Chapter 70
GENNADIY
Gunfire from the doorway forced me back behind the bed again.
I shot back, and Grushin’s man ducked behind the wall.
He wasn’t getting in, but I wasn’t getting out, either.
I lay there on the floor panting. I didn’t care that I was about to die, as soon as the guy brought some friends.
I was thinking of Alison, downstairs. I had to get to her.
More gunfire, but this was further away, and I realized I was hearing it through the wall. “Valentin?” I yelled.
“It’s Finn!” And he banged on the wall, only a few feet from my head. He must be in the bedroom next to me.
Then I heard Mikhail’s bass roar. “Valentin’s with me! We’re at the end of the hall!”
I looked at the wall next to me, building a mental map.
Finn was next door, Mikhail and Valentin next door to him.
So close! If only we could go out into the hallway and meet up!
I looked despairingly in their direction.
..and then the ugly, flowery wallpaper caught my eye, and I focused on the wall itself.
What if...what if we didn’t go out into the hallway?
“Finn,” I called through the wall. “Keep them busy!”
I heard him curse under his breath, but then he must have dodged towards the door because the machine gun opened up again, pounding our ears. And the guy at the door to my room drew back, out of the way.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Mikhail. When he answered, I put my lips right to the phone so he could hear me over the gunfire. “Break the wall!”
I looked around and saw the bed I’d been hiding behind.
The frame was made of painted iron, and I heaved it up and unscrewed one leg.
That gave me a foot-long chunk of iron with a screw thread pointing out of one end.
It wasn’t exactly an ax, but it would have to do.
I slammed it into the drywall, and it made a satisfying dent.
I started frantically swinging it, shattering the plaster and caving in the thin drywall.
It started to work, chunks tumbling to the floor and a hole beginning to form between two of the studs.
The deafening sound of the machine gun covered what I was doing.
But as soon as it stopped and Grushin’s man in the hallway came back, I was dead.
Standing there hacking at the wall, I was completely exposed.
I kept frantically swinging, panting with effort, drywall dust filling my lungs and sticking to my dripping face.
I finally broke through the second layer of drywall, and I could see Finn’s room.
He was still acting as our decoy, jumping forward to catch the attention of the machine gunner upstairs, then pulling back as the bullets chewed up the floor by his feet.
“What’s the matter, you fucker?” he was yelling as he danced back. “Can’t shoot straight?”
I felt a little more of the hate slip away. He was brave as hell.
I swung the bed leg again and again, shoulders burning.
I had a person-sized hole in my side of the drywall, now, and I was just getting started on the second layer, when suddenly everything went quiet.
The gunner must have gotten suspicious because I heard him shout in Russian.
Check what they’re doing. Fuck. The hole wasn’t done.
I backed off from the hole just as the guy in the hallway peeked in. He saw my half-finished escape route, and his eyes widened. Then he raised his gun.
Blyat’! I’d had to put my gun away to work on the hole. I was so close! I felt the anger rise, blossoming outward in a slow-motion explosion...and for once, I let it. I poured gasoline on it, thinking about Alison, alone downstairs, about Valentin and Mikhail…
Sometimes, you have to be calm and smart. Sometimes, you have to get angry.
I hurled the bed leg at the guy in the doorway, put my head down, and ran at the half-finished hole. A shot rang out, but missed. I was running full speed, now, too angry to worry about how much it would hurt. I hurled myself at the wall, a human wrecking ball…
I crashed through the drywall and went tumbling across the floor in Finn’s room, trailing a cloud of drywall dust. I lay on my back for a second, coughing, my head and shoulders throbbing from the impact.
Then Finn reached down and offered me his hand, and I grabbed it and let him pull me to my feet.
On the opposite side of the room, Mikhail and Valentin were climbing through their own hole.
I nodded to them, relieved. Together again.
With four of us, we actually had a chance.
When the machine gunner upstairs stopped to reload, we rushed out into the ruined hallway.
Finn, Mikhail, and I dealt with Grushin’s other men while Valentin raced up to the next floor.
There was a single shot and I heard a body fall.
A moment later, Valentin came back downstairs.
“It’s safe,” he told us. “But Grushin’s not up there. ”
My chest tightened. That meant he was downstairs...with Alison. “Come on!”
I led the way back down to the first floor, only to find it swarming with Grushin’s men.
And there, coming through the front door, was Grushin himself, Alison held in front of him as a shield.
She was grimacing in pain and—Blyat’!—She’d been wounded.
Blood was dripping from a wound on her back, a lot of it.
The fear clawed at me, and I rushed forward, but Grushin and his men opened fire, and Valentin had to pull me into the shelter of the kitchen. The bullets meant for me shattered a stack of plates by the sink, scattering porcelain shards.
We tried to force our way out of the kitchen door, but a barrage of gunfire drove us back. Even when Finn’s remaining men joined us from upstairs, it wasn’t enough. We were outnumbered and pinned down. My chest went tight. Alison! She was bleeding out; she’d die if I didn’t get to her!
Grushin’s voice came from the entrance hall, coldly mocking. “I told you this is how it would end, Gennadiy. Your whole empire destroyed and everyone you loved dead.”
I looked desperately at Finn, Valentin, and Mikhail, and they looked grimly back at me.
There was no way to reach her, and we were probably dead ourselves in another few minutes.
I took a deep breath and stuck my head out of the kitchen for a split second.
Bullets shredded the doorframe, and I had to pull back, but for a brief instant, I locked eyes with Alison through the carnage.
The fear I saw on her face made my heart go cold.
She could feel it. She knew she was running out of time.