“Sorry, boss. But they got you too,” the Stalker replies, pointing at Tarasov’s arm. Looking down, he sees a cut on his left arm at the point where his exoskeleton’s armor is weakest. Even now that he knows about his wound, he doesn’t feel pain, just dumbness in his muscles.
I need to buy Degtyarev a crate of vodka for this suit.
Yet he feels weak and he has to sit down to relieve his trembling knees. An unknown feeling overwhelms him. The relief of having survived the pitched battle vanishes, making way for the desire that he could be far away from this place, where dozens of men have died fighting over a low hill covered with meaningless ruins.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Viktor… I’m fine.” He takes a deep breath, trying to forget the memory of deep green eyes. “Looks like we made it.”
“Yep… even the negro did. Although he got more than one bullet in his ugly hide.”
The Stalkers look at Ilchenko.
“Actually, there were moments when I was thinking I should help the dushmans in finishing off this monkey.”
“Shut the fuck up, soldier,” Zlenko says. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Never mind, Sarge. We are all still running on adrenaline,” Zef says, opening his exoskeleton and applying a bandage over his wound. “Once I had a girlfriend…”
Tarasov cannot concentrate on the Stalker’s anecdote. There is something in Ilchenko’s manner that worries him, and it’s not his offensiveness.
“Machine gunner,” he says coldly. “Take Skinner with you and give the Stalkers a hand in mopping up the place. Move. Now!” As the former Dutier rises from the ground where he was resting, Tarasov stops him. “Keep an eye on Ilchenko. Something’s wrong with him.”
“Will do,” Skinner replies, reloading his shotgun and following Ilchenko.
“Anyway, Zef,” he turns back to the Stalker, “what about that girlfriend?”
“Nothing important, boss… she once told me, a woman can’t take anything that men say after having sex seriously. I say, a man can’t take what another man says after a battle like this seriously.”
“I guess so.”
“Are you all right, Major?” Zlenko’s voice sounds anxious. “You look… distracted.”
“Do I?” Tarasov is not sure what to reply. “I told you, I’m fine. It’s just… Suddenly I felt a desire to crush Ilchenko’s head.”
“There you are!” exclaims a cheerful voice. “We routed the bastards, didn’t we, Major?”
Borys the Shrink climbs over a pile of mud bricks and sits down at Tarasov’s side. As the Shrink looks at his face, an impending sense of dread moves over the Stalker’s, so quickly that Tarasov is not sure if what he saw was real or just a reflection of his own, adrenaline-soaked mind.
“Take some medicine,” the Shrink says, offering him a bottle of vodka with more seriousness in his voice than usual. The major gladly accepts. The bottle goes around among them. From around the ruins, they hear the conversations of the Stalkers, some of them crying out excitedly when they find some valuable loot on the fallen enemies’ bodies.
“I could use some food.” Zlenko opens a can of processed meat, but Tarasov shakes his head when the sergeant offers him a chunk of meat on the tip of his bayonet.
“Thanks… I’m not hungry.”
Zef shares a loaf of bread with the sergeant.
I should have accepted, Tarasov thinks. What is this strange feeling in my stomach?
To distract his attention from the weird feeling in his guts, he turns again to the South African Stalker.
“So brother, what’s your story? You’ve come very far.”
“My last stop was England, actually. Been to many places. Wherever there was money to earn.”
“You have been a mercenary?”
“I tried to make a living from what I do best.”
“What’s that, giving first aid?”
“No. Using a shotgun.” The black Stalker scowls. “Shot a man in Cape Town. They made me leave my home country.”
“Nothing gives amnesty more openhandedly than the Zone.”
“I did not need amnesty, boss. I was with a police SWAT team. One evening we moved into a township to round up a gang of robbers. I had to shoot one. He was one of my people.”
Tarasov wants to reply, ‘One can’t meet anything here but fucked up lives’, but grasps his weapon instead as a short rifle burst comes from not so far away. Borys jumps up, keeping his rifle ready to shoot.
“What’s going on there?”
Tarasov recognizes the sound of a Stalker’s Kalashnikov, followed by the replying thumps of an automatic shotgun. “It’s probably your men mopping up the place,” he tells Borys.
“I better check that out, Major.”
“And you better finish your lunch,” Tarasov tells his men, “we still have some work to do… and I have a feeling that the shit was only up to our ankles until now. Once we get into the ruins, it’ll be up to our waist.”
“Are you sure we have to do this, boss?”
“Now’s the time to opt out if you’re going to, Zef. If you change your mind later, I’ll shoot you.”
“Okay, boss… chill out, man. I don’t want to change my mind. I’ll follow you.”
“Komandir, we could rest a little more,” Zlenko nervously suggests. “You’re wound up like a spring.”
“I’m fucking fine. How many times do I need to tell you, Sergeant Zlenko? Mind your own business.”
Zlenko looks hurt and Tarasov is surprised at his own harshness. A headache has crept into his skull and his throat remains parched no matter how much water he drinks, but he has to put such things to the back of his mind when Borys arrives, swearing and looking very concerned. His rifle’s safety catch is off and he poises it ready to fire.
“Two damned Stalkers shot each other over a stash of worthless garbage. Never seen such a thing before. Not among my assistants!”
Time to resolve all this, comes to Tarasov’s mind, without him knowing exactly what he has to resolve. Words, conversations, messages, everything he has learned since he arrived in the New Zone is swarming in his head, coalescing to construct a vague but dreadful conclusion.
“All right then… Shrink, take your men away from the ruins immediately. Form them into two groups and prepare ambush positions to the north-east and south of the hill. Just in case… can you manage that?”
“Sure. And I agree…” Borys cuts his words short.
“Spill the beans, Shrink.”
“I’m not easily scared, Major, but this place… there’s something about it that gives me the creeps. The sooner we leave here, the better.”
“What I am concerned about is why the mercs left in such a hurry. Zlenko, if you have finished your lunch, round up Ilchenko and that ex-Dutier.”
“On my way, komandir.”
Walking up to the hilltop the fate of his two squads weighs on Tarasov’s heart like a heavy stone.
Twenty-two paratroopers, all dead… how I wish they were here now. All my fault.
Tarasov has to stop and sit down, his mind full of rage against himself. He covers his face with his hands, regardless of the pain caused by his fingers pressing his skull. He wipes the sweat from his face. The movement makes the Colonel and his self-torturing spring to mind, especially when he had been talking about his son.
What determination, what willpower does one need to go through all this and still stay at least remotely sane, able to command others even while losing the strength to command oneself?
“The squad is assembled. We are ready to move in… Major, you are bleeding.”