Chapter Nineteen
Up ahead, a girl about ten years old zigzagged her way past startled pedestrians.
“Klara,” Mila yelled. “Stop!”
At the end of the block, Klara ran left around the corner. Mila let go of the boys’ hands and sprinted down the street, calling Klara’s name.
“Mila! Wait!” Quinn shouted. She and the two boys scampered after Mila. “James, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” James panted through the comm. “Still chasing Yefimov.”
“Copy that. Be careful.”
“You too.”
The boy on Quinn’s left asked in Russian, “Mila knows you?”
“Yes. We are friends.”
Apparently that was good enough for them. Their legs pumped faster.
They skidded around the corner. Halfway up the block, Quinn spotted Mila on her knees, holding Klara in a full embrace.
Quinn and her charges dropped to a jog. When they reached the two, Quinn heard Mila comforting Klara in a soothing, gentle tone.
“Let’s move out of the middle of the sidewalk,” Quinn said. The five ducked into a nearby window alcove and stood in a tight cluster.
“You came for us,” Mila said, her voice tinged with awe.
“I promised I would.” Quinn smiled when Mila hugged her. As much as she wanted to slip into a shop with the kids and ply them with pastries and hot cocoa, they had to keep moving. “My Russian comprehension is way better than my speaking,” Quinn said, releasing Mila. “Can you tell them I’m here to take you all someplace safe, away from the people who make them work?”
Mila repeated what Quinn had said. Mouths agape, they stared up at Quinn in stunned disbelief.
Before they moved from their hiding place, Quinn needed a better picture of the situation. “Guys, I need a sitrep.”
“I’m tracking James in pursuit of Yefimov,” Yonatan said.
“Dave, are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. Sore, but I’ll survive.” It relieved her to hear Dave’s voice sounding strong. “LT and I have secured Viktor and his buddies and are getting the kids rounded up. We’ll be in the vans and on our way in a few minutes. Pyotr’s a great kid. He’s explaining to them what’s going on.”
“Good deal. I’m with the four Mother Olga took off with. We’re going to head for the van now.”
“Copy that,” Yonatan said.
When Quinn took a step to leave the niche they were hiding in, Mila clutched her arm and stopped her. “What about my sister and brother?” she asked. “And the others? What’s happened to them?”
“Two of the men with us are getting all of them out.”
Mila’s ice-blue eyes gave Quinn a penetrating stare. “You’re sure they’re okay?”
“I’m sure.” She stepped out of the alcove with four kids in tow. “We have to go back the way we came to get to the van.”
Mila updated the other three as they walked.
They came to the end of the block and turned right. Quinn scanned the area. No sign of Anatoly or Mother Olga.
Fifty feet from the entrance to the building they’d fled, Mother Olga burst out onto the sidewalk like she’d been shot from a cannon. At the sight of Quinn and the kids, Mother Olga bellowed and barreled toward them like a charging rhinoceros.
“Crap!” Quinn yelped.
“What?” James shouted in her ear. Despite his heavy breathing, alarm colored his voice.
Quinn and the kids did a quick one-eighty, careened around the corner again, and raced up the street. Mila half dragged, half carried Klara along.
“Mother Olga’s out for blood,” Quinn said to whoever was listening.
Firing her tranquilizer gun in public was highly problematic. And she didn’t want to throw another punch for fear passersby might see Quinn as the aggressor and come to Mother Olga’s aid. She deemed it best not to engage the other woman and scanned the area for a place to hide. At her two o’clock, she saw a group of children and adults entering a building. “There,” Quinn said. “Across the street.”
Hands clasped, they stood between two parked cars and waited for a chance to cross the street. Visions of the guy she’d seen bounce off a bus flashed in her mind. That was the last thing she wanted to have happen.
At a gap in the traffic, she said, “Now!” They bolted across the street and reached the other side as an electric tram whooshed past.
“In here,” Quinn said in a low tone as they strode toward the entrance. “Quick.” They blended in with a knot of children and mothers and entered the building.
“What is this place?” the boy with brown hair asked as they walked past a kid-sized table displaying a number of picture books.
Quinn knew the Russian word. “Biblioteka.” And from the small chairs and low shelves filled with tall books with thin spines, she knew it was, more specifically, a children’s library. Too bad she would never be able to tell Nicole about this place.
“Let’s get away from the door,” Quinn said, using her librarian voice. She led them further into the library, all the while searching for a door through which they could escape.
In her comm, she heard a grunt and James say in a dangerous snarl, “Eat dirt, you son of a bitch.” Apparently he had caught up with Yefimov.
Quinn tuned out the subsequent conversation between James and Yonatan as they discussed what next to do with Yefimov. Her mind was focused on her and the kids’ precarious situation.
She herded them to an unoccupied corner and had them sit on the floor. “My name is Quinn,” she said in Russian to the brown-haired boy. “What’s yours?”
For the first time, the boy smiled, his mouth a jumble of partially grown-in adult teeth and empty spaces where baby teeth had fallen out. “Maksim.”
Quinn smiled in return. “Hello, Maksim.” She turned to the boy next to her. With black hair, tapered eyelids, and incredible cheekbones, he appeared more Asian than Caucasian. “And what is your name?” He looked to be just barely a teenager.
“Alikhan.” He didn’t smile, but Quinn observed deep curiosity lurking behind those guarded eyes.
Quinn turned to the younger girl. “And you are Klara.” She was rewarded with a shy smile.
As much as Quinn wanted to continue to speak Russian, it would take ten minutes for her to formulate each sentence telling them what she wanted to say. They didn’t have ten minutes. So she said to Mila, “Tell them I’m going to check things out. I’ll come back and get you when I’m sure it’s clear to leave.”
Mila conveyed the message to the others.
Quinn noted their sudden anxiety. “I will be back,” she said solemnly in Russian. “I promise.”
She scanned the spines of the books on the shelves directly behind them. Most were picture books. These kids were too old for those. Eyes darting higher, she spied the perfect book to distract them while she was gone. Having run across a Hebrew translation of another book in the series in a youth hostel in Punjab, India, she wasn’t the least bit surprised by her current find.
Quinn stood, slid the book from the shelf, and handed it to Mila. The teen’s eyes lit up the second they fell on the boy wearing round glasses and flying on a broomstick. “Garri Potter i filosofskii kamen,” Mila said.
Hearing his name pronounced “Garry” made Quinn smile.
The anxiety on the faces of the other kids was instantly replaced by awe. Quinn’s smile widened. The Boy Who Lived really was magic.
Mila opened to the first page and began to read aloud in Russian of the Dursleys of Privet Drive. The listeners were so instantly enthralled they didn’t notice when Quinn slipped away.
She walked toward the front of the library, her eyes never resting on a face for more than a split second. Alert and prepared for Mother Olga to descend on her like a shrieking raptor, she pushed through the front doors and outside again. No one pounced upon her. She heard no shrill curses or roars of anger. A sweep of the area told her Mother Olga was nowhere in sight.
On the other hand, the woman could have been secreted in a nook or doorway, waiting for them to emerge from their hiding place.
Quinn took stock of their circumstances. She had to assume Mother Olga was still nearby and a threat. To do otherwise would be both foolish and dangerous. Given that, her options boiled down to two: wait Mother Olga out in hopes she would eventually abandon her vigil, or make a run for it. Escaping their current predicament without further traumatizing the kids by enduring an additional run-in with their former minder was the better choice. Quinn could think of no better place to hide for the rest of the day than in a library.
“Yonatan, Mother Olga might be lurking around,” she said as she turned on her heel and reentered the library. “We’re going to wait her out at our current location.”
“Copy,” Yonatan replied.
“We can come get you after Yonatan picks me and Yefimov up,” James offered.
“Thanks, but I don’t want the kids seeing that vile piece of human debris ever again.”
“Good point,” James said. “If you change your mind, say the word and we’re there.”
“Thanks. We’re good.”
Quinn was halfway back to the kids when a shout came from their direction. Her stomach dropped to her shoes.
She raced through the stacks and arrived to find Mother Olga with Alikhan’s wrist in her grip, trying to haul him to his feet. Klara sat paralyzed with fear while Maksim crab-walked backward to get away. Mila was on her feet, whacking at Mother Olga with the Harry Potter book. Unfortunately, the paperback was ineffective.
Not wanting to brandish her pistol inside a children’s library unless it was her last resort, Quinn glanced around for a bigger, heavier volume to wield. She knew, from prior experience, reference books could do a lot of damage.
None were nearby, but what she did spy sitting on the floor was even better. She ran over and picked up a wooden step stool. The rolling steel ones like she used in libraries back home would have done more damage, but she would make this one work.
She held the stool by two legs and cocked it back like a baseball bat. A fireball of fury burned in Quinn’s chest when she charged at Mother Olga and growled, “Leave my kids alone, you hag.”
At the sound of Quinn’s voice, Mother Olga glanced over her shoulder.
With everything she had, Quinn swung the stool and clocked Mother Olga on the side of the head. The force caused the woman to spin around and crash face-first to the floor.
The urge to pound on Mother Olga until the stool was nothing but splinters was strong. The urge to get the kids to safety was stronger.
Quinn’s clocking of Mother Olga was certain to draw the attention of library staff. The authorities would probably be called in as well. It was time to leave. And fast.
“We have to go,” Quinn said, desperate to get away from the groaning Mother Olga. “Now.”
Maksim and Alikhan scrambled to their feet and stood next to Mila. Klara, ashen and slack-jawed, remained motionless. Quinn scooped her up and ran for the exit, the other three at her heels.
They sped past the circulation desk and skidded around the corner. Quinn stretched out a hand, crashed into the door, and shoved it open. Behind them, the wail of a high-pitched alarm pierced the air as they tumbled out of the library. “Crap!”
“Quinn!” James shouted.
“Can’t talk.” Quinn threw a glance over her shoulder to make sure the kids were with her. When she saw the Harry Potter book in Mila’s hands, she understood why an alarm had sounded. The book had triggered the library’s security gates. Usually, committing such an egregious violation of library protocol would have Quinn contemplating self-flagellation as a form of repentance. In this case, though, the accidental “unauthorized borrowing” of a library book was inconsequential when the freedom of four children hung in the balance. Even so, Quinn promised herself she would return the book to the library before she left Russia.
They ran down the street and rounded the corner. Three police cars, their lights flashing, were parked in front of the building where the kids had been kept.
With Klara still in her arms and the van in her sights, Quinn and the kids dropped to a walk and crossed the street. She set Klara on her feet when they reached the van, unlocked the side door, and slid it open. The three younger kids scrambled into the back seats while Mila climbed into the passenger seat.
Once they were clipped into their seat belts, Quinn hustled around to the driver’s side. She checked the area once more before taking her place behind the wheel. No one paid them any attention. She turned over the engine, put the van in gear, and pulled out into traffic.
“James, Yonatan, we’re good,” she said.
James heaved a sigh. “Thank God.”
“Is the house in Olgino secure?”
“It is,” Yonatan said. “You’re safe to head there now.”
“Roger that.”
The kids were finally on the road to freedom.