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"Already Gone"

'Cause I'm already gone

And I'm feelin' strong

I will sing this victory song

- The Eagles

In the dim light of a Siberian afternoon, through the flurries of snow, Hopper waited. He did his job, he watched the guards, and he looked for the opening he needed. He'd practiced this before, watching to see if there was a time he could make his break, and he had found spaces then, when it didn't matter. Could he find one today, when he had to?

The weaselly guard had hauled a prisoner off the line and was screaming at him, pulling him away from the others to be beaten. This practice did no one any good, but the guards enjoyed it anyway.

Behind him, Hopper saw Antonov appear, tossing his cigarette away in a manner that was supposed to be casual. To Hopper, it looked very clearly like a signal. But he knew it was a signal; maybe if he hadn't known, it wouldn't look so obvious.

Still. That meant it was time to get started. God, it was a relief to have finally gotten here.

Hopper jammed the end of his sledgehammer underneath the rail and used all his strength to bend the handle away. As he had hoped, the wood broke—suddenly enough that he staggered and nearly fell. Taking the broken handle, he walked off the line toward the shed where the extras were kept. The sentry in front of the shed pointed his gun straight at Hopper's face and screamed at him in Russian. Hopper shook his head as if he didn't understand—it was useful to be American, sometimes—and held up the stick with its splintered end.

"Broken!" he shouted in turn, demonstrating how impossible it was to drive a railroad spike with a piece of wood. "Cannot work. Cannot work."

"Stay there," the sentry demanded in Russian, and Hopper pretended to cower.

Instead, he follewed the sentry inside and positioned himself behind the kid while he picked out a new sledgehammer. Hopper whistled at him, and when the sentry turned to face him, Hopper gave him the end of the stick in the face, putting all the strength he had built up doing their work for them behind it.

Quickly he sat down and pulled his boots off, working the shackles off over his ankles and heels, nearly crying from the pain.

Before he could pull the boots back on, he heard a Russian voice behind him. It was that goddamned weasel-faced guard, holding a gun on him.

Externally, Hopper was silent. Internally, he was going through every filthy profanity he had ever learned. He kept the metal shackles in his hands as the best weapons available at the moment, and as the guard waited for him to put his hands up he whirled and gave him a faceful of cold metal. He hoped it smelled like feet as it struck the guard in the nose.

Weasel-face was tougher than he looked. The blow staggered him, but then he was up again, the two of them trading blows. Hopper was bigger and stronger, but he was hampered by his frustration and his fear that this stupid man's interference was going to attract the attention of the other guards and keep Hopper from going home.

He got the chains of the shackles around the guy's neck, but in his panic, the guard's finger tightened on the trigger of his weapon, bullets spraying the ceiling of the shack. So much for not attracting attention.

As he finished choking the life out of the guard, Hopper noticed the dynamite piled in a box on the other side of the shack. Maybe the distraction would allow him to get the plan back on track.

Certain that he didn't have much time, he shoved the table against the door to hold it closed, set up his booby-trap, and climbed out of the shack through the trapdoor in the roof. He had to leave his boots behind, but a couple of toes lost to frostbite would be more than worth his freedom, in his opinion.

Hopper leaped into the snow, running as best he could—he was pretty sure the guard had broken a couple of his ribs with a wrench during the fight—and was only just out of blast range when the dynamite went off.

Ahead of him was a snowmobile. He had barely reached it when he heard an outcry behind him. Damn it all. Someone had seen him.

At least the snowmobile started when he turned the key. The first thing to go right this whole time. Well, that and the shackles coming off. God, that felt good.

The whole contingent of guards were shooting at him as he sped toward the trees. All he could do was hunker down, make himself as small a target as possible, and hope to hell he made it before they shot him.

Even at that, he was pretty damned surprised when he reached the tree line, out of range, without a few bullet holes in him.

He followed the directions Antonov had whispered to him in the darkness of his cell. He trusted Antonov—he'd had little choice, true enough—but it was still a little bit shocking to him when he broke out of the trees and saw the village in front of him. Silent in the snow, no evidence that anyone there knew a crazy American prisoner had broken out of the prison.

Not wanting to draw attention with the sound of the snowmobile's engine, he went on foot down into the village, ignoring the pain from the snow on his bare feet and from his ankles and from his ribs. Time enough to be in agony later. There in front of him was the church that was the smuggler's base. If he could only make it there without being seen …

He ran, faster than he would have imagined he could in his current condition, climbing the churchyard fence and finding the key hidden under a rock, just the way Antonov had said it would be.

Unlocking the door, he made it inside. Into the quiet peace of a room full of contraband. Out of the wind, out of the snow, with carpets under his abused feet. Heaven. Hopper locked the doors behind him and went exploring, breaking crates open with a crowbar. Jeans, with the tags still on. Maybe useful later.

And then—peanut butter. Jars and jars of American peanut butter. He tore a box open and twisted the cap off a jar. The pop when the seal broke was still so familiar, even though he hadn't heard anything like it in … months, at least. And the smell!

Digging his fingers in, he took a mouthful, and tears sprang to his eyes. Real food. Food from home.

He had done it. He was free. And he was going home.

Still weeping with the joy of it, he carried his jar of peanut butter to an old mattress in the corner, tucked a blanket around his feet to warm them, and lay there in peace and solitude, waiting for the smuggler.

Unfortunately, Hopper's peace was short-lived. His feet were barely warm when he heard shouts outside. Pushing the blankets off him, he scrambled to his feet. They were coming. And there was no back door. He was caught like a rat in a trap. Antonov had betrayed him. Or the guards knew about Yuri's hideout, and this was the first place they would look. Or they had tracked the snowmobile.

Anything was possible. And none of it mattered, because they were going to kill him. If he was lucky.

He did his best to evade them, running for the window, nearly making it when they grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled him down. Then they beat him, taking out their considerable frustrations on him.

He was glad when he passed out, and could no longer feel the bitter disappointment of having come so close, only to fail.