She nods, but I can see Viktor wobbled her a bit.
We go over the plan. We’ll slip the knockout gas canister in and bolt the door. Nikki will keep cover behind the line of metal lockers in the hallway and shoot low when she sees shadows underneath.
She nods. She is not relaxed. She needs to be relaxed.
“Your part of this operation will be like a video game. See a shadow and shoot,” I say.
She nods.
“But if they start to escape, if you feel scared, you end it, just like a video game. You run. You’ll help me most by running if things go wrong. Do you understand?”
Again she nods.
“They’ll be slow in their thinking from the knockout gas, and you’ll have the mask. They’re more scared of you than you are of them.”
She smiles uncertainly. “That’s what they say about bears.”
“With that gun you are more dangerous than any bear.” Simple truth.
When the time comes, I take the canister of gas from Tito’s duffel and make her hold it for me. The writing on it is Hungarian, but the ingredients I recognized when I saw it in Tito’s basement.
We hide the duffel in some bushes with some extra weapons, just in case. I steal up and pick the front door lock, and we slip in.
The hallway is dark, hushed. Voices inside the room. The smell of something spicy—Albanian food. Quiet as a mouse, I pull the tape from the bolt and make sure it slides. I ease the door open. I gesture to Nikki to put the mask over her nose and mouth.
I pull my scarf over my mouth and nose, snap the canister open, and roll it in.
I slam the door and bolt it.
There’s no time to wait to see what happens. I start down the hall.
I unbolt the door of Natasha’s room just as the shots start. Natasha is one of the most capable of the women here. “There’s a black SUV and an idling van outside,” I tell her in Russian. “We free them and send them out. Don’t wait for me if there’s trouble.”
“What’s the shooting?”
“The shooter’s with me. We locked the guards in the break room.”
She gets going. Next I free Mavis, the most bossy of the women. I give her the same speech and lead her to the back, propping the door open. “Two vehicles. Fifteen in each. You figure it out with Natasha.”
She nods.
I go back in. There’s a faint smell from the gas, but not so bad with the front and back doors open. My old brothel mates are surprised to see me, frightened of the shooting, but everybody’s orderly. Ten minutes it takes. A quick operation.
The first van rolls off, then the second. The women are out just like that. Easy.
Or so I think.
Not all of the guards were in the staff room, as it turns out.
I didn’t know that.
I go back in and hear something in the TV room. I think maybe a woman is hiding there, and I go in.
That’s when they ambush me.
I take two without killing—both knocked out against the refrigerator. This is the beauty of the nun’s outfit—the element of surprise.
When they stop treating me as a nun, I pull out my weapons, one in each hand.
By the end, I hold two men at gunpoint. And they hold me.
A double Mexican standoff. One of Viktor’s and my worst nightmares. There was no good solution for such a situation. No Rubik’s Cube way out.
Only crazy ideas.
And I haven’t yet called the police, told them all these culprits are locked in a room. I should’ve done it.
Shots from the front of the building. Nikki. How are the guards in there still awake? But I have worse problems here in the TV room.
The rules of a double Mexican standoff are obvious, but it never hurts to state them. I want the guards to understand this situation as I do. “If you so much as move, I pull both triggers,” I say. “If you shoot, I pull both triggers. If one of you drops, I pull both triggers.”
All bluffs, of course.
“Open your hands and we won’t hurt you,” the guard with freckles says. He’s on my left.
“If I open my hands, I’m dead,” I say. “So then, why not take both of you with me?”
No good solution. We all know this.
I take a deep breath.
I’m shaking deep inside, but I know how to conceal it. So much information pouring back into my head. Banishing the peace I once felt.
“If you open your hands and drop your guns, I’ll let you live,” I say.
“Fuck that,” the other one says.
They don’t believe me. They look at me, and they see a killer. They would’ve been right once. Did they not see my refusal to kill? I hurt a few men. I did not kill.
Viktor is wrong about many things. But he’s right about one thing: This takeover couldn’t be accomplished without bloodshed. I wouldn’t be in this standoff if I’d killed carelessly and easily, as the old Tanechka would have.
All of the possible moves and outcomes run through my mind. Most end with Nikki and me dying. A few end with just me dying.
That’s the option I choose. I call out to Nikki. “Get out, Nikki!”
The two men watch me warily.
Nikki’s voice: “I’m good where I am.”