Now that the satphone call was over, Alice expected that her captors would again secure her wrists and ankles and duct tape shut her mouth. The tape came off only when they fed her pieces of nutrition bar or let her sip water through a long rubber tube-a precautionary measure, she thought, which they were wise to use.
Her mastery of Shaolin kung fu included the ability to sling objects with extraordinary speed and accuracy. She could toss a playing card at forty miles per hour, creating force sufficient to stab an adversary and even, if she struck certain minute pressure points, put him into a coma. If she could get her hands on the satphone, she could throw it at the man she thought of as Frank-he had the Frankenstein monster’s broad shoulders and lumbering gait. His face was hidden by a novelty-store black cotton mask with reflective bulbs over the eyes. He’d yet to say anything within her earshot.
She knew less about her other captor. She called him Walt for his gleaming blowback-operated semiautomatic Walther PPK. By waving the pistol one way or another, he indicated Get up from the sofa or Sit back down on the sofa and let Frank tie you up again.
Once she took out the two of them, she would take her chances with the helicopter pilot, who in all likelihood was spending his break time in an adjacent room. Since being chloroformed in Gstaad, she could remember only this room, which might well be a cell in an upscale gulag. A better guess was an apartment in Geneva, rented under an alias. Or an isolated Swiss country house, in which case the duct tape over her mouth was a small bit of deception: She could scream her lungs out here and no one would hear. The blacked-out windows, unrelenting Muzak from unseen speakers, and an electric air freshener that sprayed a sickly sweet vanilla scent were all intended to keep her from picking up clues.
Still, she had some hints. Her old NSA-sponsored black ops unit had developed something of a niche in renditions. For discretion’s sake, the number of captors was usually kept to three, all mercenaries with allegiance only to their numbered offshore bank accounts. They were fed a cover story regarding the operation. The duct tape over their captive’s mouth was meant to keep the captors from hearing the truth.
Alice hungrily eyed the satphone. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you’ll let me check my e-mail?” she said to Frank.
He shook his head.
So he understood English.
“How about just letting me know the score of the Patriots game?” she tried.
If he were to check the Web, she might snare the phone and launch it toward Walt.
Frank stayed mum.
Walt made one of his usual series of gestures: Sit back down on the sofa. Let Frank tie you up again. Let him reapply the duct tape. He punctuated each with a shake of the Walther as if to add, Or you know what.
She complied.
For now.