Huard didn't believe him, but he said, "If you say so, sir."
Peel grinned. Youth was so wasted on the young. They thought they were going to live forever; it was amazing that as many of them lived as long as they did. If Huard survived, someday he might understand.
"That's all, then. Carry on."
"Sir." Huard came to attention, did an about face, and left the building.
"Computer, replay sequence."
The machine obeyed. Peel watched. He did enjoy watching a real professional at work. He was looking forward to seeing Ruzhyo again. Good men were hard to find.
Chapter 23
Toni didn't have any spare time, not with the crisis as dramatic as it was, but she'd realized long ago that if she didn't exercise, she wouldn't be much good in the middle of a high-stress environment. She had to have a valve to bleed off the pressure, and if she went a day or two without doing silat, or at least some serious stretching, she got cranky and stupid. So when her days got really busy, when things started going to hell in a handbasket and there simply wasn't time to work out, she stole the minutes from elsewhere. Sometimes it was a skipped lunch, sometimes dinner. Sometimes, it was sleep. She could miss a meal or an hour of shut-eye and still function, but without exercise, she was surly and out of sorts. She made dumb mistakes, growled at people, couldn't focus or get herself centered.
So, this morning, the workout was going to have to come off the top. Not yet five A.M. and she was up, washing her face, the bathroom door closed so as not to wake Alex, dressing in sweats for a trip to the hotel's gym. True, it wouldn't be the best workout this early, but anything was better than nothing. It wasn't as if she wanted to be up before dawn and breaking a sweat, it was a need. An addiction, maybe, but it was putting money in the bank: Today's deposit might not be as big as she'd like, but at least there would be something to draw on later if she needed it. And given how things were going, she would need it. So much for their vacation.
But in truth, she was a little excited. Carl Stewart was going to meet her in the hotel's gym. When she'd gone by his school and explained to him that her job was going to keep her from his class in the evenings, he'd offered to meet her for private sessions, and it turned out he was an early riser.
She'd laughed at that. "Ah. One of those people who run around throwing open windows, breathing deep the air, and smiling at the sunrise?"
"God, no," he'd said. "Just a slave to my internal clock. I'm a wren, been that way all my life. Up at four, to bed by nine or ten, no help for it. I have learned to make the best of it. I usually get my workout done in the morning, though. Not a lot else one can do when most of the rest of the world is still beddy-bye."
"Well, in that case, I'd love to train with you."
"There's a decent gym in your hotel," he'd said. "Save you a taxi ride to the school."
"And cost you one," she'd said.
"Not really. I have a car. And it's not all that far from where I live. I have a flat in Knightsbridge."
"Knightsbridge? That's a pretty nice area, isn't it? We drove through there. By Hyde Park?"
He looked embarrassed. "Yes, well, my parents got a bit of an inheritance from my grandfather on my mother's side, and they have a small family business that does all right."
As she headed for the hotel's gym through the quiet and empty hall, Toni grinned to herself. Before the computers had gone south, she'd checked out the real estate in the area called Knightsbridge. Flats went for the equivalent of half a million U.S. dollars. Houses started around three million and went up. There was a four-bedroom semidetached house — what they called a double condo in the States — for seven million. And offers had been made on most of the listings already.
Apparently the Stewart family business was doing all right indeed.
Carl was waiting in the gym, which was in itself interesting, since you supposedly needed an electronic keycard to be admitted. Toni inserted her own card into the lock and went through the heavy glass doors. They were the only two people there.
"Good morning," he said. He seemed too awake and cheerful for this hour.
"Morning."
He was warming up and stretching, and she joined him. The gym had several weight-stack machines, a stair-stepper, an elliptical walker, and a treadmill, all of which were equipped with the latest VR interfaces. There was an aerobics area in front of a mirrored wall opposite, a twelve-by-twelve-foot square. No mats, but the carpet was padded enough, and there was more than enough room for two people to practice silat.
Ten minutes later, they were ready to begin. "Shall we do djurus for a few minutes?" he asked.
She nodded. That was how she always began her practice. The short dances were the basis for everything else. All of the combat moves could be found in the djurus, if you knew how to look.
For a long time, Toni had practiced the Bukti dances, the eight basic and slimmed-down djurus, before she began the Serak moves; lately, however, she had been skipping straight ahead to the parent art. Bukti Negara was still used in a lot of places as a kind of test, to see if a student was serious about training. If, after a couple of years practicing the simpler stuff, a student was still hanging around, then she could be introduced to the more complex and demanding forms. Serak, so the story went, had been invented by a man of the same name in Indonesia. Serak, or Sera, also known as Ba Pak — The Wise — was Javanese and had been a formidable fighter, despite having only one arm and a clubfoot. That the man could function at all was noteworthy; that he had developed a martial art that made him equal or better as a fighter against other trained men who had all their limbs was truly amazing.
After ten minutes of djurus, Carl stopped. "Want to work some combinations?"
"Sure."
Once again, Toni thrilled to the knowledge that Carl was a superior player. None of her attacks and counterattacks got through. He blocked them effortlessly, it seemed to her, always keeping the centerline. She had to work hard to keep his second and third series of counterpunches and kicks from landing, especially the sneaky rising punch, a strike that wanted to come under a high-line defense but over the low-line block. She managed to stop him from connecting solidly with her, but he brushed her chest once, and another time tapped her on the chin. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough for her to realize he could have tagged her if he'd wanted.
This was great. Just what she needed.
He was showing her a take-down he liked, they were pressed together, her groin against his thigh, his right hand on her butt, levering for a hip sweep, when she caught a glimpse of somebody watching them from the hall. She didn't have time to look as Carl completed the throw, taking out her leg and dropping her to the carpet, following up with a kick and punch.
When she got to her feet, the watcher in the hall was gone. Probably a bellboy delivering somebody's breakfast.
"Again?" Carl asked.
"Yes." She grinned. This was really great.
She stepped in with a punch.
Alex felt a sour pain in his belly, a churning, twisted feeling. He had felt it before and he knew it for what it was: jealousy. He had watched them together in the workout room, Toni and the English silat instructor, seen them glued together, the man's hand on her ass. Yeah, sure, it was part of the deal, he knew enough of the art to know that, but still it bothered him as he hurried down the hall toward their room. She hadn't seen him, and he didn't want her to know he'd been there. Normally, he'd have been asleep at this hour, but he'd woken up as she shut the door on her way out and couldn't drift back off. So he'd gotten up, thrown on some clothes, and gone to watch them work out. Maybe he could learn something, he'd figured.