Metro 2034

CHAPTER 2 Return

Homer listened. Hunter. He had never heard that name at the Sevastopolskaya. It sounded like a nickname – like his own, of course he wasn’t called Homer, but Nikolai Ivanovitsch. They named him after the creator of the Greek epics, because he loved stories and rumors of all kind.

“Your new brigadier,” said the colonel to the guards in the southern tunnel two months ago. They looked at the broad-shouldered man in the Kevlar armor and the heavy helmet with distrust and curiosity. He just looked at them indifferently and returned to the fortifications as if he couldn’t care less.

He shook the hands of those who came to introduce themselves, but didn’t speak a word. He nodded his head silently, remembered their names and puffed blue smoke in their faces like he wanted to keep them at distance. His lifeless eye shimmered in the shadow of his folded up visor. Not then nor later the guards dared to ask for his name and so he remained “the brigadier”. It seemed that the station had hired a mercenary that didn’t need a name.

Hunter.

While Homer stood in the entrance of Istomin’s office undecided he formed the strange word silently with his lips. It didn’t fit for a human – more for a shepherd hound. He couldn’t suppress a smile: actually there had been such dogs here. How did all this come to his head?

A militant race, with a shortened tail and ears directly on the head – nothing superfluous.

But the more often he said his name, the more he thought that he knew it. Where had he heart it? It probably got stuck in the endless stream of legends and rumors and had sunken to the ground of his mind. Meanwhile a thick layer of names, facts, rumors and numbers had appeared in his mind – all that useless data about the lives of other humans that Homer had always listened to eagerly and tried to remember faithfully.

Hunter… a criminal with a price on his head from Hanza? Homer threw a stone into the dim lake of his mind and listened. No. A stalker? Didn’t match his appearance. A field commander? More like it.

And apparently a legend as well. Homer studied the face of the brigadier in secret. The name of a dog suited him surprisingly good.

“I still need two men. Homer comes with me, he knows these tunnels.” The brigadier didn’t ask for his approval and nor did he turn to him.

“And a runner, a currier. I will leave today.” Istomin nodded his head, but then he gave the colonel an asking look.

The colonel mumbled his approval, even though he had fought like a wildcat for the same issue with the commander. Homer’s opinion didn’t seem to interest anyone, but he didn’t think about protesting at all.

Despite his age he had never refused any missions like this one. He had his reasons.

The brigadier took his helmet from the table and moved to the exit. He held the door for a moment and said in Homers direction: “Say goodbye to your family. Arm yourself for a long march.

Don’t take ammunition with you; you’ll get it from me.”

Then he disappeared.

Homer ran after Hunter to find out what would await him on this expedition. But when he stepped on the train station he saw that Hunter had already left. It was pointless to try to catch up to him. Homer looked after him and shook his head.

Against his habit the brigadier didn’t put on his helmet. Maybe he was in thoughts or he needed more air. He passed a few young girls that sat on the train platform. They were pig shepherds on a break.

One of them whispered: ”Look, what a monster.”

“Where did you dig him up?” asked Istomin. Relieved he sank into his chair and reached for a package of his beloved tobacco.

The cigarretes that were smoked in this station had been allegedly found by a stalker near the Bitzewski Place. One time the colonel had held a Geiger-counter next to the cigarettes and the counter started to tick.

After that he decided to stop smoking immediately and the coughing that had haunted his nights as he dreamed about lung cancer became less frequent. Istomin on the other hand refused to pay the story about the radiation much credit. And he wasn’t so wrong – in the entire Metro there was almost nothing that didn’t radiate more or less.

“He has known us forever.” replied the colonel unwillingly. After a short break he added: “Back then he was different. Something must have happened to him.”

“According to his face something has happened to him for sure.”

Istomin coughed and looked nervous to the entrance as if he feared Hunter could hear his words.

The commander of the outer guard posts didn’t want to complain that the brigadier had emerged out of the mist of the past; ultimately he had transformed himself into the most important support of the southern guard post immediately. But Denis Michailovitsch still couldn’t believe the return of his old friend entirely.

The news of Hunter’s terrible and strange death had spread like an echo through the tunnels last year. And when he appeared in front of the colonel’s door without warning, he had made a cross with his hand. How he had passed the guard posts without being noticed – as if he had walked right through the fighters – increased Hunter’s supernatural aura.

The silhouette, which he saw through the peephole, was familiar to him: Broad shoulders, the shaved head, and the slightly dented nose. But the nightly guest remained where he was; his head, oddly, slightly turned to the side. He didn’t try to break the tense silence. The colonel looked at the bottle of sweet wine on his table with regret, sighed deeply and unlocked the door. His codex demanded that he helped everyone of his own kind – regardless if they were alive or dead.

Hunter looked up at first when he stepped through the door. It became apparent why he had turned his face. He had probably feared that the colonel wouldn’t have recognized him otherwise.

Denis Michailovitsch had seen much while commanding the garrison, but Hunter’s wound still struck him.

Then he laughed insecurely, like if he wanted to excuse his undisciplined behavior.

The guest didn’t even show a hint of a smile. In this night he didn’t smile a single time. His

terrible wounds had healed in the last months, but this man had nothing in common with the Hunter that Denis Michailovitsch remembered.

He didn’t lose a single word about his miraculous rescue, his long absence and he didn’t seem to hear the amazed questions from the colonel as well. Rather he asked Denis Michailovitsch to tell nobody of his return. Would have the colonel followed his commons sense he would have informed the elders right away – but there was an old debt that he had to repay Hunter and so he let him in peace.

Nonetheless Denis Michailovitsch started to research in secret. Truly, everybody thought that his guest was dead.

He wasn’t involved in any crimes nor was he being sought-after. They had never found Hunter’s body – that was for sure – otherwise he would have surely tried to contact them. The colonel agreed.

But he appeared, to express it better: his vague – and in those cases normal – shadow appeared in a good dozen half true myths and stories. It seemed he liked his role and kept his companions believing that he was dead.

Denis Michailovitsch remembered his old debt and came to the only conclusion: He relaxed and played the game.

When others where with them he never used Hunter’s real name. He only told Istomin the truth, but didn’t go into detail. But not many cared, because the brigadier had earned his daily ration of soup many times over. He guarded the posts in the southern tunnel day and night; at the station he appeared maybe once a week – on bath day. And even if he just appeared in this hell to hide from his pursuers, Istomin didn’t mind. He knew to appreciate the service of legionnaires with dark pasts – the only thing that he demanded from them was to fight and in this case that wasn’t a problem at all.

The guards that had complained about the condescending nature of the new brigadier became silent after the first battle. When they saw how methodically, sunken in some kind of cold frenzy, he destroyed everything that there was to destroy, everyone came to their own conclusion.

Nobody wanted to become his friend, but everyone followed his orders without any complain, so that he never had to raise his broken voice. There was something in his voice, something like a hypnotizing sound of a snake and even the head of the station nodded his head obediently whenever he talked to him – even if he hadn’t finished talking, just in case.

For the first time in ages the air in Istomin’s office felt a lot lighter – as if a silent thunderstorm had passed, created by the strong tension. There was no more reason to argue, because there was no better fighter than Hunter. But if he died in the tunnels there would be no other option for the Sewastopolskaya.

“Should I order the preparations for the operation?” asked Denis Michailovitsch.

“You’ve got three days. That should be enough.”

Istomin closed his lighter and his eyes. “We can no longer wait for them. How many people do we need?”

“The strike team is ready. I will take care of the second one, which should be another 20 men.

When we don’t hear anything from them after the day after tomorrow,” he pointed his head at the exit, “then you have to make everybody ready to leave. We will try to break through.”

Istomin raised his eyebrows but didn’t answer; he just kept smoking his self-made cigarette. Denis Michailovitsch picked up some of the papers and started circling names, using a system that only he understood.

To break through? The colonel looked past Istomin’s grey neck and through the tobacco smoke at the map of the Metro that was hanging on the wall. Yellow, dirty and covered with small signs this plan was a chronicle of the last century. Arrows for recon missions, circles for sieges, stars for guard posts and exclamations marks for forbidden zones.

Ten years had been documented in this plan, ten years, and not a single day had passed without blood spilling.

Under the Sevastopolskaya, right behind the station named Juschnaya the markings stopped. As far as Istomin could remember, nobody had ever returned from there. The line ran down with a lot of white areas, like one of the old maps that the first Spanish conquerors had when they arrived on the shores of India. Like a branched root. But a conquest of the entire line was too big for the people of the Sevastopolskaya – no exhaustion by the irradiated people would have been enough.

And now the white fog of uncertainty covered their godforsaken line that went on to Hanza, to humanity. If the colonel had ordered all the people to fight, no one would refuse. At the Sevastopolskaya the war for the destruction of mankind, which had lasted for two centuries, had never stopped for a minute. If you live long enough in the face of death, fear makes place for fatalism, talismans, believes and instincts.

But who knew what waited for them between the Nachimovski prospect and the Serpuchovskaya? Who knew if they could break through this mysterious obstacle or if there was still something behind it that was worth fighting for?

Istomin thought about his last trip to the Serpuchovskaya: Markets, homeless on benches and those who still had something sleeping behind curtains. This station didn’t produce anything; they didn’t have any animal farms or greenhouses. The residents of the Serpuchovskaya were thieves but they were smart. They lived from speculation, sold expired goods that they had bought from late caravans for almost nothing. They also offered the inhabitants of the Ring line services that could have brought them in front of the courts at Hanza. This station was a parasite, a fungus, a growing tumor inside the powerful Hanza.

It was the last union of rich trade stations, appropriately named after the German model, a stronghold for civilization in the Metro. Everything else sank into barbarism and poverty. There was a real army in Hanza, electrical light and even in the poorest parts a piece of bread for everyone that had earned the much sought after stamp of citizenship.

Even on the black market those cost a fortune, and if the border patrol caught somebody with a fake passport it would have cost you your head.

Hanza owed its wealth and power to its extraordinary place: The Ring line united all other lines of the star shaped complex together and opened up the possibility to switch from one line to any other line.

Traveling merchants that brought Tea from the VDNKh, trolleys that brought ammunition from the weapons forges of Baumskaya – they all unloaded their cargo at the nearest toll station of Hanza and returned back home. It was always easier for them to sell their goods at the safe Hanza than to embark on a hunt for higher profits throughout the whole Metro, which often proved fatal.

It sometimes happened that Hanza affiliated neighboring stations, but mostly those were left to their own fate – a tolerated grey area, in which the leaders of Hanza didn’t want to get involved in. Of course those “Radial Stations” where filled with Hanza’s spies, and to be exact – the stations had been bought a long time ago by the businessmen of Hanza. But they remained, formally, independent. So was it was with the Serpuchovskaya.

In one of the tunnels between this station and the Tulskaya a train had broken down on that day a long time ago. Istomin had marked the place with a Catholic Cross, because the wagon that stood in the midst of the tunnel and was inhabited by members of a Christian sect. They had transformed this lifeless part of the tunnel into an oasis in a black desert.

Istomin had nothing against the sect. Their missionaries lingered in the neighboring stations, trying to save fallen souls, but these shepherds never came to the Sevastopolskaya nor did they hinder passing travelers with their missionary talk. The clean and empty tunnel between Tulskaya and Serpuchovskaya were preferred by the caravans.

Once again Istomin looked along the line. The Tulskaya? Their residents lived from what the bypassing convoys of the Sevastopolskaya and the smart merchants from Serpuchovskaya left behind.

They repaired every possible technical piece of scrap metal and others searched for day jobs. For days they sat there and waited for one of the foremen offering slave labor. They were poor as well, but at least they didn’t have the greasy crook look in their eyes like the people from the Serpuchovskaya. And in this station there was order, outside dangers welded people together.

The next station was the Nagatinskaya. On Istomins plan it was marked with a short line, meaning that is was uninhabited. But that was only half the truth. Nobody remained there very long. Only shady figures resided there, living like animals. Absolute darkness reigned there and small groups hid from strangers. Only scarcely the dim shine of a campfire lit through the pillars and illuminated the dark figures that held a secret meeting. Only unknowing and brave individuals stayed overnight because not all of the inhabitants of this station were humans. In the whispering darkness of the Nagatinskaya you could sometimes see the grotesque silhouettes of creatures scouring in the dark. And sometimes the shrill scream of a homeless person filled the remaining residents with fear until the victim got dragged into a cave and eaten.

Nobody dared to go further than Nagatinskay, so the area between this station the strongholds from the Sevastopolskaya was an empty wasteland. It wasn’t entirely empty though – and the scouts from Sevastopolskaya tried not to meet the creatures lurking there.

But now something new has emerged out of the tunnels. Something unknown. Something that swallowed everybody that tried to pass through this supposedly explored route. How should Istomin know if his station, even if every able resident picked up a weapon, would form an army big enough to deal with this unseen danger? He stood up burdened, walked to the map and marked the area between the Serpuchovskaya and the Nachimovskaya prospect with a pen. Right next to it he placed a big question mark. He wanted to place it next to the word “prospect” but somehow it landed next to the Sevastopolskaya.

At first glance you could believe that the Sevastopolskaya was uninhabited. No trace of army tents in the train station that served them as homes at most stations. But instead they had barricades of sandbags, which looked like big ant hills in the weak lights of the lamps. Those barricades were never manned and the quadratic pillars were covered with a thick layer of dust. Everything was built so that a stranger that passed through would think this station was abandoned.

But as soon as the unwanted guest just thought about staying here, he risked staying here forever.

Then machine-gun teams and the snipers, which stayed at the neighboring Kavochskaya, manned their posts in seconds and instead of the dim lamps, powerful quicksilver search lights on the ceiling were activated, burning the eyes of all invaders, humans or monster. Neither were used to the strong light.

The train station was the last carefully planned line of defense of the Sevastopolskaya. Their homes were located in the belly of this deceptive station – under the station. Under the enormous granite plate, invisible from foreign eyes, there was another floor not much smaller than the station above, but divided into smaller cells. There were the lit, dry and warm apartments, the steady humming air filters and water purifier, hydroponic greenhouses… it seemed that the residents of this station felt only safe and comfortable when they retreated further into the ground.

Homer knew that the crucial battle didn’t await him in the tunnel, but at his home. While he walked through the narrow hallway, past the half open doors of the former service rooms which were now where the residents of the Sevastopolskaya lived, his steps slowed down more and more. He thought of his tactics and revisited his answers as time ran out.

“What am I supposed to do? Orders are orders. You know how the situation yourself. They didn’t even ask me.Don’t blow it out of proportion – that is ridiculous! No I didn’t volunteer. Refuse? Out of the question. That would be desertion, understand?”

He mumbled on and on, sometimes outraged and determined, sometimes gentle and pleading.

On the doorstep of his apartment he went over everything again. It seemed a scene wouldn’t be avoidable, but he wouldn’t back down. He made a dark look and opened the door ready for a fight.

From the nine and a half square meters apartment – very luxurious, he had waited for one for four years while living in a dirty tent– was occupied by a two-story military bunk bed, a small neat dining table and three big stacks of newspapers that reached to the ceiling. Would he have been an old bachelor that mountain would have already buried him. But fifteen years ago he had met Yelena, who tolerated the dusty old papers in their small apartment, kept them in order and away from the stove; otherwise this mountain would have transformed itself into to a papery Pompeii long ago.

She also tolerated so many other things. The endless alarming parts from newspapers with titles like “The arms race goes on”, “Americans test anti-rocket system”, “Our rocket shield grows”, “Farewell to peace” and “The time for patience is over” that covered all of the walls like wallpaper; him staying all night hovering over a stack of notebooks, a gnawed on pen in his hand – using electrical light instead of candles, no option with all the newspaper around; his jesting nickname, that he carried with pride, but that evoked a joking smile by everyone else that said it.

She tolerated so much, but not everything. Not his juvenile eagerness and curiosity, that brought him into the middle of a storm every time there – and that with almost 60 years of experience! Nor the ease with what he accepts all the orders from above, without thinking about the last expedition that had almost cost his life.

If he had died… he didn’t want to think about it.

When Homer left for guard’s duty once a week, she never remained in the house. She fled with her troubled thoughts to the neighbors or went to work, even if she didn’t had to – it didn’t matter where, everywhere was fine if it distracted her from thinking that her husband had already died, laying on the ground, dead and cold. She thought that his typical male composure regarding death was stupid, egoistic, yes, even criminal.

Fate had wanted it that she had already returned from work to change her clothes. She had put her arms through the sleeves of her patched jacket when he entered. Her dark, slightly grayed hair – she hadn’t even turned 50 – was tousled and you could see fear in her brown eyes. “Kolya… did something happen? I thought you had guard duty till late in the night?

His courage to start his argumentation dissolved immediately. Of course this time others were responsible, he could have said that they forced him, with clean consciences. But now he hesitated.

Maybe he should calm her down first and mention it later – casually – during dinner?

“I am asking just one thing from you: Don’t lie to me.” she warned him as she stared at his desperate, wandering eyes.

“Lena,” he started. “I have to tell you something…”

“Did somebody…“ she asked the most important, most feared question right away. Did somebody die, but she didn’t spoke it out loud, like if she feared that her words would make it happen.

“No! No…” Homer shook his head and added: “The freed me from guard duty. They are sending me to the Serpuchovskaya. Don’t think it will be dangerous.”

“But…” Yelena didn’t know what to say. “But that is… did they already return, the…”

“It is all nonsense.” he interrupted her hastily. “There is nothing”. The conversation turned into an unexpected direction. Instead dealing with curses that he is trying to play a hero and wait for a good moment of reconciliation, he now had to face a far harder test.

Yelena turned away, stepped to the table, put the salt from the table somewhere else and smoothed a wrinkle in the tablecloth. “I had a dream…” she stopped and cleared her throat.

“You always have one.”

“A bad one.” she said stubbornly. Then she started crying.

“What? What am I… it’s an order.” He stuttered and stroked over her fingers. He realized that his tirades weren’t worth a cent now.

“The one-eyed should go himself! She called out angrily and moved her hand away. “Oh that devil with his beret! They can only boss around others… What does he have to lose? He is married to his rifle! What does he know?”

When you make a women cry, the only thing left is to hold her in your arms. Homer was ashamed of himself, he was really sorry. But it was too easy to give in now, to swear that he won’t follow that order, to calm her down and dry her tears – and to remember this missed chance forever. Maybe the last chance in his long life.

So he remained silent.

It was time to gather the officers and instruct them further. But the colonel was still sitting in his office.

The cigarette smoke didn’t even bother him anymore, but it still tempted him.

While the commander of the station moved his finger along the line of the Sevastopolskaya on his map of the Metro and was whispering to himself, sunken in thoughts, Denis Michailovitsch tried to understand what was behind Hunters mysterious return at the Sevastopolskaya. Why did he decide to settle down here and why did he wear his helmet in public almost all the time? That all meant that Istomin was right: Hunter was hiding from something and he had chosen the southern guard post as his hiding place. There he replaced a complete brigade and had become irreplaceable. Whoever demanded his return, whatever price had been placed on his head, neither Istomin or the colonel would have given him up.

His hiding place was brilliant. There were no strangers at the Sevastopolskaya and compared to other caravans that traveled to the “big Metro”, everyone passing through this station kept their tongue behind their teeth. In this small Sparta that desperately held on to their small piece of earth on the end of the world, it was the most important thing to be reliable and relentless in battle. Here secrets still meant something.

But why did Hunter give all this up again? Why did he travel to Hanza out of his free will and risked being recognized? He had volunteered for this operation; Istomin wouldn’t have dared to think about appointing it to him. It probably wasn’t the fate of the lost recon unit that interested the brigadier.

He didn’t fight for the Sevastopolskaya because he loved the station so much, but because of his own reasons that were only known to him.

Maybe he had to fulfill an assignment? That would explain a lot of things: His sudden appearance, his secrecy, the stamina with which he holds the guard post and of course his decision to leave for the Serpuchovskaya immediately.

But then why did he forbade him to inform the others? Who could have sent him expect for them?

No, that was impossible. He was one of the Order. A man that dozens, if not hundreds of people – including Denis Michailovitsch – owed their lives to, who wouldn’t be able to commit treason.

But was this Hunter that had appeared out of the void the same? If he worked for somebody did he receive a signal?

Did that mean that the disappearance of the recon unit was no accident, but a well planned operation?

And what part did the brigadier play in all of this?

The colonel strongly shook his head, as if he wanted to shake away his suspicions that hang on him like leeches, becoming bigger and bigger. Why would he think this about a man that saved his live?

Hunter had served the station without any mistakes and he had never given him the slightest reason for doubts. Thus Denis Michailovitsch forbade himself to think about the brigadier as a deserter, spy or something else.

He had made his decision. “Another tea and then I will go to the boys,” he said overly energetic and snapped his fingers.

Istomin rose from his Metro plan and smiled tiredly. He wanted to dial the number for the adjutant when the telephone ringed. Both were startled and looked at each other. They hadn’t heard that sound for a week. If the officer on duty wanted something he knocked on the door and there was no one else in the station that was able to call the foreman directly.

“Istomin here.” he answered carefully.

“Vladimir Ivanowitsch! The Tulskaya is on the phone” he heard the hastily voice of the adjutant, “but the connection is very bad… probably our men… but the connection.”

“Connect me already!” Istomin screamed into the receiver and hammered his fist on the table with such force that the telephone ringed in pain.

The adjutant turned silent immediately. Istomin could hear a ringing sound, then static and then he heard a distant, almost unrecognizable voice.

Yelena had turned her face towards the wall, to hide her tears. What could she still do to hold him back?

Why did he always reach for the first possibility to leave the station? His miserably excuses “Orders from above” and “Desertion” – she had heard them a hundred times. What wouldn’t she have given, wouldn’t have tried to get rid of his nonsense in these 15 years? But once again it drew him to the tunnels, as if he thought to find something other than darkness, emptiness and doom in it. What was he searching for?

Homer knew exactly what she thought, as if she had spoken it out loud. He felt miserably, but it was too late to retreat. He opened his mouth to say something excusing, something warm, but he remained silent, with every one of his words he would just added oil to the flame.

Over Yelena’s head Moscow cried. A carefully framed color-picture of the Tverskaya Uliza, shining through the translucent midsummer rain, cut out of a shiny almanac, was hanging on the wall. A long time ago, when he was able to move through the Metro freely, all of his fortune was made up by his clothes and this one picture. Others carried crumpled, torn out pages from man oriented magazines in their pockets. But for Homer that wasn’t a replacement. But this picture reminded him of something unspeakable beautiful… something that has been lost forever.

Helplessly he whispered: “Forgive me”, stepped out into the hallway, closed the door carefully behind him and sat himself in front of his apartment. The door of the neighboring apartment was open and two sickly pale children played on the doorstep – a boy and a girl. When they saw Homer they stopped. The patched up teddy bear, about whom the children had argued just one second ago, fell to the ground.

“Uncle Kolya, uncle Kolya! Tell us a story! You promised to tell us one when you returned!”

Homer couldn’t hold back a smile. He forgot the argument with Yelena immediately. “About what?”

“Headless mutants!” screamed the boy excited.

“No! I don’t want mutants!” said the girl shocked.

“They are so terrible, they scare me!”

Homer sighed: “What story do you want, Tanyuscha?”

But the boy answered before her: “Than about the fascists! Or the partisans!”

“I want the story about the Emerald city!” said Tanya and smiled.

“But I told it yesterday. Maybe about the war of Hanza against the Reds?”

“About the Emerald city, about the Emerald city!” both yelled.

“Ok”, agreed Homer. “Somewhere, behind the end of the Sokolnitscheskaya line, behind the seven abandoned stations, the three destroyed bridges and a thousand times a thousand doorways, there lies a mysterious, secret city. It is magical so humans can’t enter. Wizards live there and only they can leave through their portals and enter the city through them again. On top of it, on the surface there is a castle, with towers where once the wizards lived. The name of the castle was…”

“Virsity!” Yelled the small boy and looked at his sister triumphal.

“University”, Homer nodded his head.”When the war began and the atomic bombs were dropped on the earth, the wizards retreated into the castle and laid a spell on the entrance so that the bad humans, that started the war, wouldn’t be able to reach them. And then they lived…”

Homer cleared his throat and stopped.

Yelena was leaning at the doorway, she had listened. He hadn’t seen her when she stepped on the hallway.

“I’ll pack your things”, she said huskily. Homer walked over to her and took her hand. She clumsily laid his arms around him, it was embarrassing for her in front of the children, and asked silently: “You’ll come back soon? Nothing is going to happen to you, right?”

For the thousandth time in his long life he realized how much women longed for promises – it didn’t matter if he could fulfill them or not. “Everything is going to be alright.”

“You are so old and you still kiss like you two just married”, said the girl, making a grimace. The boy yelled after them cocky: “Daddy says that nothing of the story is true. There is no emerald city!”

“Maybe,” Homer shrugged his shoulders. “It is a fairy tale. What would we do without fairy tales?”

The connection was truly bad. A vaguely familiar voice fought against the terrible static: It seemed it was one of the recon team that they had sent to the Serpuchovskaya on the railcar.

“At the Tulskaya… we can… Tulskaya”, he tried to give their position.

“Understood, you are at the Tulskaya”, Istomin yelled into the receiver. “What happened? Why haven’t you returned?”

“Tulskaya… here… you can’t… everything but…”

Again and again parts of his sentence were swallowed by the static.

“What can’t we do? Repeat, what can’t we do?”

“Don’t storm the station! Everything but storming the station!” it sounded out of the telephone clearly for once.

“Why?” asked Istomin “What by the devil is going on?”

But the voice was no longer to be heard. The static became louder and louder, then the line went dead. Istomin didn’t want to believe it at first and kept the telephone in his hand.

“What is going on there?” he whispered.