I pace around the second floor, going from room to room as I battle my anxiety. The moment the team landed, Yan told me to leave him alone so he could focus on doing his part: monitoring the banker’s compound remotely in case of unexpected problems. And he wasn’t just trying to get rid of me. As I left the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of several security camera feeds on his computer screen, and what appeared to be a view from an aerial drone.
To distract myself, I tried to read again, then watched some music videos, singing along with some of my favorite artists. I even went to the unfinished dance studio and attempted a couple of ballet routines I learned as a child, along with some stretching at the barre to ease the period-induced tightness in my lower back. None of it held my attention for longer than fifteen minutes, so now I’m mindlessly going from window to window, as if by staring at the darkness outside, I can make the helicopter appear.
After about two hours, my cramps worsen and I’m a raw mess of nerves, so I go down to the kitchen to take more Advil. Yan is still sitting behind the counter with his computer, the headphones covering his ears, but there’s nothing cool about his expression now. He’s starkly pale, and lines of tension bracket his tight-lipped mouth as he speaks urgently into the microphone in Russian.
My heart stops, then launches into a panicked gallop.
Something went wrong.
Icy fear prickles through my body, my stomach twisting with an awful premonition, and I barely manage to stop myself from demanding to know what happened. That wouldn’t help, and I don’t want to distract Yan from what he’s doing. Instead, I rush across the kitchen and stop behind him, frantically peering at the screen over his shoulder.
He pays me no attention, all his focus on the computer as he barks out what sounds like instructions. At first, I can’t tell what’s going on, but then, on one of the camera feeds, I see it.
Two bodies sprawled next to a bed.
One is an obese dark-skinned man, his naked bulk swimming in a pool of red, and on the other side of the bed is a naked woman. Looking closer, I notice blood splattered around her as well.
They’re both dead.
Nausea rises in my throat, and I clap my hand over my mouth, trying to remain silent. Yan is still speaking in that urgent tone, and on another camera feed, two men in SWAT-like gear appear in a hallway. They’re walking fast and carrying a large man by his arms and legs.
It’s Peter and Anton carrying Ilya, I recognize with a mixture of horror and relief. Ilya’s head is bandaged with what appears to be a pillowcase, but I can see the blood seeping through.
Yan’s twin is severely injured, maybe even dead.
Scarcely daring to breathe, I bite my palm as I watch them round a corner. On yet another camera feed, a dozen armed men are rushing down another hallway, and I see the furious alarm on their faces as they stumble across more bodies. The other guards, perhaps? Either way, they regroup quickly, continuing down the hallway as Yan speaks even more urgently into the microphone.
Peter and Anton disappear from the camera view, then appear a moment later on another feed, and I see that they’re approaching a parlor with a door leading to a large garage. They’re all but running at this point, Ilya’s body swinging hammock-like between them, and with a sinking feeling, I realize the reason for their urgency.
The hallway with the armed guards leads to the same parlor.
It’s a race with the deadliest of stakes—and the guards appear to be winning.
I must’ve made a sound, because Yan glances over his shoulder, his jaw tightly clenched as his eyes lock with mine. He doesn’t say anything, though, just turns back to the computer, and I continue watching, unable to take my eyes off the horror unfolding half a world away.
On the drone feed, two explosions tear through a small structure next to the main house, and the guards halt before separating into two groups. One group continues toward the parlor while a few guards rush back—toward the bombs the team must’ve set as a distraction.
Still, the delay is not enough. The guards get to the parlor a couple of seconds before Peter and his team.
The Russians appear to be ready. Still running, they swing Ilya higher, and Peter crouches mid-stride, letting Ilya’s stomach land on his shoulder as Anton lets go of the unconscious man and grips his assault rifle. Grimacing with effort, Peter straightens, holding Ilya’s massive bulk draped over his shoulder, and I watch, stunned, as he resumes running, steadying Ilya’s body with one hand as he pulls a grenade out of his pocket with another.
With all the sound going through Yan’s headphones, I can’t hear the blast of automatic gunfire, but I see the bullets tearing through the walls as the Russians burst into the parlor with the guards. Two guards are mowed down by Anton’s fire, but the rest take shelter behind a column, and I bite back a scream as Peter stumbles, Ilya nearly flying off his shoulder. In the next instant, however, he recovers, hanging on to his human burden, and I see the savage resolve on his face as he brings the grenade up and tears the pin off with his teeth.
Boom! A bright flash, and two camera feeds go dark. I’m not touching Yan, but I feel him jerk, as though he got shot. A stream of frantic Russian pours from his mouth as he pounds at the keyboard, bringing up more camera feeds, and it’s not until I spot movement on the bird’s-eye drone view that I take a breath and realize I’m crying, the tears leaving a burning trail on my ice-cold skin.
Yan must’ve spotted the same hint of movement, because he zooms in on the drone feed just as a huge SUV bursts through a slowly opening garage door, taking out a chunk of the door panel as it barrels toward the compound gate.
A sobbing breath hisses through my teeth, and I bite my palm again.
At least one of them is alive, and well enough to drive.
Shaking, I watch the SUV tear through the iron gate amidst a hail of bullets, then rocket down a narrow road with two guard SUVs in hot pursuit. The drone follows long enough to show one pursuing SUV careening off the road, as though they shot its tires, but after a few more seconds, the cars disappear in the distance, leaving the drone behind.
Yan mutters what sounds like a Russian curse and again pounds furiously at the keyboard. A new window pops up, this one with an audio feed graph, and I realize he must be tuning in to some radio signal. Sure enough, a minute later, he resumes speaking in frantic Russian, and I exhale a shaking breath.
Someone in that SUV must be alive.
Is it Peter? Are they hurt? How far to the plane? Is Ilya still alive? Is Peter hurt?