Then it is quiet, so quiet that even the drops of water falling from the holes in the roof can be heard. It takes a moment for their ears to detect the faint noise of a siren — coming from a distance seeming safe enough. Then it dies off.
“I was told people here drive like crazy,” the Australian says climbing off the jeep, “but I didn’t expect… this.”
“Everyone still in one piece?” Tarasov asks turning back in his seat.
Pete touches his neck, then looks at his hand with sudden fright. “I’m bleeding,” he says.
Nooria immediately tends to his wound.
“You are lucky, little brother,” she says pulling a bandage from her shoulder bag.
Pete scowls. “Is that my artery?”
“How bad is his wounded?” Tarasov asks with concern.
“Bullet just grazed him.”
“Slava Bogu. Top, Sawyer, go and look if there’s a draisine where the rails begin.”
Hartman looks around in the hall. “What is this place?”
“It used to be a railway yard where the machines made in the factories were loaded. We need to find the draisine used for railway maintenance. ”
“A—what?”
“Kind of a motorized hand car or train car. You’ll recognize it when you see it.”
“You must be meaning a rail speeder.”
Tarasov heaves an impatient sigh. “Whatever. Go now, before Sawyer gets lost.”
“Yes, sir, Major, sir,” the Top grumbles.
“You seem to be fully in charge now,” Pete says while Nooria applies the bandage over his wound. “Enjoying it?”
“No. Neither did I enjoy being in charge of the outpost we’ve just passed.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I was the commander of Cordon Base, and with that all the armed forces guarding the Zone’s perimeter. Including the checkpost we’ve passed.”
“How things have changed,” Pete quietly says.
Tarasov looks around in the gloomy hall and sighs. “Yes… things have changed. There was no shooting on sight during my times. Who knows, maybe Squirrel was right… maybe I’m more a Stalker than a soldier.”
“Who is Squirrel?”
“He was a good Stalker.”
Sawyer appears. “We found your rail car. It has no fuel, though.”
“Where?”
“Next hall.”
Tarasov signals him to climb in. He drives through the lifeless halls, turns into the direction shown by the Australian and already sees the Top’s tall figure next to a two-person draisine. It stands abandoned where the rails leave the building through an opening in the wall. If there was a gate once its wooden wings had fallen apart long time ago.
“Get your gear to the cart.”
He rumbles in on the floor of the UAZ until he finds the plastic tube almost every driver of such a vehicle keeps in the car. With the car’s armatures being legendarily unreliable, no driver knows exactly how much fuel is left in the tanks. Gas stations are scarce in the countryside and if the tanks run dry, the best help is to wave off another car and buy enough petrol to make it back home. And transferring petrol from one kind to another requires a tube.
Tarasov plugs one end of the tube into the car’s trunk. He sucks at the other end and, feeling the petrol flowing, quickly puts the tube into the fuel drum on the draisine.
“Sawyer,” he says, “now would be a good time to prepare your rifles.”
“What do you got?” Hartman curiously asks the Australian.
“A Beretta DT-10, a Benelli Super Sport and a Steyr-Mannlicher for .223 cartridges,” Sawyer replies unzipping the rifle cases. “Seeing as this is the former USSR, and Russians knowing a thing or two about bears, I also have a TOZ-34.”
“I’ll have to ask you to lend me that,” Tarasov says smiling.
“Don’t mind if you ask me nicely, but I won’t let any of you touch my Steyr.”
“The Beretta is fine with me,” the Top says. “When did you clean them last?”
“The Steyr this morning. The others before leaving home. I didn’t expect to get to my hunting grounds so quickly.”
“You love the Steyr, I see. Oh yes, there’s nothing like a good old bolt action rifle.”
“Hey guys… I’m really happy to have run into you. You seem to know what’s good in life.” Sawyer takes an elegant, leather-covered hip flask from a pocket on his Gore-Tex jacket. “Want to make it even better?”
“Give me some cartridges instead.”
“The ammo is in that shoulderbag. I hope we won’t have to fire ‘em soon, though. I hate firing me rifle sharp before takin’ a warm-up shot.”
“That’s superstition. Back in Tennessee…”
“We’re not in Tennessee. It’s Ukraine and bloody cold.”
While the two gun nuts enter another friendly dispute over hunting rifles, Tarasov keeps his eye on the tube. He wouldn’t want to waste a drop of the precious fuel.
He pays too much attention to the fuel transfer to spot the shadows appearing in the gloom outside. They grow bigger, take a human shape, and when Tarasov casually looks there and sees soldiers stepping out of the mist, it is almost too late. They fire their AKMs before he could yell a warning.
“Take cover! Pete, Nooria, get off the car, now!”
They all duck behind the draisine. Bullets whizz, clinking and clanking as they hit the rusted machines around them and the concrete floor.
“Let’s get out of here!” Sawyer shouts.
“No! The fuel drum’s not full yet!”
“I don’t give damn about the fuel, let’s go!”
Realizing that the trespassers don’t fire back, the soldiers are moving closer. Tarasov can already hear the commands barked.
“Na levo, na levo!”
“Return fire, but try not to hit them!” he shouts.
“You mad? They’re here to kill us!”
“Do what I said, Top!”
Hartman fires his shotgun to suppress the approaching soldiers.
“Nazad!” shouts one of the soldiers. “Nakroy menya!”
“If someone gets hit, don’t shout or rush about!” Tarasov bellows. “If they see you, they’ll kill you! Crawl back to the outpost, they’ll pick you up!”
A wooden crate crashes as Sawyer pellets it with a buckshot round, forcing the soldier sneaking up behind it to fall back.
“Heard you, nanny!” he shouts back at Tarasov. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
The fuel drum is now almost completely full.
“Top! Sawyer! On my command, fire your rifles, barrel by barrel! Then let’s get to the draisine and move!”
“Wait, my rucksack is in the car!”
“We have enough gear, Sawyer! Get rid of your rucksack, it will just hamper you!”
“No way!”
With a flashing display of recklessness, Sawyer leaps over to the car, grabs his heavy rucksack and fires his rifle blindly towards their pursuers.
“Get back, Sawyer! Reload rifles! On my command, one, two… fire!”
Six rifle shots sound off the reel. Using the moments while the soldiers hide behind their cover, Tarasov gives the draisine a push with all his strength, jumps on the slowly rolling vehicle and pulls the string that should start the engine. Nothing happens.
“Blyad!”
Cussing, he jumps off. The soldiers recommence firing and seeing that they are about to escape, rush forward.
“Pete! Pull on that string as strong as you can! Top!”
Hartman doesn’t need any explanation. He joins Tarasov in pushing the draisine. All of a sudden, the crude machine appears to be much lighter. Sawyer fires his rifle once more. The sound of his rifle being reloaded is suddenly suppressed by the engine coming to life.