Page 2 of Dead Fall

In each of the designated hiding places, the children needed at least one adult with them. Since Anna knew the building like the back of her hand, was a runner who worked out daily, and could move from room to room and floor to floor quickly, everyone knew she was the best choice. She was also, the staff believed, fearless.

In their minds, based upon the characters they watched on TV, most American women were fiercely independent and didn’t take shit from anyone. Throw in being an attorney, and it took Anna’s badassery in their eyes to a whole different level.

But it was one particular incident that had cemented her reputation at the orphanage as someone that you didn’t want to mess with.

Shortly after her arrival, a group of three men had shown up in the middle of the night attempting to “secure” the building’s generator for the “war effort.” Not only were they wearing tracksuits and gold jewelry, but they were also remarkably drunk.

The most likely explanation was that they were a mafia contingent roaming the region, stealing whatever would fetch a good price on the black market. Anna had been determined not to let that happen.

When one of them tried to intimidate her by pulling a knife and saying that he was going to rape her, she kneed him in the groin, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and pressed her own knife—one she had been carrying since arriving in Ukraine—against his throat.

His cohorts were shocked, knocked off balance by how quickly she had taken control. It only lasted for a moment. Soon enough, the duohad regained their composure and were gaming out their next move. The men didn’t believe she would harm their associate.

When they advanced, however, Anna didn’t waver. She pressed the blade deeper into the man’s fleshy neck and kept going, even after she drew blood.

As the front of his shirt began to stain a deep red, the other men froze, once again unsure of how to proceed.

Anna told her captive to drop his knife, which he did, and she kicked it to the side.

There was only one message she wanted to get across to these scumbags—that this orphanage was more trouble than it was worth and that they shouldn’t ever bother coming back.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the custodian, who lived on the edge of the property, had shown up, shotgun in hand.

With backup on scene and her message delivered, Anna released her captive, giving the thug a shove in the direction of his comrades.

Watching them back off toward their vehicle, she offered one last piece of advice—that they find their man a hospital with a staff who knew what they were doing. None of the local butchers would be able to sew up the wound she had carved into the man’s neck. If they didn’t quickly head for one of the bigger cities and get him properly taken care of, the artery was going to rupture and he was going to bleed out.

It was a lie. Bluster. She hadn’t cut him anywhere near his artery. But all that had mattered was that the would-be thieves believed it. And by the looks on their faces, they had. The men left and never came back.

Fast-forward to now and the orphanage was dealing with a whole new threat. Russian soldiers had been spotted on the outskirts of town.

They were moving from house to house. Scavenging. The stories of their looting were legion. Microwaves, winter clothing, washers and dryers… there had even been reports of the soldiers removing the ballistic plates from their tactical vests and inserting laptops and tablets they had stolen along the way. Their thievery, however, wasn’t the worst of the conduct they had become known for.

Kidnap, rape, torture, and murder were what Ukrainians feared themost. Anyone was fair game for the Russians—not just women and girls, but men and little boys as well. They were barbaric.

The evil flowed straight from Moscow. Russian soldiers had not only been encouraged to commit sexual assaults, but they had even been issued Viagra.

The Russians were known to raid a village and stay for days, carrying out their horrors via around-the-clock shifts. The wordnightmaredidn’t even begin to describe the abominations they so zealously perpetrated.

These terrors had become the orphanage staff’s worst fear—that the children, whose care and protection had been entrusted to them, might be subject to such unspeakable crimes.

It was why they had worked so hard to develop their plan—the children who could run, would run. The rest would hide. And then everyone would pray. Everyone, that is, except Anna. She didn’t have time for prayer.

Someone had suggested that they make the orphanage look deserted, as if it hadn’t been occupied in years, but it simply wasn’t feasible. The best they could hope to do was to make it look like everyone had fled. The final touches of that plan fell to Anna.

After making sure that the remaining children and adults were secreted away in their hiding places, she moved hastily through the building, ticking off her checklist.

All of the lights needed to be shut off, along with the boiler. Any remaining coats or boots near the front doors needed to be hidden. What little medicine and first aid supplies they had needed to be gathered up and tucked away for safekeeping.

Her sweep through the facility didn’t have to be perfect, it just had to be convincing.

The Russians were used to people fleeing in advance of their arrival. As long as that appeared to be what had happened here, everything—the orphanage staff hoped—would be okay.

Moving from room to room, her heart pounding, Anna focused on what she had to do.

Contrary to how her colleagues saw her, she wasn’t fearless. Only stupid people were fearless in the face of danger. She was, actually, quiteafraid, but the orphanage had become her home and all of the souls within it her family.

She often thought of one of the quotes her sixth-grade teacher in Chicago had taped to the wall behind her desk. It was from Winston Churchill. “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.”

---