“Perhaps our trespassers wish to speak up?”
His grey eyes crackled with malice. An inevitable confrontation simmered. With each passing moment, more pairs of eyes from the crowd followed their leader’s scathing look, turning to the intruders they had almost disregarded. Sokolov forced himself not to be intimidated by those eyes Weinstock had — his true weapon.
A deathly silence hung in the conference hall, an ominous veil of some calamity about to strike.
Sokolov cursed himself mentally. Barging right into the vipers’ nest had been crazy in the first place. Now his recklessness endangered Asiyah. To protect himself, Weinstock could turn the crowd against them. Outnumbered, there wouldn’t be too much of a fight to put up.
Without warning, the door burst opened and camouflaged figures surged inside the conference hall like ants. Their blue-gray fatigues and black balaclavas identified them as OMON, Russia’s fearsome police unit
“Everybody down! Your faces to the floor! Now!”
Gasps and obscenities rippled through the crowd. The OMON troopers spread out, threatening with their batons. Their compact AKs added weight to the shouted orders. Frightened by the onslaught, several Free Action members raised their hands in submission, and sank to the floor, knowing better than to ask questions. Most were too stunned to move, and in the eyes of the troopers, needed encouragement. One OMON goon, with the build and the attitude of a bull, shoved a woman down to the floor and smashed his baton against the neck of a man next to her. The OMON emphasized the point, dishing out punishment to those nearest to the exit, pushing them away. Chairs toppled. Cries filled the room.
An enraged neighbor of the hurt woman threw himself at the policeman, and the two crashed on the floor. From the middle of the audience a well-trained group organized quickly, crowding an aisle to block access to Weinstock. Others stood up and challenged the OMON squad, hindering their movement. Batons sliced the air angrily, crunching against human bodies. With chairs flying the opposite way, punches and kicks breaking against body armor, it all turned into a mad brawl, the OMON winning in violent hits, but losing in numbers and initiative.
Sokolov’s senses fired up. Seizing the chance, he backed away from the crowd, shielding Asiyah with his body.
“Keep your head low,” he whispered to her. “Stay right behind me.”
They moved to the empty corner of the conference hall, away from the immediate skirmish.
With the situation going out of control, an OMON man trained his Kalashnikov on the mass of people.
“Back off! Everybody down, you scum!”
Through the slits of his balaclava, his mouth was twisted with rage, eyes ablaze, making his face a hideous mask.
That did enough to subdue the resistance. Advancing through the conference hall, the OMON would get to Eugene and Asiyah before long.
Sokolov saw the barrel of the assault rifle pointed at them.
The memory of Beslan was spinning in his mind, a vertigo of perverted reality. He was reliving an even uglier version of the nightmare. This time, as he put his body between Asiyah and the shooter, the police acted as terrorists, herding hostages in a confined space. The Kalashnikovs — and the black masks — were identical. And Asiyah, the girl he had vowed to save, was next to him. What maddened him was seeing the OMON fighting civilians — with all the ferocity of 1993, as he imagined his father at the barricades, clashing with the same riot police. It galvanized him into action.
Before anyone could react, Weinstock grabbed his table and tossed in at the window.
Glass burst into fragments, the frames broke off their hinges.
“Gene! He’s trying to escape!” Asiyah said.
She ran in tow as Sokolov dashed forward. Chasing Weinstock, Sokolov cared less about catching him than using the escape route he had created for himself. Saving his skin, Weinstock gave them the only chance out.
Seeing their charge, Weinstock yelled, “They are the ones who brought in the cops! Get them!”
Ignoring the policemen, three of Weinstock’s loyal men cut into Sokolov’s path.
With amazing dexterity, Herman Weinstock hopped over the window sill, and then vanished, running to the riverbank across the field. Two OMON troopers pursued him — clearly, their orders stood to catch Weinstock alive.
Trusting their comrades to arrest the leader of Free Action, the others were busy standing over their prone captives, frisking and handcuffing them. The troopers hesitated, but saw no reason to interfere as three brutes started a fight with a solitary man and a girl. If anything, it was amusing entertainment.
Before his attacker — a bearded, square-shouldered thug — could swing a punch at him, Sokolov axed a front kick, belting the foot into his face. Caught on the chin, the man staggered and fell. Sokolov’s foot was still in the air when — with one powerful motion — he hooked it sideways and slammed his heel against the head of the man’s partner, knocking him senseless.
Sokolov opened himself up for a counter from the third man, and prepared to block his strike, but Asiyah drove her boot into the man’s gut, and following up with another roundhouse to bring him down.
Not missing a beat, Gene and Asiyah ran for the window.
The dozen-strong OMON squad would no longer watch idly.
“Hold it right there!”
One trooper pressed the stock of his Kalashnikov to his shoulder and aimed. There was no question about the seriousness of his intent. The OMON only shot to kill.
Now or never. Putting his body between Asiyah and the line of fire, he hoisted her to the empty window sash. Asiyah jumped clear.
When the gunshot came, it boomed around the hall, rocking him, deafening.
9
Asiyah tumbled to the grass lawn.
Diving through the window, Sokolov landed near her. Adrenalin buzzing, he recovered quickly, getting back to his feet. Although visibly shaken, Asiyah did not appear to be hurt as she picked herself up.
The shot had missed. Sokolov knew he did not owe his life to poor marksmanship. The thunderclap of the Kalashnikov was a warning — to stop them, and to alert another OMON trooper standing watch outside. He was alone — whether his comrades had gone after Weinstock, or he was waiting for backup, Sokolov hardly cared.
The trooper hacked with the baton. Sokolov met the strike with a sharp block to the man’s wrist and punched with such power that he felt his knuckles fracture the jawbone.
Asiyah tugged his shoulder, and he followed her, together running away from more danger.
They were out in the open, charging through a grass field. Sokolov expected OMON to ambush them any second, or a bullet to sizzle into his spine. Asiyah set the pace, Sokolov running hard to keep up with her. He knew they had to take cover somewhere, veer off the direct course.
To their right, an impregnable mesh of netting screened off the boundaries of the golf driving range.
To their left was a pine grove, part of the woods maintained at the Country Club for game hunting.
“Go for the trees!” he called to Asiyah, but indeed, he needn’t have. Swiftly, she had already changed direction, her vision and thinking as quick as his.
They dashed to the grove like Olympians pushing for the finish line. Stopping as they penetrated it, Asiyah pressed against a tree, exhausted.
“Anyone chasing us?” Asiyah said.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “But it won’t be for long. Soon, the OMON will be crawling all over the resort.”
Asiyah nodded. “I saw Weinstock heading to the riverfront. We still have a chance of making up the head start he has on us.”