Sprinting back beneath assaulting gunfire, I reach him in seconds. My father’s steel-gray eyes settle on mine. “The AK,” he rasps.
I look at the still-writhing man nearby. An AK is strapped across his back.
I lunge for the man, wrap my hands over his neck, and tug on the rifle strap.
He tries throwing me off. I unhook the knife from his belt and sink it into his chest.
He stops moving.
I loop the rifle strap over the man’s head. It catches on his ear. I free it and return to my father, skidding to my knees beside him. I give him the AK and a spare magazine.
Sitting upright, my father loads the magazine into the AK and racks back the slide.
Around us, the Chechen wall breaks through the trees, converging upon us.
“Go south at double pace”—his words are labored gasps—“until you reach the road—”
I shake my head furiously. “I’m not leav—”
Pop-pop-pop!
My father stands. A bullet hits his chest. Another bullet in his thigh.
I scream—an anguished primitive sound.
But he’s impervious. Made of iron.
Propping his back against the stump, he unleashes a procession of precision AK gunfire.
“Sophia!” he shouts. “Run!”
Wrenching forward, I run.
CHAPTER 56
Stay south. Head downhill.
I’ll reach the road. From there I can find a way to contact my mother.
I have to tell her … Stop it! He’ll survive.
Settling into a rhythm, I focus on keeping my pace.
At first, I hear footsteps behind me. Then, silence.
A branch cuts my cheek. My sleeve snags on a bush. In the distance, beyond the tops of the trees, a bright winter sun is rising above the mountain, gold slashing aside the gray.
I emerge from the dim forest at the edge of a clearing. I’m standing on a pebbled shoreline, looking out over a smooth, glossy surface that spreads eight hundred meters ahead, and fifteen hundred meters in either direction.
Covered in a thin sheet of ice, the alpine lake glistens amber in the rising sunlight. Across the lake, shaded from the sun, the forest continues. I nudge my toe against the ice.
A chunk breaks off the edge in a pocket of bubbles.
Behind me, heavy footfalls gather like cavalry. I haven’t run fast enough. Now I have no cover.
Thirty meters to my left, two men burst from the forest. Spotting me, they run faster, their weapons slung over their backs.
I put my foot on the thin ice. It splinters beneath my weight.
Forty meters to my right, three more men tumble out of the forest. They run down the bank in my direction. Twenty-five meters. Twenty. Two of them drop their Kalashnikovs to run faster. One bends over, panting.
Somewhere in the periphery of my subconscious, I understand what I’ve been unwilling to accept since I was fourteen. These men don’t intend to kill me; they need me alive, and this makes me more afraid than I ever knew possible.
I take another step onto the lake. The ice sheet stays. No splintering. No bubbles. I slide farther onto the precarious surface. How long will it hold?
The fastest one is nearing me. Ten meters. Five.
Run. His voice is in my head. Over and over again until I can’t stop hearing it. Run!
The ice is so thin, I can see the pebbles below it. I begin to run.
Keeping my feet light, I head toward the dark shoreline. Behind me, someone steps onto the lake. Beneath his boots, the ice starts to fragment. A fissure moves toward me and I sprint.
Halfway across the lake—Crack!
I turn to look—he sinks into the lake so quickly I barely see him. Behind him, another man has also run onto the lake, but the ice splinters beneath him too. Like a train crashing into a mountain, the ice ruptures in a deafening roar.
I force myself to keep running, deftly, delicately, across the fracturing surface.
Two more men creep cautiously onto the lake, trying to skirt the veining ice. I hear a yelp. I turn to see the ice dissolve beneath them too. Their bodies plunge into the frigid water.
In the distance, one has decided to run around the lake. Good. He’ll never catch me.
I reach the opposite side of the lake still in the shadow of darkness. I increase my pace, run up the bank and into the woods.
I’ll stay inside the tree coverage until I reach the road. Then I’ll find a way to contact my mother.
However, as I crest the wooded slope leading out of the forest, I halt.
Terror cuts open my bloodstream.
He steps toward me, smiling. His hair is neatly tied in a ponytail.