“This time, mean it as more than a habit.”
I slip my thumb under her chin to tilt it up. “I mean it as everything.”
She holds my gaze for one more second. Then she releases my arm, steps back, and nods. No tears or begging.
I turn toward the lodge.
Boris and Eduard are ready and waiting at the tree line. They watched the exchange without a word. They fall into step beside me when I reach them, and we begin the four-hundred-meter walk through the trees.
The lodge materializes through the snow, low and dark. A stone foundation crumbling at the corners, timber walls warped and grayed by decades of weather, and a tin chimney leaning at an angle that suggests one strong wind would bring it down. Thin smoke curls out the top. Its south-facing door is solid oak, old but intact, with iron hinges that have turned orange with rust.
We stop at fifty meters. Grisha’s voice comes through my earpiece, barely above a whisper. “East flank in position. Two shooters, clear sightline on the east windows.”
“West flank set,” Marat’s man adds. “One shooter on the west window.”
Boris keys his mic. “South approach, fifty meters. We’re moving to the door. Hold fire unless you hear my command or take incoming. Confirm.”
“East confirmed.”
“West confirmed.”
I scan the lodge one more time. The curtains haven’t moved. No shadow crosses the windows. But smoke still rises from the chimney, which means he’s conscious enough to feed the fire.
Boris looks at me. “Your call.”
I roll my injured shoulder and feel the wound rub against my shirt. Pain flares from my elbow to my neck, then settles into a dull throb I can work through. Right hand steady, right eye clear. The Makarov holds twelve rounds, and a full backup magazine sits in my vest pocket.
Bogdan Lebedev is behind that door with a pistol and a prayer, and neither one can save him.
38
Daria
The trio moves through the birch trees like wolves closing on a den.
Pyotr is in front. Boris flanks his right. Eduard covers the left.
They advance in a crouch, weapons up, spacing tight enough to communicate with hand signals but wide enough that a single burst of gunfire can’t take all three.
I know this because Pyotr explained it to me weeks ago when I asked how men like him approach a building they expect to be hostile. He described it the way a mechanic describes an engine. Step by step. No emotion. Just sequence.
Watching it happen is nothing like hearing it described.
I’m holding onto the steering wheel with both hands even though the engine is off. Grisha told me to keep it running when he left to join the flank team, but I turned the key the second the door closed behind him because the rumble of the engine was louder than my thoughts, and I needed to hear what’s going on.
From the SUV, the three figures shrink with every step. I lose Eduard first. He blends into the tree line on the left until I can’t separate him from the trunks. Boris disappears next, his bulk swallowed by the shadows on the right. Pyotr is the last shape I can track, moving steadily and low through the center, until even he becomes just a dark smudge against the white.
The lodge squats at the far edge of the clearing, barely visible through the snow and the birch canopy. Smoke trails from the chimney. The door is a dark rectangle I can only see because the stone around it is paler. Bogdan is behind that door, and the man I love is walking toward him.
My hands are cramping from the steering wheel. I force my fingers open one at a time and flex them, but they won’t stop shaking. Everything in my body is clenched. Jaw, shoulders, muscles along my spine. Counting the seconds the way Kira counts dinosaurs is the only thing that keeps me from screaming. One. Two. Three. Four.
On five, Pyotr kicks the door.
The oak cracks but doesn’t give. He steps back, adjusts, and drives his boot into the wood a second time. The frame splinters inward this time, and the door swings wide. Boris surges forward from the east side. Eduard comes from the west. All three funnel through the opening in fewer than two seconds.
Then, the shooting starts.
The first shot is a single pop. A handgun, judging by the sound. It comes from inside the lodge.
