, standing by.”

  Bruiser clears the channel. “That’s it. Will you let me go now?”

  Collins doesn’t respond him and turns to Mac instead.

  “Watch this scumbag.” Then he calls on his two team leaders. “Two and Three, report status,” he says on the radio.

  “Two. Barrack ruins. West. In position.”

  “Three. Eastern ruins. In position.”

  “Stay lo
w until they start disembarking. Commence firing on my command. The word will be Bighorn.”

  He opens the radio shack’s door ajar and peeks outside.

  A tiny dot appears in the northern sky and slowly takes on the easily recognizable silhouette of a four-engine transport airplane.

  “One to Sniper.”

  “Standing by,” comes Ahuizotl’s reply through the radio.

  “Watch out for the Charlie Echo. Neutralize tangos with heavy weapons like RPGs and machine guns. Report when done, over.”

  “Roger.”

  “Teams One and Two are in position. The command for moving in will be Bighorn. Point out targets once we move in. Over and out.”

  “Roger Wilco. Out.”

  “Welcome to Afghanistan,” Collins says, watching the descending airplane. Then he frowns. “What is that plane doing?”

  Instead of continuing to descend, the low-flying Antonov performs a turn westwards and begins to climb.

  “They’re turning back!” he shouts. “What did you tell them, you prick?”

  “Nothing!” Bruiser nervously replies. “I mean, I told them to land!”

  Mac nods. “He didn’t warn the pilots.”

  Collins is about to give Bruiser a smash with his rifle butt when he sees a grenade box next to the crate on which the Bandits’ radio is placed. He quickly opens it.

  “Smoke grenades?” he angrily asks. “You forgot to tell us about that!”

  He takes a grenade, rushes out and pops a smoke. In a minute, purple smoke is rising from the middle of the dirt runway.

  Back to the shack, he gives Bruiser an incapacitating blow and anxiously watches the airplane from the door. To his relief, it turns back and begins to approach the landing strip once again.

  In a few minutes, the huge airplane touches down on the runway. The dark exhaust of the engines mixes with the purple smoke and the brown dust swirled up by the propellers.

  Collins realizes that he might have made a mistake by arranging his own team behind the radio shack; with all the dust, the area around the Antonov’s tail and ramp is not clearly visible from this position. He hopes that the sniper has a better view from his vantage point. Even through the dust, Teams One and Two will lay down a deadly crossfire once he gives the word. The Bandits who will inevitably scatter around will give his own team still enough work.

  All he has to do now is to wait for the sniper to finish off the Bandits’ leader to ensure disarray. Then his riflemen can begin their grizzly work.

  “Glory to the Tribe,” he whispers in anticipation.

  76

  Antonov AN-12, approaching the New Zone

  Bandits might be a reckless bunch, but when the pilot at last announces their impending touch-down even the most dashing among them has anxiety mixed into his excitement. Rifles are checked, balaclavas and helmets fastened, assault vests pulled over the light jackets.

  “Time to revenge Bruiser’s boys at Ghorband,” a Bandit says pulling over the hood of his leather jacket. “I wanna kick some Tribe ass!”

  “Can hardly wait to bag a bear,” boasts another one working the safety on his AKS-74U assault carbine.

  Hearing all this Tarasov and the Top exchange a grin.

  “Yeah, yeah, manchildren,” Hartman grumbles. “The more poop in your pants, the louder you boast.”

  Buryat gives Ferret a grin. “Reminds me of—”

  “Cut teasing each other for a minute,” Tarasov interrupts him in a low voice. “We’re all set?”

  “Yes, boss,” Buryat nods. “But… what the hell is the pilot doing?”

  Suddenly, they all feel the airplane climb. Hartman pulls a Bandit from the nearest window and peeks out. “He’s turning away!”

  “Watch Nooria,” Tarasov barks. “Pete, on me!”

  They dash into the cockpit. “What’s happening? Why don’t you land this damned plane?”

  The pilot gives Tarasov an anxious look. “Something’s not right. Bruiser told me to land but he was supposed to pop smoke. Told him I’m standing by for the confirmation but he just said ’roger’ and cleared the channel!”

  “I don’t care. Land the plane!”

  “Put that gun away, you stupid Bandit! I don’t want to piss off Sultan by risking this flight!”

  Tarasov puts his pistol to the pilot’s head. Pete follows suit and aims his rifle at the co-pilot who watches the scene with his mouth wide open.

  “No, captain, it’s me you don’t want to piss off,” Tarasov barks at the pilot. “Land the airplane now or I’ll fucking shoot you!”

  But the pilot is a veteran of many perilous flights with illegal cargo and not easy to intimidate.

  “And who will fly my machine then, eh?” he shouts back. “Go back to your place, you bloody passenger!”

  “I see the smoke,” the navigator shouts from his position. He repeats to make sure that his trembling voice is understood, “I see the smoke!”

  “See, captain?” Tarasov says with satisfaction and holsters his pistol. “You’ve almost pissed off Sultan and me.”

  Grumbling something in Belarusian about Bandits being sons of bitches and out of their mind, the pilot steers the Antonov back to landing approach.

  “Guess that idiot Bruiser just forgot about the smoke,” the radio operator says from his seat behind. “I’m glad it came to his mind at the last moment!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll punish him for that with my own hands,” Tarasov responds with a grin. He holsters the pistol and waves to Pete to follow him.

  “What happened?” Ferret asks him when Tarasov and Pete are back to the tail.

  “We had a problem with ground control but everything’s fine now,” replies Tarasov. “Stalkers, get ready!”

  _____________________________

  Ahuizotl lies on his stomach behind the shrub covering the hilltop. He opens the flap covering the front lens on the scope of his M107. For the next minutes, his sight will be limited to what appears in the reticule. He wishes Mac were next to him watching over their position. However, his last scan of the surrounding area detects nothing.

  He watches the airplane land and curses the dust swirled up in the process. All he can see from the Bandits swarming out through the lowered ramp is the long shadows they cast in the rays of the low sun.

  The tribals will have a hard time hitting anything in this dust, he thinks.

  Even so, he can make out his designated target: one Bandit stands out of the rest by a head, barking commands and holding a weapon that appears to be an RG-6 Bulldog grenade launcher.

  The sniper grins.

  Just like expected—the biggest son of a bitch with the biggest gun.

  The reticule slides over to the head of his target. The Bandit leader appears to him particularly reckless because he is not wearing a helmet; he doesn’t even the hood of his armored suit pulled on. He is waving and shouting at the Bandits running down the ramp.

  Ahuizotl narrows his right eye as he looks through the scope. Reading the Bandit’s lips it appears that the Bandit is barking English commands, as if shouting move, move! instead davai, davai! that a Russian-speaking leader would shout. He gives his doubts a mental shrug—there is no way to hesitate and even less so to consult Collins, nor is there a rule that Bandits can only be from the former USSR.

  His ears perk as they detect a muffled noise, like a stone falling to the ground.

  Relax… it must be the wind. Saw nothing moving a minute ago in a two hundred meters radius. Must be the wind.

  Now he can make out his target’s grey hair and dark eyebrows too. Ahuizotl places his finger on the trigger. He forgets about seeing a human face; his mind reduces the spot on the grey temple to nothing but a target.

  Exhaling long, he empties his lungs and waits for a clear pause between two heartbeats. Then he softly pulls the trigger.

  “Bullseye!”

  Startled by the voice behind him, Ahuizotl wants to jump but a rifle barrel pressed to hi
s head forces him to stay prone. Looking up from the corner of his eye, he sees something completely unexpected. The sight of a Spetsnaz watching the airfield through his binoculars fills him with as much surprise as fear.

  “Sorry to interrupt your concentration, Stalker, but we take over from here,” the Spetsnaz says without putting his binoculars down. “Sergeant! Position RPK to the left flank, PKM to the right. Let’s wait for the dust settle a bit. Then unleash hell on my command.”

  “Yest, komandir.”

  “You! Secure the sniper and give me his rifle.”

  The sound of gunfire exchanged erupts from the airfield.

  “Such a mess,” the apparent commander says. ”Now those scumbags have started killing each other! One could’ve expected the Bandits to turn on each other, but so soon? Anyway, that makes it easier for us.”

  Someone steps on his back, making Ahuizotl emit a whimper of pain. Two strong hands force him to cross his arms behind his back. In a moment his hands are tied.

  “A Barrett M82,” the Spetsnaz commander says eyeing the rifle. “Lovely.”

  “It’s an M107, moron!” Ahuizotl groans and looks up angrily. Now, with the Spetsnaz’ binoculars lowered and the eye protectors pulled up to his helmet, the face of his captor is visible. Before a boot presses against his spine and forces him to lie motionless with face to the ground, Ahuizotl makes out hardened features and a black eye patch over the left eye.

  “Shut up and have more respect for the Captain,” says the soldier holding him down. “Right, Captain Maksimenko?”

  “Glad you learned your lesson, Bronsky.”

  Bolt action rifles are nothing new to Captain Maksimenko. He assumes a perfect position to fire the weapon while kneeling and scans the airfield. His hand stops in motion at a point and he makes a low whistle.

  “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 and 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 Alamo—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?”

  “Yes. And you must be Misha’s legendary girl, I take?”

  “Legendary?”

  “I got the frequency,” Collins interrupts them. “Corporal, it’s your turn.”

  Tarasov needs a moment to understand that the Lieutenant was meaning Pete.

  “I’d better be back to the cargo bay,” Degtyarev says. “Swapping stories can wait till we’re out of this mess.”

  He gives Tarasov and Nooria a faint smile and leaves through the hatch. Meanwhile, Collins has taken the headset from the radio operator and is already talking on the radio.

  “This is Lieutenant Collins calling the Alamo… Alamo, I know you have a copy on me. Come in.”

  “Our call sign is Bravo Lima Charlie Four Seven Nine Tango,” the pilot says. “At least that’s what appears on radar screens.”

  Collins transmits the call sign on the radio. “I repeat, I am aboard a cargo airplane, approaching the Alamo from…”

  “Just say west-northwest,” the pilot observes.

  “…west-northwest. Alamo, I know you have a copy on me and have direct orders not to respond, but you’d better listen to this transmission.”

  Having said this, Collins hands the headset over.

  “What am I supposed to say?” Pete asks the Lieutenant putting on the headset.

  A smile appears on Collins’ face. “Maybe hi, dad would do for a start?”

  “That would send him the wrong signal,” Pete says wrinkling his forehead. “I always had to call him sir.”

  77

  Abandoned airfield

  “Haha!” Bronsky snorts watching the chaos on the runway. “We are triumphant!”

  “Who told you to stop firing?” Captain Maksimenko angrily shouts back at the Spetsnaz.

  Bronsky continues to pepper the already scattered Stalkers with sustained fire from his PKM. On the right flank. Volkov does the same with the heavier RPK machine gun. The heavy bullets take a horrible toll on the coverless Stalkers.

  When the Spetsnaz realized that a few men return fire from the cover of the ruins, Maksimenko let the two automatic weapons shift their fire to deal with the new enemy. The 7,62mm cartridges easily penetrate the brick walls. However, hitting the defenseless Stalkers is more rewarding and the machine gunners soon shift their fire back to the runway; well-covered by the rocks on the hilltop as they were, their enemy had no chance to effectively fight back at them anyway. The battle is going well.

  Captain Maksimenko watches the onslaught below with a victor’s smile. But when he sees the tail turret rotate and the twin-barreled autocannon take aim at their position, his smile turns to a scowl.

  “Fall back!”

  The Spetsnaz have barely time to leave their positions before the Antonov’s twin autocannon begins to pound the hilltop. Splintering rocks and spraying earth where they hit, the devastating burst of 23mm armor-piercing incendiary rounds rip the dilapidated radar truck to shreds and set its rotting electronics ablaze.

  The Spetsnaz run down the hill. When they reach the slope and have the hilltop between them and the airplane, Captain Maksimenko tears his helmet off his head and smashes it to the ground.

  “Pizdets!” he cusses looking after the climbing airplane, “fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  If Sergeant Vlasov is equally frustrated, he is more level-headed than his captain to let himself be carried away by it.

  “Spetsnaz, report status,” he shouts.

  “Tokarsky’s bought it, sarge,” reports Wargo, the former officer. ”Maslak and Kushnik suffered light wounds. Brechko is patching them up.”

  “Where’s the Stalker?”

  The Spetsnaz look at each other.

  “Crap,” Bronsky says. “He’s either dead or…”

  “What are you waiting for?” Vlasov snaps at him. ”Back to the hilltop and find him, davai!”

  He walks to Maksimenko who is kicking around lose rocks
and cursing Tarasov with such foul words that make even the hard-boiled Spetsnaz grimace.

  “Kapitan, there’s no reason to be upset,” Vlasov says. “We can report that our secondary goal is accomplished. No more Bandits will fly in here, that’s for sure.”

  “This is not fucking happening to me!” the still enraged Maksimenko shouts. “I had that bastard right there and again—“

  Vlasov shrugs. “Kiev doesn’t know that he was on that plane. So far so good, I’d say. I suggest we move to that facility and establish a perimeter. Then we see what’s next.”

  Still tense, Maksimenko is about to snap him when a howl comes from nearby.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Sir, I suggest we move quickly.”

  Bronsky arrives.

  “No trace of the sniper,” he reports, fighting for breath.

  “Screw him,” Maksimenko snaps. “He can’t get far with his hands tied anyway.”

  Another howl comes from much closer, followed by several more.

  Bronsky pales. “Mutants?”

  “Must be coming for the corpses on the airstrip,” Vlasov observes anxiously. “We better get ready!”

  “Shit!” Captain Maksimenko takes his helmet from the ground and straps it back on. “Get back to the hill and prepare for defense!”

  78

  The Alamo

  Smoke rises from the ruined mud houses in the Alamo’s living quarters, concealing the mountain across the valley from the Colonel’s sight.

  He doesn’t see the besieging enemy but knows they are out there, probably preparing for a last assault to break the Tribe’s battered defenses. At least that’s what he would do if he were the attacker and the defenders pushed back behind their last line of fortifications.

  It all comes down to a last stand, he thinks.

  In the years past, everything had been done to turn the ancient citadel into a stronghold that could easily withstand any attack from outside. In hindsight, the trick of the attackers appears so logical and easy, but then no one could have suspected that anyone knew about the underground vaults. Apart from the Tribe, the only ones who had ever seen it were Tarasov’s Stalkers on their way to the City of Screams. The Colonel would never believe that they betrayed this secret to the Taliban, or the dushman as the Stalkers call their mortal enemies. Money could always prevail over enmity, of course, but knowing of their weak point would not have been enough – one needed the perfidious idea of using that strange creature to find a point where the underground walls could be broken through. Even so, the attack could have been easily repulsed if their human enemies hadn’t been supported by the smiters.

  But Colonel Leighley knows that all speculation is in vain now. Soon, the smiters will charge, followed by the human waves of ragheads that will sweep over the Tribe’s last defenses like the rising tide would sweep away a sandcastle built on the seashore.

  His room is only dimly lit by a nick in the boarded up window and a lamp on his field table. He steps to the sink and glances into the shaving mirror fastened to the wall to check his combat armor, then adjusts the bars holding the ribbons of his decorations. Today is the day to wear them all.

  Below the Navy Cross with two award stars, the Navy Distinguished Service Medal and the Silver Star, four rows of ribbons – several with award stars and valor device – tell about a more than distinguished military career; they include the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the USMC Good Conduct and Expeditionary Medals. The lower rows hold ribbons for service and several campaigns.

  It’s been a long way from Parris, he thinks. Today it will come to an end.

  The thought of this battle probably earning him the button, as Marines refer to the Medal of Honor, makes him give his own reflection a grim smile. Nobody will know of this last stand, yet for him and his men who are about to die, it will be a fight for honor indeed – a very much unneeded proof of their valor. And anyway, what’s good in a posthumous award to a soldier, a real warrior, who dies with the thought that his honor needs not to be confirmed by politicians and generals?

  A freshly cleaned M4 and a pistol lay on his field table. He shoulders the carbine and takes his sidearm too. It is a MEUSOC, the standard-issue firearm of the USMC’s force recon units. It has none of the extra components usually found on these weapons and looks like any of the over 2 million M1911A1s produced in the past century, save for the white lettering on the slider: To Colonel James W. Leighley for 25 years of faithful service. SEMPER FI.

  The shadow of a smile plays around his lips as he glances at the pistol. The black gun metal bears the promise of faithful service to the end. He lets the magazine eject and removes all bullets inside except one.

  “That should suffice, should need be,” he tells Lieutenant Bauer who is patiently waiting at the door. “How are the warriors feeling today?”

  “We all are eager to fight, sir.”

  “Do they think they’ll die in vain?”

  “No, sir. They know that no man dies in vain who dies for his ideals.”

  “Too bad our enemy thinks the same.”

  “Permission to speak freely, sir? It is not our enemy who beats us, sir, but this land itself. The ragheads will not enjoy victory. They know that if it hadn’t been for the smiters they would have never bested us.”

  Seeing the Colonel’s agreeing nod, Bauer carries on.

  “As to us, there is no shame in falling to a superhuman force. As to our enemies, there’s nothing honorable about using such power to overcome us. No sir, our enemy shall not rejoice.”

  “Is that your opinion, Lieutenant, or that of the rest as well?”

  “Sir, this is where we all stand.”

  The big man bows his head. Silence descends over the two men.

  Suddenly, the Alamo’s anti-aircraft battery reports in the radio.

  “This is Hawkeye.”

  Colonel Leighley takes the headset and mike. “Hawkeye, proceed.”

  “Reporting an airplane identified as a Belarusian cargo carrier. Approaching fast and attempting to contact us.”

  “Break contact. You know the drill, Hawkeye.”

  “Sir—with all due respect, I suggest you listen to this.”

  The Colonel frowns. “Have it transferred it to my radio set.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  After a few seconds of crackling radio noise, a young male voice comes through the channel. The Colonel turns pale upon hearing it.

  “Corporal Leighley aboard BLC 479T calling Colonel Leighley. Come in, over… BLC 479T, Alamo, come in, over…”

  “Sir! It’s—” Bauer wants to shout but a flash of the Colonel’s eyes shuts him up.

  “Calling Alamo, come in. BLC 479T inbound. Alamo, come in, over.”

  Leighley emits a sigh that makes his nostrils tremble, then clears his throat.

  “Alamo to BLC 479T. You must break off your approach.”

  The reply on the radio sounds relieved.

  “Sir! We are low on fuel. Need Alamo runway for emergency landing. Aboard are Major Tarasov, Lieutenant Collins with his SR squad, Nooria and a friendly force. We have several WIAs and POWs.”

  “What is the Sergeant Major’s status? Why is it not he who reports?”

  “The Top is KIA, sir.”

  Watching his commander, Bauer is certain that if by a major miracle he still had a long life ahead he would always remember the pain appearing on Colonel Leighley’s face.

  Yet it takes only a second for the big man to recollect himself.

  “Corporal, Lima Zulu is hot, I repeat—Son, you must not come here! The enemy is about to overrun our defenses. Turn around and do whatever you can to join First Lieutenant Driscoll’s force in the Bagram area!”

  “Negative. You must also tell your henchman not to attack the Stalker base.”

  “Corporal! Let me talk to Lieutenant Collins. Now!”

  “Sir, with all due respect but fuck the chain of command. This
is between you and me.”

  “Son, listen to me! Our enemy cannot be beaten this time. Coming here would mean the death of all of you. Do what I say and turn back!”

  “No, sir, negative—absolutely negative! You will not give up on me so easily. Not this time! Shoot this plane down with all of us aboard if you want but we are rolling in. Over and out.”

  The Colonel stands like a statue, his hand clutching on the mike with a force that is almost crushing it. His lips are trembling as he replies.

  “Welcome to the Alamo, son.”

  A moment of silence falls, then the affirmative clicks on the radio, by which the AA battery confirms the unspoken yet clear command, is suppressed by the thundering battle cry and mutant roar outside. The final charge is about to be launched.

  The big man unholsters his commemorative sidearm once more. He takes one more of the discharged bullets from his table and loads it into the magazine. He grabs the radio mike but hesitates before giving his next command. Then, with a sigh, he presses the button to open the channel.

  “Put me through to the First Lieutenant.”

  79

  An-12 approaching the Alamo

  “And I thought dealing with drunk air control in Lagos was bad enough,” the pilot says when the conversation is terminated and Pete gives the headset back.

  Degtyarev arrives from the cargo hold. “We better land quickly. It’s like a slaughterhouse back there.”

  “Landing approach approved as requested,” the radio operator reports.

  On the top of the mountain around which the Tribe’s defenses are laid out, the rocky outcrops and ancient ruins have been cleared off to make place for a runway. The pilot shouts out a Russian curse but it is not the sight of the perilous landing strip that scares him.

  “What the hell is going on here?”

  Where the Alamo’s medieval-looking living quarters were, now smoke is rising from smoldering ruins. The lower ramparts appear intact but there is devastation everywhere as if a hostile force had appeared right inside the stronghold. Up to the last line of fortified positions and ramparts crowning the mountain, every square meter bears witness to heavy and desperate fighting in which the attackers slowly gained the upper hand.

  A mass of humans is storming down the slopes of the mountain across the valley. Tall, humanoid mutants move ahead the assaulters like boulders carried by a wave crashing on the shore. Tarasov sees the tracers of the defenders’ fire raining down on the assaulters but it can’t stop them – their first ranks, led by the huge mutants, have already reached the ruined living quarters and continue to press forward and up the mountain.

  “Oh my God,” groans Tarasov, “oh God!”

  “Napalm,” Collins says, “all we need is napalm! Good God, how I wish we could burn those motherfuckers!”

  “Holy Christ!” the pilot yells. “Our fuel’s not leaking but pouring!”

  Kerosene. Second best to napalm, flashes to Tarasov’s mind. The memory of the Top’s gung-ho joke gives him an idea that could turn the tide of the battle raging on the ground.

  “Captain! Dump the kerosene!” he shouts to the pilot.

  “We’re flying on jet fuel, not kerosene!”

  “Burns all the same, right?”

  “If one ignites it, yes!”

  “Then dump all the fuel! Let it rain on the attackers, then Alex will light them up with the tail gun!”

  “Are you out of your mind?” the pilot protests. “If you fire that, it will incinerate the fuel vapor and kill us all!”

  But Degtyarev gets the idea. “Yes! Dump the fuel over them, captain! Do it, now!”

  Seeing him drawing a Makarov pistol the pilot hisses a swear. “I’ll do it, goddammit, just keep that shooter away from my head!”

  Tarasov grabs the radio mike. “Alamo! We need an HIE mortar fire emission! Alamo, come in!”

  “Major, we don’t have enough firepower to—”

  “Listen, Alamo! Prepare incendiary shells, watch the airplane and you’ll know what you’ve got to do!”

  Probing his way through the thin air, the airplane quickly descends at 2000 feet per minute, dodging peaks and ridges with 90 degree turns.

  “How long is the runway?” the pilot asks.

  “3200 feet, unpaved,” Collins responds. “Enough for a C-130!”

  “Gonna be rough but we should make it,” the pilot says.

  “That’s suicide!” the navigator shouts.

  “If these crazy cowboys can land with a Herk there, so can we!”

  “Your bragging will kill us all!”

  “Shut up and get into Yuriy’s seat, Stepan! Hey, yankee, move to the nose and tell me when to begin the dump! And you guys make yourself useful and get that body out of my cockpit!”

  “Sorry about him,” Tarasov says as he and Degtyarev drag the co-pilot’s body from the seat.

  “He was the worst flying bitch I ever had,” the pilot coldly observes. “But who’s that woman with the knife?”

  “My wife.”

  “Oh boy. And I thought I was in deep shit!”

  “Descending at 2000 feet per minute,” the navigator reports from the copilot’s seat.

  Probing his way through the thin air, rapidly descending and dodging peaks and ridges, the aircraft roars over the valley.

  “Dump it over the eastern ridge!” Collins shouts from the navigator’s position in the nose. “Port, 90 degrees!”

  “Stepan, read speed!”

  “Two five twenty—two five zero—”

  A voice from the besieged stronghold calls on the radio. “Alamo. Fire mission is Sierra Bravo.”

  “Fasten your seatbelts,” the pilot yells. He crosses himself and glances at the icon fastened to the instrument panel. Then he steers the plane into a sharp port turn and works several switches on the overhead panel.

  80

  Siege camp, east of the Alamo

  Commander Saifullah studies the Alamo’s smoke-covered ruins. Forcing the hitherto unbeatable Tribe to retreat behind their last line of defense would have been reason to rejoice and praise God. However, looking at the hulking smiters who now are waiting for Skinner’s command to unleash their final charge, he feels a certain bitterness.

  Saifullah has no doubts at all that eradicating the Tribe will please God – but with such an ungodly ally? The Prophet’s flag will fly over the Alamo soon enough but in God’s eyes, this victory will be spoilt. The thought of entering into a pact with these hellish creatures and their master, this half-mutant abomination, makes him feel guilty and unclean.

  There can be only one way out, and Saifullah calms himself with the thought of all this being done for God’s greater glory. Skinner might be an abomination, but his plan was perfect: without their stronghold and probably already decimated by the infidels at Bagram, the remaining forces of the Tribe will be no match for God’s holy warriors. They will take the Alamo today, and the rest of these lands too will soon be purged of foreign intruders. How great is God indeed – even the creatures of hell work to promote His will!

  “You don’t look happy, dushman.”

  Saifullah hates the irony in Skinner’s voice but while he still needs him, he has no choice but to force a smile on his face as he turns towards the grinning half-mutant.

  “I will rejoice once I see the Prophet’s banner flying over the infidels’ lair,” he lies.

  “Shall we wait till nightfall?” Skinner asks. “My friends have a better sight in darkness than the Tribe’s NVGs. Could give us another advantage.”

  “We will not wait.” Impatience lingers in Commander Saifullah’s voice. “As soon as my warriors finish their prayers, we will strike and finish the infidels, once and for all!”

  “Suit yourself,” Skinner replies with a shrug. “All the better, actually. We’re getting hungry.”

  Saifullah leaves him in a hurry. The thought of relying on these man-eating monsters makes his stomach turn and he can hardly wait to cleanse
his soul by leading his warriors in prayer.

  When the Talib has left their lookout, Skinner spits on the ground.

  You will never see your flag over the Alamo because I will eat your eyes first.

  He waves to the smiter next to him. Looking into the mutant’s eyes, he senses its hunger.

  Soon we will be feasting, brother. Soon.

  In reply, the smiter’s eyes flash with anticipation but Skinner senses the creature’s anxiety as well.

  “Their bullets. They hurt. Fire hurts.”

  I know, but they must be running out of ammunition. We will revenge our fallen brothers.

  “And then no human will ever hurt us again?”

  Then this land will be ours, brother.

  The mutant’s reaction would be just an aggressive growl to anyone but Skinner.

  Yes. We will exterminate them all. Now go and gather the brothers.

  The voice of prayer comes from the Taliban’s camp where Saifullah’s warriors have gathered. The many rows of several hundred fearsome warriors make an impressive sight, and the human deep inside him cannot deny a certain beauty from the scene and the chant of prayer carried by the wind.

  He watches Saifullah deliver a short sermon. Though he doesn’t understand a word, Skinner has no doubt that it’s to encourage the warriors, telling them what a great victory they will score and how happy those will be who go to Paradise today.

  His stomach rumbles. Skinner pats his abdomen.

  That’s where you all gonna go, not Paradise.

  Saifullah’s warriors begin to cheer. Their voice echoes in the valley and there’s no doubt that the renegade Marines must have heard it too. All the better—they know that their time to die has come.

  Through the cheer and rifle shots fired into the air, Skinner’s sensitive ears detect a low drone.

  An airplane? What the hell?

  “Did you hear that?” he shouts to Saifullah who has just finished addressing his men.

  “What?”

  “An airplane is approaching!”

  “Maybe it’s coming to evacuate them!”

  “You should know by now that the Tribe never runs away,” Skinner snaps.

  “One more reason to push the assault. We are ready.”

  “Let’s finish what we came here for,” the half-mutant replies indifferently, giving a loud whistle.

  Three dozen smiters take up position among the Taliban, ready to lead the charge. Saifullah climbs up a rocky knoll where he theatrically points to the Tribe’s stronghold.

  “Bismillahirrahmanirrahim!”

  In reply, the voice of hundreds of his warriors thunders.

  “Bismillah!”

  Shaking his head, Skinner looks at the smiter that is still wearing rags of Clear Sky armor.

  That idiot better get into cover, lest he wants a sniper to shut him up.

  But with the waves of Taliban beginning to march on the Alamo, any fighter behind the battered ramparts has something better to do than that. The first volleys of .50 calibers are already being fired. The Talib sharpshooters return the fire in an attempt to give their assaulting brethren cover. Ahead of the assaulters, smiters charge forward.

  A lonely airplane appears from behind the northern ridge. To Skinner’s relief it is no combat aircraft, not even American, just an Antonov cargo plane.

  The first smiter reaches the Alamo’s gate. Acting as a self-propelled bullet shield, it keeps the dushman behind it safe from the small weapons fired from the ramparts above. In a few minutes they will reach the upper fortifications.

  For an instant, it appears to Skinner that the airplane is about to smash into the host of assaulters – it is flying directly at them at an extremely low altitude and apparently not even trying to approach the Alamo’s airstrip on the fortified mountain. Then it just roams over, as if it could do nothing apart from scaring them.

  Though surprised, the assaulters don’t let themselves be distracted by the airplane that must be flown by crazy or suicidal pilots. Relentlessly, they keep streaming through the ruined lower quarters towards the hilltop fortifications.

  “Saifullah,” Skinner yells. “What the hell are you waiting for? Shoot that crazy plane down!”

  “All our machine guns are pinning down the infidels!” the Talib commander replies. “Never mind! It’s flying away!”

  Indeed, the airplane begins to climb once more but then, instead of receding, turns back at an even lower altitude. Suddenly, it begins to release thick streams of brownish vapor from its four engines and the fuselage. Skinner and Saifullah can barely exchange a bewildered look before it thunders over them, so low that they can even see the crew member in the nose cupola, the bolts in the fuselage and the patterns on the wheels of the lowered landing gear. In a moment, they are covered with sickening, oily vapor.

  It only takes a second for Skinner to realize the danger.

  “It’s kerosene!” he screams. “Scatter! Scatter, everyone! Do not fire your weapons!”

  The vapor bites his nostrils and windpipes, forcing him to pull over his gas mask.

  The assaulting Taliban can either not hear him or don’t understand him, and the slow-witted smiters can only sense his fear but don’t realize where the danger is coming from.

  The airplane turns back once more, this time roaring over the narrow alleys of the lower fortifications where the assaulters are thronged in so tightly that they couldn’t scatter even if they heard Skinner’s desperate command. Helplessly, Skinner and Saifullah watch humans and mutants alike look up at the airplane, coughing and trying to wipe the noxious substance off their skin.

  Then several bold but stupid dushmans fire their weapons at the airplane that is now ascending and turning away. Their muzzles flash. A split second later, they go up in an orange ball of detonation that quickly engulfs the ruins and the assaulters among them.

  Sensing what’s coming next, Skinner grabs the arms of the two smiters still at his side and begins to run towards the hillside where the caves offer the only way to escape their impending doom.

  Saifullah helplessly watches them run away, brutally pushing the men around them and crushing those who don’t make way fast enough. He wants to scream but falls to his knees with a cough that turns into vomiting. Even in his wretched state, he can hear the whizz of incoming mortar shells.

  For a second, he sees the hilltop fortifications standing out from the smoke and fiery inferno like an island in a stormy sea of fire. Now he knows that the Prophet’s banner will never fly over the accursed infidels’ stronghold. He shakes his fist in a last, threatening but powerless gesture.

  Then a full volley of high explosive incendiary shells impact, fired just a few seconds ago from the Tribe’ 81mm mortars. Saifullah wants to die calling on his God and emits a ghastly scream – but it comes without any meaning, since it is just the air being sucked from his lungs a split second before the earth trembles and the whole valley goes up in a thundering firestorm.

  When it is over, his grisly corpse is still standing in the same position: burnt to the bones, the skeletal fist raised and the jaws on the blackened skull peering out from the charred flesh, resembling a horrifying grin – like a statue sculpted by the devil itself.

  81

  Airstrip, the Alamo

  “How’s your wound?” Ferret asks Buryat after the airplane has landed on the Alamo’s airstrip. To everyone’s surprise, the pilot has managed to touch it down safely – no crash landing, no runway overrun but a landing almost as soft as the last minutes had been rough.

  “Hurts,” the Dutyer says with a painful grimace. “Tribe medic said it’s gonna be all right, but I won’t be able to dance for a while.”

  Ferret gives him a helping hand as they walk down the lowered ramp. “Too bad! I’m sure you’d make helluva sight wearing ballet stockings.”

  “You Freedomers are so gay.”

  “We do love raping Duty in the butt if that’s what you mean.”

 
; “See? You just admitted it. Now stay away from me or I face punch you.”

  “Nah, handsome,” Ferret replies patting his back. “You stay away from me, or prepare your buttocks.”

  But Buryat keeps holding on his shoulder as he drags his wounded leg and staggers to the runway.

  Next to them, lined up and blinking in the sunlight, the disarmed Bandits obediently leave the airplane under the watchful eyes of Lieutenant Collins’ scouts.

  “Move, trench coats, move!” team leader Walker shouts. “Keep your hands up! Ruki ver or whatever it’s in Russian!”

  In the cockpit, the relieved crew exchange handshakes before beginning the process of powering the airplane’s systems down.

  “Phew! I’m done flying missions for Sultan,” the pilot tells the navigator. “The last moments reminded me of Kamran, back in ’89.”

  “Wasn’t that an Antonov like this crashing and burning out?” the radio operator asks.

  “My point exactly,” the pilot responds. He kisses his fingers and touches the icon fixed to the overhead instruments. Then he pats the yoke, giving thanks to the airplane itself. “Good girl!”

  “Made in Ukraine,” the navigator says with a grin.

  “Thank you, captain,” Tarasov says exchanging a handshake with the pilot. “Hell of a flight.”

  “I guess you had a hell of a journey too,” Major Degtyarev says.

  Before replying, Tarasov gives his old comrade a bearish hug. “Alex—how bloody good to see you! What the hell were you doing among the Bandits?”

  “Covert mission. I was to find out where they are all migrating to in the Zone. I could inform the SBU about the Container Warehouse and their destination, but they wanted to catch Sultan red-handed, while still in Ukrainian airspace. Gunships and fighter jets were already in the air to intercept them but he outsmarted us by using Belarusian helicopters. We couldn’t touch them. So I decided to join his horde and see what they were up to in the New Zone.”

  “I knew you’d make it here sooner or later.”

  “Where are we exactly?”

  “You remember the briefing you gave me? You mentioned renegade Americans. Looks like we’ve just saved them,” Tarasov triumphantly says. “Makes it easier for me to vouch for you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Tarasov wants to laugh but then just gives Degtyarev a sad smile.

  “That you may live. You are SBU, Alex, and if I did this by the Tribe’s book I’d have to treat you here as a potential enemy. You will see many secrets. If I vouch for you and you ever get loose-lipped about what you’ll see here, I’ll forfeit my honor and probably my life too. Got it?”

  “Did you actually join them, Misha?”

  “I’m a free Stalker now but a friend of the Tribe.”

  “And I am a friend of Stalkers. You know that.”

  “I have your word of honor, then? That of an officer and gentleman?”

  “You have.”

  “Good. Now let’s go and see Colonel Leighley.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A version of Colonel Kruchelnikov that actually makes sense.”

  Tarasov turns to Pete, who was listening to the Russian conversation with growing impatience.

  “You’re talking about my father?” he asks.

  “I had to give Major Degtyarev a crash course on Tribe ethics. Honor and all that. No one in the Tribe would ever break a word of honor, right Nooria?”

  “Right,” Nooria replies, turning away from the compartment window where her eyes were sucking in the familiar lights of the New Zone, appearing so much welcoming to her despite all the devastation.

  “Cheer up, big sister,” Pete says. “We did it!”

  “I am sad,” she replies unfastening the seat belt. Avoiding Tarasov’s look she wipes tears from her eyes. “But also happy to be back.”

  “I know what you mean,” Tarasov says. “But knowing what the Tribe is capable of, I’m sure everything will be rebuilt. Life will be back to normal soon, too—if it ever was.”

  “It never will,” Nooria sadly replies.

  In the cargo compartment that smells of a noxious mixture of vomit, kerosene, cordite and blood, Lieutenant Collins and Mac are standing next to Sergeant Major Hartman’s body.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Collins says, slowly shaking his head.

  “One thing I’m sure of is that Ahuizotl would never betray us,” Mac sadly but defiantly says. “He didn’t recognize your comrade. How could he? How could you? Ahuizotl was the only one with a visual on him. Then whoever attacked us must have overcome him.”

  “True. Had it not been for your jackal who recognized him we would have killed Tarasov as well, let alone the big man’s son and Nooria! Jesus, had that happened I would’ve put a bullet in my brain!”

  Mac tries to distract the Lieutenant from his grief. “What happened to Bruiser?”

  “He got bruised,” Collins coldly replies.

  “Glad to know that. Once we’re done here I go and find Ahuizotl. He’s is a tough SOB and unless they killed him right away, he’ll make it. Right, Billy?”

  Tarasov appears with Pete and Nooria from the crew compartment and gives the mutant a pat on the head.

  “It’s the second time that a mutant saved my ass,” he says. “How embarrassing.”

  “He’s not a mutant but a dog.”

  “Good to see you again, Mac.”

  “You too, Major.”

  “I’m no longer a major, I’m afraid.”

  “Things are changing.”

  “So I see,” Tarasov says looking at her open face and loose hair.

  “Is Ilchenko still around?” Mac asks Tarasov about his earlier squad member.

  “Sergeant Zlenko killed him.”

  “Oh gosh. What about Zlenko?”

  “I killed him.”

  Mac stops asking questions. Looking at the Top’s body, Tarasov sighs with sadness. “He will be dearly missed,” he says. “Poor Katie Stone.”

  Collins bows his head.

  “Dearly indeed,” Pete sadly observes. “He was a real badass even for a Marine.”

  “He’d probably want that as his epitaph,” Collins says.

  “Well, Pete,” Tarasov says gently arranging the coat covering the Top’s face and torso, “guess if he were still alive, he’d be bitching at me for not bringing you to your father at last. Let’s go.”

  “I get the creeps when I think of telling the big man about this,” Collins says darting a last glance at the sergeant major’s body.

  Not surprisingly, they can already see the Colonel’s tall figure approach as they descend the ramp. He is flanked by two Lieutenants and several fighters, several of them wearing bandages and those without helmet the trace of dry blood on their foreheads. Nothing on his face reflects that his Tribe has just been on the brink of annihilation, and he is about to see his son again.

  Tarasov salutes him. So does Lieutenant Collins. Pete stares at his father, though with a half-smile that would have been unthinkable had he been brought here right after Tarasov and the Top picked him up at that junkies’ den a few weeks before, on that rainy night in Los Angeles that now appears as if it had been a thousand years ago.

  “Mission accomplished, Colonel,” Tarasov reports.

  “Thank you, Major. Good initiative with that firework.”

  “Couldn’t have convinced the pilot without him,” Tarasov replies pointing at Degtyarev. “He is Major Alexander Degtyarev, Security Service of Ukraine. I vouch for him.”

  “Do you know what that means?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Very well, Major. Now I want to know how the Sergeant Major died.”

  In a few words, Lieutenant Collins tells about the ill-fated ambush. While Collins reports, Tarasov hesitates between admiring the Colonel for giving full attention to the report of his soldier and scorning the father over apparently ignoring the presence of his son. After all, Tarasov
and the Top had brought him here through so many perils and now Pete is just standing there, staring at his father who has barely looked at him yet.

  “Friendly fire,” The Colonel slowly shakes his head. “The only comforting about his death is that he wasn’t killed by the enemy. He was invincible to the end. Such a fateful day, Major! You bring me an old friend dead—and my son alive.”

  “It was about time you to realized I was here,” Pete snaps. Hearing the youth’s proud tone, so much characteristic to Pete since his mind had cleared, Tarasov has to bite his tongue to prevent himself from smiling. “Please try to act like an ordinary father and tell you’re happy to see me!”

  The Lieutenants look at each other. A few of the fighters behind them cover their mouths to hide embarrassment over such disrespect—or perhaps a smile.

  But the Colonel himself is smiling.

  “Why? Are you an ordinary son?” Seeing that the unexpected reply leaves Pete perplexed, the big man carries on. “The boy I last saw had been an ordinary son. Rebellious, disrespectful, judging his father over things he didn’t understand and trying to piss him off by any means. What I see now is a man—daring, strong and with a hint of wisdom in his eyes. I am happy to see you, Pete.”

  “Hell yeah!” Pete shouts happily. “It’s all because of the Zone. Tarasov’s Zone! Listen, there was Finn Sawyer who threw a swag into an anomaly and then the Doctor, he keeps a mutant for a pet and can talk to him, I mean in Russian of course, and he uses swags to dung his vegetables and then we were cutting wood and he—”

  “You can tell me all that later but first things first. We’ve to mop up the area and then, when all enemies are hunted down, give the Sergeant Major his last honors. Last but not least, we have to give back Nooria to the Beghum.” The Colonel turns to Nooria. “My child, words are not enough to express how happy I am to see you back safely.”

  It must have been the big man’s sixth sense or just exact timing, but as soon as he said this a colorful group appears from the passage leading down to the ramparts. The strong wind on the hilltop blows the women’s yellow, blue and orange garments; on the featureless hilltop and among the desert camouflage of uniforms and body armors, the blazing colors are a pleasure to look at. The Beghum though, who walks in their middle, wears black. She stretches her arms out and Nooria runs up to her and throws herself to her mother’s bosom. The women encircle them as if forming a protective circle, and Nooria disappears from Tarasov’s sight.

  “Where are they taking her?” he asks.

  “You will see your woman soon enough, Major. And you, Pete—you’ll still say sir to me, at least when we’re wearing this uniform,” the Colonel says. ”Is that clear?”

  Pete smiles. “Clear, sir.”

  The big man nods to the Lieutenants. Followed by a half dozen fighters, they enter the airplane with a stretcher, carefully place the Top’s body on it and lift it to their shoulders. Without bothering to ask, Tarasov and Pete join them. None of the former Marines has a word against it.

  “Our Sergeant Major has returned, here he comes!” the big man shouts as the men carrying Hartman’s body descend the ramp. He salutes. “Attention on deck!”

  Tarasov doesn’t know much about Marine rituals, nor has he witnessed anything like that before in the Tribe. Looking at the solemn faces of the saluting fighters, he nonetheless understands that Colonel Leighley has just given Sergeant Major Hartman the greatest honor a simple command can convey.

  82

  Bagram

  A dozen Stalkers stand around one of the makeshift tables in the Antonov bar. Their faces are somber like that of men attending a funeral, but what they have fixed their eyes on is not a coffin but a single bottle of vodka.

  “Me last bottle,” Ashot sadly says. “Brothers, we have a difficult choice. Either you let me water it, using only purified water of course, and then we have two bottles. Three, maybe.”

  “Forget it,” Shrink says.

  “Or we could give each bro a little sip and then die of dehydration.”

  “De-vodkation,” a Stalker adds.

  “Damn,” says another, “I can’t shoot straight unless I’ve had some vodka!”

  “Is it really the last bottle or are you just trying to hike the price?” a Stalker asks, drumming his fingers on his AKS-74U assault carbine.

  “I swear to God it is!” Ashot huffily replies.

  ”Bullshit, you’re lying!”

  “Let the Zone take me if I am!”

  “What about charging and breaking the siege?” another asks.

  “Go ahead, Ahmed Turk,” Ashot says. “Go and charge them tribals. We gonna share your vodka ration with great pleasure!”

  A sudden detonation shakes the dilapidated airplane. The concussion makes the bottle quiver.

  “Shit!” Shrink shouts and grabs the bottle before it could fall. “Not those damned mortars again!”

  “Still alive,” one of the Stalkers manning the defenses reports on the radio.

  “They’re just playing with us,” the Stalker nicknamed Turk grumbles. “If we still had the men who went out to search for Stalker paradise, we could just run them through! This blockade is driving me insane!”

  “Well, our last dose of remedy to that is here in front of us,” Shrink says. “I would offer it to the bravest Stalker but since we’re just sitting ducks here I don’t know what to do.”

  Another mortar shell detonates, this time much closer to the Stalker bar. Instinctively, the Stalkers duck.

  “I’m fed up with this!” Ashot yells angrily. “They gonna destroy me bar! To hell with them tribal idiots! Just because they don’t drink they want us to die of thirst! Ashot says no, fuck you!”

  “Why, what can you do about it?” Ahmed Turk asks. “Blowing your big Armenian nose at them?”

  “They had it coming!” Ashot shouts back at him. “If that’s not gonna make’m go away, I will just shoot’em all!”

  Then something happens that only the most veteran Stalkers have ever seen, and even they only a very long time ago: Ashot grabs an AKS-74U and storms out of his bar.

  “Hey!” a Stalker shouts. “That’s my rifle!”

  “Is he nuts?” Ahmed Turk asks.

  “Sure he is!” Shrink says. “Damn, my worst patient is loose!”

  He runs after Ashot but the barkeep is already up on the container wall.

  “Now listen to me you crazy tribals!” he shouts into the wilderness. “Get the fuck out of here or I will kill you all! This is me base and me bar! Why do you want ruining me business? Did me bar ever hurt you?”

  “Ashot! Get the fuck down!” Shrink shouts from below. “You want to get yourself killed, you idiot?”

  Ashot fires a burst into the air. “Go away or face me wrath, you cowards!”

  ”Shrink!” The sound of the Stalker in the lookout tower sounds anxious. “I can see dust rising. The Tribe is preparing for attack!”

  “Man the machine guns,” the Stalker leader yells. “Let’s bring this to an end at last!”

  A Stalker tries to drag the reckless barkeep into the safety of the sand bags lined up on the steel containers but Ashot pushes him away.

  “Come and get some you bitches! I fire me rifle at you! When I run outta bullets, I blow my nose at you! Then I give you worse and fart at you! Now come and be men, and dontcha dare hide from me rage!”

  “I see them moving. They are about to go around and attack us from the rear!”

  Hearing this, Shrink climbs the ladder to the nearest machine gun nest on the container wall and peers through his binoculars. The lookout was right—heavy vehicles are swirling up dust all around the besieged Stalker base. But if it is an attack, it’s a strange one. No more mortars are fired, no heavy machines guns pin down the defenders on the wall where the barkeep continues to taunt the far away attackers.

  “I will turn you to bloodsucker food! You don’t believe me you bitches?”

  Ashot fires the assault carbine in the dir
ection of the dust clouds. Then, still at a safe distance from the base, the vehicles take a turn to the west and accelerate.

  “Wait a second… looks like they’re leaving,” the lookout reports.

  Shrink frowns. “What?”

  “They’ve gone around the base and… yes! They’re moving to the west, all of them! It’s over! They move away!”

  “That’s what I’m saying!” Ashot shouts. “Run! Just run, you cowards! Scared of me, huh? Take this!” With the magazine in the carbine empty, he draws a pistol and fires after the Humvee column. “How about that?”

  “Ashot for the win,” a bewildered Stalker says.

  “This will teach them not to come to places they aren’t invited to, haha!” another laughs.

  The crazed barkeep looks down from the wall at the Stalkers and grins triumphantly. “You all owe me twenty dollars!”

  “Oh my goodness,” the Shrink says watching the Tribe’s siege force drive through the western forest and take the road leading to their stronghold. “I’ve never seen such a thing!”

  “What? Is it true that Ashot’s ugly face scared them away?” an excited Uncle Yar asks as he comes up in a hurry.

  “I don’t know how he managed that,” the Shrink says waving his head, still not entirely believing what he has just seen, “but he more than qualifies for our last bottle of vodka!”

  Yar laughs. “Ashot the brave—I never believed I’d ever say those words in one breath!”

  “You owe me twenty dollars too!” Ashot cheerily shouts.

  83

  The Alamo

  The echo of the three rifle volleys fired by seven warriors rolls across the valley beyond. Nearly a hundred freshly dug graves line the runway on the top of the mountain, joining many older ones. The salutes, the Colonel’s short speech, the grim looks of the hardened faces appear to Tarasov like any military funeral; only the presence of grieving Hazara women, many of them lamenting over a fallen husband or lover, tells that this is not just any military unit burying its fallen but the Tribe.

  Sadness is over Mikhailo Tarasov’s face. Seeing Sergeant Major Hartman’s body being lowered into his grave was sad enough, but when he looks at Pete at his father’s side, he knows that he is about losing, or at least being separated, from another friend as well. During the time they spent together since he and the Top found Pete in the state of a wasted junkie, he came to like him; but no bond between travelling companions, no matter how many perils they had been through together, could match that between father and son. Knowing that Pete would have never gotten his proper schooling of life in the Exclusion Zone without him is no comfort; thinking about being separated from the Zone for good only adds to his sadness, because Tarasov knows that returning to his native land would be utterly foolish.

  “Quite impressive friends you found here, Misha.”

  Degtyarev’s words, who has watched the honors being given to the Tribe’s fallen in silence, reminds Tarasov that he has not much to regret about his place in the New Zone. Indeed, it is here that he found new friends and a woman who, at least Tarasov is sure of it, would sooner die than let him down.

  “Yes,” he says with a sigh. “Come, let’s see what mischief Ferret and Buryat are up to.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Two good Stalkers. I think I might have my own Lieutenants now. Two’s a good start.”

  “Don’t tell me you want to have your own Tribe.”

  “I need a drink first.”

  “Me too. I saw a few crates among the Bandit’s cargo.”

  “Then we’d better hurry before the Stalkers finish it all without us.”

  “But there’s just the two of us.”

  “Indeed, one bottle needs three men.”

  A female voice comes from behind them. “Mind if the third is a woman?”

  “Hey, Mac!” Tarasov greets her. “Not if you can drink like a man.”

  Mac gives him a confident smile. “You bet. The problem is that Billy also wants to drink and that brings us once more to even.”

  “Your jackal drinks vodka?” Degtyarev asks. “Mutants are weird here.”

  “By the way, Mac… I have a message from Strelok,” Tarasov says as they stroll to the airplane.

  “What? Strelok? Is he alive?”

  “More than ever. He lets you know that… uhm, never say never.”

  “Oh, that means he might come here after all. Until now this would have made me happy,” Mac pensively says. “Very happy, actually. But now that handsome guy with you puts me in a difficult position… I mean, he has something special about him that I can’t explain.”

  “You mean Pete?” Tarasov asks, smiling. “The big man’s son? Oh girl, you’re in for some trouble.”

  “Yeah… my kind of trouble,” Mac says returning the smile.

  The captain and his crew are busy checking the damage done to their trusty old Antonov. The lowered ramp is guarded by two Tribe fighters who keep their eyes on the Stalkers inside. They appear relaxed, and even salute Tarasov as he approaches the airplane.

  “Will this bird ever fly again?” Degtyarev asks the captain who is standing next to one of the engines, going through a long checklist of things in need of repair.

  “She’s not a bird, you non-flying lay!” the pilot snaps. “Call her a machine for Gods’ sake. And of course she will fly. Do you think we want to stay here forever?”

  “I’m afraid this was a one-way trip,” Tarasov says. “But then I guess the Tribe wouldn’t say no to a pilot of your abilities, captain.”

  “But I would say no to an employer with a competition like those beasts we saw. Now if you excuse me, I have more important things to do than gum-beating!”

  “He doesn’t know it but he’ll either fly for the Tribe or… well, we’ll see what to do about him,” Tarasov says to Mac and Degtyarev as they walk to the ramp. “Which brings us to the question—what about you, guys?”

  “Yeah, it really makes sense for them to be so secretive,” Mac says sarcastically. “After all, by now nobody knows about the Tribe’s defenses but every dushman in the New Zone!”

  “Actually, I was asking what you will do next? Because you could join me on a good old-fashioned Stalker raid.”

  “What do you mean by that, Misha?”

  “Crossing the whole New Zone for the sake of a foul-smelling, moldering, underground science facility and find all kinds of weird stuff and creatures inside who want to eat your face.”

  “Where?” Mac curiously asks.

  “Some old Soviet lab in Panjir valley.”

  She smiles. “Always wanted to go there. But, but, but – promise me that we’ll search for Ahuizotl on our way. What happened was not his fault!”

  “Sounds like a deal.”

  “As for me, I’m ready right now!”

  “Still bitten by the travel bug, I see… Ne boysa, Mac. We’ll leave soon enough but I need a little rest.”

  “I too would love to see an underground I haven’t been to yet,” Degtyarev says.

  Tarasov gives him a grin. “Alex, I still don’t know what to do about you – kick your butt for Operation Haystack or be excited about a chance to kick ass together with you!”

  “I was actually afraid that once I told you who I am, you’d just punch me for Haystack,” Degtyarev replies.

  “You have that still coming, but for now your punishment is to see how the New Zone is. You will deeply regret not having come here earlier.”

  “Matter of fact, I could use a change from the Exclusion Zone. Winter is not a good time for exploring it—and there’s not much left for me to explore there anyway.”

  “It will be for ever, Alex.”

  Degtyarev has no time to reply. When they enter the cargo bay, they expect to find gloomy prisoners but instead they see the Loners-turned-Bandits-turned-Loners celebrating.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Tarasov asks.

  “Five crates of vodka, and they ain’t going anywhere!
” a red-nosed Ferret yells cheerily. “All belongs to us now, all!”

  Buryat stumbles forward and puts his arm around Ferret’s neck. “Cossacks vodka! Makes me love everyone. Even this bastard of a Freedomer!”

  “Glad to see you two didn’t kill each other in the end.”

  “You see, I decided to spare his life… for now,” the already drunk Dutyer says.

  “Nay, man. You tried to shu-shu… shoot me but missed from two meters,” Ferret says, as drunk as Buryat. “Or was it by two meters? Ah, never mind. Duty rifle skills are crap, either way…”

  “I didn’t shoot you. I just showed you the muzzle of my gun and told you, this side of it there ain’t no gomiks!”

  “Come on, handsome, didn’t you just say you love me?” Ferret says and gives the Dutyer a kiss on his cheek who is too intoxicated to push him away – at least that’s how it appears.

  “So that’s your team,” Degtyarev says grinning and takes a bottle of vodka from an open crate.

  “A real challenge, yes.”

  “I guess it makes no sense to count odd and even now,” Mac says. “Let’s just drink!”

  But with most of the Stalkers being Russians or Ukrainians, everyone is demanding a toast – even if they already had more than they could count.

  “Let’s drink to a steady hand!”

  “To work progressing!”

  “To a good raid!”

  “May we suffer as much sorrow in the New Zone as drops of vodka we’re about to leave in our bottles,” Tarasov says raising his vodka bottle. ”May we remember forever all friends we lost on our way here. But first of all – let’s drink to the living. God bless you, Stalkers—we have arrived!”

  84

  Northeastern areas of the New Zone, several days later

  Cold wind blows and swirls up brown sand that tastes like defeat on Skinner’s tongue.

  He has been marching for days without any apparent aim. All he knows is that Bagram is no longer a refuge to him; not even the greenest Stalker would believe him anymore.

  The dushmans are scattered; the few who made it back to the deadly areas to the south could still count themselves lucky while the Tribe, the cursed, yet once more triumphant Tribe mercilessly hunts down the rest.

  His mutant brothers are gone, too; those who had not perished in the inferno beneath the Alamo’s walls were scattered, each of them trying to survive on his own.

  During sleepless nights, when the cold forced him to seek shelter in caves or ruins and the howls of jackals were his only company, he kept asking himself the same question again and again: where did he fail? His plan was so perfect and all going so well until that damned airplane came. Who was aboard? It didn’t matter—Skinner was certain about one thing only: should he ever find out who it was, and should fate ever give him a chance to get to that man, he would deal him a thousand deaths.

  If he was fully mutant, he could just exist on; hunting, feeding, maybe even finding a way to breed. He grins at the thought of a naïve female Stalker trying her luck in the New Zone and what he would do to her. Still half human, he has the ability to hope, even though he curses hope; he would find it so much better to live the stupid, single-minded life of a mutant and let go of thinking of his future. Because thinking of this leads to despair—alone, having even discharged his now-useless rifle and clad in rags, he has nothing left to hope for.

  Such gloomy thoughts keep occupying Skinner’s mind when he navigates his way to the Panjir valley. He has no particular destination there; he will lead no more greedy Stalkers into the depths of the secret facility to turn them into smiters, and never again will he have at least a pack of mutants to help him fulfill any plan he still might have. For the time being, though, it is dusk and with temperatures soon falling below zero, he’d better seeks a shelter for the night.

  He sees a ruined farmstead on a hill not far and makes his way towards it with exhausted, slow steps. The wind becomes stronger as he approaches and he pulls his gas mask on to protect his face from the biting cold.

  “Stoi!”

  Obeying the command barked by an unseen sentry, Skinner stops and holds his hands up.

  “Stalker coming through!” he shouts. “Don’t shoot, brother!”

  “Stay where you are!”

  Two armed men appear out of nowhere. Skinner notices with surprise that they are neither Stalkers nor Bandits but well-equipped Spetsnaz commandos. The only thing more surprising than their appearance is that they hadn't already shot him.

  “He’s unarmed,” a Spetsnaz reports.

  “Bring him up, Vlasov,” the sentry responds.

  Skinner can see him now. He appears to be an officer, armed with—yet another surprise—a US-made sniper rifle.

  He is led to the nearest ruin. A campfire burns inside and several commandos are warming themselves at it. They appear tired and beaten.

  “You come from Bagram?” the marksman asks. He takes off his helmet and sits down at the fire. A black eye patch covers his left eye.

  “I’ve been everywhere,” Skinner replies. He forces himself to be calm. Talking is not easy with the barrel of an AKM assault rifle pointed against his ribs.

  “You know this area?”

  For a moment, Skinner thinks about just unleashing his wrath on them. He doesn’t need their weapons and ammunition, but there is a smell around the men that makes his stomach rumble.

  The Spetsnaz behind him bashes Skinner in the back.

  “Answer Captain Maksimenko’s question, Stalker!”

  “It’s all right, Sergeant,” the half-eyed Spetsnaz replies. “Come, sit down. You look like you could use food, Stalker. Answer us a few questions and we’ll give you some. Be stubborn, and we kill you.”

  “Why don’t we kill him right now?” another commando asks. “Look at how big he is. He’ll eat for two!”

  “Shut up, Bronsky,” Captain Maksimenko replies without looking at his soldier. “We could use an extra rifle and this fellow looks like one who’s been around here for a while. Right, Stalker?”

  “One could say that,” Skinner says.

  “Do you know the way to Panjir valley?”

  “Depends,” Skinner cautiously replies. “It’s a big place. Dangerous, too. Full of wolves this time of year.”

  “Fuck those wolves,” a Spetsnaz groans. Both of his arms are covered with bloody bandages. “Thought they were like blind dogs, and then one just tears the AK from my hands and another bites the head off the guy next to me!”

  “I wish I was still be dismantling irradiated submarines,” another soldier moans. “This job is worse than strafbat.”

  “Stop whining, maggots,” Sergeant Vlasov grumbles indifferently. “You’re fucking Spetsnaz. Act like it, for God’s sake.”

  The captain shows Skinner his PDA. “We are looking for an electric substation, about two day’s march from Bagram. Supposed to be in this long valley, here. You ever been there?”

  Skinner is glad his gas mask hides the grin that is now coming to his face. Could it be that his bad luck is just about to turn? His heart starts pounding faster. He feels an urge to take his Orthodox cross and kiss it—right at this time of dire luck, fate is about to give him a chance to gather new followers. All he has to do is to guide these unsuspecting soldier boys into the depths and let the abandoned facility do the rest.

  “Yes, I know it,” he says.

  “Firsthand or just heard about the place from a drunk Stalker?” Maksimenko inquires.

  “Been there myself, yes.”

  “Can you guide us there? We’ll give you food rations in exchange and if you don’t do anything stupid, a rifle as well.”

  “That sounds great,” Skinner says with his eyes shining. “Believe me, I know that place very well… like the back of my hand!”

  Maksimenko and Vlasov share a frown. Neither of them know why he is in such a good mood all of a sudden, and even less so why his chuckle has something uncanny about it that gives
them the creeps.

  Food or smiters? That’s what I call a choice!

  Skinner’s chuckle grows into bellowing laughter.

  Welcome to the New Zone, boys!

  Epilogue

  It is late at night.

  In one of the many tents erected to accommodate the Tribe’s women and children who lost their homes in the siege, Nooria and the Beghum are warming themselves at a small fire.

  There is a timeless feeling over their scene: the fire casting their shadow on the canvas; the daughter resting her head on her mother’s shoulder; their dark eyes reflecting the orange flames; the soft wind stirring the tent flaps.

  “Madar, man besyar khoshhal hatsam ke be khane bargashti!” The words flowing from Nooria’s lips, spoken in her native Hazaragi language, are eloquent and powerful. “I had hoped that giving my word to a robber and bandit would be like writing on water. But no matter what a scoundrel Sultan is, he did keep his promise. He lured me in a trap like a hunter would a deer, and now the harder I try to get out the tighter it keeps me. Honor binds and requires me to kill the man I love. Madar, please, tell me there is a way out of this, for my heart is bleeding and my soul is torn between love and honor!”

  “How is she?”

  “Very good.” Gently, Nooria puts her mother’s hands to her belly and smiles. “I can feel she is sleeping now.”

  “I am glad to see that my judgment was right,” the Beghum says. “He got you with child and proved strong enough to protect you. Protect us, even. Nevertheless, the role of your man is limited, just like that of my man. What they provide are all but small steps on our long way—protection, care, seed. Ultimately, dokhtra, we won’t be needing them.”

  “Maybe Leighley knows and that’s why he is no longer with you, madar.”

  “What could a lonely man in the desert do when he sees the storm rising, knowing there is no way to escape?”

  “Run or try to ride the storm.”

  “How futile! But he still thinks he can ride it. Even if all this was just a breeze heralding the impending storm.”

  “Madar, I met a wise man during my passage through the northern lands which Mikhailo calls the Zone. He believes that everything happens there by the will of that Zone. Are the Spirit and the Zone the same? Mikhailo and some Stalkers believe they are.”

  “This fire lights up our tent but just a few steps away, darkness prevails. So is human wisdom – it cannot see beyond the next day. Only we have the power to see beyond. Mark my words – she will be the connection, born from parents marked by both lands. She will break the evil that has appeared here and to the north. The world will tremble when she challenges evil, and all human concerns will be like sand in the storm.” The Beghum takes a pinch of sand from the ground and blows it off her palm. “Until those days come, we are bound by honor, for honor is our compass through these dark times. It always was.”

  “So I do have to kill him?”

  “You know the answer, dokthra. There wouldn’t be much about honor if we kept it only till it pleases us, and without it we wouldn’t be much better than the mindless fiends who have attacked us.”

  Nooria gives her mother a sad smile. “I know, but—”

  A band of fighters passes by their tent, chatting and joking. Nooria looks at her mother. She cuddles closer to her and mentally continues the interrupted sentence.

  But he is such a decent man, madar. What a cruel twist of fate! For so many years we have been waiting for the right one, and now I have to take his life!

  Comfortingly, Beghum Madar strokes Nooria’s hair and gives her a closed-mouth smile.

  Yes, dokhtra. He is quite decent. And handsome too… for a human.

  THE END

  Author’s acknowledgements

  First and foremost, my thanks are due to Joe Mullin at GSC Game World for his continued support. A massive thank-you goes to the whole S.T.A.L.K.E.R. community as well, especially Mary Elisabeth Klimkosz, Erica Coluccio, Alexandra Walker-Kinnear, Brigitta Virág, Víctor Ocampo, Frank A. Mosca Sr., Mehran Yousefian, Taras Ktitor, Jonathan Roos, Nikolai Hazeldine. Without their encouragement and help this book could never have been written.

  I add to these acknowledgments a prayer for Andrei Tarkovsky, if such an immortal soul needs any. Parts of this book are my personal bow to ”Stalker” his masterpiece of cinematic poetry.

  Balázs Pataki