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
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?”