КНИГИ КИРИЛЛА ПОТЁМКИНА

18. THE NIGHT OF LONG KNIVES

(Location: Special Facility «Zarya». Excavation Pit. Night)

A heavy 12.7 mm bullet turned a steel beam into an ugly torn flower just a centimeter from Voronov’s ear. The roar of the shot was still rolling in a delayed echo through the forest when the silence was finally shattered by a barrage of fire. Lead flew from everywhere: from the cordon towers, from the black thicket of the forest, from the roofs of construction trailers.

Bright tracers sliced through the darkness, converging on a single point — the platform where the Defense Minister lay sprawled.

— Crawl! — Katya commanded sharply.

Voronov, wheezing and feeling a sharp pain turning in his joints, rolled behind a massive concrete counterweight block. The concrete immediately began to crumble, spitting stone dust under the numerous bullet strikes. — «They’re killing me…» — he growled, squeezing the issue «Yarygin» in his hand until his fingers went numb. — «Our own guys… Bastards… Aiming for the back…»

— They are not our guys, — his daughter’s voice sounded not from the outside, but right in his cerebellum, vibrating with terrifying pleasure. — Do you feel their fear, Dad? They are trembling. They are afraid of what we are building.

Voronov peeked carefully from behind cover. Below, bathed in an alarming red light, black figures were moving in short dashes along the bottom of the pit. He recognized them. FSB Spetsnaz. «Alpha». Professionals of the highest caliber. They moved perfectly — in «pairs», methodically clearing sector by sector. It became absolutely clear to the general. Their orders excluded ambiguity: this was not an arrest, this was a complete liquidation. His — General Voronov’s.

— «I can’t get away,» — Voronov checked his clip. Seventeen rounds against the country’s best special forces. Suicidal arithmetic.

— You don’t need to run, — Katya said, and her presence washed over him with cold. — You are on your own land. And this… — she swept a ghostly hand over the torn-up pit, — this is your Temple.

— «It’s just a construction site!» — the general exhaled, pressing into the dusty concrete.

— No, Dad. This is an Altar. Activate the defense protocol.

And instantly, a code flared in Voronov’s head. Not dry numbers, but concentrated, primal fury. Katya connected his nervous system directly to the facility’s local network. And… Andrey Voronov sensed… Felt… Felt a bestial, wolfish, unbearable hunger. The huge, unfinished tower of «Aegis» in the center of the pit, which up until this moment had seemed a pile of dead metal, suddenly wanted to live. And it didn’t require electricity. It required human agony.

— «Take them!» — Voronov screamed in a voice that had nothing human left in it.

He squeezed his eyes shut and imagined the multi-ton tower crane overhanging the abyss gaining a will of its own. The grinding of tearing metal drowned out the clatter of assault rifles. The crane, devoid of an operator, jerked with its entire steel body. The jib broke free from its brakes. A heavy concrete block on a steel cable described a short, ruthless arc. The Spetsnaz team running toward the platform didn’t even have time to realize their death.

A giant pendulum swept them away, turning living people into a bloody, shapeless mess. The impact was of such force that the ground shook tangibly. The crunch of bones and screams of terror drowned in the clatter of machinery.

— Ye-es… — Katya rustled. — Do you feel it? Energy. Fear is the best catalyst. It is necta-ar.

Voronov felt an unprecedented surge of strength. The pain in his old wounds evaporated. The anxiety disappeared, giving way to an intoxicating feeling of absolute power. It resembled a perverted, dark orgasmic ecstasy — the deep, internal satisfaction of a carnivorous predator tearing its prey. Every death below gave Andrey Voronov a new exhilarating gulp of white-hot energy.

— «More! Mo-ore!» — he growled, grinning madly.

Excavators roared, waking their engines without ignition keys. Welding machines began to spit arcs of high-voltage plasma, turning into uncontrollable flamethrowers. In a few moments, the construction site turned into a bloody meat grinder, a sacrificial shrine.

The machinery, possessed by the will of the «Sowers» and the fury of its new Priest, methodically, like a giant moloch, like a ruthless meat grinder, ground up the attackers. Chewed their flesh.

General Andrey Voronov stood up to his full height. Bullets whistled millimeters from his face, but he knew — they would do him no harm. «Aegis» tenderly protected its newly minted priest. He saw elite fighters, who had been through the hell of the Caucasus and Syria, retreating in panic before the maddened multi-ton bulldozers.

— «Gromov!» — Voronov yelled into the darkness, tearing his vocal cords. — «Do you see this?! You craved to take my power?! Come and take it! Choke on it!..»

At that moment, a black SUV without license plates flew right up to the base of the platform, brakes squealing. The door swung open. Behind the wheel sat a pale, trembling major from the facility’s security — one of the few whose loyalty proved stronger than their fear of the powerful System.

— «Comrade General of the Army! Get in! Hurry! We are leaving through the northern tunnel!»

— He can be trusted, — Katya whispered. — It is time for us to go, Dad.

Voronov cast a farewell glance at the monstrous slaughter. The earth in the pit was soaked through with blood. And from this sludge, mixed with diesel fuel, a light, whitish steam began to rise. The first sprout, a newborn embryo of the Fog. «Aegis» had briefly sated its eternal, bestial hunger.

— «Drive,» — Voronov shouted, jumping into the car. — «North.»