Zoya cried out in pain with the impact, but she did not release her vise grip.

A blood choke cuts off circulation through the carotid arteries to the carotid processes, which control the amount of blood in the brain. When the processes aren’t supplied with new blood they assume that the body’s blood pressure is too high, so they instantly flush the existing blood in the brain out.

An air choke, in contrast, involves closing off the windpipe long enough to remove the oxygenated air to the brain. This method is not only much slower, it’s also the same method one uses to strangle someone and can easily cause damage to the windpipe and even death.

William rocked forward as his brain was starved of oxygen-rich blood, then shoved her back into the wall again. But this time he was weaker, and Zoya weathered this blow more easily.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, and a second later William’s eyelids drooped and shut, and he fell to the floor, unconscious.

Cutting off blood flow to the brain causes a victim to lose consciousness almost immediately, but the effects begin to reverse the instant the pressure is released on the arteries. Zoya knew this, so as soon as she let go of his neck, she rolled him onto his belly. Quickly she yanked the cuffs from his belt, pulled his thick arms behind his back, and shackled his wrists.

Already he was moving; his eyes opened and he shouted, “Bitch!”

Zoya grabbed her rolled-up socks and shoved them into his mouth, then whipped the drawstring out of her sweatpants and tied it tightly around the socks and the back of William’s head.

She rolled him onto his back now; he stared up at her, his eyes filled with a mixture of rage and disbelief.

As he watched, Zoya put her jeans and sweatshirt on.

She pulled the keys out of his pocket but left his gun in its holster. Then she turned away without a word, stepped into her shoes by the door, and ran off up the hall after locking the holding room behind her.

* * *

• • •

Zoya used William’s keys to get out of the basement, and on the first floor she moved slowly and silently through an unoccupied den. She heard voices in the large entryway of the building: the hollow footsteps of men walking slowly on a hardwood floor. She suspected they were just patrolling the interior of the house, making their rounds.

She turned away from the sounds and headed for the kitchen, off which she had seen a large laundry room with a door to the rear of the property.

She stepped up to the door moments later and looked out the window, checking to make sure there was no one guarding it on the outside. A paved walkway ran from the door and along the house; a grassy hill continued up into the woods, and the darkness, along with the rain, made it hard to see anything beyond the reach of the lighting on the walls of the building.

She started to open the door, preparing herself to get utterly soaked, but she stopped quickly and ducked down below the window when she registered movement in the woods at the edge of the landscaping lights.

What was that?

She jolted in surprise when gunfire kicked off behind her at the front door of the safe house. Zoya spun and looked through the kitchen. She heard men shouting, glass breaking. Dropping down to the floor, her back against the door to the outside, she knelt there, bewildered by what was happening.

These weren’t security men after her. No, this was clearly an attack on the facility.

She made the determination to make a run for the trees, but just as she started to climb to her knees, the window above her head shattered in. She dropped even lower now, well out of view of anyone outside, looked up as glass rained down on her, and saw the butt of an AK-47 as it broke out the remainder of the window.

The door out of the laundry room was only four or five steps away, but she’d be visible to the man with the gun the entire time. When she saw a hand reach through the broken window, searching for the inside door latch right by her head, she realized the armed attacker had taken his hand off the trigger of his rifle, and he probably wouldn’t be able to get a shot off at her if she moved quickly.

This was her only chance.

She scampered across the floor in a low crouch, slid through the doorway on her butt, and scrambled into the kitchen. She heard a shout behind her but couldn’t understand what the man said.

Every single knife in the kitchen had been locked up in a cabinet, standard protocol for the safe house. Zoya had William’s keys, but there were at least a dozen on the chain, and she didn’t have time to go through them, so she shot through the kitchen and into the den, fully expecting to find a portion of the CIA guard force there now, because the gunfire seemed so close.

But the den was empty. She now realized the shooting was coming from the foyer of the house, out of view, and between the bursts and shouts she heard radio calls and movement in the kitchen she’d just left behind.

A massive stone fireplace anchored one side of the den, just next to the hallway to the kitchen, and Zoya leapt up onto the hearth, then pulled herself onto the mantel, six feet up. She rose to a crouch, facing the doorway, just as a man with night vision goggles high on his head stepped into view, his AK-47 at his shoulder.

Behind him was a man wielding an Uzi, moving close behind his partner.

Zoya dropped down on the second man, taking him by the neck and using her momentum to wrench him backwards, sending them both to the floor. Before they’d even landed on the hardwood she had her hand around the trigger guard and grip of his Uzi. The man in full combat gear landed on top of the Russian woman, but she lifted his Uzi along with the arm holding it and squeezed his trigger finger down with her own.

This sent a burst into the legs of his partner in front of him, who spun and fell to his knees. Zoya pressed the man’s trigger finger again, and the 9-millimeter rounds slammed into the wounded man’s head, finishing him instantly.

She hip-thrusted the man on top of her to the side, yanking the Uzi from him as she did so. She pressed the muzzle against the man’s ribs and fired a burst of three rounds into him at contact distance.

More shooting cracked off on the southern and eastern sides of the house. Zoya climbed to her feet and moved for the door off the den to the backyard, but she stopped herself, turned around, and ran for the stairs back down to the basement.

Downstairs Zoya raced into the security monitoring room and found the “master on” control for the basement’s surveillance system. She activated it, then rushed up the hall, past the door to the utility closet, and to her room. She unlocked the door and found William still on his side, unable to sit up.

His eyes widened when he saw Zoya standing there with an Uzi in her hand, but she slung the weapon around on her back and grabbed him by the shoulders. She dragged him across the tiled floor and out into the hall; he shouted through the socks in his mouth the entire time, but she ignored his muffled curses. Pulling him into the dark utility closet, she heaved him around and behind the massive hot-water tank there. She sat him up, his back to the heater, and got close to his face.