“Stay behind me,” I tell Mom in a hopefully commanding voice.
Mom listens, proving this ordeal must’ve had an impact on her usual “eggs don’t teach the chicken” philosophy. Normally, she never would’ve let me risk my life on her behalf—not that we’ve ever been in a situation like this before.
I open the door a sliver to see where the shots are coming from. Two guards are running toward us from the east.
Fortunately, they’re shooting at something that isn’t me.
I raise the Glock and aim the assist line at the rightmost man’s leg. Suddenly, the minibus crashes into my target, causing him and his buddy to fly in opposite directions and sparing me a bullet.
The minibus violently turns in our direction, grass and dirt spraying from under its tires.
I pull Mom through the exit.
Joe stops the van, and Gogi opens the door.
I help Mom inside, and she scoots toward the middle. I jump in after her and sit by the window, behind Joe.
The hostages look shell-shocked, but they’re not screaming or panicking.
Our tires spin in place, spitting grass; then we rocket forward.
I hear shouting and engines revving somewhere nearby.
The guards are almost here.
“Muhomor, the plan has changed,” Gogi says into the earpiece. “I want you to blow half the distraction. Just make sure the exit point isn’t part of that.” At the same time, Gogi presses the detonator in his hands and carefully puts it into his bag.
The ground, along with the minibus, shakes violently as the car next to the facility explodes.
The view from the security camera in the room goes static and dies, so I dismiss that AROS window. I’m guessing about half the facility is now in ruins.
About a dozen more explosions ring out in the distance, and Muhomor says, “That’s round one, as requested.”
We were originally going to detonate the explosives all at once to create a distraction as we escaped the compound. Muhomor and Lyuba snuck around and placed the explosives around the compound’s walls. Of course, in that original plan, we were supposed to be next to our exit point when the explosions went off. Now we can only hope the havoc this batch of bombs created is enough to minimize the number of guards about to swoop down on us.
“I’m also trying to mess with their comms,” Muhomor says into our earpieces. “Oh, and you guys might appreciate this—it wasn’t part of the original plan, but I was able to improvise.”
Loud alarms go off from every direction. Muhomor must’ve hacked into the alarm system. He’s clearly trying his hardest to make up for the lights debacle.
“Keep this up, and Joe might not kill you after all,” I text him reassuringly, and he mutters a bunch of choice Russian curses into my earpiece in reply.
The literal and figurative ear assault continues as we move from grass onto asphalt.
A pair of confused guards shows up in our way. Joe’s hands tighten on the wheel, and he floors the gas pedal. The guards’ bodies thump against the front of the minibus, and I swallow thickly as we leave them broken behind us.
As we approach an intersection, a Humvee, or its Russian equivalent, appears on the road perpendicular to us.
Joe speeds up.
The car does the same.
The driver must be truly insane to play a game of chicken with Joe of all people.
Joe grips the wheel firmly.
The Humvee doesn’t slow down.
In a chorus of voices, Gogi, my mom, and the rest of the study participants beg Joe to stop or turn or do something to avoid the inevitable crash.
“Joe,” I scream over everyone, my voice going hoarse, “even if we T-bone him, which is the best case scenario in this madness, we’ll all break our bones or worse. We have older people in the car, including your aunt—”
Without any sign that he heard us, Joe rolls the window down further, draws his gun, turns the wheel, and slams on the brakes.
Maybe it’s a trick from the brain boost, but I suddenly understand Joe’s plan. In case I’m right, I take out my gun and prepare to assist him.
Victim to the laws of physics, the minibus spins almost ninety degrees and skids to a stop parallel to the Humvee’s direction a few feet from the intersection.
As the Humvee passes us, Joe sprays it with a torrent of bullets.
Doing my part, I use the aiming app to shoot the Humvee’s front tire.
In a fierce jerk, the Humvee veers off the road. Either Joe hit the driver, or I got the tire—or we both succeeded.
When the big vehicle hits the bushes, it flips over and rolls into the ditch.
Joe turns the wheel all the way to the left and floors the gas pedal.
As we get back onto the road, I notice another car far behind us.
Joe drives like a rabid maniac, and at last, I see the wall looming in the distance. Our target shouldn’t be far off.
Mom gasps, and I follow her gaze. Several cars are blocking the road in front of us. We’ll never get through them.
I guess Joe wasn’t planning on driving in a straight line anyway. With a sudden jerk that makes at least eight of our passengers squeal, the minibus veers off the road and heads straight for the part of the wall we originally planned to escape from.
The wall grows bigger and bigger, the moonlight illuminating the rusty barbed wire across the very top.
Driving on dirt is an art Joe hasn’t mastered. A big rock causes me to literally bite my tongue, and I taste blood for the umpteenth time today, while the miniature hill we drive over causes me to hit my head on the minibus roof.
Only a dozen seconds pass before someone in the back throws up, and a sour smell permeates the air, which, combined with the sound of someone heaving, initiates a horrible chain reaction. It takes all my willpower not to join the puke circle, and I can tell by Mom’s green face that she’s in the same boat.
The car that was behind us and a couple of swifter cars from the blockade aren’t just following us; they’re closing the distance. They must be better equipped for off-road driving than our piece of junk van.
Our destination, the wall, gets ever closer, but it might as well be miles away, because someone starts firing at us from behind.
Gogi opens his bomb bag and fiddles with something inside.
The first bullet shatters the right-side mirror. The second hits the back window, and someone moans in pain.
My heart skips a beat, but then I see my mom is unharmed. I feel a wave of relief mixed with a hint of guilt, partly because I’m glad for someone else’s misfortune, but also because of what I prophetically told Joe earlier—that the participants we saved could be used as a buffer if we got shot at.
Gogi finishes whatever he was doing with the explosives. Rolling down his window, he throws the bag out.
I block my ears, expecting to hear an explosion upon impact, but nothing happens when the bag hits the ground.
Another bullet strikes the back window, but the screams that follow don’t sound like cries of pain.
His hand clutching the detonator, Gogi looks intently behind us.
“Phase Two, on my order,” he barks, his finger on his earpiece.
“Got it,” Muhomor replies.
Gogi’s jaw muscles tense.
I look behind us and see our pursuers almost level with the bag.
Unfortunately, we’re less than a minute from hitting the brick wall.
“Now,” Gogi says and squeezes the detonator.