He looked around him, seemed to judge that things were going the way he wanted, and ran to the pantry to join Remi. He shut the door, flopped down beside her with the light still on, pushed some dish towels under the door, and put his arm over her. She said, “A flour bomb, Sam?”
“Almost anything explodes if you treat it right,” he said. “Once there’s enough flour in the air, the electric stove starters should ignite it. Close your eyes, cover your ears, and open your mouth. Do not raise your head.”
They lay still. Then there was a terrible moment when the light in the pantry went dark. There was no longer a sound of fans or the clicking of the electric starters on the stove. “Well, that’s that,” he said.
“That’s what?”
“They turned off the main circuit breaker. No igniter.”
In a single avalanche of sound, the doors on both sides of the kitchen banged, assaulted by men using heavy objects as battering rams. They heard many footsteps outside, men dashing toward the back of the house. Sam used the charging lever to load the first round into the chamber of the Škorpion he had taken from the guard. He reached up to turn the knob of the pantry door and opened it a crack. The fans had stopped and the white flour was suspended in the perfectly still air, so thick it was difficult to see across the room, difficult to breathe. In an instant, Sam foresaw what was about to happen. He yanked the door shut, held Remi down and kept his body over hers. “Stay down.”
A kitchen window shattered onto the floor, and a machine pistol began to spray bullets and sparks of burning powder into the room— Bwaah!—and those sparks were enough.
The flour suspended in the air exploded in a huge, fiery blast. It blew the kitchen doors outward, one into the dining room and the other into the back stairway, tearing the wood from its hinges and knocking the six or seven men senseless who had been trying to batter the doors in. The men at the rear of the kitchen fared worse because in the instant that the explosion blew the glass out of the windows, much of the wall blew out too, and was burning. The parts of the kitchen that still stood were burning too.
Sam pushed off the floor, lifting the pantry door off his back. Remi struggled to sit up. They were both white as ghosts, every inch of them covered with flour. He looked out at the damage. “Can you run?”
“Like a scared rabbit.”
They dashed from the pantry, ran for the hole that had been the back wall, and then they were out into the night. The fire was already growing inside the mansion, and as they ran they could hear battery-operated smoke alarms going off all over it in a growing chorus. They sprinted across the garden behind it, running for the darkness.
Remi grabbed Sam’s hand. “The stable is over there,” she said as she veered toward a long, low building. Sam ran harder.
Behind them there were injured men being dragged out of the smoke-filled building into the air, many of them coughing and many battered and cut by flying doors and windows.
Remi and Sam slipped into the stable, where they could see a row of ten stalls with horses in them. The big noise had startled the animals, so they tossed their heads and looked at the two intruders with big rolling, frightened eyes. Far down the row, there was a horse kicking the gate of his stall, making a sound like gunshots.
Remi walked along the stalls, talking to the horses. “Hello, boy. What a big, smart boy you are. And handsome too.” She reached up and patted each horse, murmuring sweet words to all of them. In a short time they seemed to be calmer, but outside the disturbing human noises continued—shouts, running feet, smoke alarms.
Sam held the Škorpion in his hand as he watched through the partially open door. “They’re not turning on the power.”
“Would you?”
“Probably not. The dark should help us get out the back of this building and into the fields.”
“What would help more is if you’ll saddle your own horse.”
“Horse?”
“We can’t outrun them, we don’t have a car, and can’t get to one without getting shot. A horse can run across country where there are no roads. Sasha says the railroad tracks are that way and they lead to a station.” She swung an English saddle over the horse and cinched the strap. “Be good, big guy. Be calm.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Sam.
“I wasn’t talking to you, but be calm anyway.”
Sam went to the wall of the stable where the tack hung, selected a saddle, blanket, bit, and bridle. He approached a horse and it reared and kicked the wall.
“Over here,” Remi said. “I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”
Sam went to the other stall and said, “All right, you big, beautiful monster. You and I are going to be best buddies.” He saddled the horse and put on the bridle. “Now we’re going to run away from about a thousand Russian guys before they kill your nice new friends.”
Sam and Remi led the two horses to the far end of the stable, away from the house, the fire, and the commotion. Remi led her horse outside, mounted him, and waited. Sam, a far less experienced rider, hoisted himself up into the saddle, and his horse spun around. He needed to hold the reins with both hands to control the horse, so he tossed the gun aside. “Hold on, buddy. I’m your friend, remember?” The horse seemed to decide then he would be willing to go away from the house and set off at a canter.
They were in a large pasture where the horses no doubt were allowed to run during the day, so the horse’s newfound calm was probably familiarity. Sam patted the horse and talked to him. In the next paddock, Sam could see barriers for steeplechase jumping and he felt a twinge of anticipation that things were not about to get better for him. Apparently these were jumping horses, and as a child Remi had been an avid rider. The only one in the paddock who had no idea what he was doing was Sam.
Sam again heard voices shouting, but this time it sounded as though they were near the riding area. Several times Sam heard the crack as a bullet passed nearby and then the rattle of machine-gun fire. He saw Remi’s horse speed up, galloping toward the fence at the end of the field.
Remi’s horse soared over the white rails. Sam spent a second noticing that the whiteness of the fence, reflecting some of the light from the fire, made everything beyond it look black. He couldn’t make out Remi and her horse very well. Sam’s horse followed with him astride it, willing the horse to believe, against all reason, that Sam was confident and experienced. To his amazement, the horse ran up to the fence and leapt into the air. As Sam became airborne, he heard Remi yell, “Lean forward!” so he did, and then the horse landed, front hooves first and then the back, and Sam managed to hold on.
The horses ran on, not as fast as they had at first but still about as fast as Sam could tolerate. The field looked to him like an endless sea of blackness. The horses ran for two miles or so without meeting an obstacle. In the distance, far to their right, Sam and Remi could see lights on a roadway. It was hard to tell whether the occasional headlights had anything to do with them, but the road never got any closer and the lights never turned toward them or stopped. Remi and Sam slowed down, and then they dismounted and walked the horses in the darkness for a while to let them rest and cool down. When Remi felt the horses were ready, she mounted her horse and began to ride forward, slowly picking up speed again. Sam mounted and followed.
* * *
SERGEI POLIAKOFF walked outside the burning manor house, keeping a distance of thirty feet from the flames that were licking up its sides and flickering along the peak of its roof. The back of the house seemed to have been kicked outward by the explosion. What there had been to explode, he had no idea. Since the fire had begun, it had set off a couple of caches of ammunition, but they had been quick, rapid-fire volleys, like strings of firecrackers, not big explosions. Maybe the gas had not been turned off completely. He would probably never know.