“You’re good to go, Condor.”
Cautiously, Tarasov moves forward. It is pitch dark inside and full of wrecked vehicles — trucks, jeeps, pick-ups, buses, as if a huge traffic jam had blocked the cavernous tunnel. He has barely covered a few dozen meters when he sees the first anomaly. A net of thin blue lightning swipes the ground, emitting a buzz that can rapidly grow into a deafening discharge of electricity. Signaling Crow to follow up, he reaches into his pocket. Damn it — no bolts, no nuts, no nothing.
“Do you have bolts?” Tarasov ask as Crow arrives.
The Stalker gives him three rusty bolts. “That’s all I have.”
Tarasov aims cautiously before throwing the bolt into the anomaly. The blue lightning flashes into a burst of energy as the bolt falls into it, casting dire blue light into the tunnel for a second. Then it disappears from the ground for two seconds. Tarasov tosses the second bolt and dashes through. Hoping that the Stalker will not mess up his timing, he lets the anomaly discharge with the last bolt. Crow leaps through dexterously. As soon as he arrives at Tarasov’s side, the anomaly again starts its deadly dance over the ground.
“I hate anomalies,” Crow whispers, “but at least one can see these damned Electros.”
Upon seeing the Stalker take a detector out to search for any artifacts in the anomaly, Tarasov fails to hide his impatience.
“We don’t have time for that. Let’s move on.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming… wait! Did you hear that?” They freeze for a moment. Crow shrugs. “Must be hearing things.”
“Stick to the wall. Cover me.”
As he moves forward in the narrow space between the wrecks and the tunnel’s wall, blackened from the exhaust fumes that the concrete had absorbed for decades, an uneasy feeling passes over Tarasov. There’s something sinister about the Stalker that makes him concerned about being shot in his back. But the forbidding darkness that is absorbing the weak light of his torchlight gives him more concerns. The tunnel runs straight over a long distance and a truck occasionally blocks their way, making them climb over it. Their steps on the metal echo in the darkness and his Geiger counter’s signal speeds up every time they get close to a vehicle. Tarasov detects the nauseating taste of metal in his mouth.
“Crow, do you have an antirad to spare?” he says turning to the Stalker behind him. “These wrecks are a radiation trap.”
“Here,” Crow says and tosses him a packet with two red and blue pills. Tarasov gets clumsy for a moment and drops the medicine. Bending to pick it up saves his life as a bullet hits the wall where he was standing just a second ago. Crow’s Dragunov fires in response, its echo rolling through the caverns like thunder.
“Hostiles at twelve o’clock,” the Stalker shouts, “fifty meters!”
By now the muzzle flash of their rifles has betrayed the enemies’ position. Tarasov quickly skirts the old truck behind which Crow’s sniper fire keeps their opponents pinned down. The AKSU’s hard-hitting bullets get the black-clad gunmen in their flank. One falls, three more swiftly move back behind the nearest wreck with well-trained movements. Crow hits one more as they retreat.
“I can’t see them!”
Tarasov leaps to the truck, jumps up to the flat-bed and opens fire at the enemy ducking below. The echo of his last shot is still rolling up the tunnel when the last hostile falls, cursing in a language he can’t understand.
“Clear!”
He is not surprised when he sees the corpses wearing the same black body armor as the squad at the crash site. Eager to find any useful information about them, he goes through their pockets, but his search is in vain.
“They were good,” he tells Crow when the sniper catches up with him. “Any idea who they might be?”
The Stalker shakes his head and Tarasov checks the weapon lying beside one of the bodies. Back in the Zone, he was shot at by all kinds of weapons and with almost every caliber, from the hunting shotguns of rookie Stalkers to Freedom’s US-made LR-300’s, ultimately test-firing the weapon that had been used in an attempt on his life shortly before. But he never laid his hands on this mule of an assault rifle: the handle reminds him of an M-16, the barrel of a German G-36, the trigger mechanism of a Kastor grenade launcher and the overall design of something between a bullpup SVU or FN2000.
“I admit the Chinese know a thing or two about weapons,” he says shaking his head in disdain, “they managed to produce something that’s even uglier than a Groza rifle.”
“Frankly, I couldn’t care less about the design of the rifle that’s being fired at me.”
“That’s a good point… but anyway, here’s a joke. Do you know why the Chinese call this scrap Qing Buqiang Zidong?”
“Please do tell.”
“They can’t spell the ‘r’ in Groza.”
“Ha, ha, ha,” Crow clasps his hands in mock amusement, “as if you wouldn’t give one arm to have one with you now. Why don’t you just take that Chinese rifle? It’s way better than that AKSU.”
“At least I know where this one fires the bullets.” Tarasov bitterly grins looking at his rifle. Seeing at what Crow is up to, he frowns. “What are you doing?”
“I want to see that bastard’s face.”
“I wouldn’t do that. It brings bad luck.”
Crow leaves the tactical helmet on the corpse. “It’s just because I rarely come that close to the baddies I shoot.”
“I know. That’s what I could never understand about snipers… I mean, you lay hidden, see a head close in the reticule from hundreds of meters and then blow it to pieces. Do you at least feel something when you see them dying?”
“Yes,” Crow says as he reloads his Dragunov, listening to the bolt clicking back to position as if it was a sophisticated musical instrument. “I do feel something.”
“And what would that be?”
“Recoil.”
Tarasov shrugs and turns back to the bodies. He’s never liked scavenging from dead enemies but, being low on resources, the hand grenades and bandages he finds will come in useful. After a moment of hesitation, he removes the bullet-proof tactical vest from the corpse and puts it over the light pilot suit.
It didn’t save its previous owner… but still could save me.
“I’ll move on. Stay here and wait for my sign to proceed.”
“Roger, Condor,” comes the Stalker’s reply.
Suspecting that the small party they have run into was only a vanguard, Tarasov remains cautious as he sneaks from cover to cover. After a few minutes, he is relieved to see light appearing in the distance. “Looks like we’re almost through!”
“That’s a stretch covered by a concrete roof, with openings to the side. It was an open road once but got covered after the traffic was regularly hit by avalanches.”
“Shit. And I was hoping it’s the other end.”
“Keep moving, Condor. Only two more kilometers to go.”
The light falling in from the opening in the concrete wall takes a toll on his eyes, already accustomed to the darkness. Tarasov closes his right eye to keep it accustomed to the darkness. He passes the stretch concerned about their flanks open to any danger coming from outside. His instincts prove right when the thud-thud of rotor blades sounds above them.
“Run!”
Tarasov doesn’t need Crow’s warning to dash forward as quickly as he can, hoping that no enemies lie in wait where the row of casements end and darkness continues. Arriving at the first wreck offering cover, he looks around for Crow but the Stalker has disappeared. Hiding behind the burnt-out frame of a bus, he can hear the helicopter hovering directly above.
He proceeds only a few meters further into the darkness to a car that might once have been a Humvee when a voice makes him freeze.