The wind intensified, whipping up particles. Sokolov tasted salt on his cracked lips. Haze already descended on the more distant buildings of Kantubek. A dust storm was imminent. The adverse conditions would cripple his coordination. But Radchuk and Sadaev did not want to test the experience any more than he did.
“All right, Oleg,” said Ahmed Sadaev. “Let’s finish him off, it’s getting boring.”
“Eeya! Eeya!” the teenagers reacted in anticipation.
Nothing to lose now. Do or die.
The cat-and-mouse game turned into a violent melee.
Sokolov charged forward and feinted as they came for him. Radchuk slashed. Sokolov grabbed his knife arm and rapidly kicked his thigh, throwing him off balance, punched his face, breaking the jaw, landed a blow to his solar plexus, but failed to overpower him. Hitting out with his leg, Sokolov caught Ahmed Sadaev as the Chechen’s knife swung in a lethal arc, then ducked under Radchuk’s hook, elbowing his ribs, kicked Sadaev again, and drove his knuckles into Radchuk’s windpipe. He dropped the knife, and Sokolov tripped him, busting his ankle. The big Ukrainian went down to the ground and took Sokolov with him, snatching his leg. Radchuk clobbered him with his thick arm, swatting Sokolov away. Seizing the knife, Sokolov sprang to his feet. Radchuk was rising. He slashed the blade across Radchuk’s throat and down his chest, carving open two deep slits. Blood flowed as Radchuk fell back. The wind howled, bringing a dust cloud that obliterated visibility to a couple of meters. The dust stung Sokolov’s eyes. Ahmed Sadaev grappled at him, kicking, punching, slashing, missing Sokolov’s spleen by a thread as he hit the border of a titanium pad, Sokolov stabbing his gut quickly. Impaled, the Chechen flopped, Sokolov twisting the jagged edge up, slicing through the abdomen as he withdrew the blade. Sadaev stared in wide-eyed shock, his entrails bulging out. Radchuk wheezed, paralyzed, choking on his blood.
Disoriented, the gory brawl vanishing from view, a Batyr soldier fired rounds crazily. Bullets whistled past. Sokolov fell flat to the ground and rolled sideways. He swept out a foot to hack the nearest Batyr troop. The teen tumbled, and his AK-47 fell into Sokolov’s hands. Striking with the rifle butt, Sokolov rendered him unconscious.
Sokolov rolled again, lay prone and let out a volley into the dusty haze. On the other side of the pitch, a gurgling scream broke through the storm, someone hit in the crossfire. Murky silhouettes fled. Panic was spreading. Sokolov could not see farther than the tip of the AK barrel, squinting, the wind blowing particles in his eyes. He kept low, shielding his face with his sleeve. A few erratic shots sounded. Then the shooting ceased. Leaderless, isolated, they dispersed, seeking cover.
Sokolov crawled a few meters towards the border of the pitch, got up and darted for the streets of Kantubek, vanishing in the storm.
13
The sand gritted between his teeth and stuck in his hair. His eyes burned. Without his helmet and goggles, Sokolov stumbled blindly. He grabbed the canteen off his belt and splashed water onto his face and shirt sleeve. Breathing through the fabric of the sleeve as he pressed it to his nose and mouth, he used his free hand to shield his eyes as much as he could. He tried following the direction of the sandblast, keeping his back turned to the wind. It tore at Sokolov’s uniform, sneaking sand under his clothes. A coarse gust of desert air scratched his skin.
He coughed spastically, suffocating. The wet cloth filtered grains of sand, but gave no protection against the finer particles of dust he was inhaling. Running harder, short of breath, he sucked in more of the dust-filled air, but didn’t slow down. The effort was less dangerous than continued exposure. Sokolov had to take shelter from the storm.
Reaching the nearest house, he groped his way around it and pressed his back to the brick wall, hiding from the force of the wind.
He stood behind the building for a few moments, gusts breaking up against it. Sokolov’s heart still raced after the fight on the football field. He had pulled off a miracle to escape, but he needed another one to save Asiyah.
Running in short bursts, he moved from one house to another. The ruined buildings came back into view as the dust cloud dissipated. The storm was subsiding.
Sokolov expected the child soldiers to be lurking in the eerie mist ahead, but no one shot at him as he changed position.
He walked past Kantubek’s ghostly buildings, anxiety mounting. He stumbled upon the military structures — headquarters, barracks and mess hall — bunched compactly around the parade ground. Kantubek ended beyond that point, Lenin Avenue exiting to the waterless seashore. None of the buildings could be distinguished as a secret presidential base. None were even guarded.
Where had the Batyr troops gone? Were they no longer willing to sacrifice their lives for their President? Or did they have no one else to protect — or fear punishment from — once Radchuk and Sadaev were dead?
Was Kasymov really in Kantubek?
Sokolov cast his hesitancy aside. Asiyah knew exactly what she was doing. One of these wrecks disguised Kasymov’s bunker. The gunshot he had heard was proof enough.
It had to be the military headquarters building. If the Soviets had chosen to improve Kantubek’s defenses, the safety of commanding officers would have been their highest concern.
Then he saw a black stain on the ground in front of the headquarters. A pool of blood drying in the heat.
A few paces away from the blood stain, a Batyr soldier’s corpse lay sprawled on the road, dragged there and left behind once the storm had broken out.
Sokolov approached a windowless opening in the wall and looked inside. The room was empty.
He pulled himself up and slipped through the decomposed window frame, AK at the ready.
There was nothing but bare walls. Everything had been pilfered, from furniture to doors to wiring. Only broken plaster, rubble and dust remained.
Scanning each room through the sights of the AK, he inspected the ground floor.
He came to the stairs leading down to the basement.
Whether he was right or wrong, there would be no second chance to find Asiyah.
He raced down the flight of stairs.
The lighting was dim but he saw two figures in the far corner of the basement as they turned sharply and raised their rifles.
Sokolov held down the trigger, gunning them down. The torrent of bullets hammered flesh and ricocheted off concrete, bodies falling, sparks flying.
Sokolov stepped over the corpses. He did not look at their faces. Youths or not, it didn’t matter. He was beyond caring. Kill or be killed. The remorse would come later, he knew.
He turned his attention to the object that the sentries had been assigned to guard.
A metal vault door.
It was purely mechanical, with no electronic elements that could fail due to a power shortage.
He turned the spindle handle, hearing the bolts inside click as the vault door unlocked and swung open the three-inch-thick bulletproof steel.
Beyond it, a spiral stairway led deeper down.
Sokolov descended, taking two narrow steps at a time. The stairway was steep, and he pressed against the wall, expecting to face new guards behind the turn.
But the stairway ended in another vault door.
He had passed the zone sealing the subterranean base from the outside world.
Sokolov slung the AK-47 over his shoulder and spun the handle with both hands, and pushed the massive armored door, revealing a hallway.
Fluorescent lights bathed the white-tiled corridor in a brilliant glow.
Startled, a masked sentry grabbed his rifle a second too late. Sokolov dashed to him up close, cutting his arm with the hunting knife and then crashing the hilt against the back of his head. The man dropped on the tiles, out cold.