Losenko pried a loose slug out of the pavement; it appeared to be made of depleted uranium. One did not have to be a detective to realize that the scene had born witness to a furious firefight.
The only thing that was missing was the enemy. If Zamyatin and his men had managed to take any of their killers with them, those bodies had been carried away. Unlike the rotting corpses of his men.
“Who did this, Captain?” Ostrovosky asked. The junior radio operator had volunteered to join the patrol; Losenko suspected that he wanted revenge for the atrocity they had been forced to listen to yesterday. “Scavengers?”
He doubted it. Nothing appeared to have been stolen—not even the search party’s arms and ammunition—and the attackers had chosen to destroy the pickup truck rather than capture it. The captain also liked to think that trained Russian seamen could hold their own against any ragtag band of marauders, unless they were severely outnumbered. From what they had heard over the radio, however, the scouting team had not stood a chance. It had not been a battle, but a rout.
“Just keep your eyes open, Mr. Ostrovosky,” he said crisply. “For all we know, we’re behind enemy lines now.”
Over his first officer’s protests, Losenko had chosen to personally investigate the massacre. It was foolhardy, perhaps, given his rank and responsibilities, but what was Ivanov going to do about it, report back to his superiors? Losenko chuckled wryly. One of the few perks of surviving a thermonuclear war was that he no longer had to answer to Moscow.
Zamyatin and the others had died carrying out his orders. If I want to find out what happened, and see it with my own eyes, the captain thought, then that’s my prerogative.
Or maybe he just had a death wish.
Chances were, he wasn’t the only one.
Bloody tread marks crisscrossed the asphalt. Losenko remembered the motorized tumult he had overheard. The parallel tracks were roughly 150 centimeters apart, too close together for a tank or an automobile. Grease marks stained the blacktop. Pools of oily fluid collected in cracks and potholes. Losenko knelt to inspect such a puddle. He dipped a gloved finger into the liquid and held it to his nose.
It reeked of petroleum. Some sort of lubricant?
Machines, Pagodin had said. A squad of machines.
He peered intently at the liquid that dripped from his fingertip. Had his men drawn blood from the enemy before they were slaughtered?
Losenko wanted to think so.
He stood up and assessed the patrol. He had brought a larger force this time, fully twenty-five men, all armed to the teeth with assault rifles, handguns, and plenty of ammunition. They had crept upon the scene stealthily, having left their salvaged vehicles in a junkyard half a kilometer back. The cars and trucks were hidden in plain sight, like Poe’s famous purloined letter, amidst the numerous scrapped autos.
Losenko himself had ridden in a battered family station wagon that was missing all its windows. He had been disturbed to find a forgotten doll and candy wrappers under the passenger seat. He didn’t want to think about what might have become of the wagon’s former owners.
Perhaps he had trodden on their bones.
A pair of sentries had stayed behind to watch over the cars—and each other—while the rest of the party had continued forward on foot. Losenko’s legs ached from the strenuous hike. Quite a workout after being cooped up in the sub for weeks on end. Zamyatin’s GPS coordinates, transmitted along with his final broadcast, had led them to yesterday’s fatal battleground.
“Eyes open!” he exhorted his men. Lookouts were posted along the perimeter, vigilant for any suspicious movements. “Safeties off. Arms at the ready.”
Such orders were almost certainly unnecessary. The carnage at their feet was enough to keep the men alert to danger. Wary sailors gripped their weapons tightly, some jumping at every stray gust of wind. A veteran submariner, Losenko felt uncomfortably exposed out here in the open. He preferred to fight his wars from the depths of the ocean. His men no doubt felt equally out of place. They were sailors, not commandoes.
We are out of our element, Losenko thought. Like fish out of water.
He would not turn back, however, until he had uncovered what sort of devilry was underway. Zamyatin and his men had discovered this infamous factory, and had paid with their lives. That they had been mercilessly gunned down, just for approaching the facility, implied that its secrets were of great importance, at least to someone.
That it was also the only evidence of life for leagues added to the captain’s curiosity. He needed to know what in Russia had survived the war—if only for the sake of his own sanity.
The road rose and fell between the battle site and the factory, following the natural contours of the terrain. Walking along the curb, he climbed to the crest of a low hill and crouched down behind the concealing shelter of an abandoned mail truck. He scooted along the tilted hood, being careful to keep his head low. A lookout, the barrel of his rifle laid across the top of the hood, squatted beside Losenko. Pavel Gorski glanced up briefly from his rifle sight.
“Watch yourself, skipper,” the boy warned in a hushed tone. The young enlisted man usually worked in the torpedo room. “I hear the scouts never saw it coming.”
Losenko could tell that Gorski was frightened. Like the rest of the crew, he had never seen real combat before.
“Do not worry about your captain,” he replied. “A submariner knows better than to stick his periscope where it might be shot at!”
The quip elicited a weak smile.
“I guess you would know, sir!”
“Just pretend that rifle fires torpedoes,” Losenko advised, nodding. “Then you’ll feel right at home.”
“Aye, aye, sir!” The lookout shifted his grip on the weapon. “Just like back on the boat.”
Losenko wanted to promise Gorski that he would see his bunk on K-115 again, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so.
Despite the danger, he peered over the crumpled metal hood, to inspect the puzzle that had lured the scouting team to their end.
Just as Zamyatin had reported, the factory dominated the horizon several meters to the west. Pillars of thick white exhaust spewed from its looming chimneys, polluting the air. Periodic gouts of bright orange flames shot upward from the smoke stacks, making them look like gigantic roman candles.
If Losenko strained his ears, he could even hear the sound of heavy machinery. The clanging noises, the rumbling assembly lines would have never been tolerated aboard a submarine, where silence was paramount. Flashing lights as bright as a welder’s torch could be glimpsed through cracks in the drawn metal shutters. The plant sat on the banks of the Ponoy River, the better to discharge its noxious wastes into the flowing current.
My apologies, Oleg, the captain thought. It appears you were not hallucinating after all. He glanced back over his shoulder at the tread marks and grease stains, then looked back at the factory. A grim conviction took root in his mind.
It was impossible to tell at this distance exactly what was being manufactured within the sprawling facility, but he doubted that it was microwave ovens or cheap compact cars.
A squad of machines....
Something buzzed overhead. At first, Losenko thought it was a bug, but then he glanced up and caught a glint of metal out of the corner of his eye. An unmanned aerial vehicle, about the size of a large kite, flew above them. Its streamlined black wingspan was about three meters from tip to tip. Miniature red sensors, mounted in its nose turret, scanned the territory.