Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9) by Allan Leverone (phonics reading books .txt) 📕

She breathed deeply and sighed. A Lukashenko walking around fifteen feet behind her was not a Lukashenko who could be disabled, and if she stood any chance of acquiring her freedom, she would have to disable him.

There was no longer the luxury of time to wait for the perfect situation to develop.

She had to make something happen.

She cleared her throat and said, “Um, excuse me?” Her goal was to sound meek and submissive and she hoped she’d accomplished that, although the concepts of meekness and submission were so foreign to her that she had no earthly idea whether she’d succeeded.

“Yes? What is it?” He’d stopped his relentless pacing, but only for a moment. Before she could answer, he started up again.

“Um, I really need to go to the bathroom.”

He waved his hands like a man shooing away a fly. “I do not care. Just hold it.”

“I’ve been holding it. Being nervous makes me have to go, and I’m not sure I can hold it much longer. I’m very nervous.” That part, at least, wasn’t a lie. She was not looking forward to what would happen if she ended up a prisoner inside Lubyanka.

Another annoyed hand-wave. “That is not my problem.”

“It will be your problem if I pee my pants. Do you think General Gregorovich is going to want me staining the seats of his airplane and stinking up the cabin when he flies me back to Moscow? Not to mention the fact that if he interrogates me after I’ve peed myself, he’s going to get my urine all over him.”

He stopped pacing again and stared at her. Then he said, “I do not think you will be flying to Moscow, I think I will be driving you. But even if you are right, I do not care about Gregorovich’s airplane or the fact that he may have to change into a new uniform.”

“Actually,” Tracie shot back, “I kind of think it is your problem. I can’t imagine he’d be too pleased with you for allowing me to get in the situation to begin with. Maybe he really doesn’t care. But are you willing to take that chance when all you have to do is unchain me and allow me to relieve myself?”

Lukashenko glared at her. He hadn’t yet resumed pacing and Tracie took that as a positive development. “There are no working toilets here,” he said grudgingly.

“I don’t care about that. I just need to go.”

“You would not have any privacy. If I gave you privacy, I know you would run.”

Not until after I snapped your miserable neck, Tracie thought but didn’t say. Instead she said, “I don’t care about privacy, either. You can cuff me to you if you’d feel better. I just have to pee.”

He took three steps in her direction and then said, “I am not going to unchain you and give you the opportunity to attack me.”

Tracie tried to manage a disbelieving laugh, but it wasn’t easy. She was getting frustrated and angry, and still the invisible clock was ticking down to her doom. “You’re worried about me attacking you? You outweigh me by probably seventy kilos and you’re holding a gun. How the hell do you figure I’m going to attack you?”

“I know what you did to the sentry at General Gregorovich’s home, and he was armed as well. I am not going to unchain you. You will simply have to pull down your pants and urinate where you are.”

Her temper spiked. She was getting nowhere, and she almost cursed at Lukashenko.

Then a thought occurred to her. Maybe he’d given her the tiniest opening.

She wouldn’t know unless she tried.

“Fine,” she said. “But I only have one free hand. There is no way I can unbutton and unzip my pants and then pull them down with one hand. I will need you to do it for me.” Just saying the words made her skin crawl. The thought of allowing Andrei Lukashenko anywhere near her in the most intimate of ways was sickening.

But it had to be better than the lifetime of torture she was facing at the hands of the KGB.

He took a couple more steps and stopped.

Pulled his gun.

Continued moving until he was right behind her.

“I want you to remember something,” he said. “If you make one wrong move, just one, I will not hesitate to pull the trigger and blow your brains all over this table.”

“I understand.”

“Do not forget.”

He leaned his bulk against the table to her left and then reached down toward her waist, still holding the gun in his right hand. He brought his hands together and unfastened her belt, then began fumbling with the button.

That was when she acted.

She reached up with her left hand and grabbed hold of his flowing silver hair, scratching his mangled ear and yanking downward before he could react. As she pulled, she twisted her body to the right in an attempt to generate as much torque as possible.

His face smashed into the corner of the metal table.

There was a sharp crack! followed immediately by the sound of his Makarov firing as he instinctively pulled the trigger.

The slug whizzed past Tracie’s head and Lukashenko crumpled to the floor, dazed.

He was still conscious, though, and retained enough awareness to try rolling out of Tracie’s reach. As he turned, she kicked him in the face with her boot, unable to put much behind the blow, thanks to her position against the table.

It was enough to stun Lukashenko a second time.

She leaned against the table top with both hands and pushed off, leaping as high off the floor as she could and landing squarely on The Weasel’s head with both feet, hearing the sound of a wet crack even over the ringing in her