Natalia flung the van door open as the two figures rushed toward her, dark clothes, masked faces, steps silent but deadly. She sprinted across the snow-covered ground, boots slipping, breath sharp and cold in her lungs.
"NATALIA!" Dimitri's voice thundered through her headset. "Where are you?"
She did not answer, she could not. Her breath came in violent bursts, her heart hammering so hard she could barely hear anything except the pounding in her ears.
She darted behind a rusted shipping container just as something metallic sliced through the air and struck the van behind her with a violent clank.
A knife.
They were throwing knives.
Her pulse roared.
"Natalia, talk to me," Dimitri growled, the raw panic in his voice something she had never heard before.
"I'm...I'm behind the containers!" she gasped. "Two men are here. They..."
Footsteps crunched behind her.
Close, too close.
