“Well—”
Clay interjected. “All I can think of is that we can try to make a break for it. This place has never been weaker than it is right now. It has almost no security and only four guards. Mikail carries the keys. We can just jump him or something and try to make a break through the south fence.”
“It won’t work, Clay,” Vasily responded. “I have the room key, which also fits the cluster doors, but it only fits the rooms in this cluster. Vladimir is head of security now, and I think only he carries the external door master keys. I have to knock on the door to get out, so that means the guards carry a door key as well.”
Clay paused and thought. He trailed his hand along the cold concrete before slapping it in delight. “That’s it! So you have a key to this cluster, and the guards at the exits have a key to the external doors?”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“And if you were to try to exit the south door, which is only a brisk run from the collapsed fence, they wouldn’t let you out because you’re not authorized to go out that exit, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Beautiful! And they’d never let you through, because you only speak Russian. Right? At least that is what they think! Right?”
The boy looked at him, waiting.
“Right now there is only one man with a key and a gun between us and freedom! So you could speak in perfect English and they would assume that it was either Vladimir or Mikail! They’d open the door to either of them, would they not?”
“They would!”
Clay and Vasily smiled broadly and started to give one another a high-five, but then they looked over at Volkhov who was frowning. “We shouldn’t try to all get out the same way,” he said, “What if something goes wrong? They’d kill us all.” He looked at Clay. “You and I, we are as good as dead already to Mikail and his people. Not Vasily. He can get out cleanly.”
“What do you recommend, grandfather?” Vasily asked.
“We mustn’t underestimate Mikail. He is a brilliant young man, and I don’t mean that he is just ‘smart’. He tested off the charts in every category. He is a phenomenon.”
Volkhov looked at Clay as if to ask if he knew what they were up against. Clay nodded his head and took another drink from his bottle.
“Why wasn’t he sent to Russia to spy? He’s old enough isn’t he?” Clay asked.
“Some people are not sent because they fail the tests, or because they are not adept at being dishonest, or because they have a skill or ability that is valuable for the village here. Some people are not sent because they lack some critical mode of thinking that is required for the job they are being sent to do. Mikail was not sent because he has a gloriously beautiful mind and is a completely unpredictable sociopath.”
“You’d think that would be a plus in the spy game,” Clay said, smiling.
“They don’t mind ‘sociopath’ so much, but ‘unpredictable’ is what gets you disqualified. His whole attitude—his anger, bravado, and even his danger—comes from being rejected for service by the Americans. The Russians accepted him, because they had nothing to lose. He is expendable if he fails, and if he doesn’t…” Volkhov said, sighing.
“Ok, so back to this plan. So you and I bust out the back, Volkhov, while Vasily goes out the front. Then he can meet up with—what is your nephew’s name, Pyotr?”
“That’s it,” Volkhov said, nodding his head.
The old man took Vasily by the shoulders and smiled at him affectionately for a moment. “Vasily, you will take the bag because you can surely get it out without being stopped. You must get to Pyotr. Whatever the cost. Tell him what we are doing. If we get out, tell him we will meet you at the pumping station. He’ll know what that means.”
Vasily nodded, and gave the old man a hug. When the embrace was broken, Volkhov added, “Let me tell both of you something. If anything goes wrong during this ill-advised and quixotic jailbreak, anything at all, you are to leave me behind. I will not go with you unless you promise me that. I am an old man, and I really don’t want to live through what is coming anyway. If the attack comes, it will be on Tuesday. That was the plan from the beginning. It will begin on the evening of the election.”
Both Clay and Vasily nodded. Something in the back of Clay’s mind should have noted that he was making a plan for escape with a young boy and an old man who had just stated that there was to be some sort of apocalyptic attack due on the day of an election, but he did not make that connection in that moment. The tension between his old world and this new world had snapped. He was simply a man fighting for his life in a cell with two other men who were doing the same, and who were offering to watch his back.
The excitement of making a decision had trailed off and an aura of sadness now permeated the cell. They stood silently for several moments before Volkhov again broke the quiet. “Come Tuesday, you guys have to really step it up a notch. Everything will change dramatically, even as it has already begun to change.
“Don’t drink municipal water anywhere on the Eastern Seaboard. Stay away from any areas where masses of people are gathered. Don’t trust anyone in uniform…”
He paused to let that sink in.
“Don’t try to fight it out, because that is a loser’s game. The Soviet plan, or should I say, the plan of those on the third side, will be to foster instability and chaos and panic. The primary purpose of government in an advanced civilization is to prevent or minimize panic. That is it. Everything else is window dressing. You don’t have to invade a country to destroy it. The people will do that for you when their comforts evaporate.”
“Sounds ominous,” Clay said.
“You have no idea,” Volkhov replied. After a moment he said, “People who know such things will expect the bombs to start dropping immediately, but that won’t happen. They will want to maximize the damage from confusion and riots before they use bombs. You’ll have some time to get somewhere safe.”
“You mean we will have some time,” Vasily said.
“If I am alive, then yes. Anyway, as I mentioned during my boring speech, the higher-ups on both side know what is coming. It’s been planned all along. But the law of unintended consequences will come into play. No plan survives contact with the enemy.
“They’ll intend to launch missiles soon enough, but subordinates, and some free agents, and others throughout the system will have war-gamed that. The initial launches will be thwarted by massive EMP attacks in all of the critical places.
He paused and looked at the farmer-poet and the errand boy standing before him, his generals. He felt not a single bit, not even the scintilla of the slightest bit, of irony.
“We don’t have time for me to explain it all. Anyway… two weeks. That’s how long you’ll have. Then, the law of human ingenuity will kick in. Despite key cards and codes and fail-safes and guarantees it will only take two weeks before some brilliant minds on every side figure out a workaround. And they will figure out a workaround, you can bet.”
He stopped and let the word will sink in.
“Two weeks,” Clay said, nodding his head. “That’s if we get out of here.”
Vasily looked at Clay and said, “So, now you will have to be the one to imitate Vladimir’s voice. Can you do it?”
“I can,” he said, and Clay was pretty sure he could.
They went back over the plan quickly, noting that the guards would be expecting Vasily to exit at any time now. There was no benefit in making them suspicious. So after they had all agreed to the plan, Vasily shook their hands and departed. He was to grab the backpack, and head out the north door. His job was to not get caught, and to meet up with Pyotr.