Jet twisted and yelled to the men over the sound of the straining engine. “Get down flat as you can.”
She didn’t have to warn them twice. Both threw themselves against the floor, and then a line of holes appeared in the upper rear quadrant of the van’s cargo area where their heads had been only moments before.
The report of the shots reached them an instant later, and Yulia began weaving back and forth erratically. Jet rolled down the window and called out to Yulia. “Slow down some and hold steady on my count. One…two…three…now!”
Yulia took her foot off the accelerator and gripped the wheel. Jet fired two bursts at the oncoming lights, and one of the headlamps blinked out. “Now speed up. Fast as you can,” Jet cried, and Yulia stomped on the throttle. The van lurched forward like a punchy prizefighter and Jet fired again, emptying the submachine gun at the speeding police car.
A round ricocheted off the asphalt and punctured one of the cruiser’s front tires. The car swerved as the driver fought for control, and then lost it when he hit a loose patch of gravel and tipped sideways in slow motion. Jet watched in relief as the car’s forward momentum carried it through a brutal series of flips. Yulia was slowing as it came to a stop on its crushed roof in the middle of the road.
A flash of orange licked from beneath the squad car’s hood, and then the vehicle exploded in a fireball as its gas tank ignited. Yulia floored the gas and flinched at the sudden blaze behind them. The van’s tired old engine sputtered uncertainly, as though it had exhausted itself in the final surge of speed during the chase.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Jet said, rolling her window up.
“No. It doesn’t,” Yulia agreed as the motor coughed again. “Everyone okay back there?”
“We’re fine,” Mikhail said.
The van settled into a rough drone as they rolled down the road, hesitating occasionally before resuming its labor. After several minutes at decent speed, Yulia tapped the fuel gauge. “We’re losing gas. We had half a tank, and now we’re down to less than a quarter.”
“Damn. They must have hit the fuel line or punctured the tank,” Jet said. “We need to find someplace to pull over well off the road, and either fix it or ditch it. What’s the closest town?”
Yulia frowned in concentration. “Next big one’s Kursk. But that’s too far. We’ll be empty way before we get there.”
“That’s also where the reinforcements will be coming from,” Jet observed. “Next junction, I say we turn off and take our chances.”
“The Russians will mount a full-blown manhunt when they find the police car,” Mikhail warned.
“Nothing we can do about that,” Yulia said. “We’re not that far from the border. Maybe eighty, a hundred kilometers?” She eyed the gauge again and quieted as Jet peered ahead.
A quarter hour later, Jet pointed out a road that disappeared into the night on their left. “We’ve pushed this far enough. Turn off.”
Yulia twisted the wheel and slowed as the marginal highway’s pavement transitioned to a barely passable farm service road. The van rocked along for a kilometer, and then the engine wheezed and died. Yulia turned into the adjacent field and the vehicle plowed to a halt in the soft dirt.
“End of the line,” she said.
They stepped from the van and surveyed their surroundings. To their right, a grove of trees darkened the horizon; beyond that, the outline of a building caught Jet’s eye. “Let’s make for that farm. Maybe there’s a car.”
“What if there isn’t?” Mikhail asked.
“Then we’ll see what is there and improvise accordingly.”
“That’s your plan?” he scoffed.
Jet decided to ignore him. She set off across the field in the direction of the structure and the Ukrainians followed, Yulia behind her and the two men trailing further back. The field was difficult going, the sod recently ploughed, and traversing the quarter kilometer or so took longer than Jet had hoped. Sirens rang from the main road, out of sight but too close for comfort, drawing worried looks from Mikhail and Evgeny. Yulia’s expression was stony, and Jet suspected that she was reliving Taras’s final moments. She didn’t envy the woman, but left her to her thoughts, there being no purpose served by interrupting them until something else happened. Jet marched forward on tired legs, her mind on her beautiful daughter, wondering if she’d seen her for the last time as she soldiered toward the desolate building ahead, a sliver of moon for guidance, their predicament worsening with every passing moment.
Chapter 38
Jet circled the farmhouse, which appeared deserted – the drive was overgrown, the barn missing siding, and the adjacent buildings in obvious disrepair. Yulia shadowed her as the men stood beneath the spread of a tall tree, her expression worried.