“Time?” I ask.
Kirill leans in, looking at the small display at the edge of the device. His face goes tight.
“Forty-five seconds,” he says. “Maybe less. I don’t know the wiring. It’s not one of ours.”
The room snaps into a new shape.
We’ve got a live bomb in the center. We’ve got a main door that leads to a lake and open ground, but also glass and wood. We’ve got a cellar that might shield some of us, or might turn into a coffin if the charge sits under the floor. We’ve got a prisoner who knows the design and won’t talk. We’ve got a woman I love in the trees outside and a child in the city who expects us back.
My men look at me.
The device keeps beeping, faster, faster, a hard tick in the air.
Outside, through the wall, I hear the faint crackle of Raina’s voice in my ear. “Sergei? I heard something. What’s happening?”
I’m about to answer when the device lets out one long, steady tone that cuts through every other sound in the room.
Then the timer on its face flips from numbers to a single word:
ZERO.
27
RAINA
The word hangs in my ear.
“Zero.”
Then silence.
I am on the ridge above the cottages, belly against the cold ground, rifle steady, eyes on the lake road. The sound cuts through the comm in my ear, sharp and flat. No one speaks for a heartbeat.
“Kirill?” I whisper. “Sergei?”
Static hisses. I sit up fast. The trees around me blur for a second. I grab the radio button on my collar. “Talk to me.”
Finally, Sergei’s voice comes through, tight and clipped. “Bomb. Device on the table. Timer. We’re moving.”
“How long?” I ask.
“Less than a minute,” Kirill answers. His voice is closer to the mic than Sergei’s. I hear boots, furniture, a curse. “Forty, maybe. It armed when he slapped it. He knew we were here.”
A cold wave washes through my body. I force myself to breathe slowly and count.
“Do you need me in?” I ask.
“No,” Sergei says at once. “You stay out. You stay eyes on the road. If he set a second team, they’ll use the noise. You watch for them.”
“I’m not leaving you in there,” I say.
“Raina,” he says, voice sharper. “I need you alive and with a clear angle. That is how we get out of this. Hold position.”
I grind my teeth, knowing full well he is right. I still hate it. Then I flatten again, rifle back at my shoulder, scope sweeping the track and the thin strip of trees that hides the parking area. No cars. No men. Only the still line of the lake and the quiet row of roofs.
“Thirty,” Kirill mutters in my ear.
I picture the room they are in. Table, bed, shelf, walls that are not very thick. I picture the cellar under their feet. It might save them or trap them.
