I touch the smooth nylon fabric of my Longchamp bag. I wind my finger around the leather strap and pull. It doesn’t budge. I stretch my arm farther, cutting my shoulder on the window frame’s jagged glass.
Through the broken windshield I see men exiting three black Mercedes sedans—men wearing black jackets and black knit caps, and with black scarves concealing their faces.
I tug harder—nothing.
“We have to get into the woods,” my father says to me in a low voice, “… reach a clearing for exfil.”
I tug again as hard as I can. The strap breaks free. I swing my backpack toward me and reach my hand inside. My fingers meet solid polymer.
“You take north flank, I’ll cover south. Reconverge in forty-five meters,” he commands.
I nod, pulling out my FN 5-7 pistol.
“In three.”
I release the safety.
“Two.”
I rack the slide.
“One.”
CHAPTER 55
My father launches from our cover, shooting.
Five men duck behind their cars. Two others fall to the ground.
More men emerge—several have AK-47s and one has an MP5.
Following, I stay beside my father as we back toward the woods, firing.
At the tree line, under a staccato gunfire barrage, we pivot forward and run.
Weaving between thickets of trees, we zigzag downhill, advancing. We can outmaneuver them. We can outpace them.
However, our boots imprint the snow—they won’t have to be experts to track us.
I’m forced to let off round after round over my shoulder. A shot passes so close to my ear it singes my skin.
Covering my head, I yell to my father, “Out!”
On the run, he lobs a mag over to me.
Hurdling a tree root, I catch it with one hand, push out the empty, and punch in the new one.
We dart downhill, gaining distance.
Chechen orders are called out behind us. Then every nearby tree explodes in bits of shrapnel, bark, and branches. Machine-gun fire whistles overhead—
I dive behind an enormous evergreen trunk.
Muffled by the snow, footsteps shuffle in the distance. Are they moving at us? Around us? Away from us? I steal a glance around the trunk. A spray of bullets lodge into bark centimeters from my face.
Ducking back, I look over at my father. He’s taken cover meters away.
His skin is turning an eerie gray. His neck is red. His jacket below the collar is crimson.
Applying pressure to his neck wound, he winks at me. “Ready, tiger?”
I mouth back, “Ready.”
Crouching, he unloads his empty mag and shoves in a new one. Holding my FN 5-7, I check my own mag. One round left.
“I’ll be right behind you,” he continues.
“What do you mean—”
“Go!”
Simultaneously we lunge from our cover, firing.
I leap over a tree stump and maneuver the steep incline, navigating gnarly branches and pushing aside foliage. He’ll be right behind me, covering for us both, like he’s always done, protecting me.
Glancing over my shoulder, I watch him approach the wall of Chechens, firing with both hands.
Two men go down. A third.
My father continues advancing farther away from me, toward the enemy, until—
A bullet sinks into my father’s left pectoral. Another in his right. A third bullet ravages his ear.
“Dad!” I shriek.
His knees buckle.
Behind him, a Chechen rises out of a bush with an AK-47.
“NO!” I shout.
Using my last bullet, I aim my FN 5-7, and drop the Chechen.
Out of nowhere, I am tackled.
I tumble downhill, rolling over and over until the momentum stops.
Shots whistle high above my head, but I don’t shield myself.
I dash up the steep incline, curvetting over rocks and logs toward my father. By the time I reach him, he’s taken cover inside a hollow.
I push my fingers into his chest wound. “You’re fine …” I cup my palm over his ear to keep it from falling off. “It’s clean …”
His face is gaunt; his eyes blink rapidly; a ghostly pallor has overtaken his skin.
Shielded inside the hollow, I peer uphill. The men flank us—moving toward us while spreading out, forming a circle, like a pride of lions stalking prey.
He shifts his legs, attempting to stand, pushing his hand against the massive stump.
I drop my spent FN 5-7. Wedging my arm behind his back, I prop my father’s body against mine. I’m unable to support his weight; we sink to the frozen earth.
As they close in, circling us, I hear the Chechens: murmurs, heavy footfalls, the clicking sound of guns being reloaded. But the only frightening sound is my father convulsing, choking on his own blood.
“Dad, you have to stand!” Clinging to him, I tug at his coat. “I can’t carry you!”
Gently, his palm meets my cheek. “Bearings?” His voice is weak.
I squint at the sky. Moonlight is fading into dawn. “North at my six. We can make it—”
“Yes,” he chokes gutturally, “you can.”
A thick hand grabs my shoulder, yelling at me to stand, attempting to haul me backward.
Snatching my father’s HK, I shoot the man’s kneecap.
He howls, releasing me. Wriggling away from his writhing body, I refocus on my father. I need to shield him—protect him.
His eyelids flutter. “Sophia …”
This time, I am torn from his chest—my fingers ripped from his coat.
Reaching for him, I shriek, “Dad!”
Thick arms lock around my chest, dragging me gruffly back. I am being pried away, but the tears are coming so fast I can’t see anything.
Move! I want to say. Get up! You’re supposed to be fighting them! We’re supposed to be doing this together! We always shoot together!
I am wrestled uphill, farther and farther away from him—
Suddenly, a perfect, hard pop! splits open the earth.
The man dragging me slumps to the ground, a dark wound centered on his forehead. Startled I look back.
My father lowers his spare Smith & Wesson revolver. It falls from his fingertips, empty, its shiny handle glinting in the dawn.
Sprinting back beneath assaulting gunfire, I reach him in seconds. My father’s steel-gray eyes settle on mine. “The AK,” he rasps.
I look at the still-writhing man nearby. An AK is strapped across his back.
I lunge for the man, wrap my hands over his neck, and tug on the rifle strap.
He tries throwing me off. I unhook the knife from his belt and sink it into his chest.
He stops moving.
I loop the rifle strap over the man’s head. It catches on his ear. I free it and return to my father, skidding to my knees beside him. I give him the AK and a spare magazine.
Sitting upright, my father loads the magazine into the AK and racks back the slide.
Around us, the Chechen wall breaks through the trees, converging upon us.
“Go south at double pace”—his words are labored gasps—“until you reach the road—”
I shake my head furiously. “I’m not leav—”
Pop-pop-pop!
My father stands. A bullet hits his chest. Another bullet in his thigh.
I scream—an anguished primitive sound.
But he’s impervious. Made of iron.
Propping his back against the stump, he unleashes a procession of precision AK gunfire.
“Sophia!” he shouts. “Run!”
Wrenching forward, I run.
CHAPTER 56
Stay south. Head downhill.
I’ll reach the road. From there I can find a way to contact my mother.
I have to tell her … Stop it! He’ll survive.
Settling into a rhythm, I focus on keeping my pace.
At first, I hear footsteps behind me. Then, silence.
A branch cuts my cheek. My sleeve snags on a bush. In the distance, beyond the tops of the trees, a bright winter sun is rising above the mountain, gold slashing aside the gray.
I emerge from the dim forest at the edge of a clearing. I’m standing on a pebbled shoreline, looking out over a smooth, glossy surface that spreads eight hundred meters ahead, and fifteen hundred meters in either direction.
Covered in a thin sheet of ice, the alpine lake glistens amber in the rising sunlight. Across the lake, shaded from the sun, the forest continues. I nudge my toe against the ice.
A chunk breaks off the edge in a pocket of bubbles.
Behind me, heavy footfalls gather like cavalry. I haven’t run fast enough. Now I have no cover.
Thirty meters to my left, two men burst from the forest. Spotting me, they run faster, their weapons slung over their backs.
I put my foot on the thin ice. It splinters beneath my weight.
Forty meters to my right, three more men tumble out of the forest. They run down the bank in my direction. Twenty-five meters. Twenty. Two of them drop their Kalashnikovs to run faster. One bends over, panting.
Somewhere in the periphery of my subconscious, I understand what I’ve been unwilling to accept since I was fourteen. These men don’t intend to kill me; they need me alive, and this makes me more afraid than I ever knew possible.
I take another step onto the lake. The ice sheet stays. No splintering. No bubbles. I slide farther onto the precarious surface. How long will it hold?
The fastest one is nearing me. Ten meters. Five.
Run. His voice is in my head. Over and over again until I can’t stop hearing it. Run!
The ice is so thin, I can see the pebbles below it. I begin to run.
Keeping my feet light, I head toward the dark shoreline. Behind me, someone steps onto the lake. Beneath his boots, the ice starts to fragment. A fissure moves toward me and I sprint.
Halfway across the lake—Crack!
I turn to look—he sinks into the lake so quickly I barely see him. Behind him, another man has also run onto the lake, but the ice splinters beneath him too. Like a train crashing into a mountain, the ice ruptures in a deafening roar.
I force myself to keep running, deftly, delicately, across the fracturing surface.
Two more men creep cautiously onto the lake, trying to skirt the veining ice. I hear a yelp. I turn to see the ice dissolve beneath them too. Their bodies plunge into the frigid water.
In the distance, one has decided to run around the lake. Good. He’ll never catch me.
I reach the opposite side of the lake still in the shadow of darkness. I increase my pace, run up the bank and into the woods.
I’ll stay inside the tree coverage until I reach the road. Then I’ll find a way to contact my mother.
However, as I crest the wooded slope leading out of the forest, I halt.
Terror cuts open my bloodstream.
He steps toward me, smiling. His hair is neatly tied in a ponytail.
I stumble backward into a wall of men.
It is like they’ve been tracking me from above, corralling me like a lamb to the slaughter. Before I can retreat, two men grab my wrists. I kick, trying to writhe out of their arms, but they tug me toward a car, parked on the empty road.
“Hilfe!” I scream in German. “Help!”
A greasy cloth is shoved into my mouth and tied around the back of my head. I start to choke. It nearly suffocates me.
The trunk is opened. They push me inside.
Before the trunk slams shut and a scarf is knotted over my eyes, I see him again, staring down at me, watching me, an arrogant smirk across his silky face.
I know his face well. I have seen it every night for the past six hundred and thirty-two days.
Bekami.
CHAPTER 57
Inside a small jet, I am lashed to a seat. For three hours and twenty-two minutes, hardly a word is spoken.
Wild, uncontainable pain steeps inside me as I try not to think about my father. The sounds of the AK gunfire. Him shooting at the Chechens to save me.
I squeeze my eyes shut and begin counting to infinity.
When the jet lands, someone reknots my blindfold, knocking the back of my head when he’s finished. Momentarily, everything goes fuzzy. But my mind clears as clammy hands linger on my neck and a voice says, “You thought your father had eliminated me. You were wrong. Instead, I eliminated him.”
He shoves me down the aisle, drags me across the jet stairway, and throws me into another car trunk.
Drawing a map inside my head, I calculate a radius: depending on airspeed, we could be as far south as Tripoli, as far east as Odessa, as far north as Stockholm, and as far west as Dublin … I could basically be anywhere.
Paying attention to the noises outside, I try to hear voices, to identify a language. I listen for a stray siren, something to indicate where we are. Vespas? Church bells? Sports cars? Rickety vans? Buses? Dogs? Even silence tells me something.
The road is straight, paved. Noise increases steadily until it becomes a dull, incessant hum.
I pull my knees up against my chest and press my back into the corner so I won’t roll. I should sleep after being awake for so long, but every time I close my eyes I see my father’s face … pale white skin … blood drowning his words …
With the cloth in my mouth, my tears suffocate me. I have to figure out how not to think about my father.
The car turns sharply, and I roll against the wheel well. Wincing, I readjust myself.
Something jabs my left hip.
I try to roll away from it, but it follows me. It is a hard box with rounded edges. Maneuvering to my side, I still feel it; it stays lodged into my hip, poking me from within my coat pocket. I stretch my tied hands across my back.
After several attempts, my fingers fasten around the small rectangular box. I gasp.
Instantly, I know what it is and who put it there. I resist the onslaught of more tears at considering how my father managed to slip it into my pocket.
Fervently, I attempt to power on my phone. Nothing.
Again, I try. Nothing. The battery is dead. It’s useless.
But then I hear my father’s voice inside my head. You know how to use it?
I smile, despite the tears. Yes, Dad, I know.
I wedge my feet into opposite corners of the trunk, position my back into the side, and use the muscles in my thighs to bear down so I won’t roll.
A car horn breaks my concentration. Ignoring the possibility that we might stop soon, I refocus.
Accessing the power button with my left thumb, I press down and begin counting from zero. The timing must be accurate. At ten, I release. At sixteen, I press again. Then, at twenty-six, I release. I repeat this pattern twice more.
Three signals at sixteen-second intervals. According to my father, this initiates the linkup with a satellite transmitter, not connected to the power source. This is not a phone, Tate McCormick said weeks ago, and he was right. This isn’t a phone. It’s a lifeline. Maybe.
The car stops. The engine idles. Doors open. Muffled voices surround me. I shove the phone down my boot.
The trunk is unlatched. Arms grip me, tearing me out of the cramped space.
I don’t resist; I don’t want them to have a reason to search me, or touch me.
Gravel crunches beneath my boots.
Even blindfolded, I know where we are.
I hear the adhan, the purr of a city vibrating in the distance.
A gentle breeze swirls around me; I feel humidity on my skin; I inhale the smell of exhaust, and cardamom, and salty sea air …
I am in the one place I never expected to return.
Istanbul.
CHAPTER 58
Blindfolded, disoriented, and with a stiff rope shackling my ankles, it’s difficult to maneuver three flights of stairs. It doesn’t help that his greasy hand is coiled around my wri
st, tightening every time I stumble; the cloth in my mouth makes me gag.
He drags me down an echoing hall. The floors are smooth stone; with no rugs to soften the sound, his footsteps march grimly in time to mine.
Ahead, a door creaks open. We walk farther. Abruptly, bony hands shove me onto a seat. My arms are raised behind me and yanked down over the back of the chair. He tightens the cord binding my wrists, effectively straitjacketing me. Then, his footsteps fade.
The room is silent, except for the ticking of my watch.
One hour passes. Two.
The longer I sit, the less scared I become. Hatred burns away my fear.
My mouth grows parched. My skin is dry, cold. I try rocking the chair back and forth, but it is solid wood, heavier than me, and possibly bolted to the floor; it doesn’t budge.
Three hours in, I hear footsteps. They start faintly, but grow louder until the heavy door creaks open and I can hear their conversation.
“… then you have a way out, to avoid detection?” asks an unfamiliar voice. “I don’t want this to—”
“A diversion,” a familiar, repulsive voice answers, “Of course.”
Their footsteps click past me, continuing several meters until stopping.
“Remove her blindfold.” The unfamiliar man is speaking English, but his first language is clearly Russian. “I want to see Sophia Antonovna’s face,” he adds softly.
Sophia Antonovna?
I don’t immediately process that this Russian is talking about me—that Sophia Antonovna’s face is my face. I don’t think of Sophia Antonovna as me, and yet she is me.
I am Sophia Antonovna.
And this man knows.
The dirty cloth is untied from my mouth. I spit it onto my lap. The scarf covering my eyes is yanked off. I blink rapidly, my eyes adjusting to the light.
When the shock of brightness dims, I see two men standing before me. The one farthest away is in the shadow beside an ornate desk, watching me.
But the one near me—eyes full of hatred, bony hands, an unrepentant leer on his face—he chills my bones.
Bekami kneels in front of me and curls his manicured fingers around my thighs. He squeezes; his palm pushing down on the still-tender glass-shard wound from Waterford.
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