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