Chapter 6

August 31, 8:26 PM

Vlasov’s Car

After he got out of the traffic jam on the Riga overpass, Andrei Vlasov made a fortuitously easy dash along the third belt road and turned off into Volgogradsky Prospekt. Music on the radio suddenly stopped; it was urgent news. A fast-talking female voice said, “News flash. Twenty minutes ago, there was an explosion in Moscow, at the Rizhskaya metro station. There are dead and wounded. Their numbers are still being ascertained. The city’s emergency services are conducting rescue work. One theory is that the explosion was set off by a female suicide bomber. To remind, a few days ago, female terrorists calling themselves Shahids blew up two passenger airplanes departing from the Domodedovo airport. About hundred people died. According to the law enforcement authorities, there were four Shahid women deployed in Moscow to conduct acts of terror. If that’s the case, another explosion is to be expected soon, for the fourth suicide bomber is still at large.”

The newscaster caught her breath; there was the sound of shuffling paper.

“We have just received new information. Near the Dmitrovskaya metro station, an unidentified woman attempted to detonate an explosive device. Police officers intervened. There was no explosion, but the terrorist managed to escape. Her description has been sent out to all police stations. Moscow’s law enforcement is working extended shifts. Stay with us; we’ll keep you posted on any developments.”

At the mention of police officers preventing the explosion, Vlasov smirked. The girl in the back seat quieted down and listened intently. Andrei glanced at her. Looking scared, her whole body curled into a ball, tangled hair, ridiculous clothes. And that stupid headscarf to top it off. A scarecrow, really.

“Hey, scarecrow! Does it feel good to be in the news?”

The girl kept quiet.

“Are you Chechen?”

She shot him a glance. But the rage was gone quickly. She was too weak for rage.

“You don’t have to answer. I can see you are. And don’t you cast lightning with your eyes. I know how much you people love us. Just as much as I love you.”

They rode in silence until the turn to Lyublinskaya Street. Near the Tekstil’schiki metro station, Andrei pulled over. Out the window, there was the usual throng of people between the subway station exit and bus stops. Only police presence was much heavier.

“Get out, you wanted to,” Vlasov waved his hand toward the station.

The girl curled even tighter, trying to hid behind the car door. Her eyes stared at the uniforms near the station.

“Get out, I said!” Andrei raised his voice. “Get away from me!”

The shouting worked like a strike of a whip. She straightened up, there was determination in her eyes.

“I have to be in heaven. I am a bride of Allah. Get me a battery.”

“A battery? To you? What a bitch!” Andrei flared up.

He made a fist and punched himself on a thigh.

The Lada jerked forward running a red light over a pedestrian crossing. Andrei sped along Lyublinskaya Street; the girl was mumbling non-stop, “I want to go to paradise, I can’t live anymore. I must die and go to paradise. Zarima, Mareta, and Yahita are there already. They are well. Get me a battery. I can’t live here! Get me a battery, I’ll take some infidels with me, and Allah will reward me for my suffering. I want to go to paradise!”

Andrei turned into an empty alley, then drove on to a dirt road. On one side, there was a concrete fence, on the other, a railroad. When the car reached a dark spot, he braked hard, jumped out of the car, and pulled the door open.

“Do you think I am helping you, bitch? Do you really think I am going to help you kill my people? Who do you take me for, bitch? I fought against you in your shitty mountains. I shot at your bearded degenerates. Here!” Andrei pulled on his shirt and poked his finger into the bullet wound scar. “That’s a Chechen mark. And a buddy of mine, Sasha Petrov, didn’t come back. Stabbed while in captivity. They cut his belly open side to side and left him to die.” He leaned toward the girl and hissed, “Since then, I’ve been killing your prisoners.”

The Chechen seemed to be glad to hear this muddled outburst.

“So kill me, too! You’re Russian, you’re so brave and strong, so kill me. I am your enemy.”

Andrei wanted to take a swing at her smiling face, but stopped at the last moment and only pushed her rudely.

“I will if I have to! I know how to do that. I do…”

 
Chapter 7
Nord Ost
Day Two
 

Vlasov couldn’t stay still. He kept thinking about Sveta. She’d been a hostage for eighteen hours now! How was she holding up? When was it going to be over? Where were the supposedly highly acclaimed special forces?

Heavy thoughts gave way to rainbow-colored hopes. If she thought of him at the moment of need, it had to mean she still thought of him as the closest person in the world. Sveta reached out only to him and her mother. That said a lot. She put her hope in him, she believed in him, and maybe she still loved him.

If only she made it out alive! Then everything would straighten out; indeed, until recently they felt good about being together.

Thinking along these lines, he watched the news all day long on different channels. Suddenly, it was announced that a hostage was killed, a young woman between twenty and twenty-four years of age. The camera showed a covered dead body being carried out of the theater on a stretcher. His heart started racing. What if that was Sveta? She was twenty-two.

He was instantly overwhelmed with a hot wave of rage; he couldn’t see straight. If that was she, he would avenge her! If Sveta was dead, he would have revenge on her killers!

Even fighting in Chechnya and losing friends, he never felt such burning hatred toward the opposing fighters. That was war, armed men died. Nothing to be done about it; those were the rules of war.

But what did that have to do with his darling Svetlanka? She was always opposed to that war and felt for the Chechens!

Andrei’s body tensed, teeth clenched, veins snaked on his temples. No, he wouldn’t let it go! The bandits had to be spoken to only in the language of power. They understand no other language. The only valid response to their threat is a counter-threat!

Andrei turned on his computer and barely finding the right keys, typed, “Baraev, a woman I love is among your hostages. If she dies, I will kill ten Chechen women. And I am not going to go to Chechnya for that. I will kill them here. I will kill the innocent. Just the way you did. That will be my revenge! You do respect blood revenge, don’t you, Baraev?”

Once again, he drove up to the ill-fated theater. He rubbed elbows with journalists and when no one was watching, stuck his message under a windshield wiper of an NTV van. After a few minutes, the message was noticed. Someone took it, read, and quickly walked off to somewhere.

Andrei tried to find out the name of the dead woman. No one seemed to know. He kept asking if anyone had seen the deceased hair color. One photographer said her hair was fair and short; he even took a few pictures.

“Where are they? Show me!” Vlasov demanded.

“Can’t; already sent them to the editor,” the photographer shied away.

Fair! Short! Like Svetlana’s, Andrei kept torturing himself. Her hair color went so well with her name.

He tried to call Polina Ivanovna, but her phone was dead.

She must be around here somewhere, among the hostages’ relatives. But that simple thought was quickly displaced by another. What if she had already been told about her daughter’s death and asked to identify the body?

Andrei walked every street in the neighborhood, looked into the faces of hunched women, but haven’t come across Polina Ivanovna. He kept dialing Sveta’s number, then Polina Ivanovna’s, then Sveta’s again, but all he ever got was an unending series of beeps. Along with the soulless sounds, his body was pierced by fear; Sveta was dead!

Fear and pain gave way to determination; he must take vengeance!

Chapter 8

August 31, 8:33 PM

Vacant Lot near a Railroad Line

Andrei turned away from the girl’s prostrate form on the car seat; his trembling fingers were having a hard time pulling a cigarette out of a crumpled pack. The lighter wouldn’t work, either. The car’s lighter would be handy right now, he thought, too bad I threw it away. Finally, the end of the cigarette caught a tiny lick of flame. Andrei pulled on the cigarette with delight.

The suicide bomber wailed covering her face with the palms of her hands. This typically female reaction to life’s troubles calmed Vlasov down. Or was it the strong tobacco in the cigarette? Lately, he smoked much more than he used to, and stronger stuff, too.

Between sobs, the girl moaned, “I don’t want to live, I don’t…”

Without turning, Andrei said through his teeth, “Shut it, will ya? I’m not going to give you to the cops. Just take off your belt and get lost.”

“I don’t want to live,” the girl kept saying, rubbing on her wet eyes.

“Okay, the railroad is over there. Go throw yourself under a train.”

“Suicide’s a sin,” the terrorist said earnestly and even stopped bawling. Her rounded eyes looked at Vlasov in amazement. How can anyone not understand this?

“Righteous, are you? So what was it you wanted to do by the metro station? What do you call that?”

The girl sat up, put the palms of her hands together, and started droning in a monotone, “I must die for my faith. I shall take the enemies of Allah with me; then I shall go to paradise. Paradise is a good place. There is no pain and no humiliation. There are flowers, divine fragrances, and everlasting happiness.”

“Exactly what enemies were you planning to destroy? Did you actually see those people by the metro station? Women with children, shopping for the start of the school year!”

“All infidels are enemies of Allah. Your women raise soldiers who kill our children.”

Andrei cringed; he’d heard those “songs” before.

“Soldiers are killing children. Yeah, sure, they’ve got no one else to fight, just children. What are you, a black widow?”

The girl suddenly stopped crying and said dejectedly, “No, I didn’t get a chance to be a wife.”

“Got it. Your guy fought against the federal forces, so he got wasted?”

“No, he wasn’t fighting.”

“Had to be a good man,” Vlasov winced sarcastically. “What happened to him?”

“He was killed in a raid.”

“Happens,” Andrei yawned ambivalently.

“What? Happens?” The girl, indignant, jumped out of the car. “They hit him with the butt of a rifle on the head and shot him like a dog. Prostrate, on the ground! He wasn’t even armed!”

Andrei flicked away the cigarette butt.

“Don’t you make a soldier angry when he’s got his finger on a trigger! He may be in a uniform, but he’s just a kid, and he pees himself when he walks into your courtyard, with hostile mugs all around! So you and your guy had to stick your highlander pride up your ass when you got raided. Got it?”

Andrei’s stare met the girl’s; flames of rage ran toward each other and snuffed out like a brush fire when one wave of fire meets another. Andrei looked down and said calmly, “Take off that belt.”

“I can’t,” the girl said desperately.

“What do you mean, can’t? Don’t make me angry!”

“It was put on so that I can’t take it off myself.”

Vlasov leaned forward. “Show me.”

The girl, ashamed, covered herself; her swarthy face reddened.

“Stop playing hard to get!” Andrei spread the girl’s clasped hands and opened her cardigan. His fingers carefully lifted up the loose blouse. On the girl’s slim waist, there was a weighty foil-wrapped bundle shaped into a wide belt. “Um, nice package.”

The girl pulled the blouse down, “Don’t look!”

“Hands off, okay? Don’t make me angry! I am not trying to play your lover.”

The girl closed her eyes in embarrassment and bit her lower lip; her face bore an expression of suffering.

“Take off your cardigan,” Andrei ordered.

The girl, ashamed, clasped her hands and shook her head no.

“Come on, take it off. No need to cover. I don’t care about your curves.”

“They tied it up from behind.”

“Okay, so turn around.”

The girl obediently took off her cardigan and leaned forward, her face to the car seat.

Andrei lifted up her blouse; on her back were large bruises.

“Ouch! That’s quite a beating you got by that metro station.” He looked closer; along with fresh bruises, there were older, yellow marks. “Where did you get those? Did our military do that? Did you try to fight for your fiancé? Special forces have hard boots.”

The girl sobbed silently; her body started shaking as she wept. Andrei bared her entire back. Under her fine skin, he could see the protrusions of her vertebrae; on both sides of her spine, there were traced of multiple beatings. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Andrei looked askance; he could see a part of her breast and on it, a dark bite mark.

The girl moved her elbow covering her breast; her shoulder blade lifted up on her back.

“What are you looking at? Untie it!” she hurried him rudely.

Andrei bent over the knots; his fingers couldn’t grab on the nylon cord.

“It’s tied fast. Can’t untie.” He pulled with his teeth, but soon gave up. “Looks like this belt wasn’t supposed to come off. Too bad I don’t have a knife. I’ll try a screwdriver. Hold on.”

He opened the trunk; for a while, tools clanged as he rummaged through them. Andrei came back with a small screwdriver. The girl faced him sitting up. Hardened expression on her face, she watched the lights of a commuter train speeding by. When the train’s rattle died down, she said tiredly, “It wasn’t yours.”

“What? I don’t get it.” Andrei inquired.

“It wasn’t the military who beat me up.”

“Who then?” Andrei looked at the girl, surprised.

There was no answer. The suicide bomber turned her back to him and shouted rudely, “Untie it!”

“What do you think I am doing? You better, um, wipe your face. You’ve got dry blood on your lips. I’ve got tissues between the front seats.”

Andrei made an effort and broke the cord in two places with his screwdriver. The belt came off. He weighed in his hand, ran his fingers over it.

“Solid preparation. About three kilos. They’ve cut up enough wire to cause mayhem! Explosives alone are about two kilos. You know what would be left of you? Maybe your head.” Andrei thought of the woman’s head he saw on a pavilion’s roof near Rizhskaya. “Girl, you would fly all the way up to heaven. With no help from God. Only you fiancé wouldn’t recognize you, I’m afraid.”

He looked for a place to toss the explosives, but put it in the trunk.

“I’ll dump it into the river. Otherwise, kids may find it. Or you, silly, change your mind and get that battery.”

He closed the trunk and looked at the girl standing next to the car.

“All right, goodbye, suicide bomber. Now you’re harmless. Maybe you’ll live a while longer, and I have to go.”