The Blood Code (24 page)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Son of a bitch, that hurt.

Ryan lay on his stomach on the floor of the ruined bathroom, blood running across the concrete in a steady flow underneath him. He ignored it, keeping his eyes closed and playing possum, in hopes Ivanov would think he was mortally wounded. That he was no longer in the game. No longer an issue.

The bullet had struck between his right shoulder and collarbone, and
damn it all to hell
, the pain was brutal. He’d spun to the right trying to avoid it, and as luck would have it, it missed his chest. Anya was partially to thank for that. She never stopped surprising him. One minute she was pretending she was double-crossing him. The next, she was attacking Ivanov to save his ass.

Definitely keeping her away from Conrad. If I don’t, he’ll recruit her for his spy army.

The random, untimely thought almost made him laugh. He tamped down the temptation, refocusing on the pain to clear his head. Losing a little blood was no reason to get delirious.

His quick reflexes had landed him a prize. As he’d twisted away from Ivanov and Anya, he’d drawn the gun from his waistband with his right hand, and slid it around to his midsection before belly flopping to the floor. Now, as he pretended to be dead, the gun dug uncomfortably into his stomach. He’d love to roll over, point the thing at Ivanov’s head, and pull the trigger, but he only had two bullets. His right arm—his shooting arm—was out of commission, folded under him and useless from the wound. He was trained to shoot with either hand, but even after constant drills at the range, his left was less precise.

With Anya still in danger of getting between him and Ivanov, now was no time for imprecision.

Behind him, she was screaming at Ivanov in a mixture of English and Russian. She must have been giving him hell with her fists, and maybe feet, because Ryan heard the sound of punches and grunts from Ivanov. Finally, his deep voice boomed off the bathroom’s tile walls as he told her shut up in Russian. The command was followed by the distinct sound of his hand hitting her flesh.

Ryan ground his teeth. Anger like he’d never experienced roared through him. Every atom in his body demanded he get up and beat the hell out of Russia’s president, but logic laughed at the idea. No matter how much he wanted to kill Ivanov, the only thing he’d end up doing was killing himself. The way to save Anya was to play dead.

So he played dead.

Anya’s screaming didn’t subside after Ivanov’s hit. If anything, she was more belligerent, and once again, Ryan found himself wanting to laugh. It was
so
not funny, but she was incredible, so alive and unafraid of anything. She seemed to be making up Russian curse words he’d never heard before. His heart swelled with pride. He’d never known a woman like her. Even spies couldn’t hold a candle to her fearlessness and grit.

He cracked one eye, stealing a glance at the mirror across from him. Ivanov had pushed Anya up against the wall, and all Ryan could see was the back of the man’s head and his bulky shoulders. Was he still holding the gun? Was Anya’s distraction enough to warrant Ryan freeing his weapon and taking the best shot he could?

Where was Andreev? Ivanov’s bodyguards? There had to be more people than just the president running around down here. They had to have heard the gun shot.

Patience
. He needed more intel before he took a shot at Ivanov. There was still a chance he could rescue Anya and her grandmother, and get all of them out of Moscow without killing anyone. Sure the odds were equal to a snowball’s chance in hell, but if there was any possible way to keep from bringing even more shit down on his and Anya’s heads, he had to take it.

Slap!
Ivanov struck Anya again and Ryan cringed. This time, she fell silent, and it took every bit of willpower he possessed not to come off the floor and tackle the son of a bitch. In the mirror, he saw Ivanov grab her and shove her through the fake armoire into the hidden door.

The room fell silent and Ryan drew in a steadying breath.

Ivanov would be back. Or he would send one of his minions to make sure Ryan was dead, and if he wasn’t, put a second bullet in him, this one in his head.

Easing off the floor, he gritted his teeth against the pain radiating through his chest and grabbed the gun with his left hand. Blood ran down his right arm, down his chest. His shirt, already soaked, stuck to his skin.

The room swam before he locked his knees and blinked away the fuzziness. He stood immobile, opening up all his senses, and tuning out the pain. He should find a way to stop the bleeding, but there wasn’t time to do any major first aid, and he didn’t want to set down the gun in order to pull a shirt out of the rucksack.

He took two steps toward the door, realized he was leaving a bloody trail, and stopped short. Damn, that was a lot of blood, no matter how much he wanted to deny it. Definitely had to do something to stop it.

Since his right arm and hand were useless, he had no choice but to set down the gun and root through the sack with his left. There on his knees, he found a cotton shirt and a wool cap and jammed both under his shirt, one in front over his pectoral and one in back over the bullet’s exit wound. Then he wrapped his belt around his upper chest to help secure the padding, struggling and swearing under his breath at his lack of dexterity with his left hand. Every few seconds, he stopped to listen, and watch the armoire’s doorway. No one came back for him.

Sweating and dizzy from the exertion, he managed to get on his feet a few minutes later, gun in hand, and staggered through the armoire’s passageway.

The change in décor was startling. A night and day difference. Ryan stepped from the cold, abandoned bathroom into a brightly lit, modern facility that mimicked the beautiful Russian subway system. High archways, marble tiles, and rail tracks that ran west from the heart of Moscow, east to the airport.

This was what Anya had told him about. A completely new bunker upgraded and equipped like a miniature Kremlin. Ivanov’s secret quarters. The lab. The computer launchers for the nuclear weapons.

Natasha Romanov Radzoya must be here.

Ryan looked right, then left. No sign of Anya or Ivanov. No sign of any train either. He’d have to walk.

Would Ivanov take Anya back to the Kremlin or deeper into the modern side of the bunker?

Before he could curse himself for leaving his tablet in the abandoned computer room behind them, a scream echoed down the corridor from the east.

Anya.

Forget walking. It was time to run.

Chapter Forty

Ryan’s dead
. Anya’s mind reeled against the knowledge, but she’d seen the bullet strike him in the chest. Saw him fall. Saw the gushing blood and how still he’d lain on the bathroom floor.

As she spit her own blood out of her mouth—the split lip Ivanov had given her was already swelling—she knew she could have been an ER doctor, trained in saving gunshot victims, and she still couldn’t have saved Ryan from bleeding out in an abandoned bunker under the Kremlin.

Ivanov shoved her into a chair. They’d entered his modern computer command center surrounded by glass, the sliding door behind them making a sucking sound as it sealed them in. The room looked similar to some of the university classrooms Anya had studied in. Tiered seats in a half-circular layout. Only these seats boasted individual high-tech computers, monitors, and printers, and the only person sitting at a computer was Andreev.

His head was bandaged. She should have felt relieved she hadn’t killed him. Instead she felt the opposite. She wished she
had
killed him. An awful, but nevertheless truthful fact.

An assortment of flat screens hung on the far wall, two Russian flags on either side. Andreev wore a headset and pecked at keys on the keyboard under his fingertips. Every few seconds, he glanced up at the monitors, went back to his pecking. He sneered at her once, and then ignored her.

A dozen different images played out before them on the screens. Live shots of Moscow, the subway station, and various buildings around the Kremlin. Images of other countries’ capitals as well. Anya recognized London, Paris, and Washington D.C.

The game was up. She should have been worried, but she couldn’t dredge up the emotional energy. She was numb. She’d played her last card, trying to convince Ivanov she was on his side, and it had failed. She wanted to cry. For Ryan, for Grams. For all of them.

But she wasn’t a crier.

Sitting up straight, she willed the numbness to fill her body like she’d done when her parents had been killed. It was time to end the game. “What are we doing here?”

Ivanov strutted over to the wall of screens, put his hands on his waist and studied them. He was wearing his military uniform, looking every bit the part of the crazy leader surveying the war field. “America is responsible for the terrorist bombings in the subway. We must retaliate.”

“America?” Anya couldn’t help snorting. God, she was tired. “Americans didn’t bomb anything. The Chechens did. Ryan told me.”

Ivanov whipped his head around to stare at her for a moment, as if the idea she knew anything about politics and terrorists was shocking. Then he narrowed his eyes, letting her know he didn’t appreciate her second-guessing him, throwing Ryan, and his opinion, in his face.

He went back to studying the board as Andreev continued manipulating images on the screens. “The Americans have backed the Chechens and other militia groups since the fall of the Soviet Union in an attempt to weaken Russia. My predecessors may have ignored such blatant terrorism but I will not. How dare Pennington and Morrow come here under the guise of being allies while they are helping my enemies destroy my homeland? Any country that backs terrorism on Russian soil will be dealt with and dealt with harshly.”

Downtown Manhattan appeared on a screen next to the one showing the White House. On the other side, a US naval base appeared. Anya surged out of the chair, no longer able to stay numb. “You’re going to start a war with America over a subway bombing? Are you crazy?”

Stupid question. Of course he was crazy. “You can’t do that. Innocent people will be killed, both here and in America. Don’t you understand? You’re starting a war you can’t win.”

He whirled on her, thumped a fist on a nearby desk. “I will win. I will destroy every last American. All I need is the code to override your father’s password.”

The monster of her dreams surfaced behind his eyes. “What are you talking about?” she whispered. “What does my father have to do with this?”

Something off to the left caught Ivanov’s attention. “Ah, here we are.”

In the hall, Inga appeared. With her was an older woman, bowed over at the waist and barely shuffling along. Inga seemed to be supporting her. The woman’s gray hair stuck out in all directions, and she appeared dirty and unkempt. As the room’s security door slid open with a soft
whoosh
, Anya’s heart dropped to her knees.

Grams.

“Oh my God.” She ran and caught her grandmother’s arm as Natasha and Inga cleared the threshold. “Grams!”

Natasha raised her head and looked Anya in the eye. Bruises covered her face and Anya couldn’t stop the small whimper of distress that passed her lips as she hugged her grandmother to her, careful not to squeeze too hard.

With Inga’s help, they guided Natasha to a chair. “Anya.” Natasha patted her cheek and smiled at her, and Anya’s heart warmed. Grams was in horrible shape, but she was alive.
I never should have given up on her.

“I’m so sorry,” Anya said, holding her grandmother’s hand. “I’m going to get you out of here. I promise.”

“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep.” Ivanov stood behind her, the gun again in his hand.

Grabbing Anya, he spun her away from Natasha and Inga, and pressed the barrel of the gun to her temple. “Tell me the code, Natasha, or your precious granddaughter dies here and now.”

Natasha’s smile fell. Her eyes went cold, hard, but Anya sensed her hesitancy to tell Ivanov what he wanted to know. Grams would never put Anya’s life in danger, so the code had to be something that carried enormous consequences. It had to be the one thing that would start the war with America. “Don’t tell him, Grams. Whatever the code is,
don’t tell him
.”

Natasha’s gaze never left Ivanov’s face. “My granddaughter is a braver soldier than you, Ivanov. Braver and smarter. As I told you already, killing her parents was your first mistake. Killing her will be your last.”

Ivanov hesitated. Anya didn’t understand her grandmother’s statement any more than the president did, but it seemed like a good idea to keep him talking rather than shooting. “Why is this code so important? And why did my father have it?”

“Do you want to tell her?” Natasha asked, seeming to settle into the chair. “Or should I?”

She crossed one leg over the other, looking for all the world like the elegant woman Anya had known all her life, rather than the beat-up and tormented prisoner Ivanov had tried to turn her into.

Pride swelled inside Anya’s chest. If Natasha could be so calm and regal in this situation, she could, too.

Ignoring the gun pointed at her head, she shifted to face Ivanov. “Tell me, Maxim. I have the right to know the truth before I die.”

The use of his first name, or perhaps the pleading look in her eye, made him lower the gun. He didn’t release her, and she feared if she made one wrong move, he’d kill her on the spot. So she held still, held her ground. Willed him to start talking.

“Your father was in charge of
Prometheus
, a project to convert the launch systems from physical keys to computer codes back in the 1990s.” Ivanov’s gaze never left hers, but he wasn’t seeing her anymore. “The set of defense missiles protecting Moscow were some of the first to be converted to an entirely encrypted and encoded system like the Americans had. They could only be launched by the president. Except, your father inserted a backdoor code no one knew about at first. When I tried to upgrade the system, my engineers discovered that the defense missiles in Level A-155 will not launch unless that backdoor code is initialized.”

Anya glanced at her grandmother. “Backdoor code?”

Natasha smiled. “A secret way of overriding normal authentication. The code is like a password that opens the program. The program that initializes the missiles.”

She shifted on the chair, her face serious once more. “The potential for nuclear war frightened your father, like it does all rational people. The Cold War was over, but the nuclear arms race was still going strong. He was torn about what he was doing, making it even easier for one man to start a nuclear war.” She met Anya’s gaze. “He had a daughter. A daughter he wanted to grow up, and have her own kids, without the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over their heads.”

Ivanov exploded in anger. “He had no right to tie the government’s hands! To put us all in danger.”

“He wasn’t a power-hungry politician, Ivanov. He was a father, a son, a husband before he was a cabinet member. Things you’ll never understand. He loved this country.
Truly
loved it.”

“He was an abomination to Russia. A traitor, just like you. He died by my hand and you will, too.”

Natasha looked as tired as Anya felt. “Then you and Moscow will continue to be vulnerable, because I’m the only one who has the code now, and I will never, ever give it to you.
‘
Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.’”

“How dare you quote that bastard Kennedy.”

Ivanov moved, raising the gun as if to hit Natasha. Anya stepped between them, braced herself against the strike. “All these years, Moscow has been unprotected from a nuclear attack?”

He stayed the weapon. “Of course not. My predecessors built many defensive missile shields.”

“But those contain normal warheads, not nuclear ones,” Natasha said. “They’re designed for short-range interception. The last defense against nuclear annihilation. The ones your father worked on, Anya, are long-range ICBMs buried in silos surrounding Moscow and St. Petersburg. They’re the forerunners of
Satan,
the one-hundred-ton warhead Ivanov has added to his arsenal this year. Those missiles are for attacking, not defending.”

“My God.” Anya took a step backward, still shielding Natasha. Her grandmother’s hand touched her back. Seeking reassurance or giving it? “You’re making agreements with the United States and Britain to dismantle all these weapons, while behind their backs, you’re building bigger ones?”

Natasha offered up more information. “Ivanov has listed the missiles as decommissioned since he realized they wouldn’t work. If he can’t obtain the code to initialize them, the missiles are worthless, but the rest of the world doesn’t know that, do they, Maxim?”

“Russia will be the leader of the world in this decade.” Ivanov raised a fist and shook it at both of them. “And I will lead Russia.”

Ivanov was nothing less than the next Stalin or Hitler. He would take out anyone he perceived as a threat, regardless of the consequences. World domination was no joke to him.

Andreev’s voice cut in. “Sir? We are ready.”

Ivanov pointed his gun at Anya’s forehead. “Tell me the code to Peter’s backdoor, Natasha, or your granddaughter dies.”

This was it. Anya reached back and grabbed Grams’s hand.

“Forgive me, Anya,” Natasha whispered. “I can’t tell him.”

“I’ll tell you the code.” The unexpected male voice made them jerk to look at the command center’s door.

Ryan, bedraggled and bloody, wobbled precariously across the threshold. Inga gasped at the sight of him. Anya did the same. “Ryan?”

His calm, assessing gaze skimmed over her before it moved to the president. “Lower the gun, Ivanov, and I’ll give you your precious code.”