Bryce’s only tactical advantage, he knew, was the element of surprise. The four men outside the door would never expect him to be capable of physically resisting, let alone going on offense. He wasn’t sure if he believed it himself. Either way, it was going to happen.
Control what you can.
His only realistic chance was to divide and conquer. As far he could tell from beneath his hood, his captors always entered the cell in pairs, a two-man interrogation team. No more, no less. Even earlier today, when Pavel had come to deliver his message about the delay in their replacements arriving, he hadn’t entered the cell. Clearly this was some kind of protocol, and it gave Bryce a measure of predictability. If he could take out the two men who came, do so without alerting the others, then there might be a shard of hope.
Of the four men on this team, he’d set eyes on three. For the last man he had only a voice to go by, a baritone named Mikhail. In the end, it hardly mattered. They were all going to feel whatever wrath he could muster.
He’d settled on a simple plan, dictated by his lack of resources and physical limitations. From the silence of his cell, he always heard Ivan and Mengele as they approached: boots on concrete, bantering freely, the key turning in the lock. There was no viewing port on the door, a mistake on the designer’s part. Presumably the camera system was meant to take its place, yet that had gone inoperative. He prayed it was still the case. If so, his captors would be opening the door blind. Also in his favor: his minders appeared increasingly comfortable. Their prisoner was beaten down, and they were looking forward to time off. This was a lesson Bryce had learned the hard way in the Army: people tended to let their guard down at the end of a deployment.
His plan was to flatten himself against the wall near the door, the side away from the hinges. This committed him to attacking the first man through. He would rely on two improvised weapons. Whoever was in front would get a pen to the throat. The second would have his head smashed into a brick wall. Delivered properly, perfectly, two strikes that would prove lethal. Or at the very least, incapacitating.
Bryce weighed every conceivable iteration of how the men might be presented—stationary or moving, various angles between them and distances apart. He allowed for the difference in height between the two men. He rehearsed his stance, contemplated how they might respond. Bryce worked through every contingency he could imagine. What if he was off target with the pen, missing the carotid? What if the pen broke? The floor of his cell was damp and slick—would it be the same on the other side of the door?
One of the most critical questions was unanswerable: How far was it to the other rooms? He guessed the building was small. Aside from his own cell, probably three other rooms: one main area, a separate room for bunks, and some manner of kitchen. Every word he’d heard and dissected over the last two months supported this theory. But a theory it remained.
The question of whether they might have weapons he discarded for the moment. He’d never seen anything other than the implements they beat him with, yet a handgun was possible. If so, he would deal with it. Find a way to make it his.
It was all no more than guesswork, yet Bryce had gone into missions in the Army with far less planning. Far less intel on hand. And never had he undertaken an op with more at stake.
He stood near the wall and kept moving. A football player wired for the biggest game of his life, waiting for the tunnel to open. His silence was absolute, his senses on high alert. Absurdly, he felt a rush of confidence, much as he had on other operations. In other hellholes. The element of surprise was critical, yet he had one advantage that was even greater.
Bryce had spent time learning about Russia. He’d studied its literature and language, its politics and people. Because of it, he recognized the inherent weakness in the modern Russian psyche, honed by a hundred years of subjugation and suspicion: Russians took orders, not initiative.
Based on their questioning, it was clear his interrogators had been given limited information about him. They were issued questions to ask, and dutifully forwarded his answers to some higher authority. They knew he was a former soldier who’d been forced out of the service for medical reasons. They probably surmised he’d gone soft from years of congressional privilege and two-martini lunches. They themselves would see a prisoner ground down by months of beatings and duress.
Yet Mengele and Ivan didn’t know the rest. That prior to his incarceration, the former Ranger had been running ten miles a day with thirty pounds of sand on his back. That he punished his body mercilessly with modified CrossFit routines. They didn’t know he spoke Russian and had studied their culture. Didn’t know he’d once been an instructor in close quarters combat. Most critical of all: they could never comprehend what such a man might do to reach the wife and daughter he loved.
No, Bryce thought with rising certainty. They have no idea what’s waiting for them behind this door.
“I thought you were back on the road,” Alyssa said.
Her father averted his eyes from the road to glance at her. “Change of plans. I’ve got a couple of days off.”
“Great. I guess you told Mom—she was going to pick me up.”
“Yeah, she told me you were at Ruby’s.”
Her father had asked to drive, and Alyssa looked outside trying to follow where they were going—prior to getting her restricted, she’d never paid much attention to navigation. The residential street looked vaguely familiar, homes along either side. Then came a cross-street whose name she recognized.
“Shouldn’t we have turned left there?” she asked.
He was about to answer when her phone rang from her back pocket. She pulled it out, and said, “It’s Mom.” Alyssa was about to tap the green button when he jerked the phone out of her hand.
“Dad!”
He pulled to the curb and turned her phone off. Alyssa looked at her father, confused, and saw a face she’d never seen. Something shadowed and unfamiliar.
“Dad,” she said, her voice sounding five years younger, “what’s going on?”