He’s going to see it now.
He was on the move. His boot came down right beside the apple, barely missing stepping on it. Gina caught her breath. Her heart thumped so hard it felt as if it would pound its way out of her chest.
“Search the buildings again,” Heavy Tread ordered. “Like you said, we don’t want any screwups.”
Ivanov was, impossibly as it seemed, walking away without having spotted the apple. He disappeared from view—
Gina’s heart nearly stopped as he said, from right outside the closet, “What do we do about these?”
He meant the bodies, Gina could tell from his tone. Oh, God, his gloved fingers curled around the edge of the closet door. Spotting them, her eyes popped wide for an instant. She ducked, burrowing her face into the top of the nearest sleeping bag while making herself as small as possible in the corner. Her lower spine pressed up against the wall. Her toes curled in her boots. The dusty smell of long-unused gear enfolded her.
Please God please God please . . .
The sound of the closet door being pushed farther open made Gina’s heart turn over. It pounded furiously as she caught her breath, then pressed her face so hard into the rolled sleeping bag that she couldn’t have breathed if she’d wanted to. She could feel the texture of the tightly woven cloth imprinting itself on her skin. She prayed that some combination of her steel-blue coat, the gray sleeping bag that she had her face buried in, the clutter in the closet, the hanging thicket of clothes, and the darkness in the corner where she crouched would render her invisible.
She could see nothing: black on black. Every other sense she possessed, though, was hyperaware.
He’s right there. Only a few feet away. He’s got a gun.
Her terror was so strong that she could practically feel it pulsing in the air around her. Unable to see, unable to breathe, she was claustrophobic, suffocating, wired. So frightened all she wanted to do was scream and run.
THE SOUND of his breathing told her that he was still there. A warning prickle running down her spine made her virtually certain that he was looking inside the closet, glancing around. With panic curdling her insides and sending what felt like ice water shooting through her veins, she did her best to remain perfectly still. She visualized herself as a statue, carved from stone, lifeless and immovable.
Oh, God. Be quiet. Don’t breathe.
Her heart jackhammered and the muscles in her shoulders and back knotted with tension as she waited—and prayed.
“WE BURN everything, them included.” From the sound of Heavy Tread’s voice, he was on his way out of the room. “Big mistake, keeping them fuel tanks so close to the compound. Accidents will . . .”
His words became indistinguishable as his voice faded.
Gina was afraid to twitch so much as a finger, but her lungs ached from lack of air.
Close at hand, there was a soft scraping sound—cloth on wood? What was it? She didn’t know, couldn’t tell.
Do not move. Oh, God, I have to breathe.
She heard—she was almost sure she heard—footsteps walking away from the closet.
He’s gone, she thought, and a shiver of relief slid over her. But—she might be wrong. Or maybe what she’d heard was the third man, the one who spoke only Russian, walking away.
Her lungs burned now. She was getting light-headed, woozy. She had to breathe.
As slowly and silently as possible she let out the breath she’d been holding and inhaled.
Nothing happened. No bullet slammed into the back of her head. Nobody grabbed her. There was no shouting.
Still she stayed as she was, face pressed to the sleeping bag, unmoving, quietly, carefully breathing, until the silence, the lack of physical sensation that she thought would indicate that she was being watched, had gone on long enough that she couldn’t stand it any longer. Daring to chance it, tilting her head the slightest, smallest degree, she looked up.
Her worst fear was that Ivanov would be standing over her, waiting for her to make a move.
He wasn’t. There was no one in the closet with her. The door was open farther than before, but the doorway was clear. Through it, she could see a good section of the common room. No one was there, at least not within her view. The overwhelming feeling she got was that the common room was empty.
There was no way she could be sure.
Sitting up, Gina took a deep but nearly silent breath.
Her discarded apple still lay unnoticed on the floor.
As she looked at it a deep shudder racked her. Her heart galloped out of control. Her stomach roiled to the point where she felt like she needed to vomit.
I could have died. I still can die.
Mary and Jorge lay just out of her view. Mary and Jorge’s bodies lay just out of her view. The horror of their deaths—their murders—was almost impossible for her to wrap her mind around. She felt this weird sense of disconnect, as if none of what was happening could be real.