Tarasov sighs. The Stalker has saved his life and he doesn’t want to repay it by dumping a lie on him. He decides to partly reveal his identity. Although Crow has an Abakan rifle on his back and a silenced Glock-17 pistol loosely holstered on his armor webbing, with the AKSU ready he would hold the advantage if his rescuer turned aggressive.
“All right… I was with the army chopper that went down. I made it through. My own gear was busted, so I took the suit from the chopper’s dead gunner. I spent the night in a cave when the storm hit. Now I’m trying to get to Bagram, but I swear on my mother’s life it’s not about you Stalkers.”
“On your mother’s life? You sons of bitches from the army aren’t supposed to have mothers!”
Looking at Tarasov’s AKSU pointed at him, the friendly expression disappears from Crow’s face.
“Listen up, ‘brother’,” he says looking Tarasov in the eye, “I don’t care much about who you are and what you do, but you will not be welcomed in Bagram.”
“Let that be my problem.”
“And where was your crash site, anyway?”
“A few kilometers up north, but there’s not much left of it.”
“You lie. The wrecks around Bagram had been looted for years. You have no idea how much useful stuff a helicopter’s wreck can yield.”
“This one was blasted by a bunch of gunmen, well-trained and armed to the teeth. They came by a chopper.”
Crow scowls. “A black chopper? Heavy, two-engined?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, Condor, or whatever your name is… we better get out of here right now. Normally I wouldn’t even bother saving your ass but you seem to be cool at close quarters. And I could use a sidekick because the Tunnel is not exactly a sniper’s paradise.”
“Are you going to Bagram?”
“No. After the Tunnel, we part ways. You can try to get through alone and die, or you can join me and still die. But together we stand a better chance. Now make up your mind, I haven’t got all day.”
Tarasov reflects over his options for a moment. A rescue mission could still be coming. But then, this is no time for wishful thinking.
“All right,” he says slinging his AKSU over his shoulder, “I’ll follow you. Let’s go.”
“Let’s.”
Moving quickly, they head down the slope into the valley.
Tarasov soon admits to himself that the Stalker is a good guide. Instead of walking down the road, Crow leads him up the mountainside where the rocks and shallow chasms offer cover at every step, following tracks invisible to Tarasov even from a few meters’ distance. With the sun still shining from the east, Crow sticks close to the shadows cast by the massive rock walls towering above them, occasionally looking up to the sky as if expecting something foreboding from above.
Before leaving the cover of an overshadowed cliff, the Stalker stops and points forward.
“Look… that’s the northern entrance.”
Through his binoculars, Tarasov sees the road curving before disappearing under the mountain through a huge arch. Beyond the road, a field of anomalies gleams with silver sparks amid a cluster of ruined buildings.
“We rest here for a few minutes,” Crow says. “It’s time to eat something.”
While sharing a can of luncheon meat, Tarasov dismantles his weapon to clean its components. He also removes the cartridges from his remaining magazines and cleans them one by one before loading them back. Fingers moving in swift and skillful movements, he reassembles his AKSU.
“Do you have duct tape?” he asks the Stalker.
Crow nods and silently hands him a roll. Tarasov tapes the torchlight to the rifle. Handing the tape back to the sniper, Tarasov catches an appreciative look in the Stalker’s eyes.
“It’s good to have one who knows about weapons watching my back,” Crow remarks.
“And you’re one hell of a marksman. That jackal was dead before I even heard the shot, and all this from a distance of five hundred meters!”
“It’s a good rifle. Uncle Yar knows his trade, I give him that.”
“Hunting must be easy with such an upgraded SVD.”
“Not exactly… better cartridges like the 7N14 are hard to come by, so I don’t waste them. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair sport. If it’s game I’m after, the Abakan is good enough. But tell me, have you been to the Zone?”
Crow sounds curious. Tarasov hesitates before answering. He already knows that being a soldier is not the best pedigree here, especially coming from the Zone where Stalkers and military had hated each other’s guts for a long time.
“I’ve been there once in a while, delivering supplies.”
“Oh yes…” replies Crow grinning. “I thought so. But what’s it like? I’ve never been there, you know.”
“Similar to this place, except there are no mountains and it’s not so barren. And the mutants are a little dumber,” Tarasov explains. He almost added, ‘at home’.
“There’s a wide plain east of Bagram. It was all orchards and potato fields before the nukes, but it’s become a forest now. You’ll have your share of trees there. And of anomalies too.”
Tarasov nods, considering. “And what’s your story, Stalker?”
“I was a wildlife photographer and was sent by National Geographic to shoot photos of mutants. But I soon realized that shooting them with a sniper rifle is much more fun.”
Tarasov smiles as if he believed him. “That’s the most pathetic thing I ever heard,” he says sarcastically.
Crow bursts out in muted laughter. “Whatever, bro… maybe later we’ll have time for proper introduction. The only thing that matters now is getting through that damned tunnel. The question is how do we get through a tunnel full of anomalies and hostiles and stay alive in the process?”
“Bound and overwatch,” Tarasov says after a minute of quick thinking. He is eager to function again as an officer. “You take a protected position. I move forward, let’s say fifty meters. You watch over my advance with the Dragunov. Once I have reached the forward position, I’ll cover you until you join up. Then we play the same game until we get through the tunnel.”
Crow gives him a skeptical grin. “Is that a grunt from the supply train talking? Let’s go…. And put your gas mask on. It’s horribly dusty inside.”
They proceed along a narrow dirt track beneath the steep mountainside, keeping an eye on the tarmac road to their right and the ruins beyond. Before getting close to the entrance, the Stalker signals him to halt. He takes an army-issue box from his backpack. With careful hands, he removes a night scope from inside and fixes it to his rifle. “I hope the battery will last until we get through,” he says removing the scope’s lens cover. “What’s that unhappy look on your face, Condor?”
Tarasov almost says something about the state-of-the-art equipment that was at his disposal just twenty-four hours ago. The pilot suit, not designed for the rigors of combat, barely offers him any protection and his helmet has no night vision. He bites his tongue. “Hope this battered AKSU will not let me down,” he says cocking the rifle.
“We better be more concerned about the two pillboxes at the entrance. Check them out.”
Peering over the corner, Tarasov sees two small concrete shelters, more like guards posts than pillboxes. They seem empty. He gives a signal to the Stalker to move up and switches on the torch taped to the rifle barrel.
“Climb up there, Stalker, and keep your eyes peeled.” He waits until Crow assumes a firing position on the bed of a pick-up, resting his rifle on the cabin’s roof.