“He’ll be okay. He’s just a hothead sometimes,” she said.
Jet moved to the phone. “I have to make a call.”
“Who to?”
“To let my people know I’m okay.”
Yulia digested the ambiguous answer and sighed. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m going to stay while you speak to them.”
Jet shrugged. “Do whatever you want.”
“Don’t give them any specifics.”
“Because…why, exactly? After taking on half the Russian police force, I’m somehow going to sell you out? To whom?”
Yulia scowled. “Humor me.”
“Don’t worry. They can’t do any more to reach us than your miracle worker. We’re on our own. I just want to let them know I’m alive.”
Yulia sat on the moldy bed in silence as Jet dialed a number in Romania and waited as the line trilled. After a full minute the innkeeper answered, obviously disgruntled and half asleep.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she snapped.
“Sorry. I need to speak with room four.”
“Everyone’s asleep, and there’s no phone in the room.”
“There was the last time I stayed there.”
“We’re remodeling. Lost the upstairs lines in a storm.”
“Knock on the door,” Jet said.
“I’m not going to wake one of our guests. You can leave a message and I’ll give it to them in the morning.”
Jet debated whether to push it with the grumpy woman and elected to be diplomatic. “Tell them Mama’s fine and will contact them as soon as possible.”
“That’s it?”
No, you stupid crone, I could fill a book with all the things I want to say. But that’s enough for Matt to understand that I’m okay and to stay put.
Jet kept her voice flat. “One more thing. Research Leo Filipov – my attorney’s brother.” Matt was aware of the elder Filipov’s untimely demise and would know why she was mentioning it.
“Spell it.”
Jet did and the woman grumbled the message back to her before hanging up. Jet replaced the handle in the cradle. Yulia looked at her quizzically. “Mama?”
“Code.”
“Ah.” Yulia hesitated. “What do you think we should do now?”
“Worst case, we walk.”
“We’ll be spotted in no time.”
“We’re sitting ducks here once it’s light out.” Jet sat on the bed beside Yulia and exhaled with fatigue. “I don’t have all the answers. But we can’t just give up. Failure isn’t an option.”
They discussed possible tactics, and after a long debate that resolved nothing, Jet checked the time on her filched watch. “We’ve got a couple of hours or so before daybreak.” She rolled her stiff shoulders back a few times and stood. “Let’s see if there’s anything in the barn that can help us. Did you grab the submachine gun? I left it in the living room with the bag from the market and the raincoat.”
“No.”
Jet cocked her head. “Awfully quiet downstairs, isn’t it?”
“They’re probably sleeping. Drunk.”
Jet’s brow furrowed and she nodded. “Let’s go wake them up.”
Chapter 39
Evgeny and Mikhail ran back toward the road, their breath steaming in the cold, the submachine gun slung around Mikhail’s neck.
Evgeny called out to Mikhail, holding the side of his rib cage. “Slow down. I can’t keep up.”
Mikhail glared back at him over his shoulder, disgust curling his lip. “We’re almost there. You can make it.”
“No. Really…”
“I should have just left you back with the women,” Mikhail spat.
Evgeny’s voice softened. “I still don’t like leaving them.”
“They’ll get us killed, idiot. They’re flailing. Better they get caught than all of us. We should have split up back in Moscow.”
They’d discussed sneaking away after they had finished the bottle of cheap vodka, Mikhail’s dislike of being ordered around by Jet coloring his mood as he’d built a case for abandoning Yulia with her. The contact who’d promised them safe passage to the Ukraine had turned out to be all empty promises, leaving them no choice, in Mikhail’s view. Trying to make it on foot was foolishness of the lowest order, and he wanted no part of it.
“You really think this will work?” Evgeny asked, struggling to match Mikhail’s pace.
“It has to.”
The idea was to make it to the road, wait until laborers began their predawn journey to the fields, and carjack a vehicle. It had seemed preferable to waiting in the farmhouse for certain disaster, but now that they were out in the open, Evgeny was having second thoughts – and as his blood alcohol level diminished, Mikhail’s bold plan was beginning to seem like ill-advised impulsiveness that could get them both killed.
Sirens had gone by in the distance twice since they’d been on the dirt track, and Mikhail’s certainty that the road would be full of early-morning farmworkers with serviceable transportation now appeared questionable to Evgeny.