“Yes, some lucky ones get it all,” she says with a frustrated, tired sigh. “If I were in her shoes I wouldn’t buy an apartment but go west and never ever come back!”
The boy looks up to her with concern.
“Ne boysa, Vova,” she tells him, “I’d take you with me but only if you behave. Will you?”
Tarasov can hardly hear the boy’s reply. Neither can he see how the boy follows him with his eyes while he hurries back to the idling car. Holding the plastic mesh with the new ball inside, the boy starts kicking it with his knee.
“Vova! Will you come?”
Reluctantly, the boy called Vova follows his mother up the stairs.
“Mama, I think I have seen this man before.”
“Really? He didn’t even look at you, how could you tell?”
“I recognized his voice. But last time he was wearing an officer’s cap. I think his new cap is much cooler.”
“Silly boy. A postman with an officer’s cap…”
“Ne znayu,” the boy shrugs as they step inside the elevator. “Maybe he is no postman. Or no officer. And last time he was… much shorter. Now he is even taller than papa.”
Screeching and threatening its two passengers with leaving them trapped in the dirty cabin at every floor it passes, the elevator begins to ascend.
“You have a very vivid imagination, Vova,” the exhausted woman says, seemingly nerved by her son’s daydreaming.
“Maybe he is a criminal hiding from the police! Maybe he even has a reward on his head, dead or alive! A bank robber of mafia boss! That would be cool.”
This time, the woman doesn’t reprimand her son. Her bagged eyes sparkle up with greed. She caresses Vova’s blond head.
“We will need to talk about this once we get home.”
27
The overcast sky over the New Zone blackens out the stars. It is almost pitch dark over the hill where Saifullah and Skinner meet. A Nissan pick-up idles nearby, its headlights dimmed.
“Did you bring what I asked?”
Saifullah gives Skinner a nod and points to the flatbed.
“Five hand-held RPKs, three NSVs and two DShKs, all belt-fed with enough bullets to bring down a dozen helicopters.”
“Bullets are for muskets, Saifullah. Try to sound like a soldier and call them rounds, for God’s sake.”
“You want to lecture me?” Saifullah snorts. “If you’re thinking you can use them hand-held, you don’t even know how to deploy them!”
“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”
Skinner emits a gurgling growl, sounding so much like that of a mutant that Saifullah and his three men in the vehicle reach for their weapons, afraid that one of the New Zone’s more dangerous creatures might be lurking nearby. Their concern is proved right — but it’s not one mutant appearing in the darkness but at least twenty. The sandy ground is shaking under their heavy steps as the lumbering hulks approach, each of them twice as tall as a human. Skinner grabs Saifullah’s AK-47.
“Shoot at my brothers and we’ll have you for dinner,” he warns him angrily. “Tell your men to unload the weapons.”
“Gora! Daa tseshai di?” a Talib fighter shouts. “Laas ma raawrra!”
Skinner notices his discomfort with a grin. “Scared of your new allies, huh?”
“Yes,” Saifullah admits.
“Imagine how scared the Tribe will be once my brothers appear, hip-firing the weapons you’ve brought….”
“Very,” the Talib says and begins to mutter a prayer in Arabic.
Following Skinner’s mental command, each mutant grabs a machine gun. The half-mutant notices that although they can hoist the heavy weapons without effort, using them properly will require a little practice — their brawny hands hold the weapons as awkwardly as someone, who had never fired a weapon before, would hold a Kalashnikov.
Poor brothers. You still need to learn how to master your new strength.
Proving Skinner’s thoughts, a mutant trying to get the best grip on a DShK anti-aircraft machine gun accidentally presses the trigger. The burst of heavy 12.7 millimeter rounds hit the Talib standing on the flatbed and tear his upper body to shreads. The mutant looks at his index finger and the weapon, and then growls as if he were chuckling.
“Oups… sorry,” Skinner says, himself laughing. “The boys still need some practice.”
“May God forgive me to deal with you and your ungodly creatures,” an ashy Saifullah says.
“You better get out of here now. I need to gather a few more friends.”
“More such… demons?”
“Jackals, though it remains to be seen if I can. They’re dumb, you know? Compared to them, my brothers are fucking Albert Einsteins.”
For the first time since they met, Saifullah sees a little self-doubt appear on the half-mutant Stalker’s face.
“Jackals?” he asks with disgust. “What do you need those unclean dog-like beasts for?”
Skinner points at the gory remains of the mowed down Talib. “If you use gunfodder, why shouldn’t I?”
28
The honey-colored designer lamp casts a cozy light over the room where Captain Maksimenko is sitting at a make-up table, blowing a smoke ring from his cigarillo. He watches it slowly fading away when it touches the mirror reflecting Agent Fedorka’s naked body on the king-size bed. Two wine bottles stand on the table; one empty, one missing just as much as there is in Maksimenko’s glass.
“Was he rough on you, Verka?” he asks, directing his question more to his cigarillo than the woman. Vera Fedorka lies on her belly, playfully moving her feet, very much immersed in working on her nails with a long, pointed file.
“Yes, Dima,” she absentmindedly replies.
“How rough?”
“Not in the way you are.”
“Why? How am I?”
“Rough, too… but in a more sophisticated way,”
“Be more specific for once.”
She shrugs, not looking up from the nail file.
“You do it because you enjoy it. He does it because he has an urge. Maybe it makes him forget certain things for a few seconds… I’m not psi-ops to know what’s going on in the head of Zone freaks.” Vera Fedorka blows off the dust from the nails on her right hand, and starts filing those on her left. “Is it true that Tarasov has hooked up with a dirty Afghan girl and is hiding now with some pindos deserters?”
“At least that’s what his last message to Degtyarev was.”
She chuckles. “Alex Degtyarev… he’s handsome. But Tarasov even more so.”
“Really? Why are you so interested in Tarasov?”
“I am not interested in him. It’s that woman who interests me, actually. Do you know what she looks like?”
“No.”
“Come on… you know everything.”
“We had a good asset in the New Zone—a very good one. Not even he could get close enough to those deserters.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“Indeed. You know, the briefing note I got from Kruchelnikov says Tarasov has valuable intel about two things: the results of the lost expedition and the American renegades.”
“I can guess why we want to have the scientist’s reports, but why would we care about those deserters?”
“In the latter case, we actually means us, Verka. Getting intel on the Tribe would be more than appreciated by their government. They are probably a haven for criminals. That’s one thing. They must also have their supporters for smuggling weapons, trafficking criminals to boost their numbers and all that.” Drawing on his cigarillo, Maksimenko narrows his eye and lowers his voice almost to a whisper. “Imagine, Verka… just imagine. We get that intel, you and me. Then the only choice we’d have to make would be getting promoted in the Service or making the Americans happy on our own account. We could ask them for a ranch in Montana. Imagine, spending the long winter in a cozy ranch with a big fireplace, making love until spring comes—all sponsored by the US government.”