The Blood Code Read Online Free PDF Page B

thump. Footsteps, keeping time with her heartbeat, hurried overhead. The scrape of table legs against the linoleum floor made her grit her teeth.
    Her nose picked up the smells of the dank basement, nervous men, and old plastic. Bone-chilling cold seeped into her bare feet and up her legs. She shivered.
    Thank God for Ryan’s sweater.
    She’d been right. He was a good man. Even though he didn’t know or trust her, he’d given her protection and the sweater off his back. While her CIA contact, Solomon, had promised help, Ryan had actually provided it.
    An image of him going to the front door to confront the cops flashed on the backs of her eyelids. Her heart squeezed. He was right; she was putting them all in danger.
    Especially him.
    Around her, the other men moved like ghosts, packing up equipment, she supposed. Equipment Ryan didn’t want her to see. Or the police to find.
    She had to go back. Soon. She was supposed to be at a spa, having a full body treatment to make up for Ivanov’s abuse. Ivanov had given her the afternoon and evening off from his constant presence to allow her to shop and have a massage before tomorrow’s big shindig at the Kremlin began in earnest. Two goons had followed her around, but she’d been able to give them the slip once inside the spa. She’d climbed out a window, hot-wired a car, and found the cabin. She’d reopened the wound while squeezing through the window, but she’d been so focused on escaping, she’d barely noticed the blood. If she wasn’t back in her room before Ivanov came for his nightly visit, she—and Grams—would be doomed.
    Footsteps sounded again above them, different this time. Heavier. Shuffling.
    Clipped, razor-sharp voices echoed off the floorboards. Around her in the bunker, all motion, even breathing, stopped.
    Anya stopped breathing, too. Seconds ticked by as Ryan answered questions. Was he speaking Russian? There were crashing noises and more discussions, Ryan’s voice remaining unflustered and cool as the officers combed the house searching for her.
    A flashback of the previous night’s terrifying incident played like a movie in her brain. She tried to shut out the memory of Ivanov’s hands on her arms, her waist. Tried to shut out the memory of his voice in her ear. The memory of what she’d seen in the second set of presidential quarters, hidden under the Kremlin in a bunker that was supposed to be abandoned but was adorned like Stalin was still in residence.
    The cutting-edge lab that made GenLife look like a high school chem lab. The high-tech command center filled with computers, satellite uplinks, and floor-to-ceiling flat screens. The military weapons room and full-scale army headquarters. Displays of launch keys, antique guns, and other Soviet weapons everywhere she’d looked. All under Moscow, spread out like a post-apocalyptic sci-fi city.
    Her mouth went dry, her teeth chattered. The memories consumed her, and she could no longer hear the sounds above, ears ringing as if she were inside a bell. Her lungs burned. She couldn’t breathe.
    Ripping the blindfold off, she bent forward, gasping as quietly as she could. Even with the blindfold gone, she couldn’t see anything but darkness. Heavy as a wool blanket, it closed around her, pushing down, suffocating her. She was going to have a heart attack and die right there.
    After all the trouble she’d caused, Ryan would probably go off and leave her body there to rot. Grams would die never knowing what happened. She’d die thinking Anya had abandoned her.
    Vertigo hit and the chair seemed to roll sideways. Anya went down on hands and knees, the cement floor tearing her skin. Blood roared in her ears and she felt light-headed, as if the room were now spinning.
    On the brink of passing out, someone touched her back. Said her name.
    They seemed too far away. Could they hear her reply? Her tongue was so thick in her mouth, she wasn’t sure she could make one.
    She slapped a hand across her