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“The outer ring road is just ahead,” Ruel said calmly as the Maserati’s engine spun up to five thousand RPMs. “Get on the southbound onramp.”
I drove under the highway and turned left onto the onramp. There were two lanes of cars waiting to merge, so I began weaving in and out with the police on our tail. I could hear the sound of metal clinking from the trunk as the canisters slammed into one another.
“Emma, what’s in the trunk?” Ruel asked in a tentative voice as I raced us forward. I glanced in the rearview mirror. There were now two police cars in pursuit.
“Gas.”
“Gas?”
“This thing only gets eighteen miles per gallon highway, and the tank only holds about twenty-three. I figured we wouldn’t want to have to buy it along the way, you know, especially since you threw all that money to the first cabbie and we can’t exactly pay credit.” I grimaced at the dense hoard of cars ahead as the two lanes merged into one before entering the interstate and added, “Not to mention we’re now in an illegal car chase.”
“Have you actually done this before?” Ruel asked.
I couldn’t tell if his tone was incredulous or sarcastic, so I just laughed and explained, “Not with real cops. I used to race urban courses in autocross, but I’ve never been truly ‘on the run’.”
I glanced in the mirror again. They were gaining and the traffic in front of me was slowing even more. With the cars mere inches from each other’s bumpers, weaving through traffic was no longer an option. I groaned loudly. We needed a better evasion plan. I swerved into the right-hand emergency lane and sped towards the onramp’s entry point on to the highway, slowing only to squeeze between a weathered hatchback and the onramp’s traffic control light. With a quick glance to my left to avoid merging into a car, I left the car in second and floored it. Our bodies pressed backwards into the cool leather seats with the force of the car’s speed.
“You raced? Like ‘Fast and the Furious’ style?” Ruel said, this time with what was clearly an incredulous tone.
“Ruel, did you really just compare my high school extracurricular activities to a crappy movie franchise?”
“Apparently so.”
“I’ll let it slide, Navigator, but please focus on Kiev for now,” I said while smiling, and touched the gear into third.
“So, we need to just keep on here until we get to the M-3 exit.”
I nodded and went back into driving mode. We raced along and passed several exits. The two police cars continued their pursuit.
“Let’s hope they don’t send a search helicopter after us,” I said. “Don’t they know there’s a war going on? Are we really this important?”
“Yes,” Ruel sighed. “We really are this important. At least you are, especially now.”
I turned sharply to Ruel with a quizzical brow, but he was looking at the road.
“Emma!” he shouted, his eyes wide, still trained ahead. I snapped my head back just in time to see the car ahead of me at a dead stop. I pulled the wheel hard to the left, sending us into the left-hand emergency lane. The steering’s response was more sensitive than I anticipated, and we began to fishtail severely on the slush built up against the guardrail. I felt us start to spin left, which would land us smack into the pile of snow. Worry began to creep in. If I turned into the spin to regain control of the car, there wouldn’t be enough time to get straightened out and keep a lead on the cops.
Then I saw it: a break in the guardrail for emergency U-turns. The gap was about 100 yards away, but I wasn’t certain the car would slow down enough in time. I had to try, and we were already halfway turned due to the spin.
“Hold on tight,” I called to Ruel as I downshifted. “This is gonna be a tricky one.”
I drew a deep breath and prepared to make the turn. The world slowed down for me as I hit the brakes, further encouraging the car to spin harder to the left. I steered us slightly left, then right, and cast a glance to the right as we entered the oncoming traffic. A semi-truck let out a wailing honk and cut into the center lane as I pulled a hard ninety degrees to the left, completing the U-turn. Back in control and on solid asphalt, I gunned it.
“Woo!” I said loudly and laughed.
“Did you plan that?” Ruel asked, his voice filling with awe.
“Oh, I wish,” I replied. “Unless you count two seconds beforehand as planning.”
“I really should have made a move on you sooner,” Ruel laughed. “This is great fun, having a partner! And I’ll admit it, I had my doubts, but you’re definitely a better driver than I am.”
“Thanks, I think,” I said, but my thoughts were elsewhere. A partner? So, he worked alone, then. I could respect that. Even when I worked for Ronaldo, I always worked alone.
He put his hand on my thigh and gave it a squeeze. Even though my body was already full of adrenaline, a thrill still shot through me.
I caught the reflection of flashing lights and sighed. “One of them made the turn.”
“Okay,” Ruel began, “get off at the next exit. Let’s try to lose him on the back roads.”
I waited until the last minute to cross three lanes of traffic to the next exit. The policeman following us couldn’t maneuver in time, and he passed the ramp. When we got to the traffic light at the end of the ramp, another police car was headed west towards the highway. I took a quick right to the east, heading us back towards the city center. This only gave me a small head start as the policeman easily spotted our overtly conspicuous car and turned around to chase us.
“Navigator?” I said, while picking up speed and weaving in and out of traffic. The road was busy and five lanes, similar in size to Volokolamskoe.
“Go left the next time you can, and then circle back the way we just came, but on a back road.”
“Left? Don’t we need to be going south?” I asked, screeching the car into a left turn across oncoming traffic. The cop couldn’t pursue immediately without getting pummeled, so I took the first turn I could to get out of sight.
“No, the river is to the south of us. We need to get out of town quicker. Then we’ll concentrate on going south.”
“Fine,” I said, and, for the first time, wondered what would happen if we were to get caught. Then I realized, with a flutter in my stomach and a grin, that between Ruel’s knowledge of Moscow and my seasoned high-speed urban driving, there was no way we were getting caught. We did make pretty great partners.
“Make a right, I can see him turning,” Ruel said.
As I turned, the car spun out on the ice of the small, residential road. Apparently only the main thoroughfares were salted. I took my feet off the pedals and waited for the car to stop. We were facing the police car when it finished turning onto the street and started racing towards us. I glanced in the rearview mirror; no one was behind us.
“Ruel, find the ice-mode button,” I commanded, throwing the car into reverse. The four-wheel drive wasn’t making a difference on the black ice, and we were sliding all over the place. I looked back to the cop. He was gaining serious ground. When I turned my head back to see where I was going, another cop car came into view. I cursed. We were blocked in.
“Ruel, forget the ice-mode. We have a bit of a situation.” I swallowed hard knowing the potential implications of what I was about to say. “We’re gonna need your gun.”
“My gun?” Ruel’s body stiffened.
“Yes, the one in your left breast pocket.”
“How do you know where my gun is?”
The police car behind us was speeding up. It was about to be too late.
“Ruel, the gun—now. Shoot out at least one of the front tires of the car behind us. When we pass the guy in front of us, take out his tires, too.”
“I know what to do,” Ruel snapped. “But why do you?”
“Ready?” I said, ignoring his question.
I didn’t wait for a response and threw the car back into first gear. Ruel pulled the gun out of his coat swiftly while simultaneously undoing his seat belt. He opened his car door slightly and leaned down and out. I could finally see the gun properly, his bottom fingers extended below the subcompact’s small grip—a Glock 27. When I heard the shot, I didn’t wait for him to confirm the hit. I knew Ruel would hit his target, particularly at a standstill. I pushed on the gas steadily so we wouldn’t slide.
“Going left. Curb in three, two, one.” I called to him as I went left and up the curb.
Once the back tire was on the curb I heard the second shot.
“Approaching second unit,” I told him as I neared the other police car. I could see Ruel shift positions in my peripheral. The next two shots came one immediately after the other. He must have hit the closer front tire, then the other one as it came into view.
Ruel was back in the car, gun holstered and door shut.
“Go,” he commanded in a very serious voice. “They’re about to start shooting at us.”
I shot a glance in the rearview and saw the policeman poised behind his open car door. I remembered the gas canisters in the trunk. He recoiled and I felt the bullet hit our back bumper just below the trunk. I floored it. As we flew forward, several families came to their balconies and windows to watch. I had to laugh. It came out in a quick chuckle and then dissolved.
“You think this is funny?” Ruel yelled. His tone reminded me of our date back in Mt. Dora. I became indignant at this comment. His sudden mood change at the mention of the gun was completely unnecessary given the circumstances. Who was he to be mad that I knew he had a gun? He was the one with gun, not me.
“It is pretty funny. Look at that little kid, he’s seeing something way cooler than what’s on TV right now,” I snapped back at him. “Did you find the ice-mode button yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Am I still circling back?” I asked.
“Do whatever you want. You’re the car chase expert.”
“Ruel, you have to calm down.”
“Oh, I’m calm.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his lips move as he muttered something too quietly for me to hear out of my right ear. The tinnitus had been going away, but the gunshots triggered the ringing again. I didn’t ask him to repeat it. I knew it wasn’t meant for me to hear.
“Well then, I’m going southwest, since that’s where we’re headed ultimately anyway. Can you please engage the ice-mode?” I said in a cool, even tone.
“Fine.”
He found the button and pushed it. My grip on the road immediately improved.
“Thank you.”
We continued in silence heading southwest through side streets. I remembered what Ruel said about the river being to the south and I shot a glance at him to see if his mood had subsided. He was staring out the passenger side window, his right elbow propped on the armrest and his chin resting on his right hand. His mouth was a flat line, but his brow was furrowed.
“Ruel?” I said quietly.
“Hm?” he replied without moving.
“You said the river was to the south.”
“Yeah.”
“I could really use your help. We’re still in this together.”
He exhaled loudly and turned to face me. “How did you know I had a gun?”
“Is that really why you’re so mad?”
“If I said yes, would you tell me?” he said without emotion.
“I felt it in your jacket before the dinner ball,” I said.
“When I picked you up and you threw your arms around me,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway.
“Right. I had to compose myself so you wouldn’t know that I knew.”
“Well, you had me fooled. Why, though? Why didn’t you want me to know?” His voice was returning to its normal tone.
“Well, because I was worried you might…” I trailed off. I was worried you might kill me because you’re a spy and I didn’t believe you truly cared about me until later that night. Why was he even asking me this?
“Might what?”
“We all have secrets, Ruel.” I turned to him, mustered a smile, and tried to lighten the mood.
He looked deep in my eyes and turned away. Then he said, “Some, apparently, much bigger than others.”
I wondered what that meant. The apparently he used implied I was the one with the secret, not him. Did he think I was keeping something from him? My orchestration of the car theft, my impeccable ability to drive, and my quickly devised escape plan from being blocked in were all learned traits from my past. A past I wanted to move on from; a past that was emerging more and more the longer I stayed around Ruel.
I sighed to myself. I really didn’t want to tell Ruel about all of that, but I knew he wouldn’t trust me any longer if I didn’t. I decided to just do it then, no better time than the present, or something like that. Right when I opened my mouth to start, Ruel straightened up quickly in his seat.
“We’ve got company,” he said, and pulled his seatbelt back on. “Take your next right. We’re only ten blocks or so from the river. This may get dicey.”
I turned right and headed west. Ruel navigated us back to a major road and we picked up speed weaving through traffic. Another police car joined in pursuit and I realized they were the two from the interstate before. We passed under the ring road and kept going west. I knew if the road opened up enough, our car could easily outrun theirs. It was just a matter of time.
Finally, the road widened as we reached the western outskirts and I put the sport aspect of the car to the test. Within ten minutes, they were completely out of view, and we found ourselves in the countryside between towns. The quality of the roads noticeably deteriorated, but the ride still remained smooth inside the Maserati.
“I don’t want to take any risks if they’re still back there,” I told Ruel and sped up. Really though, I wanted to see how fast the car would go. As the speedometer climbed to 220 kilometers per hour, I realized that the roads could not take the full 280kph. I steadied the car at 200 to cruise to Kiev and leaned back into my tan leather seat. The afternoon’s tension finally began to calm.
“The seats are heated!” Ruel exclaimed. I burst out laughing. He sounded like a little kid. Apparently the tension had dissolved for him as well.
“So, if there’s a LoJack transmitter, it’s been enabled by now,” I said. “Plus, don’t we need to be going south?”
“We’ll hit the A-107 soon enough. Go left on it and it’ll take us to the M-3. What are we supposed to do about the LoJack?”
“Well, assuming there is one, we just need to block the signal. Do you have a jammer?”
“Wait, are you joking?” Ruel said, looking at me.
“Of course I’m not joking. Haven’t you had to block a transmission before?”
“Have you?”
I gave him a look that was meant to say ‘obviously.’ He raised his eyebrows at me inquisitively.
“I, well…” I stopped. Now or never, I decided. “I used to steal cars.”
“Emma Bhiel: Car Thief Extraordinaire,” Ruel laughed. “Well, today is starting to make a bit more sense now.”
I wasn’t sure why I felt so relieved at his response. He had, after all, just shot out four tires with four bullets, mostly kept his cool during our ongoing police chase, and navigated us out of a city he claimed to have lived in for only a year. Clearly, he wasn’t an average citizen. So, he was really in no place to judge my illegal activities. Still, though, I felt a sense of reassurance. I knew I could tell Ruel these things and it would be okay. He would laugh, mock me, and perhaps one day he would admit to being a Russian spy, and I could laugh and mock him about that. For now, though, we had to jam the LoJack signal.
“Okay, so, I’m taking that as a ‘no’ on the jammer?” I said.
“Where’s your jammer, car thief?” he responded with a grin and turned around to the backseat, opening his bag to rummage through it.
“I must have left it at home,” I said sarcastically. That was precisely what I had done, though, not supposing I would need it, and not knowing if it would pass airport security.
“Well, that would be too bad,” Ruel said, settling back into his seat, “except that I have two jammers.”
I looked over to find him grinning broadly at me. I shook my head, smiling. Of course the spy would have two jammers.
“Two, huh? One for me, one for you?” I joked.
“No, two for me. None for you.”
I gave him a playful scowl.
“The other one is for lasers, anyway,” he replied. “So, what’s the frequency?”
“173.075 MHz.”
“So, VHF,” he said to himself as his fingers ran over a handheld touchscreen device. I had never seen a jammer like that. It didn’t even have a proper antenna.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Oh, just your basic scan, detect, and jam gadget,” Ruel said breezily. “Very handy in a pinch.”
“I’ve never seen one like that. How does it even work?”
“We all have secrets, Emma,” he laughed and tapped the green button on the screen. “It’s engaged now. LoJack is NoJack.”
“Excellent,” I said, then found the heater for my own seat. “On to Kiev!”
Ruel leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. The warmth of it nearly rendered the heater unnecessary.
“Sorry for my behavior earlier,” Ruel said. “I just didn’t realize you knew about my gun. I didn’t want you to know.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated. I waited for him to continue.
“Because I can’t explain it to you,” he said quietly.
I focused on slowing my heart rate. Now the revelation of his spy status was just sitting right between us on the center console, waiting to be acknowledged. I couldn’t do it, though. I couldn’t tell him that I already knew, that he didn’t have to explain. It wasn’t even the fact he was packing a Glock 27 and likely had a 23 in his suitcase that deterred me. It was something else, as if the acknowledgement of it would change the dynamic between us too much. I didn’t want to lose what we had.
“Our turn is coming up. Here on the left,” Ruel said as we approached an intersection. The light was green and I turned onto the A-107 heading south.
“So, how long is the drive?” I asked.
“Once we hit the M-3, it’s another couple hours to our exit. Then a little bit longer, because then we’re going to have to take a more private entry point into Ukraine.”
“Oh? Any ideas?”
“I know of a way in. Don’t worry about that. I’m the navigator, remember? Just drive, Driver.”
“You got any food in that Mary Poppins bag of yours?” I asked.
“I think I just might,” he laughed, then turned back around to his open bag. “Adrenaline finally wearing off?”
“Yeah, for now,” I said. “The two bites of sandwich can only last so long.”
“Indeed.” He turned back around and presented me with a protein bar. I took it and unwrapped it while using my knees to momentarily keep the steering wheel on course. Most people would have protested to this, given our speed, but not Ruel. He didn’t even seem to notice, but I knew he did. He saw everything.
The sun set without warning because of the heavily overcast sky. The precipitation had cleared as we continued on the M-3, but the roads were still wet, their moisture glistening in the headlights. Shortly after sunset, I saw we needed to refuel.
“We’re low on gas,” I told Ruel. “Where should I pull off?”
“Any exit should be okay. It’s all little country towns now.”
I took the next exit and arbitrarily turned right. There was nothing there, not even streetlamps. I drove about a half mile away from the interstate and pulled off to the side of the road. There was a layer of snow here. I cut off the engine, leaving the headlights on, but not the brights. I popped the trunk and the gas cap and got out to go grab a canister. Ruel said he was going to explore the fields for a moment. I assumed he was taking a leak, which I planned to do before getting back on the road.
The air was colder here without the heat of the city’s pollution and an icy wind blew from the north, against my face. I hurried to fill the tank so we could get back in the warm car sooner. Ruel came back and took over the refueling process. I went into the field to pee, the snow engulfing my boots with every step. I decided twenty feet in was good enough and gritted my teeth as I exposed my lower body to the freezing air.
When I got back to the car, Ruel was done.
“We’ve got half a can left,” he said. I nodded. He walked over to me and pulled me into a hug. When he pulled away something in his expression seemed off.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Never been better,” he said, grinning. It wasn’t his usual grin, though. It seemed loose and overexcited. “Happy to be here!”
“On the run from Interpol?” I said with a laugh to mask my sudden concern.
“No, here with you,” he replied. I should’ve felt warm and fuzzy from that comment, but I didn’t. Something had changed with him while I was in the field and I didn’t have a good feeling about it. Still, we were in the middle of Russia, on the run, and the car was ready to go.
“Come on,” I said, and climbed into the driver’s seat. Ruel got in the car and I drove us back to the M-3, wondering what was in store for the rest of the night.
“This is the exit,” Ruel said an hour later. “Take a left once we get off. Then it’ll be a while before we have to turn again.”
I followed his directions and soon we were on a two lane, unlit road. The ground seemed to stretch flat for miles around us, but it was too dark to be certain, even with my night vision.
After thirty minutes, Ruel turned around and pulled a mid-2000s cell phone out of the bag.
“A burner,” I thought out loud. I really hadn’t meant to say it. As a car thief and a racer, I really shouldn’t know what a burner phone was. They were generally reserved for more illegal activities, like diamond theft, for instance.
Ruel ignored my comment, turned on the phone, and sent out a text message. I noticed the carrier was American. It dawned on me that everything Ruel had pulled out today that had to do with espionage was American. What did that mean? Was he a double agent? If so, for which country was he the mole? I looked at the clock on the dashboard; the hands were opposite one another. Six o’clock. No cars on the road, the middle of nowhere Russia in the dead of winter, and I was sitting next to a double agent who was slowly revealing evidence of his profession to me. I shivered involuntarily, wondering how I’d been too stupid before to feel scared.
“Hey, you okay?” Ruel said, looking at me with kind eyes. False, lying eyes.
“Yeah, just tired, I suppose.” But I couldn’t be more awake. I decided lying and hiding my fear was the best method. If he was going to put on an act of kindness, so could I, at least until he moved to attack me.
“Do you want me to drive?” he asked.
“No,” I said breezily. Maybe too breezily, since my instinct was to say ‘Absolutely not! This is the only form of control I have at this point.’ Ruel put his hand on my thigh and rubbed it.
“It should only be another hour,” he said.
I nodded. We didn’t talk again until the next direction, where he told me to turn right onto a much smaller, completely unpaved farm road. A few minutes after the turn, he received a text message back. I read the response. It was seven numbers: 8151623. I wondered if it was a phone number with a mutually known area code—and country code.
“Was that your ex-pat friend?” I asked. “Is he meeting us?”
“Something like that.” Ruel said without much emotion.
My heart rate increased. Sure the guy was meeting us, but I would be dead or held captive by the time he did. Ruel didn’t say anything else, and we rode in a thick silence for fifteen more minutes.
“Stop,” he said.
I stopped the car and looked at him for further instructions. He pulled my face to his and kissed me, then got out of the car and opened the back door to grab the bags. I got out of the car, too. The air was like ice and burned my exposed skin.
“Leave the keys,” Ruel said, and nodded his head to the right. “This way.”
I tossed the keys on the driver’s seat, closed the door, and hurried around the front of the car to follow him. My eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness. The white of the snow-covered ground seemed almost illuminated despite the lack of moonlight. I didn’t ask how far we were walking. It really didn’t matter given what was about to happen. Just as I finished shaking my head to try and remove that thought, Ruel stopped and crouched down to the ground.
He pushed the snow out of the way to reveal a hatch door. I looked around. There was nothing here. It wasn’t even farmland. There was a circular plate next to the door’s thin metal handle. Ruel took what looked like a pocketknife from his pants pocket and pulled an Allen wrench out of one of the slots. Silently and swiftly, he unscrewed the five bolts that held the plate on. He put away the pocketknife and lifted up the plate to reveal a dial. He started to turn the knob, first to the eight, then to the fifteen, then around to the sixteen.
“Twenty-three,” I said. He finished the final spin and looked up at me.
“You spying on my text messages, now?” he said with a grin.
I exhaled a laugh. Did he really just say that?
“You need a hand with that?” I said, indicating the handle with my eyes.
Ruel grabbed onto it with both hands and lifted it using his leg muscles. It was clearly heavy, which was further proven true when he let it fall to the ground on the other side, mildly shaking the earth beneath us. We both looked down over the open hatch. It was pitch black inside.
“You’re going first,” I told him with a light, playful push.
“I know,” he replied. “It’s not that far, maybe twenty feet. I’ll head down, and you drop the bags down to me.”
“What’s down there?” I asked.
“It’s a tunnel,” he said.
I nodded and took a deep breath. He was going first, which gave me some time. I could run back to the car and leave, but there wasn’t much gas in the back, and the tank only had a quarter left. It would get me back to the M-3, but then what? I’d hitch a ride in the early hours not being able to speak Russian? I had no money, either, and if I used my cards, then I would get caught and harshly interrogated about the stupid weapon. I really wished I had never designed it.
“Ready?” Ruel said, interrupting my thought process.
“Yeah, let’s do it.”
He winked and lowered himself down the hatch ladder. As soon as he was engulfed by the darkness, I unzipped his bag to look for another gun. There was a metal case under some shirts and sweaters. I quickly opened it, thankful there wasn’t a lock, and found a shiny silver Glock 23 and a full magazine sitting in the indented foam next to it. I pulled the pistol out. It was already loaded, so I shoved it into my coat’s left breast pocket and the magazine in the right one. I snapped the case shut, reburied it, and was zipping the suitcase when Ruel called up to let me know he was at the bottom. His voice sounded close, about twenty feet away, like he had said. I pulled my bag up first to give him less time to look in his own and notice what was missing.
“Ready?” I called down.
“Ready.”
I dropped the bag lengthwise down the center of the hatch. I heard him grunt slightly when he caught it. I pulled his bag over to the opening; it was slightly heavier than mine. I called out to him again and he confirmed. I dropped the bag and hurried down the ladder without waiting to hear if he caught it.
About ten feet down, the concrete tube opened up, leaving the remaining ten feet of ladder open in the base of the tunnel. I couldn’t see anything yet; my eyes needed a few more seconds to adjust. When my left foot hit the ground, I wasn’t expecting it.
Ruel caught me from behind. I thought he would help steady me, but instead he pulled my arms down swiftly and with his left arm pinned them to my sides. His grip tightened to the point where I could hardly breathe. I felt the barrel of his gun on my right temple.
“Now,” he growled into my left ear, “let’s talk.”
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