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
“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.