10.20pm: I go out and call to the dogs. I bring them into the storeroom where I have put meat left over from our meal and close them in. Then I jam the camera by putting a piece of wood on the arm that moves it on its one-hundred-and-eighty-degree journey. It is unlikely that the men in the guardhouse will notice that the camera has stopped turning. If they do, I’m dead.
I wait.
10.30: I throw the rope ladder over the wall. Dimitri’s men, Kiri and Vasluv, all dressed in black, climb silently over the wall. I pull the rope ladder back. I point at the stick holding the camera from moving and one of the men pulls it off. We slip into the dark kitchen and put the rope ladder and the stick into the bag.
10.34: I lead them to my father’s room and stand watching as they inject my father with a longer lasting, deeper sedative. Then they pick him up and carry him down the stairs. They stop at the front door and wait for me.
10.40: I go out to the storeroom and let the dogs loose.
10.45: I see first the dogs, then both guards, their alarms bleeping, their guns at the ready, racing towards the back entrance. The computer screen is showing the back entrance has been breached. There may be an intruder in the grounds.
10.46: Baba cuts the electricity. The entire house goes dark. The cameras stop working. With my heart pounding, I run out to my father’s car, start the engine, and open the trunk. The two men carry my father out of the house. They move surprisingly quickly considering my father’s bulk. They stuff him into the trunk and close it. Vasluv uses the key to open the electric gates that are stuck shut without electricity. Then he waits for us by the gates. Oh, shit. I see that one of my father’s socks has dropped to the ground.
‘The sock,’ I whisper, pointing to it lying on the driveway.
‘Fuck,’ Kiri curses. He jumps out of the car, runs to it, and picks it up.
‘Hurry up,’ I urge, looking nervously towards the back of the house. Soon the guards and dogs will return.
‘Come on, come on,’ I say, my voice full of panic. I can already hear the dogs coming around the side of the house. They will tear Kiri to bits if they find him running in the compound. As he nears, I put my foot on the pedal and the car starts moving. The rest of the guards should be arriving soon. I pray they don’t arrive early.
Kiri lunges into the open car door and slams it closed as I drive through the gates. Vasluv gets the gates to clang into place just as the dogs slam themselves against it in such a frenzy of barking that their mouths froth. In the rear mirror I see one of them running to where the sock dropped, sniffing the ground at the scent left by Kiri.
My palms are sweating so much they slip on the steering wheel. I wipe them on my jeans one by one as I slowly drive down the road and pick up Vasluv. After driving around the block I park the car and call Baba.
10.59: ‘Is it still okay?’ I ask.
‘Nothing to worry about, child. I’ve spoken to the guards. Apparently, it was just a false alarm. There was a glitch and the electricity went off. It’s back on again and everybody is back at their stations.’
I breathe a sigh of relief and with shaking hands start the engine again.
Thirty-four
Tasha Evanoff
It is a strange, almost surreal feeling to know that I have defeated a ruthless Mafia gangster’s security system, though to be fair to the gangster, I had an unfair advantage. One he never considered when he was setting up his security system. That he would be betrayed by his own family.
I think of my father sleeping like a baby in the trunk of the car while he takes his last journey on this earth, and don’t feel the least bit frightened or regretful. In fact, I feel nothing. Not even anger in my heart. My father has already taken all that I loved away from me. I don’t allow my mind to dwell on Noah even for a second. The loss is too great, too profound. I don’t think I have started to come to terms with the idea that he might be gone, just like Sergei. Part of a dream. No, I’d rather push it away and deal with it later when I am able to.
I focus my mind on the task at hand as we head to the outer rim of the city where I have only gone once. Then I was sixteen years old. I sat in the back of my father’s car and paid careful attention as he told me to learn the route by heart. This is the Evanoff safe house. Only he and I know of it. Not even Baba does.