The Russian

by Saul Herzog

  The floor was raw concrete, and it sloped slightly to one corner where a drain had been installed to gather excess water.

  One of the water pipes came down the far wall, turned at the corner, and was attached to a water faucet.

  It was easier to move in the light, and even with her ankles still tied, she was able to cross the room to the faucet and turn it. The stifling heat of the room had left her parched, and she could already taste the water, but the tap didn’t work.

  She tried to follow the pipe to its shutoff, but there was none.

  Where it rounded the corner, a brass fixture held it to the wall. The bracket’s edge was a straight, sharp cut of brass, and she began rubbing the ties at her wrists against the corner vigorously.

  It was difficult, and several times her hand slipped. The sharp edge of the brass cut into her skin. By the time she’d cut the ties, her wrists looked like she’d been trying to kill herself.

  She then got down on the ground and began the same process with the ties around her ankles.

  When she was finally free, there was so much blood on the ground beneath the bracket it looked like someone had been bleeding chickens.

  She looked around the room for anything that might help her escape. It was not promising. Apart from the water pipe, the only other thing in the room was a small metal bed frame in one corner.

  Above the lights, the largest air duct came in through one wall, made its way to the center of the room, then turned ninety degrees. In the duct were two air vents, one near each wall. Laurel thought she might be able to pry one of them loose. The problem was that even if she did, she could see already that the duct was too small for her to fit in it.

  She looked at the two walls the duct went through. They were each made of the same gray concrete and offered no clues as to whether they led outside.

  Unless she was ready to claw through concrete, the duct was the only way through them.

  She pulled the bed frame to one of the air vents and tried to reach it. It was too high.

  She had to angle the frame between the wall and floor, wedging it in place before she could reach the ceiling.

  Using nothing but her fingernails, she began prying at the vents. They were fastened tightly, and it didn’t look like the tiny screws were going to budge. She kept clawing at them until her fingers bled, and just when she was about to give up, heard tapping from the duct.

  She stopped and held her breath.

  She heard it again.

  A light tap, tap, tap.

  “Hello?” she said very quietly, speaking into the vent.

  She waited, then repeated it louder. “Hello?”

  There was a brief pause, then a faint, timid response. It was so weak she wasn’t sure at first if she’d heard it at all. Then it came again.

  “Hello,” she heard in the unmistakable voice of a little girl.

  “Hello,” Laurel said again.

  “Please help me,” the girl said.

  “Where are you?”

  “Locked in a room,” the girl said.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m frightened,” the girl said.

  She began to cry.

  “What’s your name?” Laurel said.

  “Lizzie.”

  “What age are you, Lizzie?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “All right,” Laurel said. “My name is Laurel. Together, we’re going to get out of here, all right?”

  “All right.”

  Laurel looked at the duct again and wondered if it might be large enough to fit a fourteen-year-old girl.

  “Lizzie,” Laurel said. “How long have you been down here?”

  “I don’t know,” Lizzie said.

  “Days?” Laurel said.

  “I think so.”

  “Everything’s going to be all right,” Laurel said.

  The girl was still crying.

  “Lizzie,” Laurel said, “we’re going to escape together, okay?”

  “How can we?” Lizzie said.

  “I have a plan. All you need to do is follow my directions exactly.”

  “If the man catches us, he’ll beat us,” Lizzie said.

  “We won’t let him catch us.”

  “I can hear screaming,” Lizzie said.

  Laurel gritted her teeth. She could hear it too. She’d witnessed enhanced interrogations in the past. She knew what could happen in underground, concrete rooms when a man was left alone with complete control over another person. Whatever the man was doing to Tatyana now, it didn’t sound to Laurel like she’d be able to survive it for very long.

  “All right, Lizzie,” she said. “Tell me what you see in your room?”

  “A bed,” Lizzie said.

  “Do you see a duct on the ceiling?” Laurel said. “A thick one, with vents?”

  “Yes,” Lizzie said.

  “Do you think you could get up to it?”

  “It’s too high.”

  “What if you moved the bed under it.”

  “I don’t know,” Lizzie said.

  Laurel knew the only way she was getting out of that room, the only way Tatyana had any chance, was if that child somehow got herself into a tiny air duct over ten feet from the ground.

  She had to think. She had to put herself in the kid’s position. She had to get that child to achieve the seemingly impossible.

  “I’ll tell you a secret, Lizzie,” Laurel said. “I’m a CIA agent. I can kill the man who locked us in here. All I need you to do is move your bed beneath the air vent and see if you can reach it. Can you do that for me, Lizzie?”

  61

  By the time Lizzie was in Laurel’s room, her hands were bleeding, she’d cut a deep gash in her thigh, and she was sobbing uncontrollably. Laurel coaxed her through the duct and told her how to kick open the vent from inside.

  “Well done,” Laurel said as she pulled her out of the duct.

  She wrapped her arms around the child and held her for as long as she dared. She knew they didn’t have much time. Eventually, the man would tire of torturing Tatyana and would return. When he did, all chance of escape would be gone.

  “We have to keep working to get out of this place,” she said to Lizzie.

  She felt the child’s body stiffen.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she said, but she knew there was little use in saying it.

  Lizzie wiped her eyes and forced herself to stop crying.

  “All right,” she said.

  Laurel smiled. The kid had guts.

  “I’m going to put you back into the duct,” Laurel said. You have to crawl to the end, to where the light is coming from. Did you see any light when you were in there?”

  Lizzie nodded.

  “The light leads to the outside. When you get to the end of the duct, you’ll have to kick open the vent and get outside.”

  “What about you?”

  “I don’t think I can fit,” Laurel said.

  Lizzie looked at the duct again and nodded.

  “When you get outside,” Laurel said, “you have to be careful, okay? You have to be quiet. You have to creep away and escape without anyone spotting you. Then you can bring back help.”

  “What if the man sees me?”

  “He won’t be looking out there.”

  “What if he is?”

  Laurel held Lizzie and looked into her eyes. “I’m not going to lie to you, Lizzie. If he catches you, he’ll do something bad. That’s why I need you to be brave right now. I need you to do this even though it’s dangerous. Can you do that?”

  Lizzie nodded.

  “Good girl,” Laurel said.

  “How will I know where to get help?” Lizzie said.

  Laurel shook her head. “I don’t know, Lizzie. I don’t know where we are. Hopefully, there are people around, or a gas station, or a store. You need to find someone who’ll help us, and you need to call the police and tell them exactly where we are.”

  “All right,” Lizzie said. />
  “Can you do that for me, Lizzie?”

  “I think so,” Lizzie said.

  Laurel looked at her again and nodded. She hoisted Lizzie back into the duct and told her to go toward the light. The child crawled forward, disappearing into the vent. Laurel waited until she heard Lizzie banging at the end of the duct. Then she heard Lizzie’s voice.

  “It’s stuck,” she said.

  “Keep trying, Lizzie. You have to get through it.”

  “I can’t open it,” Lizzie said, and she started to cry again.

  Laurel coaxed her, soothed her, tried to get her to calm down. She talked Lizzie through it for about fifteen minutes, but it seemed that no matter how hard she tried, the vent at the end of the duct was too securely fastened to be kicked off.

  With Lizzie getting increasingly distressed, Laurel had no choice but to accept the facts for what they were.

  “It’s all right, Lizzie,” she said. “Come back to me. We’ll find another way out.”

  Lizzie immediately began coming back.

  Laurel watched her slowly back down the narrow vent when the door of the room swung open.

  The man burst in, a wild frenzy in his eyes, and when he saw Laurel on the bed, her hands reaching into the duct, he lunged forward at her.

  Laurel dropped from the bed at the same moment the man leaped onto it. His weight dislodged it, and it fell to the ground.

  Laurel ran around him toward the door, and he swung an arm wildly at her. She dodged it and made it through the doorway as he got back to his feet.

  She ran blindly down a narrow corridor, the giant man stampeding after her. When she got to the end, she realized it was a dead end. She stopped and turned.

  There was a metal chair against the wall, and she grabbed it. The man bore down on her and, at the last moment, stumbled and lost his balance. He fell forward. She raised the chair, shielding herself from his massive bulk.

  With the legs pointed forward, the man fell onto them. Laurel ducked, and the chair jammed against the wall.

  The chair buckled and broke but not before the man let out a sudden, jarring wheeze, like the sound of a tire being punctured.

  One of the legs of the chair had pierced right through his chest.

  Laurel was below him, and the warm blood poured down on her like the flow from a faucet.

  The man gasped, then began to slump downward. He fell onto Laurel slowly, his enormous weight threatening to crush her, and when he stopped, his face was just an inch in front of hers.

  Laurel looked at him, his cold, gray eyes, the horrible final contortions of his face as he gasped for air. She only had seconds.

  “Who do you work for?” she said. “Tell me who you work for.”

  She grabbed his face and squeezed.

  “Who sent you? Tell me.”

  Nothing. The life left his eyes.

  Laurel pushed herself out from under his massive bulk and got to her feet.

  She had to find Tatyana.

  62

  Tatyana regained consciousness with a gasp. She was in the passenger seat of a beat-up old Nissan, and there were bullet holes in the windshield and windows.

  Cold air came in through the holes.

  “You’re awake,” Laurel said from the driver’s seat.

  “How long was I…” she said, but it hurt to talk.

  “Shh. You have a broken rib. I’ve given you something for the pain.”

  “How did we get away.”

  A voice came from the backseat, startling her.

  “She killed him.”

  Tatyana turned before remembering the pain in her chest.

  “Who is this?” she said flatly.

  “This is Lizzie,” Laurel said.

  “Lizzie?” Tatyana said.

  “Lizzie was in the cellar too,” Laurel said.

  Tatyana turned slowly to get a look at her. The girl was bruised, there was blood on her clothes, and she hadn’t washed in days.

  “I see,” she said.

  They were on a highway, stuck behind snowplows that raised a spray of slush on both shoulders of the road.

  “Is there any heat in this thing?”

  “It’s broken,” Lizzie said.

  “This is the car the Russian took us in,” Tatyana said.

  Laurel nodded.

  Tatyana’s head was spinning. Between the torture and whatever meds Laurel had given her, she was finding it difficult to concentrate.

  “How long was I out?” she said.

  “Not long.”

  “How did you kill the Russian?”

  Laurel looked at Lizzie in the rearview. “He had an accident,” she said.

  “He was impaled,” Lizzie said, and she ran a finger across her neck for emphasis.

  “He won’t be coming after any of us ever again,” Laurel said.

  “Did he happen to tell you who he was working for before he … impaled himself?” Tatyana said.

  “You sound annoyed,” Laurel said. “Maybe I should have left the questioning to you.”

  “Sorry,” Tatyana said. “I’m just…” and without warning, she started to cry.

  “What’s the matter?” Lizzie said.

  Laurel put her hand on Tatyana’s shoulder and said, “He did bad things to her, Lizzie. She needs some time to process them.”

  Lizzie nodded. Tatyana got herself under control and wiped her face with her sleeve.

  “I thought he was going to kill me,” she said quietly.

  “So did I,” Lizzie said.

  Tatyana leaned back and let out a long sigh.

  “Where are we going?” she said.

  “Fort Meade,” Laurel said.

  Tatyana nodded. She assumed it had something to do with Roth, but the way Laurel was looking at her said there was more to it.

  “Are you going to make me ask why?” she said.

  “Lizzie,” Laurel said, “tell Tatyana who your mother is.”

  “Sandra Shrader,” Lizzie said.

  It took a moment for the name to register with Tatyana, then it clicked.

  “NSA Director Sandra Shrader?” she said.

  “The one and only,” Laurel said.

  They didn’t have far to go, and fifteen minutes later, they were exiting the highway and approaching the main security plaza of the NSA headquarters.

  “You let me do the talking, okay?” Laurel said.

  Tatyana put her hand on Laurel’s leg. “Wait,” she said.

  “What?” Laurel said.

  “Stop the car. Turn around.”

  “What?” Lizzie cried. “Take me to my mother. You promised.”

  “We will,” Tatyana said, then to Laurel, “I know how the GRU operates. As long as they think they have Lizzie, we have an opportunity.”

  Laurel stopped the car. They’d just passed a gas station, and she did a U-turn and drove back to it. It had a small convenience store with a payphone outside.

  Laurel pulled into the lot and parked as far from the building as possible. She didn’t want to draw attention to the car.

  Tatyana winced as she tried to get out of her seat.

  “Tatyana,” Laurel said. “I can make the call.”

  “I’ll make it,” Tatyana said.

  “No you won’t,” Laurel said, searching the dashboard for coins.

  Tatyana sighed. “I’m fine.”

  “You need to get to a hospital.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Your rib is broken. There could be internal injuries.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Tatyana said again, more forcefully than the first time.

  Laurel shook her head.

  There was a filthy cup holder in the door next to Tatyana, and at the bottom, mixed in a sticky mess of spilled drinks and used ketchup packets were some coins.

  She handed them to Laurel and said, “Just make sure she understands how sensitive this is. She can’t let anyone know Lizzie’s back. She has to stay cool.”

/>   “I’ll make sure,” Laurel said.

  Tatyana reached out for Laurel’s hand and grasped it. “This might be our only chance,” she said. “If we play this right, we can lure whoever’s behind this out into the open.”

  “I get it,” Laurel said, and left, slamming the car slightly harder than was necessary.

  When she was gone, Lizzie said, “You two sure don’t get along, do you.”

  “We get along,” Tatyana said.

  “You hate her.”

  “She hates me,” Tatyana said.

  “No she doesn’t. You should have seen how she carried you out of that house.”

  Tatyana looked out at Laurel. She looked like she’d just stepped out of the costume department of a disaster movie. There was blood and dirt all over her expensive clothes and her hair blew in the wind like a streamer.

  “How about we play the silence game, okay?” Tatyana said.

  Lizzie sighed but kept her thoughts to herself until Laurel returned. Laurel got back into her seat and turned on the engine.

  Tatyana looked at her.

  “Well?”

  “She’s coming.”

  “She’s coming here?” Lizzie cried.

  “You stay in the car when she gets here,” Tatyana said. “No one can see you, do you understand?”

  “No,” Lizzie said.

  Tatyana shook her head.

  She leaned back and shut her eyes. This was good. This was a chance. A real chance.

  She looked at Laurel next to her and noticed that her hands were shaking.

  “You’re cold,” she said.

  Laurel nodded.

  “I wanted to say,” Tatyana said, then paused while she mustered the will to say the words, “thank you.”

  Laurel looked at her.

  “I didn’t know they knew that word in Russia,” she said.

  “You saved my life,” Tatyana said.

  “You would have done the same,” Laurel said.

  Tatyana nodded. “I’ve had my guard up around you,” she said.

  “We’re more similar than we care to admit,” Laurel said.

  Tatyana chewed her lip. There was something that had been niggling away at her. Something she thought Laurel ought to know. Ordinarily, she would have kept it to herself, taken it to her grave just to avoid having to talk about it, but the pain, and the meds, were doing a number on her inhibitions.