Taking Lives

Chapter 2. Baptism by Fire(3)

Before leaving, they took a look around the entire airfield, which seemed even larger from above.

“If you tweak it a bit, you could, in principle, use it,” Max said, referring to the runway.

"Well, yes. All that's left is just finding a plane, a pilot, and fuel," the colonel quipped.

Max raised his eyebrows briefly, shrugged, and walked out of the control room. The others followed him.

The living quarters were located a little off to the side and were a typical barracks with long rows of bunk beds and an armory at the end. The armory was separated from the rest of the barracks by a grate with thick steel bars. Someone had cut the lock and left the grate door wide open. Inside, stone chips crunched underfoot, and the walls were heavily chipped in places. Someone had pried open a whole row of steel cabinets using the same crude method as the grate, but this hadn't ended well with one of them—its door had been ripped off its hinges and badly deformed. The second one lay at the end of the armory, also looking rather unpresentable.

"Oh, those idiots!" Max exclaimed, laughing. "There was definitely something explosive stored there, and it looks like they decided to use a cutting torch to open the safe."

Looking around, they found a frayed hose from a cutting torch, the remains of a cylinder, and several large stains of blood that had soaked into the walls and floor.

"Oh! And there's the brains. Now it's clear where they were," Max remarked, pointing to the blood.

"Hmm-hmm," Gronin drawled. "It's tough in the village without a revolver..."

Andrei didn't understand what his words meant. He didn't really try—his attention was drawn to two safes at the back of the armory. They were locked and appeared untouched. He drew the others' attention to them.

"Oops!" Rodionov rejoiced. "It looks like they left something for us too."

Before Andrei could ask how they planned to open the safes, Pavel pulled a ring of keys from his pocket, selected the right one, and inserted it into the lock. It turned out he'd been keeping the keys to the armory all these years, ever since he'd personally locked it.

The lock resisted fiercely, refusing to open. Pasha and Max took turns trying to open it, but it wouldn't budge. Ten minutes passed in an unequal struggle, during which Rodionov probably uttered every admonition, threat, curse word, and even a prayer he knew. Surprisingly, the lock opened only after the prayer.

Twenty AK-74Ms, carefully laid out in two rows, awaited in the safe. Boxes of ammunition lay on the shelf above. Rodionov's face was grim. God knows what he expected to find there.

"Did you think it was Angelina Jolie?" Pavel asked, but Rodionov remained silent.

The second safe opened almost immediately. And its contents delighted Max even more. They contained grenade launchers, ammunition, and grenades.

"Oh! And here comes the artillery," he noted with satisfaction.

2

While Pavel and his company walked to the airfield and hauled weapons to the "Shelter," Dyakov formed several small three-man squads from the locals and headed out with them to search for villages the bandits hadn't yet visited. There was no news from the scouts for two days, but on the third morning they finally returned.

For the second day, Andrei had been anticipating a new expedition. He couldn't wait to leave the base and get back to work. Vorobyov's briefings on weapons handling and teamwork made the wait much easier. Shooting, however, was forbidden – they were afraid it might attract strangers. The fact that they'd been shooting game in the valley for eight years without anyone noticing didn't dissuade Max. The fact that they'd blown up the tunnel without anyone noticing either didn't convince him. He believed the "Wolves" could be searching for the missing vehicle and the people who had vanished with it, meaning they could be lurking nearby, something they hadn't done before. It was impossible to argue with that argument.

Besides training and education, there was plenty of other work at the "Vault." People repaired structures, converted some into barns and sheds, and cleared previously unused land that had never been touched by the original inhabitants of the Vault. Many preferred hammers and shovels to weapons. Many were unwilling to go into battle, and no amount of persuasion had any effect. Over the years, the "wolves" had instilled such fear in the people that the mere mention of them made the unfortunates tremble. Overcoming this fear required serious, even titanic, work.

Andrei was certain he had overcome his own fear. Everything Gronin and Rodionov did exuded confidence, and it was contagious. He felt protected around them, confident in his own safety. The "wolves" no longer frightened him, and the prospect of using his new skills against them heated his blood. Murder, of course, had always been repugnant to him, unnatural to his nature, but he justified it if he believed the person deserved to die. So now he often imagined killing the "wolves," avenging all the wrongs and humiliations they had caused him, and restoring justice. A naive child.

Andrei and a few other soldiers were training on the parade ground when the first scouts appeared. The men immediately perked up, and several of them hurried to greet their returning friends. Andrei followed suit.