Three minutes later, Justin came out of the dressing room feeling like a different man. He wore a red windbreaker with the logo and the name of FC Spartak Moscow soccer club embroidered on the front and a black ski jacket and ski pants. He kept his combat boots, but wiped them with his old clothes. He also bought a pair of leather gloves and a baseball cap.
Justin stood by the counter wearing his new clothes as the clerk scanned their barcodes and removed their security tags. Then Justin hurried to the electronics store.
This stop took ten minutes, and when Justin stepped out of the store he was armed with two disposable phones. He placed a call to the safe house’s phone number and was relieved to hear Carrie pick up at the first ring. Carrie assured him she was fine and Justin gave her the detention center’s address. He asked her to bring along any heavy weapons she could find at the safe house.
“You look ready to hit the slopes.” Yuliya smiled as Justin returned to his seat.
“This seemed to be the best selection,” he replied.
“Still going ahead with your plan to attack the detention center?” asked Yuliya.
“I have reinforcements.”
“You have one more person: Carrie.”
“It is enough. She’ll distract them, while I make my move.”
“Simple enough,” Yuliya said.
“Exactly.”
She nodded to Bronislav and he started up the car. He made a U-turn and they headed once again toward Moscow’s outskirts.
They drove for about fifteen minutes in silence. Justin was looking out the window as the landscape changed from low-rise apartments to open fields with small patches of forests. They were travelling on narrow, two-lane roads, with very little traffic.
Yuliya said, “This detention center used to be a warehouse. It’s a two-story building, surrounded by chain-link fence crowned with barbwire. If I were you, I would sneak in from the back, slice the throats of the guards, and make my way inside.”
Justin nodded. “Good plan. I’m having Carrie blow up the main entrance. The guards will return fire, and hopefully they’ll pay little attention to the back.”
Yuliya shrugged. “Not sure how far inside you’ll make it but your mind is set.” Her eyes lingered on Justin’s face.
“Yes, I’m going through with it.”
Yuliya let out a deep sigh.
They came to an intersection and Bronislav turned right. Up ahead, Justin noticed the bright lights that lit up the entrance to the detention center. It was about two hundred yards away from the main road and a guard shack was to the left of the solid steel, almost ten-foot-high gate.
“Have you ever been inside?” Justin asked.
“No, but there should be a long wing of cells and a parking garage in the front.”
Justin peered and saw five or six cars parked to the left side of the entrance and by the red brick walls. Faint lights cast an eerie glow around the area and he thought he spotted a couple of silhouettes huddled in a corner. Perhaps they’re guards out for a smoke.
He looked straight ahead and saw the headlights of a car just as it turned in the direction of the center. He noticed it was a sleek black sedan, perhaps a Mercedes-Benz or an Audi.
“Someone’s arriving,” Bronislav said.
“Who is it?” asked Justin.
“I can’t see the driver and I don’t recognize the car,” said Yuliya. “But it looks official. I’m tempted to say it’s FSB.”
“Slow down,” Justin said.
“I can’t. They’ll make us out and there goes your surprise.”
The sedan stopped in front of the gate. The driver rolled down the window and a guard came out of the shack. A moment later, the driver got out and began to talk to the guard in a very animated way. They were too far away, and Bronislav was driving too fast for Justin to be able to follow and understand their hand gestures. As the BMW passed behind the sedan — a Mercedes-Benz — the front passenger opened his door. As he stepped out and straightened himself, Justin recognized him. It was Derzhavin.
“Stop the car, stop. Now!” Justin shouted at Bronislav and Yuliya.
Bronislav kept going.
“Why? What’s happening?” Yuliya asked.
Justin had no time to explain. “Derzhavin’s here.” He pointed toward the gate.
“Where? I don’t see him,” Yuliya replied.
Justin shook his head and made a quick decision. He grabbed the AK lying on the seat next to him and reached for the door handle. He pulled it, then pushed the door open with his shoulder.
“Hey, what are you—”
Justin jumped out of the BMW going at about thirty miles per hour. He aimed away from the spinning wheels and the solid asphalt surface of the road. He landed on his left shoulder in a snow-covered, grassy patch and rolled away.
The BMW screeched to an abrupt halt a few feet away.
Justin turned onto his stomach, ignored the pain in his shoulder, elbows, and knees, and looked up at the gate. It was still closed but the BMW had attracted the attention of the guard and of the Mercedes-Benz driver. They looked in that direction while Derzhavin seemed to be arguing with the guard, waving his arms high in the air. A moment later, the heavy steel gate began to roll open and Derzhavin began to walk back to the car.
“Justin, what was that?” Yuliya asked.
Justin aimed his AK and squeezed a quick burst. His bullets shattered the windows of the Mercedes-Benz, sending Derzhavin and the driver to the ground. The guard went for his sidearm, but Justin fired a couple more rounds and the guard fell on his back.
“Derzhavin’s out there,” Justin said to Yuliya, who now lay flat next to him on the snow. “I’m going to get him.”
“Alone?”
Justin looked at the gate just as a rocket-propelled grenade cut through the cold night air, leaving a thin trail of gray smoke behind. It smashed into the guard shack and exploded, sending a hail of glass and metal shrapnel all over the Mercedes-Benz.
“That’s Carrie,” Justin said. “She likes to make an entrance.”
Yuliya nodded. “Doorknockers,” she said.
Justin raced forward through the grass, letting off quick two- and three-round bursts. There had been no return fire so far and he was determined to make use of this advantage. He had advanced about fifty feet when another rocket-propelled grenade flew over the Mercedes-Benz and slammed into the steel gate, tearing it to shreds.
A long barrage sent him diving for cover on the ground. Someone was shooting from inside the detention center. Muzzle flashes came from two different locations, one from a window on the second floor, and the other by the fence next to the entrance.
Justin took aim and focused his firepower at the closest target. His first few shots missed. Then the shooter made the mistake of popping up for a split second and Justin knocked him down with a bullet to the head.
Two bullets zipped past Justin’s head and he lowered it, burrowing deep into the snow for an inch or so of cover. A single shot came from behind him, then another one, and the return fire stopped. He looked back at Yuliya, about twenty feet away.
“Thanks,” he said.
She nodded. “You’re welcome.”
Other quick-fire bursts came from behind, calm and calculated, the unmistakable staccato of the AK in the trained hands of Bronislav.
A small car appeared on the road coming from the direction of the rocket-propelled grenades. It was travelling in stealth mode, without any headlights, guided by the faint moonlight glow. That has to be Carrie.
Justin climbed to his feet and began to run bent at the waist toward the entrance.
Derzhavin appeared by the front of the sedan and fired two short bursts.