Sure, Alice would have preferred traipsing across an Alpine snow-scape with the man she loved. But most of her life had been spent either dodging bullets or the metaphoric equivalent. Once, in fact, she’d been hit-just a flesh wound. At times, she would happily have paid for the peace and quiet now inflicted on her.
Especially because the Shaolin liked to practice meditation before a fight.
As Alice had learned in nearly a lifetime of devotion to Shaolin kung fu, channeling her inner energy allowed her to do things that her corporeal body alone could not. But it wasn’t easy. Shaolin monks had to spend years mastering meditation before they were allowed to think about fighting, or as little as throwing a playing card. Prior to writing the book of Shaolin kung fu, the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma faced a wall for nine years without uttering a word.
Alice began by clearing her mind of all destructive energy. Combat, whether in self-defense or on the attack, demands pure intent, with all emotions under complete control, which is to say turned off.
After several hours, a plan came to her. It depended on a light switch plate the size of an index card that was fastened to the wall behind the sofa, two and a half feet from where she sat. If it were slung like a throwing star-the flat, star-shaped projectile that was the Shaolin weapon of choice-the light switch plate’s speed might exceed fifty miles per hour, making its sharp corners as lethal as a dagger.
The plate was held to the wall behind the sofa by two ordinary slot-headed screws, one above the light switch, one below, the latter a bit loose already. It would be a simple matter to undo the screws.
Well, not exactly simple.
First, Alice needed to position herself on the sofa so that the light switch was directly behind her, concealed from her captors’ view. Following each bathroom trip-they permitted her one every four hours-she inched closer. The fifth trip gained her position sufficient to execute sleight of hand, which time and again had proven the most useful component of her operations training. Sleight of hand is widely believed to work when the hand is quicker than the eye. In fact, it depends on psychology, primarily misdirection, larger actions distracting from smaller.
That her boots and socks had been confiscated presented an opportunity. When she stretched, which was only natural after so many hours on a sofa, the men’s attention went to the action of her legs and her feet. Initially, the goons appeared to pay little if any attention to “itches” she simultaneously scratched on her face or behind her ears. Soon they seemed to pay none at all. Moreover, Frank spent a lot of time surfing the Web on his phone. Walt, though he never let go of his Walther PPK, spent hours picking his cuticles. And the third man in the rotation-the Teutonic-looking helicopter pilot Alice nicknamed the Baron-as in Red-sometimes nodded off for a few minutes.
After about thirty hours, the light switch plate was ready for deployment.
And when Frank came on duty in place of Walt, Alice was primed.
The Baron took over the armchair as well as the Walther while Frank disappeared into the kitchen with a bag of groceries. Alice heard him bring a pot of water to a boil, then add a bag of pasta. Warm air, laden with buckwheat and garlic, seeped into the living room.
A few minutes later, Frank brought her a Styrofoam bowl full of steaming macaroni. He’d topped it with grated Romano cheese, very likely an act of kindness. She put his gesture out of mind.
With the Baron’s gun fixed on her, Frank undid the cords around her wrists, enabling her to take the bowl from the floor and use the plastic spoon in it to eat.
When she finished, she set the bowl on the carpet, and Frank kicked it away. The Baron gestured for her to extend her hands. Frank started to reapply the cords to her wrists, staying as far from her as he could, wary of a head butt or a bite. Which was exactly what Alice had been counting on. When he attempted to tie the first knot, she surreptitiously rotated her left forearm in such a way that the cord merely formed a loop. This was the key step in Houdini’s famous rope-escape trick.
Finished, Frank retreated to a chair. Pretending to settle back onto the sofa, Alice worked her left hand free of the loop. It took her about thirty seconds, or about twenty-seven more than Houdini.
When Frank dug his phone from his pants, she swiped at the light switch plate with her freed left hand, dislodging the fixture from the wall. She caught it with her right.
Frank dropped the phone and drew a switchblade, snapping it open, as the Baron leaped up, aiming his gun.
Alice bent her arm ninety degrees at the elbow, drawing the makeshift weapon toward her abdomen. With a motion similar to that of a Frisbee toss, she sent the plate slicing through the air, so fast that it gave off a metallic whip-crack.
As the Baron leveled the gun at her, a corner of the plate sank into his neck as if his muscles were butter.
He plucked it free, but blood poured from his jugular. Eyes white, he collapsed over the armchair. His Walther dropped to the carpet, the powder blue fibers rapidly turning purple from the vital fluid streaming from his sleeve.
Alice needed to get to the Walther before Frank, who no doubt had a few combat tricks of his own. Plus he had a knife. She expected to sustain injuries, but never contemplated any outcome other than success. To doubt is to be defeated before the enemy has thrown a single punch.
She dove headlong for the Walther. Frank slipped on his phone and lost balance.
If not for the cords still restricting her legs, Alice would have fielded the gun, rolled into a kneeling position, and shot him. As it was, she landed on the carpet, her fingers within inches of the gun, as the Baron snatched the weapon off the sticky floor. With what seemed his last gasp, he tossed it over her head, to Frank.
The Baron thumped down from the chair, dead, momentarily pinning Alice to the floor and enabling Frank to get a firm grip on the gun.
“You are lucky we are not allowed to kill you,” he said in a thick Italian accent.
“You have no such luck,” Alice said.
But that was just adrenaline talking. She knew she would be in chains from here on in. At best.