“Hi! I am Nooria.”
Seeing her face that’s half any man’s wet dream and half any woman’s nightmare, all that Pete can utter is his own name.
“Peter Leighley. Pete.”
“I know,” she says.
“Who are you?”
“I am your stepsister.”
“Our beloved witch,” the Top says with a smile.
“And my wife,” Tarasov proudly adds.
Pete’s eyes swivel from the so-called Stalker to the Marine sergeant major, then to the woman who appears to him as small and fragile as the other two are big and fearsome.
“Who the hell are you people?”
“We are from the Tribe, Marine. Your father is our leader.”
“And my stepfather.”
“And I still don’t know what degree of kinship that is but I am the husband of your father’s stepdaughter.”
“You guys better celebrate your family reunion later. We’re all wet, hungry and in danger here,” the Top says, eyeing a pick-up truck rapidly approaching from the far end of the street. “Let’s get outta this gang-infested miserable den of filth!”
“You mean Los Angeles?”
“The whole misery that my country has become, Tarasov,” the Top replies starting the engine. “Fasten your seat belts!” He looks in the direction of the pick-up that is now just about two hundred meters away, then pushes the gas pedal and lets the SUV dart out to the street with squeaking tires.
“Wish I had one of Bockman’s Humvees to play chicken with those cholos!”
The suspicious pick-up doesn’t follow them. It stops at the house where Pete had dwelled. By the time the thugs realize that the Jeep which had just slipped away in front of their eyes had anything to do with the demise of Sancho and his henchmen, Tarasov’s party is far away.
In a few minutes they reach a better neighborhood. Looking at the row of condos and shops, still open and brightly lit, Tarasov feels as if South Central L.A. had been on another planet.
“Probably it is,” he murmurs to himself.
“Come again?”
“I still can’t get used to how quickly one gets here from shithole to luxury.”
“It’s not even luxury, just Glendale.”
“Will we see Hollywood?”
“Timeframe’s tight.”
A moment later Nooria pats the Top’s shoulder. The Jeep slows down and halts in front of a beautiful building with a bright electric signboard over the shiny, glass and metal entrance.
“Premium Aesthetics—Plastic Surgery Center,” she reads out the sign. “Top, is this a place where American women get new tits made?”
“One of the many, yes.”
“Do you think I could get a new face here?”
“I don’t want you to get any other face than you have, Nooria,” Tarasov says turning back in his seat.
“But I want one. Even my own stepbrother was scared when he saw me. You too would love me more if I had a new face, wouldn’t you?”
“No. That wouldn’t be you anymore.”
“So for you I am just about my ugly scar?”
Tarasov sighs. “I love all the scars on your body because those remind me who you are and what you’ve been through. Your life, Nooria. And without your life, I have no life.”
Nooria raises her hand to her face as if she wanted to wipe some dust from her right eye.
“Is that so?” she asks.
“It is so. And besides—I would feel very ugly if you had a new face. I would also have to get a scar operation?” Tarasov asks, glancing at the Top.
“You mean a beauty treatment,” the Top replies, impatiently drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Thanks, Top. So, given how many scars I have, a treatment would take ages and we haven’t got the time for that. Although… do they also do hair implantations? I wouldn’t mind having thick curly hair instead of this receding hairline.”
“I don’t give a damn about you looking like a balding hedgehog,” Hartman grumbles. “But if I let you two mutate into surfer boy and Baywatch girl, the big man will cut my balls off and have the devil pups play baseball with’em back at the Alamo. Forget it.”
“Never mind,” Nooria replies in a much cheerier voice, “I was just asking. Let’s drive on.”
“Yep. Let’s get outta this screwed up vanity-run pussy country, and let’s do it asap,” the Top replies accelerating the SUV. When the car halts at a red light a few minutes later, his and Tarasov’s eyes meet in the rearview mirror.
“Situation well handled,” Hartman tells him under his breath, quietly enough so that Nooria can’t hear it. In reply, the shadow of a sad smile appears on Tarasov’s face.
While they talked, Pete was looking all the time at the strange girl who is now staring out of the car window to the city lights. His hand moves now closer to Nooria’s, and then, after a long minute of hesitation, touches it. It is not a man to woman touch but a brother’s shy caress. Nooria keeps sitting motionlessly, staring out of the window, too much lost in her thoughts to react to the comforting gesture.
8
“We have no problem with your plan. Many of our fierce warriors thirst for the waters of Paradise. We shall call you Harbinger of Great News!”
“Two things, Commander Saifullah. First—spare me your bullshit. You are not talking with your brainwashed foot soldiers.”
The half-mutant Stalker’s words faintly echo in the cave where he and two other men have gathered around a campfire. One of them is wearing a black leather trench coat with a hood over his body armor. His appearance is that of the veteran Bandits from the Exclusion Zone, although his face is too cunning and intelligent for an ordinary Bandit. The other one, who was talking about his men being eager to die at his command, wears a British-made combat fatigue with an armored vest, obviously from the time of the Bush war. The thick, black beard and the blue textile wrapped around his face betray him as a Talib, or dushman commander. Under his bushy eyebrows, shrewd black eyes flash in the light of the campfire.
“Talk about my warriors with more respect, infidel. Wave after wave, they pound the steel walls of the godless intruders like a vengeful sea storm, stirred up by—”
“Cut the crap, Saifullah,” the half-mutant Stalker says with a wave of his hand. He pulls the chain with the Orthodox cross from under his armor. “Call me an infidel and our deal is off. Second thing—save your breath and just call me Skinner.”
The Talib commander sighs. “All right, all right… Skinner. Apologies, but you must understand I rarely have any reasonable man to talk to. While my fighters are keen to die in battle, I have to lead them. This postpones my own martyrdom. I want to live to see the day when God’s banner flies over the stronghold of the Tribe.”
“And to get out of that irradiated hell on earth that had been Kabul once,” Skinner dryly observes.
“Exactly. This is where our priorities match.”
“What about our priorities?” asks the Bandit who was listening to their conversation in silence. “Sultan has sent me here to talk business. It wasn’t easy to find a man reasonable enough to deal with and I trust you have no intention to disappoint me now.”
His English is the most sophisticated of the three men even if spoken with a Russian accent. When they first met a few days ago at a Stalker campsite close to the Salang Pass, he appeared to the half-mutant as a former lawyer despite his Bandit attire and boastful nickname. After all, the borderline between lawyers and criminals had always been vague to him. Besides, it was not surprising that Sultan, the infamous mastermind of all Bandits in the Exclusion Zone, would have his business in the New Zone set up by someone as skillful in negotiating as capable to make his point with less savory means.