by Penny Drake
Crickets chirped. I looked at the yellow lights of the house, then down to the dock. The white yacht, which I had no idea how to pilot, still lay at anchor. But maybe I wouldn’t need to pilot it. If I could get the kids onto the boat and cut it loose, the current might push it away from the island. Eventually someone would notice us.
The plan was lacking in detail, including how I was going to get a dozen scared kids who probably didn’t speak English past the thugs and down to the dock, but hey—you have to start somewhere.
No sense waiting. I probably had less than half an hour before Yerin discovered I was missing. I ran around to the back of the house, hoisted myself up to the little roof over the back door, and peered through the window. The kids were still in their kennels. Standing near one of them was Sergei. His fly was open and he was reaching for the latch on the cage of a girl who couldn’t have been more than ten. She cringed away as best she could. Mama Bear roared inside me, but I kept my head. I reached up and gently scrabbled at the window. Sergei spun around, and I thanked God nothing had popped out of his zipper. He couldn’t see outside because the lights inside were on, so I scrabbled at the window again, then flattened myself against the wall beside it. Blood zinged through me and my heart pounded with fear and anticipation.
The window opened, and Sergei leaned out. His eyes met mine, and he barely had time to gasp in surprise before I grabbed his shirt with both hands, braced myself against the roof, and yanked. Sergei came through the window with a yelp. I deliberately went over backward. His momentum combined with mine to let me throw him past my head and off the roof. He hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud. I scrambled to my feet and looked over the edge. He wasn’t moving.
I poked my head into the bedroom. All twelve children stared at me with silent, round eyes. “It’s okay,” I said in a loud whisper. “I’ll be right back.”
I jumped off the roof. Sergei was alive but out cold. I searched him and came up with his pistol. Yes! I kicked Sergei once in the head, partly to make sure he would stay out and partly to satisfy Mama Bear. She grunted in contentment. I stuck the pistol in the waistband of my stolen sweats, chinned myself back up to the roof, and climbed into the bedroom. The children, clearly confused and uncertain, didn’t make a sound. I put a finger to my lips anyway and pointed to myself.
“Police,” I said, hoping the Russian word was similar to the English one, even if the description was inaccurate.
One of the children—an older blond girl who had to curl up to fit inside her cage—said, “Police? You help?”
A translator. Thank God. I nodded and opened the latch on her kennel. “Stay quiet. We go fast. Out the window.”
The girl scrambled out of her cage, then winced as cramped muscles protested. I opened another cage, and the girl said something in Russian. I caught something that sounded like policia and assumed she was explaining who I was. The other children were all obviously afraid, but they were more than willing to escape their cages. A little boy abruptly grabbed me in a hug, and I almost burst into tears. I hugged back, then gently disentangled myself long enough to wedge a chair under the doorknob.
“What’s your name?” I asked the blond girl.
“Sveta,” she said. She kept her voice low, as I did.
“I’m Terry,” I said. “We’re going out the window and we have to be quiet. Tell them, okay?”
She did. The kids were bewildered. One of the girls started to cry. I scooped her up and headed for the window, every footstep a potential alarm to those below. I scooted out onto the roof and helped the crying girl through. She was so thin and weighed barely anything. Sveta urged the next child out, and the next.
“Get them all out,” I told her. “I’ll help everyone down.”
I jumped to the ground, landing beside the unconscious Sergei, and stretched my hands up to the first girl. She looked down at me uncertainly. “Jump!” I said, crooking my fingers. “I’ll catch you.”
I thought she would hesitate, but she surprised me by jumping right away. I caught her, set her down, and reached up for the next child, who followed her example. I was setting the fifth child down when the first girl gasped. I spun around and found myself looking straight into the barrel of a pistol. I didn’t recognize the thug behind it, but how much did that matter?
“Hi!” I said, amazed at my own bravado. “Just taking the little ones for a quick walk through the park. Ice cream might be involved later. Wanna come?”
“I kill you now,” he growled. Then he yelped in pain. I didn’t bother to figure out why. I swept the gun aside with my forearm, then gave him a good slug in the gut. He doubled over. I grabbed his head and slammed his face into my knee. Something cracked, and he dropped to the ground next to Sergei. I grabbed his pistol, pulled the clip for the extra ammo, and flung the gun itself into the bushes. Only then did the first girl let go of the thug’s leg. She had bitten him. Mama Bear grunted approval.
In short order, I had twelve kids with me. Gesturing at them to keep quiet, I herded them down the path toward the yacht. Sveta tried to get them to hurry, but all that time spent in kennels had taken their toll. The best they could manage was a fast walk. My skin prickled. Yerin and Quentin had to know I had escaped, and by now they had probably broken into the bedroom. They weren’t stupid, and had to know I’d make a run for the yacht.
I picked up the two smallest kids. Sveta took the hands of two more, and we scurried as best we could down the rough path toward the dock. I gave the house another glance over my shoulder as we went. Uncle Lawrence was still in there. I wanted to run back and get him out, but Mama Bear snarled that such a thing would only endanger the children. And he had told me to go without him.
“Hurry!” I told Sveta. The kids clinging to my neck were growing heavy. “We have to hurry!”
A girl stumbled. Sveta helped her to her feet, and we kept going. Night closed in around us, and my ears strained for sounds of pursuit. So far I only heard normal night sounds and the occasional distant barge horn. I was getting tired. It had been a long day and night, and fatigue pulled at my muscles. And I was starving.
We got down to the dock, and I breathed a sigh. One hurdle overcome. Shouts echoed down the hill. Someone had found Sergei and his friend. I got the kids down to the yacht as it rocked gently in the dark water, sloshing like a barfly who’s had too much to drink. Sveta and I boosted them to the deck. Everyone was panting with exertion, and the night had turned hot and sweaty.
More shouts, and they were growing closer. Hadn’t taken the bosses long to figure out where we’d gone. The yacht was moored to the dock by two thick ropes. I unwound both with shaking hands, then grabbed a long pole from the deck and used it to push the yacht away from the dock. The problem was that the current worked against me, pushing the yacht back against the wood. The kids huddled together on the deck, watching me with big eyes. I changed tactics and used the pole to shove the yacht forward instead. It felt like my bones were bending, but the prow slid past the front of the dock. I heard footsteps thudding down the path, and sweat slid down my back.
“Get down!” I told the kids. Sveta obeyed, and the other children followed her lead. The yacht was halfway clear of the dock, then three-quarters. Abruptly the prow swung around, caught in the current. The side scraped against a pylon, and then we were in open water. Feet pounded on wood, and I made out shadows coming toward us. I shoved down with the pole like Charon on the Styx, but the water was already too deep. Gunfire boomed, and I dropped to my knees by the gunwale. I snatched the thug’s pistol from my waistband and fired blindly back. The gun kicked in my hands, and all twelve kids screamed. Five shots, and the clip was empty. The thug didn’t keep his piece fully loaded. Someone shouted an order in Russian, and the shooting stopped. By now, we were ten or twelve feet away from the dock, though, and I felt almost safe. I was reaching for the second stolen clip when a dark shadow leaped over the gunwhale and smashed into me.
I crashed to the deck, the extra clip fl
ying from my grasp. Wind burst from my lungs and hot fire lanced my shoulder. A second shadow thudded to the deck, and I heard a dim splash as someone else tried to swim for it. Reflexively I kicked away from the guy who had landed on me and rolled to my feet, empty pistol up. My opponent did the same. Facing me in the dim starlight was Stanislav Yerin. Quentin Peale staggered to his feet beside him. Behind them, a bunch of shadowy men clustered at the end of the dock. Swearing drifted up from the water as the third man realized he couldn’t swim fast enough to reach us.
Yerin and I trained our pistols on each other.
“Stand off, Stan,” I said. My heart felt like it would burst free of my ribs. I was facing down a mafia boss with nothing but an empty gun.
“Shoot her!” Quentin barked. He didn’t seem to have a gun of his own.
“I. Hate. You,” Yerin spat at me. I could almost taste the anger in his words. “You have ruined my life, foiled me every step of the way.”
“Dirty job, but I’m glad to do it. Drop the gun, Stan.”
“Drop yours.”
“You’re a fucking idiot!” Quentin screamed. “Kill the bitch!”
Yerin spun and fired three shots. The children screamed. Quentin Peale gurgled and fell over the side. His corpse hit the water with a splash. Yerin aimed his gun at me again.
“I will take no more orders from American trash,” he snarled. “Now drop your gun!”
I thought fast. The longer this went on, the more likely Yerin would try a shot. I took a chance.
“You don’t want to shoot me,” I said in a soft, steady voice. “You want a piece of me. I can see it. Standing right in front of you is the little woman who helped destroy your Moscow operation and made you a fugitive. Who ruined you forever. Tell you what—let’s lower our guns to the deck. Then we’ll kick them out of the way, and you can take me.”
He hesitated. Behind him, the kids had pushed themselves against the gunwale.
“Scared an American woman will beat a Russian man?” I taunted. “No wonder we won the Cold War.”
Yerin’s face hardened. “We lower them slowly,” he said.
Together we lowered our pistols, dropped them to the deck, and kicked them aside. The boat continued to drift as Yerin and I went into fighting stances. I licked my lips. If I won, the kids went free. If I lost, Yerin would kill me and sell the kids into slavery.
Yerin lunged, faster than I expected. He snapped the heel of his hand into my chest and knocked me off balance. He followed with a foot sweep and I landed flat on my back. The back of my head cracked against the deck. Kyosa Parkinson would have been disappointed. I had underestimated Yerin, a beginner’s mistake.
Yerin leaped, intending to land full-force on my throat. I rolled away, and his feet crashed on the wood beside my head. I grabbed his ankle and yanked upward. This time he fell. We both scrambled to our feet. Yerin’s eyes blazed with a hatred that turned me cold inside. This time I didn’t wait for him to move. I swept an axe kick at him, but he dodged aside and flicked a punch at my midriff. I blocked it, but barely. Then the fight began in earnest. We traded blow and block, counterblow and kick. I clipped the side of his head, and he slammed my mouth hard enough to split my lip. My blood sang and I felt the power of muscle moving beneath skin. My world narrowed to my opponent.
I connected with his shoulder, and Yerin staggered backward. Then he dropped and came up with the pole I had used to push the boat away. He whirled it twice, then jabbed it at me, quick and sharp. I ducked and weaved, then dove past him. I landed on my hands and used a tuck-and-roll to come back upright. The children cowered against the gunwale less than a foot in front of me. Yerin spun and brought the pole down. I flung myself aside. The pole cracked against the deck and broke in two. I snatched up the free half, brandishing it like a truncheon. We paused, panting, then rushed at each other again.
Our makeshift weapons clacked and clattered against each other. He swung at my ribs. I parried and punched at his throat. My rage at this man, this monster, channeled itself into every swing, every strike. His lips curled in a fury he had no right to feel. After a while, I realized I had him on the ropes. Yerin gave ground until he was close to the gunwale. I landed a blow on his wrist, and his half of the pole went spinning into the water. Without pausing, I drew my makeshift truncheon back, intending to crack him upside the head with it and drop him like a dead rat. But Yerin dropped for me. He hit the deck on his knees.
For a split-second I thought he was going to beg for mercy. I should have known better. In his right hand he held the pistol he had kicked away—the reason he had allowed me to back him here in the first place.
“Drop it,” he snarled, aiming the pistol up at me. Blood dripped from his nose and he swiped at it with his spare hand. “Then back away.”
“I beat you,” I snarled. “Fair and square. Take it like a man.”
He fired. The kids cried out, and pain scored the top of my shoulder. He had winged me on purpose. “Drop it and back away!” he yelled.
I obeyed, the muzzle flash still on my retina. The deck rocked gently beneath my feet, and I heard a strange rumbling sound. Now that I had stopped moving, the battle rage subsided and I felt shaky. My shoulder burned. Yerin got to his feet, never letting the gun waver. I cast about for an idea, something to say or do, but nothing presented itself.
“You will die now,” Yerin said, and fired.
The strange thing was that no muzzle flash blinded me this time. I also felt no new pain. Was this what it was like to die? A painless slide into darkness? Yerin was staring at me, his eyes blank in the starlight. Then he fell forward and hit the deck with a wet thud. I stared down at him, uncomprehending.
Then white light flooded the entire area and blasted my eyes six feet into my skull. The rumbling noise I had heard resolved itself into the sound of an engine. Another boat was drawing closer. Someone had shot Yerin, and I might be next. I automatically dropped, seeking cover. The light lessened, and I blinked furiously to clear my vision. The children didn’t make a sound. I groped forward on my stomach until I found Yerin’s body—and his pistol. I grabbed it and checked the action by touch. My heart was racing again as I carefully brought my head up high enough to peer over the gunwale railing.
“Terry! Thank God!”
“Terry! Are you all right?”
Zack and Ms. Hawk. The two sweetest voices in the world. I pulled myself upright, suddenly shaky again. Now that the searchlights weren’t trained directly on me, I could see their boat, one rather smaller than the yacht. Zack stood at the helm, the wheel in his hand, and Ms. Hawk stood beside him. She carried a pistol. Both of them wore night vision goggles from the equipment stash in Ms. Hawk’s trunk. I gave a weak little wave.
“I’m all right,” I said. “Except I’m bleeding. And I’ve got lots of bruises. And—”
Another searchlight stabbed at us. This one was attached to a Coast Guard boat that was already throttling back so it could drift to us. Voices shouted over bullhorns, but I ignored them and my bleeding shoulder. Instead I staggered over to the children, still huddled at the stern like a litter of puppies. Most of them were crying, including Sveta.
“It’s going to be all right.” I knelt to embrace as many as I could with my good arm.
“Everything’s fine.”
They continued to cry. As Ms. Hawk and Zack jumped aboard the yacht, I realized my tears were mingling with their own.
***
I got the full story later. Zack and Ms. Hawk had gotten “concerned,” as Ms. Hawk put it, when my GPS signal abruptly winked out. Realizing that the Detroit warehouse wasn’t part of tonight’s equation, Ms. Hawk had driven like the wind to the place where my GPS signal had last shown itself. They found no sign of me at the dock, of course, and Ms. Hawk had decided the only option was to check the coordinates from Uncle Lawrence’s notebook. Zack said he would locate a speedboat while Ms. Hawk got on her laptop to figure out where to go. All this took time, and Ms. Hawk said she had be
en forced to keep Zack calm so he could hot-wire the boat he found.
They radioed the Coast Guard along the way, but it took lots of talking to get them to listen. As a result, Zack and Ms. Hawk reached the island before anyone else. They shut their running lights off to keep their presence quiet and arrived just in time to see the yacht drifting away. Their night vision goggles let them see that Yerin and I were fighting. Zack desperately brought the boat close enough for Ms. Hawk to get in the shot that saved me.
The Coast Guard cutter brought the children aboard, took the yacht in tow, and headed back to the island, where it joined two others. Zack had to physically restrain me from running off to find Uncle Lawrence. He didn’t have to try very hard—I was bandaged, wrapped in a blanket, and feeling weak as a spring flower. The children refused to let me out of their sight.
The Coast Guard arrested Yerin and Quentin’s entire goon squad and easily broke into the house. They found Uncle Lawrence tied to his chair. He was dead. A heart attack.
I suddenly remembered how Uncle Lawrence had gasped for breath and felt pain in his left arm—symptoms of an imminent myocardial infarction. Sorrow filled me up and spilled over. I sat down and cried in harsh, wrenching sobs. Zack put warm arms around me. Even though I had spent less than an hour with him, Lawrence Peale felt like someone I had known all my life. Eventually, however, the tears had ended, though Zack’s embrace had not.
***
“And that brings us here,” I said. “To the last loose end.”
“I assume you mean the treasure,” Belinda said, “and not the fact that Mr. Archer—I mean, Zack—and I are related?”
Zack laughed. All five of us—Ms. Hawk, Belinda, Zack, Slava and I—were standing at the top of the stairs that led down to the basement entrance. Two days had passed since the island, and my shoulder was almost healed. Clouds had moved in, blunting the worst of the sun and muting the green leaves overhead, as if they were sad. Zack had his big yellow backpack with him, and Belinda carried a mask provided to her by Ms. Hawk. Slava had asked to come, and Ms. Hawk had reluctantly agreed that she had been at least a little help on the case and deserved to see how it ended.