Sands of Time Read Online Free PDF

might be nice to feel safe again. Besides, we elected him—why would he stage a coup? Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “Don’t be naive.” Genye’s hands whitened on the wheel.
    Sarai felt her heart thump against her chest, their conversation drilling into her. Maybe they’d all been naive to think that Russia might be free, a true democracy. Anya wanted to see a safe Russia. Safe used to mean anyone who was arrested got sent north, to the gulags of Yakutia, without so much as a trial. Safe, as in suspected murderers were executed days after their arrest, and petty thieves beaten in their cells as they awaited release. Safe in pre-free Russia meant fear. And persecution.
    And no foreigners. If they wanted “safe” she might as well bid farewell to The Savior’s Hands Medical Clinic, and all the hopes she had of saving lives like Sasha’s. But, if she left, who would be there to administer vaccinations, petition the government for insulin, dress and stitch the wounds? Who would do the emergency appendectomies, set the broken bones, give first aid?
    They needed her. And she’d stay because, well, that was what she’d been training for. To see people healed and suffering eased.
    There were times, however, when she thought that she might be making a deeper etching in the world if she’djoined the army, became a special forces soldier and hunted down terrorists for a living, like her big brother.
    She heard about David’s exploits often enough to recite them in her sleep.
    Except…that last one hadn’t gone too well. She still chuckled, thinking of him emptying out the Epcot Center, based on Roman’s panic. Although, to be honest, she did feel a twinge of pain for the dynamic duo at the thought of finding their criminal’s slimy gyro sandwich in the dregs of his dropped backpack.
    Still, Roman’s intentions had been noble. She could never fault him for that. Like the time he’d followed her for a week around Moscow while she handed out Bibles for the International Bible League. She’d known he was shadowing her. Still, it had been…sweet. And, at the time, she’d thought he’d wanted to hand out Bibles with her.
    No, he wasn’t nearly as interested in sowing the seeds of faith as he was sowing the seeds of romance.
    She’d been so, so foolish.
    Genye and Anya were arguing in the front seat in fast Russian. She tried to keep up, but her brain felt like stewed prunes. She leaned back on the seat, letting her head bounce, closed her eyes.
    Yes, leaving Roman had cut deep wounds in her heart.
    But, a village deep inside Siberia seemed exactly the place to finally let them scar over, deaden the nerve endings and forget the memory of his hands in her hair, pulling her face close, kissing her in a way that still made her stomach warm.
    Oh, brother.
    Anya and Genye’s argument ceased as Genye turned up the radio. Eyes closed, Sarai listened. Now out of the range of the city, the nerve-crackling gunfire and the smell of flames, she dissected the words.
    “Governor Bednov will be sworn in later tomorrow, after the funeral of his only son, Sasha.”
    Tears flooded Sarai’s eyes and she let them burn a trail down her cheeks.
    So much for saving lives.
     
    “You’re not going to Irkutsk, Captain Novik, so drive that thought from your brain.”
    Major Evgeny Malenkov stood from behind his desk at FSB headquarters, putting his six-foot-two, hundred-plus kilo bulk behind his words. Roman tried a deep, calming breath. Okay, this didn’t have to get ugly. Nor did Malenkov have to know about David’s request.
    “The victim had a visa from Irkutsk—”
    “Along with stamps from Moscow, Chelyabinsk and Buryatia. This is why we have departments in other regions. You’re not the only one with a yen to nail down Smirnov’s supplier. E-mail them the information. They’ll do the leg-work.”
    Sure they would. Sometime in the next millennium. Sorry, but this felt too personal to hand it off to some blini -eating comrade