The Valkyrie Project Read Online Free PDF

away!"
    "Okay, Ms. Callif, stay calm. Stay where you are. There are several officers in the area who will be there to assist you shortly."
    "Oh God …" She trailed off. Who would be to blame for this one?
     
    --
     
    Ana woke up, her sweat-soaked shirt acting as an adhesive between her back and the equally sweat-soaked sheets. The police alarm that had been searching for her brother morphed grotesquely into her comm alert. She pawed for the device on the floor beside her mattress.
    "Hello?" Her voice was a scratchy growl.
    Malcolm's equally scratchy growl answered an octave below hers. "We have an urgent call. Brief as soon as you're here."
    "No time for a shower?" Ana was covered in sweat, not the way she wanted to go into a new assignment.
    "How bad do you smell?"
     
    --
     
    Ana had narrowed down her apartment choices based on locations that were served twenty-four hours a day by the train. That meant that she could catch a train to HQ and be there in a matter of minutes. At three in the morning, it would have been faster to catch a cab, but Malcolm's call had come at nine, so traffic was sure to be stuck together like half-cooked spaghetti. Ana hopped the train that stopped right outside her door, and slid through the town like the olive oil that would have been great on that spaghetti had it been a batch of fully cooked rotini. Since Malcolm had said it was urgent, she'd hadn't taken time to eat.
    The train only stopped twice between her front door and the large concrete building that, even with its glass and steel touches of flair, was a stern monument to the boredom that was government. She arrived at the briefing room and then had to wait for Marisol, the uncomfortable sweat of her dream stuck on her skin like an extra layer of clothing.
    "You know, I probably could have showered and still beaten her here."
    "I called her first, Ana. She's a little slower than usual."
    "Yeah, maybe 'cause traffic sucks and she just has to live in the one neighborhood that is unreachable by skytrain?"
    Malcolm heaved a sigh as though he were pushing a Sisyphean boulder. "I called her first —"
    "Maybe she had to evacuate someone from her apartment for security reasons." Justin chimed in with that comment, making air quotes around 'evacuate someone' and 'security reasons.'
    "Justin, do you have some intel that you're not sharing?" Ana's voice was painfully sweet, dutifully melodramatic, and, if she did say so herself, artfully sarcastic.
    Since Justin frequently volunteered to work the night shifts, he often did have intel that the rest of them didn't. As the first male Valkyrie at the Project, he was eager to gain acceptance, even though he was every bit as qualified as the rest of them. His battery of monitors usually tracked three or four of the other Valkyries, just in case. It was easy to tease him about keeping such a close eye on his female co-workers, but Ana was comforted knowing that he was looking out for them. And it wasn't like tapping into the local police department's video surveillance to keep tabs was any more a violation of privacy than when the police used it.
    Marisol strode in, humble but confident.
    "I apologize for taking so long."
    "You were a little slower than usual," Ana said in a low voice, trying to get to the register that was Malcolm's default. "You really should inform the Project when you intend to have overnight guests."
    Marisol responded with an equally low tone of authority . "It had not initially been my intention to have an overnight guest, sir." Then she melted. "But I'm a sucker for a romantic. Especially a super-hot romantic."
    "If you two are done," Malcolm interrupted their little sketch comedy.
    Marisol winked at Ana and took her seat at the table.
    "I'll make this as quick as possible, since you've certainly figured out that time is an important factor here." Malcolm looked Ana and Marisol in the eyes. They both nodded. "The son of one of our Senators has been kidnapped." A jolt of