Chapter 67
ALISON
As we raced through the darkened streets with Valentin at the wheel, I dialed Caroline. “Don’t hang up!” I said as soon as the call connected. “I need your help!”
“Where are you? What’s going on? Jesus, Ali, there’s an APB out for you! I could lose my job just for talking to you!”
For a few seconds, there was just panicked breathing as Caroline debated. I sat there digging my fingernails into my palm. Then, “Okay. Okay, I got you.”
I slumped in relief and thanked her, then ended the call. About five minutes later, we pulled up outside 403 West Brenton, a beautiful old red-brick townhouse.
We crept around the back, and Valentin picked the lock.
Mikhail stationed his dogs outside to catch anyone who ran.
Then Gennadiy slipped through the door, with me tight behind him, a hand on his shoulder.
Ahead was a hallway, scrupulously clean and lavishly finished, with aquamarine walls and polished wooden doors.
It was surprisingly quiet, except for classical music coming from upstairs.
Where are the guards? We passed a dining room with a table big enough for ten, and a study lined with books.
Every wall was flawlessly painted, every doorknob polished to a shine.
Grushin must have spent millions on the place, and I guessed he had similar homes in New York and LA.
The Irish spread out, searching the first floor and then descending silently down the stairs to check the basement.
They were back in under a minute. “Servants' quarters and a guard room,” Finn told us quietly.
“Empty.” Where is everyone? As one, we all looked up the wooden staircase, towards the music.
Gennadiy crept up the stairs, gun raised. My heart was hammering: I’d been on plenty of FBI raids, but I’d never had so little idea what we were walking into. It was only the feel of Gennadiy’s shoulder, solid and warm under my hand, that let me keep my feet moving.
We’d reached the second floor and were fanning out when it happened.
There was a noise like someone slamming a sledgehammer into a solid block of iron, over and over again, right next to your ear.
The wooden banister next to us disintegrated, and I smelled burning wood as splinters and chips sailed past my face.
Two of the Irish fell to the floor. I thought a bomb had gone off, some sort of booby trap.
Gennadiy shoved me sideways into a bedroom, and we fell full-length on the floor with him on top.
The destruction followed us. It was as if God was reaching down with an invisible finger and sweeping it across the room, obliterating everything it touched.
Its path cut across the carpet, digging holes right down through the floorboards, then diagonally through the bed, pulverizing the mattress and exploding the pillows into clouds of feathers.
I finally realized we were being shot at, with a heavy machine gun, from the next floor up. The gunner was swinging his aim around, trying to hit us through the open door. I watched, wide-eyed, as the bullets crept towards us.
Gennadiy grabbed me and crawled, hauling me with him over to the far wall. But the bullets came mercilessly closer and closer. He flattened me against the wall and pressed me there, covering me with his body, determined to protect me as long as he could—
The bullets stopped an inch from his leg. The top of the door was blocking the gunner’s fire. The gunfire swung back the other way, chewing a line of plaster from the wall as it crept back out into the hallway. Then it finally fell silent.
I was still smooshed between Gennadiy’s big body and the wall, and I just stayed there for a moment, my ears ringing.
I was panting in fear and coughing, too: the air was full of plaster dust, feathers, and smoke.
Out in the hall, I could see one of the bullets lying on the blood-soaked floor: Jesus, it was the size of a pen!
No wonder anything hit by that thing got shredded!
“Valentin?” yelled Gennadiy. “Mikhail?”
A second went by. Then they yelled back in Russian from another room. My heart started beating again.
“Nobody move!” ordered Gennadiy. He looked at me and shook his head.
We’d walked right into a trap. Grushin must have seen us coming, maybe on a hidden security camera, and had pulled his men upstairs to lie in wait.
Now no one could leave the rooms they were in: the machine gunner upstairs would tear them apart as soon as they stepped out into the hallway.
I heard a car outside and crawled over to the window.
The bedroom looked out over the side of the house, and I saw Caroline’s blue minivan coming down the street.
“The FBI’s here!” I told Gennadiy in relief.
They could back us up and come in and get Grushin.
But first we had to make sure they didn’t walk straight into the same trap we had.
We both looked at the door. I’d be dead as soon as I set foot in the hallway.
But the windows were old-fashioned sliding ones.
They had security locks to stop them opening too far, but maybe…
I heaved the window open. The gap wasn’t wide enough for Gennadiy, but I could just squeeze through.
It was dark enough outside that the ground below was just a black void, but it couldn’t be more than an eight-foot drop.
Gennadiy shook his head and boxed me in with his arms. “You’re not going out there alone! Grushin could have men out there!”
“It’s the only way!” I told him and pointed towards the front of the house. “The street is right there! In two minutes, I can be back with the FBI tactical team!”
Gennadiy scowled and glowered at me, then sighed. “Be careful!”
I looked up at him and nodded, a sudden lump in my throat. If you’d told me a few months earlier that my mortal enemy would be making me feel so loved, so protected, I’d have said you were crazy. “Always,” I told him.
I had to wriggle out of the window feet-first. Gennadiy held my hands as I dangled, supporting me until the very last moment. When I was ready to drop, he squeezed my hands as if he didn’t want to let go.
“I got this,” I promised.
He frowned stubbornly...and then reluctantly let me go.
I dropped. Six feet, eight feet, oh shit, I’d underestimated how big the house was: the drop was more like ten feet—
I hit the concrete and heard something snap. OW. OW!
I fell sideways, picking up some bruises, and came within an inch of cracking my skull on an ornamental stone handrail. I lay there for a second, panting and shaken. That didn’t go great. But I was alive.
I gingerly stood up...and grating pain flashed up my left leg and made my stomach churn. Fuck. Okay, I’d deal with that later. I waved to Gennadiy that I was okay and then hobbled down the passageway at the side of the house, out of sight of the window.
I emerged at the front of the house, and there was Caroline, climbing out of her minivan.
I stumbled the last few feet and almost fell into her, wrapping her up in a hug.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I breathed.
The others were probably right behind her.
The tactical team might be another few minutes, I’d just have to hope Gennadiy could hang on for—
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I twisted around...and saw Viktor Grushin stepping out of the shadows just down the street, no more than twenty feet from me.
Shit! How did he get outside? He must have an escape tunnel, like Gennadiy.
I stumbled in front of Caroline and raised my gun, the guilt clawing at my chest. She isn’t even a field agent: what have I gotten her into?
“Stay behind me!” I told her frantically.
Then to Grushin. “Stop right there! Let me see your hands!”
Grushin stopped and lifted his hands, grinning. My eyes searched the street behind him. He wouldn’t come out alone, he’d have a bodyguard or a—
A brutal, burning pain erupted in my lower back.
I staggered forward, and the pain in my ankle made my legs fold, sending me to my knees.
My head went light, and it was more than just the pain.
I felt for the source of the pain, and my hand came away dripping blood.
I’ve been shot! A sniper? But I hadn’t heard anything. ..
The gun dropped from my fingers and clattered to the sidewalk. My muscles didn’t have any strength anymore. Caroline? Is Caroline okay? She’d been standing right behind me…
I rolled over onto my back and found her looking down at me, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
And then I saw the knife in her hand and understood.