“Can you move the device?” I ask.
“Too late,” he says. “If I touch it wrong it blows now. It is wired to the shell. It reacts to tilt.”
“Twenty,” Oleg says.
My heart hammers so hard my fingers twitch on the rifle.
Sergei speaks again. “Drag him,” he says. “We use the stairs. We stack in the cellar. We hug the back wall and pray the charge is in the front.”
“You’re assuming directional,” Kirill says.
“Yes,” Sergei says. “He built it to blow the front for show. He wants a picture and a frame, not a crater you can’t film.”
“Ten,” someone calls.
The radio picks up a scuffle. A grunt. A scrape of boots. I hear Ilya laugh, but the sound breaks as someone hits him.
“Raina,” Sergei says, breathless now. “Get down. Cover your head. Do not move until I call you.”
My throat closes. “Sergei…”
“Now,” he snaps.
I drop the rifle and roll down behind the thickest tree near me. My hands cover my head. My face presses into frozen dirt. I count the last numbers in my head.
Three.
Two.
One.
The blast hits.
It’s not a sharp crack, but a long, deep roar that rips through the air and through my body. The ground jumps under me. Heat licks the side of my face. Something whines past and slams into a tree behind me.
I keep my arms over my head and wait for the second blast. Some bombs stack charges while others work in pairs. The air rings as smoke rises in a sudden, heavy wave. I smell burned wood, old dust, and something hot and chemical.
No second blast comes.
I lift my head.
The fox-door cottage is half gone. The front wall is ripped open. The roof has dropped on one side. Fire crawls along broken boards. Glass glitters on the ground.
I grab my rifle and run.
“Raina, wait,” one of the men on the ridge calls, but I am already sliding down the slope. My boots hit patches of ice, slip, catch. I stumble but keep going.
“Sergei!” I shout into the comm.
No answer.
The smoke is thicker near the house. It stings my eyes and throat. I pull my scarf up over my mouth and keep moving. Two of the men from the outer ring are already there, circling the side, weapons up, eyes wild.
“Cellar!” I yell. “Check the cellar!”
We round the back. The bulkhead door is half buried in debris. One of the hinges is bent. Smoke pours from the gap. The lock is gone.
I hit the door with my shoulder. It does not move.
