“I got it!” she says again, impatient this time.
I text Aleksio with instructions. He knows not to argue in the middle of the mission. I adjust my fat suit and put it right. I listen at the door for footsteps. Eventually the Santa-bearded guard comes. He knocks. “Ten minutes.”
“I’m ready now.” I jiggle the doorknob as though I can’t get it open. I flatten to the wall, and when he opens it I yank him in and disarm him easily. I hold his piece to his temple while Nikki searches him. She pulls out car keys. “Score,” she whispers.
“You want to live? You cooperate,” I growl.
The guard gives up the location, make, and model of his car. I tie his hands; Nikki stuffs part of the pillowcase in his mouth and gags him in a dead fucking serious way. I let her keep his revolver.
I take the guard’s cap and shirt and another ring of keys. These would be the keys to the women’s rooms. I close the door behind me. I don’t have his beard, but this will be enough. I know how to move in front of the cameras.
I beeline down the hall to the boiler room. Every feeling in the world swirls inside of me as I near Tanechka. I unscrew a vent in the ceiling duct, hands trembling. This is the duct Nikki told me about. She’d been saving it for herself, thinking to hide in it if she ever got free. I pull up to the upper floor, just under the hall. I wait out the footsteps, aware that my ten-minute window has gone to five.
When the hall is vacant I push up. I go to Tanechka’s room, hesitating at her door, frightened it might be her. Frightened it might not.
I unlock it and pull it open.
There she is, kneeling, just as she does on the camera.
Tanechka.
She doesn’t look at me, but I know it’s her as sure as I know the sun in the sky. Tears come so hard, they blind me.
“Tanechka,” I whisper, pressed back against the door. If she recognizes my voice, she doesn’t show it. I’m shaking, resisting the impulse to fall to her, cover her body with mine.
I want to rip out my bloody heart and lay it at her feet, destroy it in front of her as she watches.
She focuses on the small icon, a replica of the many you find in Orthodox churches back home. I address her in Russian. “Eto ya,” I say. “It’s me.”
She remains mesmerized by the small portrait. She hears all. She waits. She assesses. So Tanechka.
But Tanechka wouldn’t want me to be stupid, sloppy. I slide behind her, allowing the camera to catch just my cap before I press a piece of tape over it. Framing this bearded guard.
Still she prays. I would expect nothing less. I kneel beside her and gaze upon the side of her face, trembling with joy and grief. It’s her.
“Moya Tanechka.”
She turns to me finally. I was prepared for rage, fear, hatred. But the feeling of her regarding me as a stranger, this is a kind of hell I could never prepare for.
Like being shut out from the sun.
“You’re alive.”
She makes no expression.
I stare, falling into her pale freckles, the royal blue of her eyes. Just the line of her lashes makes me feel indescribable joy—korotkiye resnitzy—“stubby lashes” she used to call them. She would coat her stubby lashes in black makeup. I study the way her smooth, creamy skin sweeps boldly out to her broad cheekbones.
She turns away. My heart pounds as she moves her slim fingers across the knots of the prayer rope, lips moving, whispering the prayer. The blunt white scar on her jaw, like an old friend. I remember the fight. One inch lower and it would have been her jugular.
I lay a hand on her arm, address her in Russian. “I’m here to get you out.”
“You know me?”
“Yes. I’m getting you out. We’ll talk later.”
“Are you getting the others out?”
“Soon.”
“Not now?”
“Later.”
“No thank you, then. I’ll stay until they’re all safe. I’ll be last.” She jerks out of my grip and resumes praying.
My heart pounds. We’re running out of time. “We’ll rescue the others—soon.”
“I’ll go with you after that.”
Tanechka. So stubborn.
I stand over her. “Forgive me.” I kneel and take her neck, choking her out. She doesn’t fight me—instead she reaches up to the icon on the small stand; she slumps before she can grab it. I hoist her over my shoulder and then pause. I sweep up the little icon along with her rope and get out. I don’t prefer to take these stupid things, but it’s what the Santa beard guard would do.
She truly doesn’t have her memory—the old Tanechka would’ve had me flat on my back if I’d tried something like that. I hold her tightly, the weight of her in my arms like coming home. I rush her down the hall and toward the exit. It’s not too easy with the fat suit on, but my Tanechka will never be heavy to me. Never too much to carry.
Nikki is already there with her guard. The girl is good. She holds up a finger when she sees me—one minute until we get company.
The Santa guard’s eyes widen when he sees that I have his nun.