“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
“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.