Ivana Vasilyeva waited until the loud, rhythmic beat of the heavy rotors far above her subsided, then crawled out of her hiding place in the steel-lined weapons locker in an isolated comer of the room. She checked that her submachine gun was cocked and ready, then carefully searched the hallway outside the small armory. All clear. She then returned to the locker and grabbed a woman by the back of her neck, pinning her left arm behind her to steer her out of the room.

“Well, that wasn’t much of an assault,” Vasilyeva said to the woman in English. “It appears your friends have left already, before their work was done.”

“They’ll be back,” Wendy McLanahan said. “Count on it.”

“But we will be long gone by then, Dr. McLanahan,”

Vasilyeva said. “I am sorry we did not meet up with your husband. But I do not think he would like how you have been keeping yourself.” Wendy’s face was badly beaten; one eye was swollen shut and bleeding; her nose was broken in several places—and she had trouble breathing because of cracked ribs, a partially deflated lung, and a torn abdominal diaphragm. Blood had been oozing out of several orifices and wounds for many days, making her look pale and ethereal.

“I think he’ll understand. Besides, I’ll get better—you and your friends will just get dead.”

“You’ll be alive long enough for us to lure your husband to us, and then you’ll both be dead, at Comrade Kazakov’s hands.”

“Pavel Kazakov.” Wendy chuckled. “The only thing worse than being his whore or his drug pusher is his assassin.”

Vasilyeva twisted Wendy’s arm higher up her back, causing her to cry out in pain. “Pain must be something you enjoy, Dr. McLanahan.”

“Am I turning you on, bitch?”

“Shut up and move,” Vasilyeva said. “We have a boat waiting for us in the harbor. A short ride to Zuwarah, a plane ride across the Sahara to Algeria, and then another private jet to meet Comrade Kazakov. Then we set a trap for your—”

They heard a loud scream behind them. Vasilyeva turned just as a body came flying at her, pinning himself against her submachine gun and pulling it out of her hands. The gun went spinning across the hallway. Wendy twisted away. Vasilyeva struggled to her feet, madly searching for her weapon—and then saw him. “There . .. you ... are. General McLanahan,” she cooed softly.

Patrick stood between her and the weapon. He still wore the handcuffs, waist chain, and manacles; his left shoulder was an ugly mass of blood from where Zuwayy’s men had roughly cut the microtransceiver out of his body. He backed up, looking for the weapon with his feet in the semidarkness of the hallway.

“Wendy?”

“Patrick!” she cried.

“Get out of here,” he said. “Go back. Get away from here.”