Is this the conservatory? I wonder, totally confused.
It’s not the conservatory. This must be a different floor, because instead of the conservatory’s high windows and polished floor, there’s a small room with two armed guards and a metal vault door.
I stop short, because now I really don’t know what the fuck is going on. Kostya strides to the door and puts his hand on some kind of scanner, but one of the guards comes over to him, points at me, and says something in Russian.
Kostya shakes his head and replies, and it sounds curt and commanding, but so do most things in Russian.
Now the other guard comes over, and he says something. I can hear the door unlock, and Kostya pulls his hand from the scanner, draws himself to his full height, and says something very commanding to the first guard.
The guard responds. The other guard responds. Both of them have huge machine guns and Kostya’s got nothing at all, but even as it escalates into a Russian shouting match, he doesn’t back down.
I stand in the first doorway, holding my breath. The tiny amount of Russian I know doesn’t help at all when everyone is shouting and angry, so I have no fucking clue what’s going on or what they’re arguing about.
Finally Kostya roars something and slams his hand against the vault door.
Both the guards go quiet, and all I can hear is the alarm shrieking. Then Kostya says something again, and turns to me.
“Hazel, come on,” he says, and opens the vault door. The guards glare as I walk toward it, and I still have no idea why.
I just nod at them and step through. Then the heavy door swings shut behind us, silencing the alarm, and Kostya leads us down a gray concrete hallway toward another, more regular-looking door.
Chapter Twenty
Kostya
We’re walking through the entryway to the bunker. I can finally hear myself think, now that the goddamn alarm is out of earshot. My stomach is twisted into a thick knot, because if there’s something worse than something going wrong, it’s not knowing what’s gone wrong.
Plus, I cannot fucking believe the timing.
Halfway down the hall, I stop, glance at both doors, and take Hazel’s shoulders in my hands.
“It’s not a fire drill,” she says.
Her eyes are wide as she looks around the concrete hallway, pipes and electric cords running along both sides.
“No,” I say. “That alarm means there’s a black-level threat.”
Her eyes widen a little more.
“Meaning there’s been a threat to a member of the royal family or the cabinet,” I say. “The black level protocol is for all remaining members of the royal family and cabinet to secure refuge in a bunker. There are a couple around the palace.”
“Okay,” she says, and sucks in a breath, nodding like she’s trying to take it all in.
It’s a lot, especially considering what we were up to about two minutes ago.
“You’re not supposed to be in here,” I admit. “This bunker is for royals and high-level officials only, so if there’s anyone inside already, there will be some questions.”
She nods, then takes one of my hands in hers.
“The guard didn’t tell you what happened?” she asks.
I just shake my head, and she kisses my hand.
“I hope it’s nothing,” she whispers.
“Me too,” I say.
The thought of my father, mother, or little brother hurt or dead makes me nauseous. Even though the cabinet members aren’t family, I still know them all. I know their families.
Please, God, let this be a false alarm, I think.
I let Hazel’s hand go and open the second door. Beyond it is pure, inky blackness, so thick I feel like I could reach out and touch it. We’re the first ones here, then, so I find the switch on the wall and turn on the overhead lights.
They flicker to life one by one, ugly and fluorescent, but the whole bunker is ugly so it’s only fitting. The door we came through opens onto a landing, and an aluminum staircase leads down to the main area of the bunker, the size of a large living room with an arched ceiling overhead.
All concrete, of course. The place was built by the Soviets, who may not have realized there were other building materials.
We walk down the staircase and into the main room. Underneath the landing is a hallway that leads to a few rooms: a perfunctory kitchen, two dormitory-style bedrooms with rows of bunk beds, and a makeshift office. I head for the office and Hazel follows me.
I don’t even sit down before I pick up the phone and hit the red button on it. After half a ring, someone picks up.
“Report,” Chief Minister Arkady barks at me in Russian.
“Kostya in the basement dungeon bunker, along with Hazel Sung,” I say. “Crystal sardine.”
Quickly, I pray that I got this month’s password right.
Chief Minister Arkady heaves a sigh of relief into his end of the line.
“Kostya, good,” he says.
Then I hear him talking to someone else in the room, and all I can make out is go tell the Queen.
That means my mom is okay. The knot in my stomach loosens, just a little, and I look over at Hazel. She’s sitting on an ugly wooden bench, elbows on knees, watching me.
“What’s happened?” I ask.
“There’s been an assassination attempt on the King,” he says, gravely.
“An attempt,” I say. My heart squeezes in my chest.
“The bullet only grazed his shoulder, thank God,” Arkady says.
“My mother? Misha? The cabinet?”
“All well right now,” Arkady says. “Everyone at the palace is fine.”
I cover the mouthpiece of the phone and whisper, “Assassination attempt, but everyone is fine,” to Hazel.
She nods.
Then Arkady pauses, and even over the phone, I know that’s not everything.
“Tell me,” I say.
It’s a long, slow, halting story full of holes, but it’s essentially this: my father was in Tobov, the capital city, for a meeting of the Council on Black Sea Fisheries. As he was leaving, a gunman leapt out of the crowd and got off one shot at him before my father’s guards brought him down.
Then it gets complicated, partly because no one seems to have all the information. The gunman was screaming about a partner, or maybe many partners, hiding in wait around the city. There were strange reports from air traffic control of a squadron of unidentified planes flying south over the mountains — a blip on the radar for a moment, then gone.
The military has been intercepting something that looks like coded messages all day, sent via fax machine from service stations in remote areas to other service stations in other remote areas. And then there are the rumors: someone’s seen a fighter jet, someone’s learned that Russian hackers are planning to breach our national security and sabotage the state-run oil company, there are submarines in the Black Sea headed for Velinsk.
“It’s probably all nothing, except for the assassination attempt,” Arkady says. “You know how things spin out of control. But at this stage, we have to take it all seriously.”
We talk a bit more. I speak with my mother, who’s nearly beside herself, sobbing into the phone. My father is meeting with his military advisors, so I can’t speak with him yet, but we agree to video conference in fifteen minutes and I hang up the phone.