“No, just this,” Tonya said. “I always like to buy things from new places I visit.”
“And why does that not surprise me?” Kornev asked, playfully.
The couple turned and began walking toward the terminal. Before arriving at the door, Kornev turned right and walked along the building’s perimeter and Kara followed him a good distance until they arrived at a hangar with the words AIR CRESS stenciled on the building’s protruding edge.
“This is my airline,” Kornev told her.
“You have your own airline, and you let me fly on that tub?” Kara asked, pointing at a plane no longer in sight.
“We only fly cargo,” Kornev said apologetically. “But I guess we could have strapped you to the wall,” he said with a coy smile.
“I would have probably liked that,” she said, a look of sexual deviousness in her eyes.
“You drive me crazy,” Kornev told her, giving her a hug as they approached a big black Hummer. Kornev clicked the fob on his keychain, and the back hatch opened with a hiss. He tossed her bag into the vehicle, clicked the hatch closed and opened the passenger door for her.
Kara thanked him, and a few minutes later they exited the airport grounds. She took in the sights as the Hummer made its way out onto a one-lane divided highway. There was surprisingly little traffic on the road which made sense considering Termez was not a tourist attraction. While Kornev drove, he began telling her the history of the town and listed the few things to do in the Termez area.
He turned to smile at her. Suddenly, the rear window of the Hummer exploded, at least it sounded like an explosion. A millisecond before the glass shattered, there had been a trio of gunshots that sounded like one continuous report before the rear window shattered into hundreds of small pieces that fell into the vehicle. Whereas, the front windshield had shatter resistant (laminated) glass, the rear and side windows of the Hummer were only tempered glass. Thus, they didn’t hold up as well to gunfire.
Kornev’s initial reaction was to step on the brake. His brain told him another vehicle must have rammed into him. But when he set his foot on the brake and looked in his rear-view mirror, there was no vehicle behind him. He checked his driver side mirror. As he was looking at the side mirror, a puff of Plexiglas dust skipped off the door jam, and his side mirror disappeared, tumbling into the dirt on the side of the road. The sound of gunfire arrived a split-second after the mirror had broken free.
It didn’t take Kornev any more convincing to understand again he was under attack. She screamed, and Kornev jammed his foot on the accelerator. The heavy Hummer complained and groaned, then kicked down two gears and accelerated.
Using the passenger side mirror, Kornev saw a drone flying on her side of the SUV. It was the size of a large bicycle wheel, domed and protected in black plastic. Under the air machine was the unmistakable short barrel of a weapon. The gun was facing toward the right side of the Hummer, lined up with the rear side window.
She screamed when she looked out the window and saw the flying contraption. She yelled at Kornev, “Turn. Turn here,” pointing in the direction away from the drone. Without giving it a second thought, Kornev whipped the wheel to the left, and the lumbering vehicle’s tires screeched as it rocketed out on a narrow side street.
With his own side mirror gone, Kornev stuck his head out his window to look behind them. A similar drone flew along his side of the SUV. Kornev muttered an obscenity to himself, and the drone cut loose another barrage of lead. The bullets tore into the side of the Hummer, chattering down the sheet metal, leaving clean and crisp holes that trailed smoke.
The smoke was of grave concern to Kornev. It indicated the gun was using incendiary rounds that could ignite the fuel tank. The drone was flying directly next to the Hummer, shooting directly into the side. Not down or up, but right through the middle of the vehicle. The drone that had been on the passenger side of the Hummer was now behind them.
Tonya screamed, “Get away from them. Turn, turn,” and she pointed to her right. Kornev cranked the wheel and the Hummer skidded a little before it straightened onto a narrow dirt road. The heavy-duty suspension ate up the bumps in the road, turning them into nothing but soft thuds inside the vehicle. The drones became lost in a dust cloud kicked up by the vehicle’s big tires. The few small homes and shops previously bordering the road faded into the distance. The chase continued into the desert.
“Did we lose them?” Kornev asked, looking in his rear-view mirror, and then to Tonya’s mirror, and finally craning his neck to look out his own window.
“I can’t see. There’s too much dust,” Tonya said. “What were those things?”
“I don’t know,” Kornev told her truthfully.
“I think that was the same type of aircraft that attacked me a few weeks ago.” Kornev held up his right hand. “One of them shot me.”
Kara looked with concern at Kornev’s right hand. A nasty little abrasion was healing on the webbed skin between his thumb and index finger.
The dirt road ahead led them deeper in the desert. The terrain consisted of low hills and gradual turns. It was easy to navigate, even at their high speed of travel.
Kornev kept the Hummer speeding more than 96 kilometers per hour. He appeared satisfied the flying machines were no longer pursuing them.
“They must have run out of batteries or are no longer within range of whoever is controlling them,” Kornev told her.
He began to ease his foot off the gas pedal. Located in the side compartment of his door, Kornev reached down and pulled out a Walther P99 AS 9mm handgun. It was combat green with black grips and was always loaded. As the Hummer began to slow and the dust began to diminish, he placed the gun in his lap. He would have a surprise ready for the next flying contraption. The Hummer kept moving forward but decelerating, and the dust diminished enough that Kornev was relatively certain the coast was now clear.
“Who is that?” Tonya asked, pointing in front of her.
Kornev changed his focus to what lay ahead. He stepped on the brake and came to a full stop.
Forty meters in front of them, sitting in the middle of the road, was a man. The man in the middle of the road was wearing a white cowboy hat. Oddly enough, the man was sitting in a chair behind a table, as if he had decided that this would be a great place to have a card game. An empty chair sat opposite the man with his back to the Hummer.
The SUV ground to a stop in the middle of the road, and Kornev looked around nervously, checking for flying contraptions. Looking toward the potential threat in front of him, he watched as both flying drones set down on the ground on either side of the table. It was as if the drones had returned to their Master. They now sat on thin tripod legs set wide apart for stability.
The drones and the man just sat there, immobile. The man’s feet were propped up on the edge of the table with his hat resting over his eyes like he was sleeping. The drones were sitting on their tripod legs as stationary and unwavering as the man next to them.
“What is this?” Tonya asked, panic in her voice.
“I have no idea,” Kornev said. He was surprisingly calm considering the circumstances.
“If he had really wanted us dead, he wouldn’t have hesitated in shooting us,” Kornev said. He opened his door.
“Where are you going?” Tonya inquired. Kornev ignored her.
Kornev stepped on the Hummer’s running board. He stuck the Walther in the small of his back, tucked into his cargo pants’ waistband. Kornev eased himself down to the sunbaked ground. He watched the man, who hadn’t moved a muscle