“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 direction 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 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!”