“Did she really just call him my father?” I hysterically type into the chat, in part as a sanity check, but also to frame the question for myself.
“She did,” Ada replies. “I know it’s very Empire Strikes Back, but you have to pull yourself together and quick.”
My mind is a beehive of thoughts as I try to piece it all together. Mom also referred to this guy as Felix. According to my grandparents, that’s indeed the name of the asshole who got Mom pregnant all those years ago.
Slowing my punching, I study the battered face in front of me and realize some of his features are similar to the ones I see in the mirror every day. That’s why he looked so familiar. Still, to be extra sure, I manually run the face recognition app. Since the lights are back up, the app runs without a hitch and confirms what I already knew.
This is Felix Rodinov, which are the first and last names of my father. I only get a glimpse of his bio. His real family includes kids, my half-siblings, and a wife he’s been married to for about forty years, meaning he was married before and during his affair with Mom. There’s a laundry list of scientific accomplishments and posts at various Russian universities and agencies.
An insight flashes through my brain—a vague notion of how his presence answers a number of questions I’ve had about this whole affair—but I put the thought aside.
More confused than I’ve ever felt in my life, I stop hitting my father and wonder what to do.
My attention is stolen by what’s happening in the camera view.
Joe makes his move.
With his real gun, he aims in Anton and Yegor’s direction. Joe must have switched weapons because stealth is no longer a factor, and he might as well give Anton the piece of lead he deserves.
His silenced shot is much quieter than Anton’s, but it’s still loud enough to hurt my damaged eardrums.
Unfortunately, Anton doesn’t fall, but Yegor does get a bullet in his eyeball, or so I assume given the bloody fountain of gelatinous goo that sprays from his face and the bits of brain matter that fly out the back of his head. The nauseating smell of blood mingled with gunpowder fills the room, followed by something far worse.
As Yegor falls, two last things happen in his life. His bowels release with a sickening stench, and he drags Anton to the ground with him.
The ape-bison Russian doesn’t let the fall put him at a disadvantage. He lands in a kneeling position with his gun outstretched and pointed at Joe.
Anton’s forearm muscles twitch. He’s pulling the trigger.
In a flurry of movement, Nadejda dives and pushes Joe out of the way.
Anton’s gun goes off, and the bang scrambles my brain through my ear canals.
The bullet hits Nadejda square in her left breast.
Blood sprays out, and Nadejda clutches her chest as if to force the blood back in.
Eyes wide with horror and shock, Nadejda collapses to the ground, her bald head smacking loudly against the floor tiles.
Despite the push, Joe doesn’t lose his footing. Catching himself, he glances at Nadejda, and a frightening, guttural sound escapes his mouth at the sight of her crime-scene posed body. Like a jaguar, he leaps at Anton. His fist connects with Anton’s jaw, and their guns clank against the floor.
Joe’s attack looks like something out of a slasher movie. He bites Anton’s ear, Mike Tyson style, then spits the blood and flesh into Anton’s ever-whitening face.
Anton screams like a terrified cornered animal. Almost in slow motion, I watch as his big, sweaty fist lands a devastating blow to Joe’s right eye, and my cousin’s head ricochets backward.
As someone who received that same blow, I fear Joe might’ve gotten knocked out. Acting as quickly as I can, I turn and draw my silenced Glock.
In the blink of an eye, I realize my aim assist is back—at least something good came out of the lights coming back on.
I point the oh-so-helpful line at the only place I can without hitting Joe—Anton’s right shoulder.
Squeezing the trigger, I feel the gun kick in my wounded hands.
The bullet rips through Anton’s shoulder, and he yelps in pain.
Joe manages not to lose consciousness. Instead, he sticks his fingers into the bloody mound of meat I just created and twists them back and forth, as though trying to find the bullet to keep as a souvenir. At the same time, he claws at his enemy’s face with his other hand, and I wince as I glimpse Anton’s eyes popping like squished slugs.
Anton’s cry is no longer recognizable as human.
I fight the temptation to puke and keep my gun on Anton, but after another moment, the precaution isn’t needed.
Joe takes out his knife and repeatedly stabs Anton in the chest.
The blood coming out of Anton’s mouth garbles his wails and sprays the room like gruesome fire sprinklers as he collapses to the floor.
Holding in a surge of bile, I check the video view to see if I should shoot Gogi’s opponent, but Gogi is already getting up, having won the fight.
Something pulls on my waistband from behind, and with a sinking feeling, I realize my father just snatched the guard’s gun I stuck there earlier.
A shot rings out, and I expect to feel a blast of pain. Instead, I see Gogi grab his left upper arm.
I spin around to deal with my father, but my mom is already kicking him in the temple. Felix reels back, his head snapping to the side.
As someone who’s played soccer with her, I know her kick is freakishly strong.
Felix looks too dazed to shoot again, but I club him on the nose with the butt of my gun for good measure, and I’m rewarded with the crunch of his nose breaking.
My father goes limp underneath me, finally losing consciousness.
I take away the gun he stole and slide the magazine out, mentally noting to do this earlier in the future—if the future involves the type of events we’ve experienced today, that is.
Gogi offers me his uninjured hand, and I let him help me up.
Though my legs are wobbly, I manage to stand straight.
“Mishen’ka.” Mom rushes to me, and Gogi moves out of her way.
I’m caught in a huge mama-bear hug that instantly makes me feel better. In the next moment, however, she begins sobbing, and my fleeting comfort evaporates, replaced by that feeling I’ve known since I was a little kid—the despair of having to hear my mother cry.
“We have to get out of here,” I tell her forcefully in Russian, pulling back. “Can you run?”
“I think I can,” Mom says between hiccups and sobs. Her round face is blotchy, and she looks dazed. “I can’t believe you’re here, in Russia. And Joseph. Please tell me my brother isn’t here—”
“Uncle Abe is in New York,” I answer as I grab Mom by her elbow and unceremoniously usher her to the door. It looks like stress sharpened her memory, or at least her awareness of her surroundings.
“Take her outside,” Joe tells me. “Gogi and I will go through the window.”
As I field Mom’s panicked questions, I lead her out of the room toward the stairs.
In the camera view, I watch as Joe walks over to Nadejda’s body, kneels, and checks her pulse.
Gogi, who’s in the process of bandaging his arm with his ripped sleeve, approaches them and looks solemnly at Joe. My cousin shakes his head, almost imperceptibly. Gogi’s shoulders droop, and while Joe’s bloodied face is an emotionless mask again, I swear I see sorrow somewhere deep in his icy-blue eyes.
My grief hits me then. I try not to show it since I don’t want to burden Mom. Even though I didn’t know Nadejda very long, I somehow became fond of the big woman. It just doesn’t seem right that such a courageous, tough-as-nails person is dead, that she died saving my cousin.
Joe jumps to his feet, walks up to Anton, and rips out the knife he left in the man’s chest with a violent jerk. I mentally zoom in the camera view, trying not to trip on the stairs as I lead my mom down.
Joe approaches Ivan, the guard, and stabs the knocked-out man in the heart.
A moment later, he’s looming over Felix’s unconscious form.
“Wait, Joe, don’t,” I mentally text my cousin.
He bends over.
“Please, Joe, stop,” I whisper into the earpiece. “He’s—”
Joe either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care. His knife cuts into my father’s neck on the left and slides all the way to his right ear. A pool of blood forms on the floor.
I’m on the verge of losing the contents of my stomach again, but for Mom’s sake, I breathe in deep, fighting the nausea. My father, whom I just met, is dead, and I have no idea how to process that. What should I feel for a man who shared half of my genes yet was capable of such evil? How should I view a stranger who did such horrible things? The cocktail of emotions boiling in my chest is overwhelming, but I know whatever I’m feeling is just the tip of an enormous iceberg I’ll have to confront at some point, Titanic style.
“What about Joe?” Mom asks, looking confused. Unlike me, she didn’t watch the murder on the camera. “What did you not want him to do?”
“Nothing, Mom,” I force myself to say as we clear the turn in the staircase. Swallowing the acid rising in my throat, I lie, “I was asking him if I could sit next to you in the car.”
“Of course you’re sitting next to me,” Mom says, frowning. “Why would he mind?”
“Safety,” I say as we get to the first floor and head for the exit. “But don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
Through Gogi’s camera, I see him slide down the rope like a fireman and run for the second car while Joe gets behind the wheel of the minibus.
My jaw drops as I watch Gogi take explosives out of one of the bags he’s had with him since the HALO jump. I mistakenly thought all the explosives were in Muhomor’s possession, but it seems like Gogi kept some for himself.
I belatedly shudder at what we risked during the jump. If Gogi’s parachute hadn’t opened, our deaths would’ve been violent on a much larger scale than I thought.
When Mom and I are halfway through the first floor, Gogi sets up the explosives around the doomed car, shoulders the bag with the leftover explosives, and puts the car into neutral. He then exits the car and pushes it closer to the facility wall.
Making sure his guns are on him, he runs for the minibus.
As Mom and I approach the building exit, Gogi jumps into the car, and I glimpse the rest of the terrified hostages already inside.
“Mr. Shafer came through,” I mentally type into the chat.
Before my friends can respond, gunshots ring out outside.