An orange moon glowed low in the sky as the door to the sleeping quarters inched open. Jet had been pretending to sleep for five hours, and now, at two in the morning, was ready to make her move. Yulia was sleeping only a few feet from the door in another of the small bedroom units, and Jet had taken care to creep on stockinged feet to avoid making any noise, her running shoes in her hand. She looked through the opening and watched for anyone moving, but after two long minutes, didn’t see anyone. She knew the guard was on duty at the drive, but she wasn’t planning on leaving that way, so his presence didn’t give her pause.
With a final look over her shoulder, she stepped outside and pulled the door closed behind her. In the shadows, she slipped on her shoes while she checked warily around the compound, and then moved off the porch area and onto the path leading to the other buildings. She darted from shadow to shadow, the new clothes Yulia had given her dark enough for her to blend with the gloom, and stopped at the doorway of Anton’s work area to try the knob.
It was locked, but she’d come prepared with two hairpins she’d carefully bent to create a pick and a shaft with which to turn the lock, and she went to work, brushing with one while exerting steady pressure with the other. The lock gave in no time, and she took a final look around the empty ground and then edged into the dark room.
Jet stood motionless and waited for her eyes to adjust, the only illumination that from the moon’s glow through the window, and then crossed the floor to the workbench. She had no problem locating the Bulgarian passport, even in the faint light, and slipped it together with five others into her back pocket, and then did a thorough search of the work area for anything else that might be of value to her. She moved quickly but methodically and, when she arrived at a locked bottom drawer, nodded to herself.
The latch yielded to her picks, and she slid the drawer open to find several neat bundles of currency and an array of specialized weapons – switchblades and stilettos, brass knuckles, and a host of other items that would have appeared innocent to a civilian. She selected several and they joined her new passport, and after counting off two small wads of rubles and euros, she closed the drawer and straightened. She’d jettison the other passports once on the road, but she didn’t want to make it easy for Yulia to sound the alarm, and if she’d left them, Anton would have been able to easily identify which document she was using. This way it could have been any of them with some modification, and neither Anton nor Yulia could be certain of her capabilities. A trained operative could alter any one of them given a day and the proper materials, and Yulia had recognized Jet’s skills sufficiently to raise doubts in their minds.
Back at the door she eyed the grounds, listening intently. A distant engine backfired and roared away on one of the far roads, and she waited until it had faded before moving to the weapons room and repeating her lock picking.
Three minutes later she emerged with a Fort-17 pistol of Ukrainian manufacture, a hand grenade, and two spare magazines loaded with military-issue cartridges. She slid the pistol into her waistband at her back and pocketed the magazines and the grenade. She’d been sorely tempted to take one of the submachine guns hanging on the wall but had resisted the impulse in favor of remaining unremarkable – a young woman walking around with a submachine gun would raise eyebrows.
Jet crossed the open ground in a running crouch and was at the perimeter wall in a blink. She didn’t slow as she neared it, instead running harder and propelling herself up the wall two meters. Her fingers locked onto the top and she pulled her body up and over and was on the street beyond, sprinting at top speed, seconds later.
She couldn’t be sure how long it would take for her escape to be noted, but had to assume the worst. If Yulia awoke for any reason before morning and decided to check on Jet, she’d sound the alarm, and Jet had no doubt that she would bring the full weight of the Ukrainian government to bear on capturing her. Best case, Jet had four or five hours. Worst, Yulia was already up and making the calls.