Staying cautiously out of rifle range a few hundred meters away from the Alamo, Skinner, Commander Saifullah and a half-dozen Talib fighters watch Ramirez’s lonely figure approaching. Giving a cold shoulder to his fate, the Lieutenant is drawing on his cigarette as he returns at a leisurely pace.
“Their answer is no,” Saifullah says.
“Stubborn bastards,” grumbles Skinner.
“All the better,” the Talib commander observes. ”When the infidel gets here, we’ll show them how they will die. All of them.”
“Not without gang-raping their women first, I guess?”
“This is Afghanistan, Stalker.”
When Lieutenant Ramirez walks up to the Humvee with the white flag fastened to the antenna, Saifullah gives his men a sign to get hold of him. Skinner pushes them aside.
“Let the man say what he has to say!” Then he turns to Ramirez and looks into his calm eyes. “Lieutenant, you’ve kept your word. Respect. Let us know the Colonel’s reply.”
Ramirez takes a last draw on his cigarette, then tosses it into the wind and clears his throat.
“I am to tell you that going to our knees is no part of our Code. That is the answer of the Tribe.”
“Fine with me, Lieutenant,” Skinner says shrugging his shoulders. “I appreciate you telling the reply without barking that cheesy semper fi, oorah! stuff. Guess we can all add it mentally anyway. Okay… Saifullah, he’s all yours.”
A bloodthirsty grin appears on the Talib’s face as he draws a long, curved sword. His men step to Ramirez.
“On your knees, you dirty dog!” Saifullah yells.
“Didn’t you hear what I’ve just said?” Ramirez shouts back.
Before Saifullah’s men can manhandle him, he draws the M1911 pistol that Saria had slipped into his pocket, raises it to his head and pulls the trigger.
The gunshot is still echoing in the valley when Lieutenant José Ramirez collapses to the ground.
Taken over by anger and frustration, Saifullah kicks the corpse. “God curse your wretched soul, you miserable pig of an infidel!”
Skinner slaps his forehead. “Oh shit…. as if that would change a thing. Never mind, dushman, I guess they got the message anyway. Hey! We better get the hell out of here!”
But Saifullah, still in rage over the Lieutenant’s suicide depriving him of a theatrical execution, now begins to hack off the head of Ramirez’s corpse. Skinner grabs his arm and pulls him to the vehicle.
“You got dirt in your ears, you crazy dushman? We gotta move! Now!”
They climb in the captured Humvee and quickly drive away, backtracking the road to the southern outpost.
“God be praised!” Saifullah shouts over the roar of the engine and squeaking suspension. “That pig escaped our wrath but we still have the other prisoners. They won’t be so lucky!”
”What?” Skinner asks back. “That man gave his word of honor to return and he kept it! Bloody impressive if you ask me. Now it’s your turn to keep your word and release his men!”
“War is deception,” Saifullah replies with a smile and mumbles something in Arabic that Skinner can’t hear through the engine noise. Then he adds, “At least you told him the truth, Stalker. This land is ours. Invaders must quit it or die!”
Hearing this, Skinner slowly shakes his head.
‘Ours’ meant myself and my mutant brothers, not your sort of devious savages.
36
Their passage through the Tuzla tunnel gave Tarasov’s companions a good introduction of what is awaiting them deeper in the Zone. The heavy breathing under the gas masks. The light of their headlamps, appearing so tiny in the cavernous tunnel. The sizzling Electro anomalies, gleaming on the ground with blue sparks, the crackling Geiger counter, the green glow of the Veles detector’s tiny screen and the beeps it made to warn them of unseen anomalies. The tedium of bolt throwing to find a safe way through. The three blind dogs with open wounds covering their bodies and their leaps as they tried to bite into the companions’ throats. The blinding muzzle flashes of their shotguns in the darkness.
“Now you know why people venturing here are called Stalkers,” Tarasov whispers to Pete.
“I wish we’d be out of here already,” the kid whispers back, anxiously.
At least the tunnel was not long and the end, beyond which the inner Zone was waiting for them, came closer with each step they made.
Having at last covered the last steps separating them from the daylight outside, Tarasov pulls his gas mask off and deeply inhales the fresh air. Before him, the rails lead to a ruined bridge over a dark and slow-flowing river, flanked by sparse bushes and reeds. On the other shore, to their right and south to an embankment with derailed carriages rusting away in the tall grass, the Great Swamps are stretching out. Fog banks are floating over the endless fields of reed and the waterways between small islands of solid earth. A barbed wire fence runs along the far shore or the river, at places overgrown by reed. To the far south, a watchtower stands out from the grey fog. Even further, partly covered by fog and tall reed, greenish vapors squirm over the riverside. Tarasov is glad to be far away from the poisonous cloud and the anomalies that emit it.
“Welcome to the Swamps,” he tells his companions who stand at his side in silence, apparently impressed by the vast, foreboding landscape. Then Nooria points forward and Tarasov immediately understands that no matter their first glimpse of the Zone, it was something else that rendered them speechless — and he himself is struggling to believe his eyes.
“Incredible,” the Top murmurs.
“Hey,” a familiar voice says. “Want some coffee?”
Tarasov blinks at the sight of Sawyer sitting on a rock and leisurely pouring a pouch of instant coffee into a metal mug full of steaming water.
“What is it, Mr. Stalker?” the survivalist asks cheerily, killing the flame of his camping gas cooker. “You not happy to see me again?”
“I’m certainly grateful that you—but how did you get here?” Tarasov stammers. “How did you manage to overtake us?”
“What do you mean, overtake? I stepped into that thingy, and here I was. Thought I’d wait for you here until you happily arrive. And how has your bolt gotten here?”
Tarasov stares at the bolt lying on a stone right next to the tunnel.
“That’s the bolt I threw into the anomaly! Gospodi, I’m not going to take one more step until—I don’t like it.”
“Anyway, we’d better rest for a few minutes before crossing the river,” Hartman says.
“But keep off this bolt, just in case.“
“You don’t want to keep off my coffee, I guess,” Sawyer says offering them his mug.
Tarasov still copes with the idea of Sawyer not only surviving an anomaly, but being teleported at the shore of the river sound and safe while it took them a full hour to navigate through the perilous tunnel. “It’s impossible!”
“What’s important is that Sawyer’s bag with his underwear is safe,” Pete says and gladly accepts the mug of fresh coffee. “Got any sugar?”
“Creamer for me, please,” Hartman adds merrily.
“Pete, don’t stick your nose in someone’s underwear if you don’t understand it,” Nooria says. “Zone appears to be very powerful!”
Sawyer shakes his head. “What’s there to understand? I’ve got my energy bars, the cooker… all survivalist things that will come in handy. Got no creamer, but here’s a pouch of sugar. Gives one extra calories to burn.”
Tarasov sighs, then he too takes a sip of coffee. He begins to look at the Australian with a different eye; not far from them he sees proof that the Zone is still much less merciful to others. He points to a spot on the riverside.