When they exited the market, Taras whistled loudly. Evgeny, Vlad, and Mikhail came at a run from the darkness, the rain concealing the sound of their footfalls, and they moved as a group to where the car sat in the gloom.
The vehicle was a geriatric black Volga GAZ-24 sedan that barely accommodated them all, and the engine wheezed like an asthmatic before finally starting. It settled into a stuttering idle and Jet looked to Yulia behind the wheel. “They said it was a repair.”
“Sounds like they never got around to it,” Evgeny said from where the four men were stuffed in the backseat. Yulia had suggested one of the men sitting in the front with them, but Jet had nixed it – two women passing an oncoming police car wouldn’t set off alarms.
Yulia shifted into gear and flipped the headlights on. The engine almost died, but she toed the accelerator and steered for the road, the wipers barely clearing the windshield enough to see.
Once on the road, Yulia pulled the cell from her pocket and eyed the screen. Jet shook her head. “Don’t use it to call your contact unless you want to lead the cops straight to him. The minute those two are found, they’ll trace their calls, and then he’ll have a problem.”
“He’s probably using a disposable,” Yulia countered.
“Probably isn’t the same as definitely. Let’s wait until we can find a pay phone. That’s anonymous.”
“You seem to know an awful lot about this kind of thing,” Taras observed. Jet ignored him.
Yulia considered Jet’s advice and put the phone down. “Then we need to get rid of it, right?”
“Correct. It can be traced.”
“Damn. I thought we’d caught a break.”
Jet took the phone and rolled down the window. “Better safe than sorry,” she said, and tossed it into the night. “What do you think happened to your contact?”
“I don’t know. But I plan to find out.”
“You think there will be roadblocks?” Mikhail asked from behind them.
Yulia shook her head. “Not yet. It will take a while before they realize we’ve escaped. Probably not till morning, if we’re lucky. By then we could be anywhere.” Yulia frowned as they passed a darkened factory. “The jail’s on the southern outskirts of Moscow. We should be clear of the city limits within a few kilometers, and then there are plenty of roads south.”
“You don’t think they’ll be expecting you to try to make it back to the Ukraine?” Jet asked. “The Smolensk ruse will only play out so long.”
“Possibly, but remember that they’re going to be pretty disorganized, at least at first. Everyone involved will be trying to cover their ass so they don’t get blamed. And from what we saw, there are going to be plenty of injured or dead. I doubt a manhunt for a few escapees is going to be a top priority, at least not in the first twenty-four hours. My contact said the same thing.”
“The contact who didn’t show up,” Jet reminded her softly.
“Which I’m not happy about,” Yulia snapped.
A warning light blinked on the dashboard. Yulia eyed it and when she looked to Jet, her lips were a thin line. “Temperature’s in the red.”
“Figures. Turn off as soon as you can and let’s find something else.”
Yulia nodded. “That occurred to me. I don’t suppose you know how to hot-wire a car?”
Jet managed a small smile. “I might.” She pointed to an approaching sign for an industrial supply warehouse. “That place might have a van. We can drive it until morning and then steal something else.”
“They’ll notice if one is missing. And this piece of junk will establish a link between us and the theft,” Evgeny warned.
“Which is why we won’t leave it there. We’ll follow whatever we steal until this thing dies.”
Yulia pulled off the road just as a second warning light illuminated. “Which won’t be long now. The lights are about the only thing working.”
Jet looked into the night at the outline of a large warehouse and spotted a collection of trucks parked near the loading dock.
“Then we better make this quick.”
Chapter 32
Manbij, Syria
Simon shifted in the backseat of the car when, after hours of driving, it rolled to a stop and the engine shut off. The gunman on his right slid out of the vehicle and barked an order at him. Simon tried to oblige, though the sweat-drenched sack over his head made it difficult, and his captors eventually figured out the problem and helped him from the car.
The man behind him pulled the sack off unceremoniously and Simon blinked at the sudden near-blinding light from an array of overhead fluorescent lamps. As his eyes adjusted, he could make out that he was inside an industrial building, a warehouse of some sort, and he took note of the numerous ISIS gunmen lounging around with AK-47s, some sitting on wooden crates, others leaning against larger objects hidden by tarps.