Pandemonium (22 page)

“Tinted windows,” Otto said as they approached the guards. “That’s handy.”

Geoffrey nodded, adrenaline racing through his bloodstream as he approached the gate. “This is Maxim’s limo, so they might let us through,” he said, his voice distant as his rushing pulse pounded in his ears.

“What if they don’t?”

Geoffrey noticed a machine gun resting on the seat next to him, and he pulled it closer with a shaking hand.

The two guards jumped up from chairs and operated a control panel. The gate began to open and they waved them through.

“Awesome,” whispered Otto.

The guards on the outside of the gate also waved them along, but as the gate started rolling shut behind them, Geoffrey saw one of the guards on the other side grab his neck and fall just before it closed.

Geoffrey turned right and stepped on the gas, pushing the heavily armored car up the road as fast as it could go. “This is the way to the palace, right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Otto said. “My God, Maxim killed him.” He shuddered and looked at Geoffrey. “He shot Katsuyuki! What are we going to do, man?”

“Make sure that sprayer’s ready,” Geoffrey said. “Something might be chasing us. If we get through the door to the palace, we can’t afford to let anything get in with us.”

“How will
we
get in, man? There must be guards with fucking guns outside the gate and they won’t just wave us through this time!”

“This is Maxim’s limo,” Geoffrey said. “It can probably take a direct hit from a nuke. And Stalin’s palace is the most secure place in the city.”

“Shit, this is hairy, man, I don’t know!”

“It’s all we’ve got. Get ready!” Geoffrey hit the brakes and skidded around a corner to the left, pushing the gas up the last length of tunnel.

2:40 A.M.

Sasha and Nell spotted the limousine racing toward the palace on ever closer cameras. Sasha cried, tears streaking her face. “What about Papa?”

“He’s OK,” Nell said. “He’s safe, Sasha. We’ve got to let them through the gate, all right?”

Sasha tapped the keys on her father’s keyboard. “We have to rescue Papa!”

“We will! But you’ve got to open the gate! Geoffrey will die if he can’t get through!”

“I can open the door,” Sasha said.

“Great, honey. Thank you!”

Sasha sniffled. “The guards inside will kill him, though.”

“They will?”

“Yes.”

Nell thought. “Can we call Geoffrey and warn him, honey?”

“
Uuuh
—hey, yeah.” Sasha clicked on some prompts and they heard a phone blurting on the computer’s speakers. “Good thinking, Nell.”

2:40 A.M.

Geoffrey followed his headlights up the long tunnel, its walls honeycombed with the doors and windows of medieval dwellings carved out for the villagers of Gursk to inhabit in the event of invasion. He did not see anything following them in the dark through the rearview mirror. “Answer the phone, Otto.”

“Phone?” Otto asked.

Geoffrey pointed at the ringing phone on the dashboard. “Answer it!”

Otto grabbed it. “Yeah?”

“Geoffrey, the guards will kill you,” Nell said.

“Nell?” Otto said.

“Oh, Otto—is Geoffrey with you?”

“Yeah, he’s driving.”

Nell sighed. “Listen. We’ll open the gate for you. But the guards will kill you when you come through the door. OK?”

“Um, OK. Nell says she can open the gate but the guards will kill us.”

“How many guards are there?” asked Geoffrey.

2:40 A.M.

Nell heard his question. “How many guards are there, Sasha?”

“Two outside the gate and two on the stairs. I kicked the others out of the palace.”

“Is that all?”

“I think so.… There might be more. I don’t know,” Sasha sighed, waiting with two fingers poised over the keyboard.

2:40 A.M.

“Two at the gate and two on the stairs, maybe more,” Otto relayed.

“Where are Nell and Sasha?” Geoffrey said.

2:41 A.M.

Nell heard him and answered, “We’re in Maxim’s conservatory. Can you lock the gate from the inside, Sasha, after they get through?”

“All the doors lock from the inside around the palace so Stalin could keep everybody out. I can change the entry code so nobody can come in. Want me to?”

“Yes! Good!”

2:41 A.M.

“They’re in Maxim’s conservatory,” Otto said. “They can lock the gate.”

“Get the sprayer ready in case anything is chasing us. And hand me that machine gun. See if you can figure out how to take the safety off without shooting me, OK? Let’s see if we can get through without a fight first.”

“Right.” Otto shrank down under the dash as Geoffrey approached the guards before the steel door marked
SEKTOP 1
in tall red letters. He whispered in the phone: “We’re at the gate now.”

The two guards strode forward leisurely with Kalashnikovs. Apparently they had not been warned yet by the others. The man who approached the driver’s side waved to lower the window.

Geoffrey rolled down the window ten inches and stuck his hand out, waving twice as he imitated what he had seen Maxim do. He raised the window again. That’s when he realized his mistake. Maxim had waved from the backseat, of course. He had waved from the driver’s seat.

The man knocked on the window hard as the other guard lifted a walkie-talkie from his belt.

2:42 A.M.

“Come on, Sasha,” Nell said.

“
Um,
I’m trying to figure it out!” Sasha yelled. “Wait!”

“We don’t have time, honey.”

“I know, I know!”

2:42 A.M.

The guard proceeded to the window behind Geoffrey and knocked on the window.

“Shit,” whispered Geoffrey.

“Uh,” Otto whispered into the phone. “We’re fucked.…”

The other guard moved in front of the limousine and pointed his weapon at them.

Geoffrey reached for the machine gun, hoping the glass was truly one-way.

“Watch
this
!” Otto heard Sasha shout in the phone.

The gate behind the men started sliding open, surprising the guards. The men shrugged and stepped aside as Geoffrey surged forward through the opening gate. They must have assumed it was OK since the gates could only be controlled remotely by Maxim or Galia. The men answered their walkie-talkies as Sasha was closing the gate behind the limo. Geoffrey noticed them suddenly wave their arms as the doorway narrowed. They shouted at them to stop. In the rearview mirror, Geoffrey saw them point and fire their machine guns through the closing crack, scarring the bulletproof rear window as the door slid into the rock wall and sealed them off.

2:43 A.M.

“Lock the gate, Sasha!” Nell shouted.

“OK, OK! I’m trying! There it is. I need Papa’s password.”

“Do you know it?”

“Sure.” She typed out the letters with one finger as she said them aloud. “
A-L-E-X-A-N-D-E-R-G-R-eight
. That’s after my brother, Alexei,” she said. “Wait, where’s the eight again?”

Nell saw the men outside the gate running toward the switch to open it. “Hurry, honey!”

“There it is!” She poked a dimpled finger.

2:43 A.M.

One guard ran down the steps in front of the palace as he fired a Kalashnikov across the courtyard at them. The bullets raked the windshield.

“Ram him!” Otto shouted.

As the bullets sprayed in front of his face, adrenaline exploded through Geoffrey’s body and tears streamed from his eyes as he steered the heavy vehicle toward the guard, whose body slammed with grisly smacks into the hood, windshield, and roof, each sound impacting on Geoffrey’s soul.

2:43 A.M.

“Got it!” Sasha squealed. “It’s locked.”

“So they can’t open it?”

“Duh. Yeah!”
Sasha said.

“Awesome, Sasha. Good job!” Nell hugged her, hiding Sasha’s eyes from what she saw Geoffrey doing on the screen.

2:43 A.M.

Flooring the gas pedal of the monster limo up the cascade of steps, Geoffrey spotted another guard rushing down the stairs and firing a high caliber handgun right at Geoffrey that cracked spiderwebs into the windshield. The sparks of the rounds blinded Geoffrey for a moment.

“Kill him!” shouted Otto.

Geoffrey accelerated, ducking behind the dash, feeling the slight thud; he pulled his foot off the gas and saw the guard’s body fly backwards into a marble pillar, tumbling to the ground. Geoffrey sobbed as he drove past the man’s broken body directly into the palace foyer, the tires stamping bloody tracks on the inlaid marble floor.

He stopped and turned off the limo’s engine, hanging his head as he gripped the steering wheel, breathing hard and nausea welling in his throat.

“You did good, man.” Otto slapped his arm. “You got us through. That was freaking awesome! They were trying to kill us, dude. They
would
have killed us! It’s OK. Don’t worry about it!”

Geoffrey shook his head. “Man,” he breathed. “Is that ever easy for you to say.”

“We’d be dead now if you didn’t do it!” Tears streamed from Otto’s eyes, too, now, in the aftermath.

“It’s not a fucking video game,” Geoffrey said.

“I know,” Otto gripped his shoulder. “OK. Let’s just wait here. We’ll watch and listen for a while before we do anything. Right? This car is the safest place we can be right now, right?”

“Yeah.” Geoffrey nodded. “Are they still on the phone?”

Otto checked the line. “Hello?”

2:45 A.M.

“Hello?” Nell asked. “They’re not there, Sash!”

“Yeah, the phone doesn’t work inside, because the palace is lined with lead or something.”

“How does it reach outside, then?”

“Transponders?” Sasha shrugged dramatically.

“Is there a camera in the foyer?” Nell said.

“I’m looking.” Sasha scrolled through galleries of security camera views, looking for the limo.

“God, he’s got more cameras than London,” Nell muttered. “He must be more paranoid than Stalin!”

“You might be right,” Sasha said pensively.

“There—that looks like the riverfront, Sasha.” Nell tapped the screen. “And that over there looks like the bridge to Sector Seven. Maybe go back in the other direction?”

“OK…”

“Maybe the closer to us the camera is, the closer to the top of the list?” Nell said.

“That makes sense!”

2:50 A.M.

Five minutes passed as Geoffrey and Otto peered out of the limo in all directions through its blackened windows at the domed foyer under the glittering chandelier. Neither of them could see or hear anyone.

“OK,” Geoffrey said finally. “Let’s try to get to the conservatory.”

Otto turned sideways on the seat and strapped the repellent-sprayer on his back. Geoffrey lugged one of the 2.5-gallon jugs of repellent onto his left thigh and slung the shoulder strap of the machine gun over his neck. Holding the gun’s grip with his right hand, he kicked open the door. “You’re sure the safety’s off?”

“I think so.”

“All right, let’s go.”

They both stepped out of the limousine into the foyer. Geoffrey carried the jug and pointed the gun erratically with his right hand as they ventured up the red carpet of the curving staircase on the left.

When they reached the upper level, they saw no one. They ran between a row of doors, and one of them suddenly opened.

2:50 A.M.

“There they are!” Sasha jumped up and down and put the view on the big screen. “They’re right outside!” she yelled.

“Let’s open the door!”

“Wait— Oh, no!”

2:50 A.M.

A guard buttoning his jeans emerged from a door on the other side of the hall. He noticed them, and one of his hands fumbled for a pistol strapped under his shoulder.

“Wait!” Geoffrey said. “It’s OK! Don’t shoot!”

The guard unsnapped his holster and pulled out his gun.

“Wait!” Geoffrey said.

“Shoot him!” Otto yelled.

The guard fired first, the first shot striking Otto in the neck, the second shot striking Geoffrey in the foot as he jumped to the side and fired a barrage of wild bullets that wounded the guard’s hand. Geoffrey dropped the jug of water and lunged at the guard, who picked up the gun with his other hand. Geoffrey aimed his machine gun and shouted, “No!” But a mere touch of the trigger blasted three bullets into the guard’s face.

Geoffrey retched as the guard fell forward, his head splattering on the stone floor. Geoffrey turned away, limping on his bloody foot, and saw that Otto was lying still. Using the gun as a crutch, he hobbled closer. He could see that Otto was dead from the vacant look in his staring eyes. Geoffrey grabbed the water jug from where he had dropped it and ran to the end of the hall, turning left up the short flight of stairs to Maxim’s office, leaving a red trail of footprints.

He pounded on the door. The hatch opened.

“Come on!” Nell said.

He clambered through the hatch and dropped the gun and heavy jug before falling to his knees.

Nell shut the hatch and cranked the wheel, locking it.

Sasha approached Geoffrey, staring at his foot. “You’re bleeding!”

Nell embraced him from behind. “Come on! We have to look at that!”

He turned and kissed her as though she could absolve him, knowing she could not. He had watched ten people die in the last few days, some, certainly, because of him.

She stroked his head and saw the blood spatter on his shoulder. “I would never have forgiven you if you had gotten yourself killed,” she said. “You did what you had to do.” She squeezed his hand in hers.

After they got him to the chair behind Maxim’s desk, Nell pulled off his shoe. He noticed the screens on the wall. She pulled the bloody sock off and saw that the bullet had gone through the bone in his foot leading to his small toe. She pulled the lace out of his shoe and tied it around his ankle, cinching it tight.

Geoffrey pointed to one of the screens in which a burning SUV had crashed into the wall across the street from the hospital. Green cyclones swirled over the bodies of two men in the street. They watched a man get out of a limo parked in front of the hospital only to be immediately smothered by wasps and drill-worms gushing out of the door.

Sasha hid her eyes, turning away.