“I have a car outside,” she said in Russian. “Dress quickly, we get your son, and we go.”
Without a word, Ruslan started moving, rising and heading to the dresser on the wall opposite the foot of the bed. He stripped, back to her, began pulling on clothes, and Chace watched him for a half second longer, then stepped lightly back, toward the door, to listen at the opening. There was no sound from downstairs, only the shift of cloth and movement as Ruslan continued to dress. Chace took the time to draw the hush puppy, then shrug out of the flak jacket. When she looked back to Ruslan, he was almost fully, if hastily, dressed in dark trousers and a long-sleeved shirt, now working on his shoes.
“It’s cold,” Chace whispered to him.
He nodded, finished with his last shoe, moved to the closet. From inside he pulled a thick overcoat.
“You have to keep your son quiet,” Chace told him. “Can you keep Stepan quiet?”
He was pulling on his overcoat, and surprised her by answering in English, his accent more Russian than Uzbek, but not so thick as to make him unintelligible. “Yes, he’ll stay quiet.”
Chace held out the flak jacket for him. “Wrap him in this,” she answered, now speaking English, too. “It’ll offer some protection.”
Ruslan balked for a second, looking at the blood-soaked garment, then nodded, taking it.
“Follow me,” Chace said, and slipped out the door, back into the hall. There was still nothing from below, no motion, no noise. She covered the distance to the child’s room, feeling Ruslan close behind her, then let him pass her when they entered. Ruslan moved to the crib, scooping up his son and whispering a flood of Uzbek as he did, cradling the little boy against his chest, wrapping the flak jacket around him. The boy barely stirred, and Chace wondered if Ruslan could keep him asleep until they were out of the house.
“Stay close,” Chace told him. “The car is out front. When we reach it, get in the back, then lie down on Stepan.”
“Yes,” Ruslan whispered.
Chace pivoted, moved back into the bright light of the upstairs hall, to the top of the landing. She stole a glance over the railing, down to the floor below, and saw no one but the body she’d left just inside the doorway. She motioned for Ruslan to follow, and he emerged from his son’s room. When the light hit Stepan, the boy squawked in soft protest, burying his face further against Ruslan’s chest, and Chace thought of Tamsin without wanting to or meaning to, then turned away, leading father and son down the stairs.
She checked the entry hall, looking back toward the darkened kitchen, then turned to the front door and edged it open, the hush puppy held in low-ready, with both hands. No one was outside, and the sound of the unattended Volga, its engine still wheezing, was the only thing she heard.
“Now,” Chace said, and she ran for the car, Ruslan with his son still in his arms close on her heels. She reached the car first, whipping her head around, checking the street in both directions even as she pulled open the rear door. The boy was crying now, startled and unnerved as Ruslan bundled him inside, and Chace heard his father’s voice, low and calm and constant, speaking in Uzbek. She slammed the door behind them, jumped into the driver’s seat, and accelerated out, wheeling the car around into a one-eighty. She floored it, the Volga reluctant at first, then finally catching speed.
From the backseat, she heard Stepan’s sobs turn to howls.
Chace slid the Volga to a stop beside the Range Rover, jumped out, saying, “Wait here.”
“What—” Ruslan began, almost shouting over Stepan’s screams.
She ignored him, moving to the tailgate. Without the flak jacket, the cold was beginning to eat at her, finding the sweat and blood still wet on her skin and clothes. A wind was starting to rise, light, but enough to make her shiver.
Chace pulled the Starstreak from the Range Rover, switched on the power to the aiming unit and ignition, then hoisted it onto her shoulder, settling her right eye against the monocular. Sweat clung to her eyelashes, stinging her, and she blinked, trying to clear her eyes. A new anticipation swelled in her chest, a strange collusion of fear and excitement, almost arousing. She knew the Starstreak from reports, from technical papers and military analysis. She knew the Starstreak academically, what it could do, how it did it. But she’d never fired one herself, never seen the results in person. She lined up the aiming mark, exhaling slowly.
She depressed the firing stud, the small white button resting below her right thumb.
For a fraction of a second there was nothing, no response from the Starstreak, and her thoughts flashed on the possibility that the unit was dead, that the internal battery was incapable of engaging the first-stage motor and starting the launch sequence. Then, on her shoulder, she felt the tube rumble, the missile hissing, the sound of a kettle just before boil. Thrust drove the launcher hard into her shoulder, pressing her down, and she grit her teeth, fighting to keep the aiming mark steady on target. It all took an instant, and then, just as swiftly, the pressure was gone.
It all came back to her then, all of the clinical data, the briefings, the analysis. Starstreak, designed as a high-velocity extreme-short-range MANPAD, maximum distance five kilometers, minimum only three hundred meters. Composed of a two-stage rocket motor, capped with a three-dart kinetically driven payload guidance system. The electronic pulse delivered via the firing stud engages the first-stage motor, propelling the missile from its canister while canted nozzles on the side of the rocket force it to rotate, the rotation in turn causing its fins to deploy, providing stabilization in flight.
Missile clears launch tube, first-stage motor is jettisoned, second stage is engaged, providing full thrust, and accelerating the rocket to speeds in excess of Mach 4. Missile closes to target, the darts fire, each dart with its own high-density penetrating explosive payload, fuse, guidance system, and thermal battery. Dart separation from missile initiates the arming of each warhead, each dart guided independently via a double laser-beam riding system, controlled by the missile operator via the aiming unit.
That was the clinical, the academic, what she knew.
What she experienced was the roar of the launch, the shock of the missile leaving the launch tube, the flare of light, the wash of heat. White-hot fire streaking horizontally toward number 14 Uzbekiston, her arm shaking, her eye stinging, trying to keep the aiming mark on the door, left wide open in the wake of their flight.
The missile vanished, and for a fraction, nothing, not noise, not light, nothing.
Then the house exploded.
Chace felt the concussion throughout her body, dropped the launch tube, and turned her back to the flames and falling debris. From the back of the Range Rover, she scooped up the Kalashnikov, the spare magazines, and the blanket, then made her way to the Volga, climbing inside. Ruslan was staring at her, and Stepan, for the moment, had gone silent, held against his father’s shoulder, staring past him, at the ruins of the house.
She started the car and pulled away from the Range Rover.
In the backseat, Stepan said something in Uzbek, and Ruslan responded tartly. In the rearview mirror, Chace could see the man still staring at her. Stepan repeated the word, and Ruslan responded the same way.
“What’s he saying?” Chace asked.
“Again,” Ruslan said. “He wants you to do it again.”