“He’s a scoundrel but must be an organisational genius too,” Tarasov says shaking his head.
“I still don’t get that assassin thing about Nooria,” Pete says looking around. “Hey — where is she?”
Tarasov and Hartman share alarmed an look. Pete is right — while they were admiring the landing helicopters, Nooria has disappeared.
68
Had rage not clouded her better judgment, Nooria would have thought twice about what she is about to do. Forcing her way through the crowd of Bandits with her elbows, she gets closer and closer to the helicopter where Sultan is standing, wearing a long brown leather coat and surrounded by heavily armed men. Knuckles is next to him, sporting a grey exoskeleton with a winged skull on the breastplate.
“Brothers!” Jack’s excited voice bellows from a megaphone. ”Our leader has kept his word like always! In minutes, we will be on our way to find riches you’ve never dreamed about! Brothers — be proud, Sultan is with us!”
Excitement runs high among the Bandits. The mostly strongly built and tall men don’t pay the fragile woman much attention, and also cover her from the view of Hartman who desperately scans over the mass to find her.
Nooria doesn’t even think of her companions. Obsessed with the thought of avenging Larissa, the only person who treated her with friendship in the outside world and perhaps even more so by the humiliation of being blackmailed into giving her word of honor to kill the man she loves, her thoughts are fixed on thrusting her blade into Sultan’s heart.
Tarasov has checked the containers all the way back to Jack’s now abandoned headquarters. His search proved futile. Nooria was at none of the smothering campfires, neither in the garage or the warehouse from where Bandits are carrying crates of equipment and ammunition boxes toward the helicopter.
Out of some subconscious reason, his eyes are for a moment fixed on the hunting knife of a Bandit watching over the remaining crates in the warehouse. Jack’s words crackle through the megaphone, announcing Sultan’s arrival, and a sudden thought comes to Tarasov’s mind.
She hates him, he thinks. She cursed him and wants to kill him.
He runs toward the helicopter, taking a shortcut through the container maze to avoid the Bandits blocking the area between the helicopter and the warehouse with all the equipment waiting to be loaded.
She will get herself killed. I must stop her. Now.
Tarasov is about to navigate through the last narrow passage between two containers when two men block his path.
“What’s the hurry, vasha?”
The two Chechen mobsters give him a grim smile and draw knives. Like a ghost, the third one appears on the top of the container and jumps down, blocking Tarasov’s way backward.
The Chechen grins. “I have a blade with your name on it.“
“Brothers! My proud children!”
Sultan’s words and the applause that follows them echo in the maze of railway containers. They are all empty now, with all Bandits gathering at the giant helicopter to hear what their leader has to say. Tarasov knows that no help will come, neither will there be anyone to witness this fight.
“My Bandit brothers, let me address you first.”
Tarasov steps to the container to his right and turns to face his three attackers.
“I say to all of you, you have been treated to this day with no respect. Borov, Yoga and the other so-called leaders before me—you’ve earned them money, made them rich, and asked for little. It is time for you to stand up!”
The Chechen to his left stabs at him. Tarasov dodges the attack with a quick bend backwards. His left hand grasps and twists the arm holding the knife, forcing the Chechen to bow and expose his temple where Tarasov delivers an incapacitating edge-of-hand blow with his right.
“I see Renegades amongst you. For so long, your small faction has been fighting in vain for a place under the sun. Those times are over—no one will kick you around anymore!”
His left hand goes up to block the frontal stab by his nearest opponent, glides down the forearm, grasps the wrist and twists it to make the Chechen fall. The fingers holding the knife loosen in pain and in the next second, the weapon is in Tarasov’s left hand.
“I see many brave Dutyers here. Your officers will no longer send you to face the evils of the expanding Zone, while generals like Voronin cowardly hide in their bunkers!”
The third aims at his abdomen, putting all his strength into it as he bends forward. Tarasov steps back to dodge the stab, grabs the forehead of his attacker with his right hand and kicks his feet to make him lose balance. The knife in his left pierces through his attacker’s windpipe. In the next second when he falls on his back, the Bandit opens his mouth to emit a cry of pain but instead of the cry blood begins to gush.
“I rejoice over seeing the best of Freedom with us, who were smart enough to realize that no freedom comes from anarchy.“
His first attacker has shaken off the effects of the incapacitating blow to his temple. Getting to his feet gives Tarasov the one second he needs to draw his silenced rifle, work off the safety and pull the trigger.
“All of you, forget your old factions! Find true camaraderie that exists only among brothers who share their best and direst moments alike.“
The third mobster is writhing on the ground, his left hand clutching his dislocated right wrist as if that could ease the pain. The curses he is hissing turn into a low cry of despair when he sees Tarasov taking aim at him. For a split second, he stares at the rifle barrel like a paralyzed rabbit would at a snake that’s about to strike.
“I’m proud to lead you. We shall go to the New Zone together and have bloody adventures.”
However, the Val has no visible muzzle flash to make him see it coming, neither does it emit any noise that would make anyone nearby aware of another short burst being fired.
“And we will suckle on the New Zone’s riches as on a whore’s tits until we can suckle no more, and then, when enough Stalkers have died, we will be the masters! For if Stalkers will not give, we will take!“
A loud cheer follows Sultan’s words.
When Tarasov at last reaches the landing area and sees the tightly packed crowd between the containers and the helicopter, his heart sinks — there appears to be no chance to find Nooria in time. Nonetheless, he takes a deep breath and begins to fight his way through the crowd.
69
Sultan’s bodyguards appear to have fallen to the excitement hanging in the air, or maybe it is just negligence towards her fragile and apparently unarmed figure, but not even Knuckles seems to notice Nooria when she at last emerges from the mass and approaches the ramp a few meters away. All she has to do now is to slip in, approach Sultan from the back and let her blade do the rest. Quick and small as she is, she might even have a chance to get away in the commotion that would surely follow. She is too focused on the kill ahead to detect the sinister, exoskeleton-clad Bandit following her to the helicopter.
“And now, brothers, let us leave the Exclusion Zone and wreak havoc on the New Zone,” Sultan says merrily into the megaphone’s mouthpiece. ”Don’t be surprised to see the Red Cross on these helicopters! We are on a humanitarian mission because we will put many suffering Stalkers out of their misery! ”