Double Agents

Chapter Twenty-two

Carrie was trained in surviving captivity situations. At least a dozen scenarios had been imprinted in her brain, ready to be used in moments like these. While each individual situation had its own specifics, there were certain general elements common throughout the ordeal. Handcuffs or other ways of restraining her movements. A single guard or a horde watching over her. A beating or other kinds of torture carried out to deter any escape plans and break her willpower to overcome. No matter the circumstances, she was trained to use any and all tools to get herself and her partners to safety.

Carrie’s plan of escape was simple: overpower the guard, discover her location, and find Justin and Becca.

When the FSB agents stormed the safe house, Carrie wrestled the MP-443 pistol from Ilia’s hands. Her first shot nailed to the wall the first man who dared to set foot inside the apartment. Her second shot pierced the shoulder of the second man, then Ilia attacked her from the back. She almost removed him from this world, but two other men pried him away from her deadly grip. One of the men managed to get in a heavy blow to the back of her head, and she remembered nothing else after that moment.

Now the first thing she saw after opening her eyes was the rugged beard of a big man in a green camouflage uniform. He called someone on his cellphone and another man entered the small room. He told Carrie in broken English that she was in FSB custody and would remain there until he received new orders. She had no idea of Justin’s whereabouts or if he was even alive. The men went out.

They had handcuffed her left hand to an old water heater bolted to the wall. That was their first mistake: leaving one of her hands free. Their second mistake was leaving her alone. Perhaps they were underestimating her because she was a woman, wounded and handcuffed. Or perhaps they were overestimating their own abilities, since they outnumbered and outgunned her. They had made mistakes. And they were going to pay for them.

Carrie rummaged through her pockets with her free hand. The guards must have searched her, and had removed everything. She looked around the room for anything she could use to break out of her handcuffs. There were a couple of couches, a coffee table with a glass top, a lamp on the corner, a bookcase next to it, and other living room furniture, but nothing was within her reach. She stretched her leg and tried to pull the corner of the area carpet toward her with the heel of her boot. The carpet had an intricate motif of crosses and squares and bright red, blue, and green colors; it was spread underneath the coffee table. If Carrie could drag the coffee table close to her, perhaps she could find something useful in one of its drawers.

She tried again, but the heel of her boot slipped on the laminate floor. Her next attempt was more successful as the heel caught on the carpet’s rich texture. She pulled gently without making any noise. The carpet and the coffee table moved maybe an inch. She still needed to drag the carpet at least two more feet. But she was an inch closer to freedom.

Before repeating her motions, she stayed still and listened. Muted voices came from beyond the door leading to what she assumed was the rest of the apartment or of the house. Then she heard footsteps pacing away. A guard is probably stationed just outside. She leaned in that direction, stretching her body and straining her ears to pick up any sounds or words. She thought she heard faint music but she was not sure if it came from outside the barred window above her head or from behind the door. Be careful, Carrie, and very quiet.

She reached again with the heel of her boot and pulled the carpet another two inches. The room was silent but for the slight sound of the carpet brushing against the floor. Carrie took another deep breath and repeated her motions. This time she pulled a little bit harder and the carpet moved faster. The sound grew louder, just a notch, but she thought it echoed like a thunder. She listened again for a few seconds to an almost complete silence broken by a loud car horn. Slow down, Carrie. You can do this.

Five minutes later, her free hand touched the edge of the coffee table. She turned it around and pulled open the first drawer. It was empty but for a few chocolate wrappers and a couple of pencils. Carrie shook her head and pulled open the only other drawer. Bingo! She pulled out an old Swiss Army knife and ignored the lighter and the pack of cigarettes in the drawer. She began to search the knife for the plastic toothpick as a tool to open the handcuffs. Then she heard keys rattling outside the door and a moment later the lock turned.

It took the guard who entered the room a split second to understand Carrie’s actions. He shouted a loud curse and stomped toward her. He readied his right leg for a hard kick, but Carrie swung her body upwards and with a swift stab she buried the three-inch blade of the Swiss Army knife into his leg right above the knee. The guard shrieked in pain as blood began to flow out of the wound, and collapsed to the floor on his back a foot away from Carrie.

She dove for the pistol still in the guard’s holster at his left side. The guard anticipated her move and blocked her hand with his right arm while grabbing and pulling her toward him with his left hand. Carrie ignored the handcuffs tearing at the skin of her left hand and the man’s strong hold around her waist and made a last-ditch attempt. She landed a hard blow to the guard’s stomach, followed by another to his crotch. He cried in agony and his body went limp.

Before Carrie’s hand had gripped the pistol, another guard barged into the room. He had his AK drawn but hesitated for a moment at the scene unfolding in front of his eyes. Perhaps he was worried he was going to shoot his friend instead of the detainee on top of him. Whatever it was, it ended up being a grave mistake. Carrie pulled the pistol, aimed at the guard, and shot him in the head. He was dead before he fell to the floor.

She shoved the pistol in the first guard’s throat. “The keys,” she said in a calm voice in his ear and rattled her handcuffs.

The guard may have not understood her words, but her gestures clarified her intention. He looked at the dead guard’s face right behind him, then moved his right hand toward his waist.

“Slowly,” Carrie said, her pistol still pressed against the guard’s Adam’s apple.

The guard fished the handcuffs’ keys out of his front pants pocket.

“Drop them to the floor.” Carrie motioned with her head. “Next to you.”

The guard placed the keys about a foot away.

“Move back,” Carrie said and lifted the barrel of her pistol an inch to indicate the direction.

The guard understood and shuffled back. He kept his hands at his sides, but not spread out as much as Carrie would have liked.

“Arms out,” Carrie said. “Back away with your arms out.”

The guard slid toward the door another few feet. His eyes were flicking between Carrie’s pistol and his arms.

“Don’t even think about it,” Carrie said. “Roll over, face down.”

The guard did not move.

“I said roll over.” She began to make the gesture with her right hand holding the pistol.

As the barrel of the pistol faced away from the guard, he lurched forward toward Carrie. He grabbed her wrist with his right hand, and he threw a blow with his left fist. Carrie jerked her head and the guard’s fist struck her shoulder. She leaned back toward the wall, putting enough distance between her and the guard for a swift kick. Her boot slammed against the guard’s right arm. His hand lost its tight grip.

Carrie spun her hand quickly toward the guard’s face. The pistol whipped across his face. He fell back for a moment, then his bloody face popped up again as both his arms went for Carrie’s throat. She rammed her pistol into his chest and pulled the trigger. A single bullet pierced his lungs and the guard’s body collapsed backwards, blood gurgling out of his mouth.

Carrie pointed her pistol toward the door, expecting footsteps and more guards arriving at any second. A minute or so went by and there was no sound, not even faint police sirens or car honks from outside.

She found the handcuffs’ keys and freed her left arm. The skin around the wrist was slashed and she was bleeding from two deep wounds. She closed the door, then looked around for anything to stop the bleeding. She wrapped the white tablecloth around her wrist. Her blood turned it crimson in seconds but she kept her hand tight over her wrist.

Carrie checked on the guards. They were both dead, as she had expected, but her training required her to make sure they were no longer a threat. She stripped them of their cellphones and their wallets, finding credit cards, rubles, and a few euros, as well as two sets of car keys. She took the money and a pistol, but left behind their bulky newer model AKs. She felt a hint of sadness leaving behind two perfectly good assault rifles, since she knew they would come in handy, but not while she was slithering through the streets of Moscow looking for Justin.

She opened the door carefully and took a quick peek from behind her pistol sight. The hall was empty. She tiptoed to the next room, which turned out to be a kitchen, and it was also empty. She checked the bathroom and the next two rooms, staying away from the windows at all times. There were no other guards.

Carrie killed all the lights in the small house. She reached the barred kitchen window overlooking a tree-filled front yard covered in deep snow. It was dark but she was able to make out the flickering light of a building resembling a warehouse about half a mile away. She looked to the left, and through the trees noticed moving lights, perhaps a mile or so away, drifting through the thin haze. A highway. A highway to where? Her eyes found a white Mercedes-Benz van with no windows parked further away to the right. They probably carried me in there. But for how long?

She walked to the other rooms and observed her surroundings. The house was at the edge of a field, its backyard butting up against a small forest. The silhouettes of a couple of other houses stood in semi-darkness a few blocks away. There was no movement along that side of the house, in the backyard, or at the edge of the forest.

Carrie returned to the kitchen, flicked on the lights, and cleaned her wounds in the sink. The water was cold and trickled slowly from the rusty fixture. Carrie wondered if she was going to get an infection simply by using the water. She found a clean towel and wrapped it tight over her wrist and forearm to stop the blood flow.

She took a knife from one of kitchen cabinet drawers and cut two long strips from the white tablecloth of the kitchen table, and then another large piece. She placed the makeshift gauze over her wound and fastened it in place by tying it with the strips. Finally, she sliced away the blood-soaked sleeve of her black sweater.

Carrie glanced at one of the cellphones. It was a newer model iPhone. The menus were in Russian but the icons were the usual ones and it was not very difficult to navigate through the settings. She found a GPS application and with a few taps she learned her location. The small house was near the Moscow Ring Road, in the northeast part of the city. She studied the map for a few moments and determined the best route to reach the CIS’s safe house that had been set up for worst-case scenarios. It was an apartment on the other side of town, by Yugo-Zapadnaya metro station — the last station on the Sokolnicheskaya line — in a run-of-the-mill complex. Carrie had memorized its exact address and the key combination to access the building and the apartment unit.

She scrolled through the numbers stored in the iPhone and in the other cellphone and memorized two she thought might be important — two numbers the guards had called many times in the last few hours and from which they had also received a dozen or so calls. Then she picked up her pistol but left the phones behind. They might have tracking hardware or software, and Carrie had neither the tools nor the time to clean them up. She had gathered enough intelligence from the cellphones. She gave the kitchen a last sweeping glance and stepped outside into the Russian winter.

The wind assaulted her face and Carrie shivered while tightening her coat around her waist. She had not thought to take a pair of gloves from the guards. They would be too bulky, and she needed her right-hand fingers to keep a firm grip around the pistol and allow her to squeeze the small trigger.

She glanced at the van. It had to be empty, since anyone waiting inside would have rushed to the house at the first sound of a gunshot and she had not seen anyone lying in wait. But with her survival on the line she could not afford to be careless.

Carrie did a quick sweep of the van but found no one inside or around it. She searched the glove compartment and found another pistol, the same MP-443 model as the ones she had pried from the dead guard’s hands. Carrie pocketed the pistol’s magazine, then turned around. She left the van behind and started to march through the snow-packed road. She could have driven the van at least a part of her way, but she was not sure if there were any GPS trackers hidden somewhere in the vehicle. Carrie was going to use public transportation — buses or the metro — to reach the safe house.