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

the table. The half-inch or so that the equipment arm’s support bracket lifted the links off the table was going to be a problem.

She tried anyway.

Stretching her right hand as far from the equipment arm as she could manage, ignoring the pain as it flared in her knucklebones, Tracie gripped the rusty chain in her left. Then she began grinding, sliding the chain back and forth in something resembling a sawing motion.

It was slow going, and hard work. Being right-handed, Tracie’s grip on the chain with her left hand felt awkward and unsteady. Her knuckles throbbed, and her dual head wounds throbbed, and she felt sweat drip down her forehead in rivulets as she forced the chain over the handcuff links.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Her intention when she started had been to continue until the damn handcuffs snapped apart and she was free. But now she realized that she had neither the strength to continue working in such an awkward manner, nor the patience to avoid examining her handiwork to see if she was making any headway.

She lifted the chain and slid it to the side, squinting as she gazed down at her work surface. Rust flakes and dust covered both sets of links. She blew on the surfaces and a pair of tiny brown clouds flew away toward the back of the table, leaving the handcuff links free for examination.

Tracie cursed. She’d made virtually no dent in the tough metal. Maybe one or two of the links had been bent slightly—maybe, she couldn’t even be sure the dents weren’t a trick of the light—but otherwise, the goddamned handcuffs looked as though they’d just come off the assembly line at the goddamned factory.

She felt tears begin to gather in her eyes, acutely aware of the sand running through her personal hourglass. How much longer would it be before Ivan Gregorovich arrived and began rearranging her guts before transporting her to KGB Headquarters?

She cursed again and forced the tears away.

I’m NOT going out like this.

There has to be another way, I just haven’t found it yet.

Think outside the box.

She glanced down at The Weasel, who lay unmoving exactly as he’d fallen a few minutes ago. It was a good thing, too. Tracie had been so wrapped up in trying to bludgeon her way out of her handcuffs that she’d more or less forgotten he was there. If he was still alive and had awakened, he could easily have overpowered her before she even noticed.

He wouldn’t be overpowering anyone anytime soon, though, and maybe not ever. The circle of blood surrounding his head on the concrete floor had continued widening. Its progress had slowed but not stopped, which led Tracie to believe Lukashenko was still alive. But she saw nothing to make her change her earlier assessment that she needn’t count him among her problems.

She blew out a breath and forced herself to concentrate.

Think outside the box.

Lukashenko’s gun lay on the floor out of her reach. It hadn’t magically crept closer while she worked with the heavy iron chain on the assembly table, and it taunted her with its relative closeness. It was less than four feet out of her reach, but that four feet might as well be four miles.

Unless…

Think outside the box.

Tracie glanced from the gun on the floor to the chain on the table and then back.

Gun to chain.

Chain to gun.

Then she shrugged. What the hell. She had no other plan and nothing to lose by trying something that seemed likely to end in failure.

She picked the chain up in her left hand and slipped it off the table. The free end clanked to the floor, kicking up a mini storm of rusty dust. Then she gauged the distance between herself and The Weasel’s Makarov, doing her best to slip the chain through her hand until she guessed she had roughly five feet remaining between her hand and the floor.

She lifted her hand until it was even with the top of her head. The end of the chain dangled maybe three to four inches off the floor.

Five feet.

Next, she began swinging her hand forward and backward, generating momentum, the free end of the chain swinging farther each time until it made wide, arcing turns, like the pendulum inside a giant grandfather clock.

The chain was thick and heavy, and Tracie’s arm began to tire, but she ignored it and continued. When she’d managed to achieve what she felt was the maximum arc, she waited until the end of the chain had begun its forward motion and then lowered her arm as it moved, effectively tossing it toward the gun.

Tracie’s heart was in her throat. She was attempting to thread an impossible needle, dropping the end of the chain down on top of the gun without sending it spinning across the floor in the wrong direction.

It was a plan born of desperation and the knowledge she was down to her last chance, and she had no clue whether it stood a snowball’s chance in hell of working.

She held her breath as the chain flew gracefully across the short distance, dropping down onto Lukashenko’s body and his gun at the same time. The forward momentum of the chain forced the gun away from Tracie, moving it nearly another foot in the wrong direction.

But the weapon remained covered by the heavy chain and Tracie felt a surge of adrenaline. Her fear of sending the gun skittering across the floor had not materialized.

Her plan still had a chance.

She realized her hands were shaking, and she took a moment to steady them, breathing deeply and forcing herself to relax. It wasn’t easy.

After a moment, she began pulling back on the chain, as slowly as she could, willing Lukashenko’s pistol to remain wedged between the thick iron