The Longest Winter Read Online Free PDF

she wasn’t sure. Cheap and easy to build, just cinder blocks and mortar, it bore the marks of a do-it-yourself job.
    They continued around to the east side and found themselves standing in front of a large steel door.
    Yuri reached for the handle and hoped for the best. “Locked,” he said.
    “Do you think this is it?”
    “Looks like it could be. There probably isn’t much else around here where Claude could have come from.”
    “So Jacques may still be inside?”
    “Look around the other side for a window. I will stay at the door.”
    Kara nodded and walked toward the north. She rounded the corner and was hit by a strong gust of wind and snow. She buried her face in her jacket and waited for it to die down. A few more steps along the north wall brought her beneath a small window near the roof of the building.
    It was just as Claude had described.
    Kara shone her light at the window and saw blood on the frame.
    “Yuri, this is it. We need to get inside.”
    “Wait for backup,” he said.
    “Jacques may be in there, I’m coming around the front.”
    Yuri knew better than to argue. He hadn’t worked with Kara long but already knew, and had heard, of her stubbornness. When she had a hunch, she acted on it.
    “Think you can drop that door?”
    Yuri shook his head. “It’s steel. But I’ll try.”
    He stepped back and delivered three solid kicks to the deadbolt.
    Nothing.
    “Fuck that hurt. That thing is not going anywhere. We would need a ram to get through it.” Yuri reached for his gun.
    “Seriously? That never works. You’ll just hit one of us with the ricochet. You’ve seen too many movies.” Kara shook her head. “Come around the side. You can boost me through the window.”
    “You are not going in there alone.”
    “If he’s in there, he knows we’re here now. We don’t have a choice.”
    Yuri nodded. “Fine. But get that door open ASAP.”
    “Okay.”
    A minute later Kara was inside, her arms scraped from scrambling through the window. She crouched low, her gun in her right hand and the flashlight in her left. Her hands were crossed at the wrist, backs together with one hand bracing the other. Almost no light came in through the window and the inside was dark. Kara wasn’t even sure there were lights in the building.
    Please don’t die on me, she thought, a silent prayer to the light she held. The beam moved across the floor and walls, revealing ropes, chains and patches of dried blood. There were two bowls on the floor, only a few grains of white rice left stuck to the sides. Empty plastic cups lay on their sides. The room smelled faintly of urine and excrement, a smell that would’ve been worse were it not for the cold.
    Kara moved toward the open door, another one made of steel, and leaned out slowly, carefully, casting her light into the next room. Empty. There were two bowls of rice on the floor, their contents spilled. He’d been coming to feed them when he found Claude escaping.
    Another door to her left. She moved toward it, the shapes of furniture becoming visible as she approached. It was Spartan in nature, a simple coffee table in the middle and a couch against the wall. An old TV set sat on a pair of upside-down milk crates and a microwave sat on the floor beside it. A half-eaten plate of pasta had been left on the table.
    Not a sound came from anywhere within the building.
    They’re already gone.
    Kara moved up and pressed herself against the wall beside the open doorway. A quick lean and a pass of the light revealed most of the room. She came back behind cover then leaned out once more, this time while crouching. It was a simple tactic. Lean out once, and the bad guys can see you. Lean out again at the same height, and the bad guys can put a bullet in your head. Always change position, change the timing, change anything that will keep them guessing.
    It didn’t matter though; the room was clear.
    The light crossed another steel door and Kara thought about the layout and