The two guards came to attention and saluted. The man sitting in the chair tossed off a crisp but casual salute to them.
“Abandónenos.”
The order to leave made the guards look at each other in confusion. “Mayor?” one asked, confirming Francisco’s suspicion about the man’s rank.
The major waved his hand at the door. “Leave us,” he ordered again.
“But, sir, all interrogations are to be supervised in the event of an attack by the prisoner,” a guard said.
The major leaned back in his chair. “As you can see, this man is no threat to me. I wish to question him in private.
Now.” The genial expression hardened in the blink of an eye.
“Or must I report this insubordination to your superiors?”
“No, sir!” The two men saluted again, and left, closing the door behind them.
Francisco shivered in the cold, unable to take his eyes off this man who held his life in a black-gloved hand.
“Please, sit. You must be weak after everything you have endured.” The major pushed his chair back and stood, making Francisco cower, tensing in expectation of the first blow.
“No, no. Come, sit, please.” The tall man took an over-coat from the back of his chair and slowly walked toward Francisco, holding it out like a matador approaching a nervous bull. He eased it around the wasted man’s shoulders, then led him to the second chair and gently pressed him down.
“Thank—thank you.” Francisco pulled the lapels of the coat around him and huddled into the cloth.
The major did not return to the other side of the table, but walked around to stand behind Francisco. “No, it is I who should be thanking you, Francisco Garcia Romero. You have survived agony that would have broken a hundred lesser men, yet you have not bought yourself any comfort by providing even a scrap of information about the counter-revolutionaries that plague our great nation. However, all men have their limits, my friend, and I am afraid that my superiors have reached theirs.”
The odd choice of words made Francisco start to turn to look up at the major, but as he did, he saw a shadow rise above him, and the last thing he felt was an impact at the base of his neck, then merciful blackness.
The hammer blow to Francisco’s neck fractured his second and third vertebrae, causing a piece of bone to punch inward, severing the spinal cord. The shock to his nervous system killed him before the pain impulse reached its final destination.
The major relaxed his interlaced hands and examined the prisoner, satisfied that he had broken his neck and killed him as painlessly and quickly as possible. Turning his back to the door, he quickly made the sign of the cross over the body and bent low to the man’s ear.
“The people thank you for your dedicated service. You will be remembered when our nation is truly free.”
He walked to the door and knocked on it, looking over his shoulder at the body slumped on the table. “Vaya con Dios, amigo.”
Kate Cochran somersaulted through the air, maintaining enough control to tuck into her fall and roll with it instead of slamming to the mat on her back. Rising, she immediately assumed a defensive posture, feet shoulder width apart, legs slightly bent, arms close to her sides, fists clenched at her waist with knuckles up, ready to either punch or block.
A burst of laughter came from behind her. Kate turned, keeping her fists ready, to confront the man who had just sent her sailing across the room.
“My, my, don’t you look tough.” The man was a full head taller than her, and all lean, wiry muscle. His ink-black hair was cropped just short of high and tight, making it impossible to grab in a fight—as she had already discovered.
He regarded her with amused, dark brown eyes that missed no detail of their surroundings.
“Kate, I’m not training you to fight in a dojo. What I’m teaching you—well, trying anyway—is how to survive on the street. Pure down-and-dirty fighting, where no one is going to wait for you to assume the position. By the time you’re ready, your attacker will have already incapacitated or killed you.”
“That’s what I have you for, remember?” She slowly stepped toward him, keeping her center of gravity balanced, waiting for him to pounce again.
“Well, let’s assume for this exercise that I’m already fighting two—no, make that three other guys, and you’re on your own.” His white teeth flashed in a razor-thin grin, and Kate knew who would win in a three-on-one fight with the man standing in front of her—Jacob Marrs, her bodyguard and instructor. “Now, relax that horse stance of yours, and for god’s sake, stand like you’re walking down the street, not some extra in a kung fu movie.”
Kate straightened up and dropped her arms to her sides, unclenching her fists. She walked toward Jake, maintaining eye contact the whole way, ignoring the spectacular view her floor-to-ceiling town house windows afforded of the Man-hattan skyline to the west. Sweat dripped in to her gold-green eyes.
She walked to within a foot of him, but nothing happened. Turning on her heel, Kate strode back across the room, ready for a chokehold from behind, or a grab at her platinum-blond hair or any one of a dozen other possible attacks. Still nothing. Peeking at him out of the corner of her vision, Jake still stood there in loose pants and his sleeveless gi, hands on his hips, as if he were carved from stone.
With a sigh, Kate whirled around to ask whether they were sparring or posing, only to find her trainer already in motion. Arms blurring like striking cobras, he took one large step forward and grabbed her arm. Instinctively, she stepped back, using his momentum to yank him off balance.
Grabbing the collar of his gi with her right hand, she pulled him farther down while her right foot swept his outstretched left foot out from under him. Jacob lurched forward, and Kate directed his fall to the ground, raising a fist to follow up with a blow to his temple—
But Jake wasn’t lying still like a good foot-sweep victim.
He lifted his legs and scissored them toward her head instead. He caught her between his muscular thighs and snapped her forward, flipping her to the ground. Before she could scramble away, he was atop her, pinning her shoulders to the mat and leaning back so that his weight almost crushed her abdomen, but not quite.
“Two lessons here. One, the most important thing I’m trying to instill in you is to always expect an attack, because the moment you don’t, the moment you relax your guard, that’s when your opponent will strike.” Jake leaned forward, his face inches from hers. “Second, why in the hell aren’t you trying harder to escape right now?”
Kate arched her back as high as she could, hoping to throw him off enough to free an arm, but his weight was too much.
He simply relaxed and settled down, forcing her back down to the mat. He readjusted his leg for a better pin, and Kate managed to wrench her left arm free and immediately brought her elbow down toward his groin. Jacob blocked it with a low forearm just before it would have made painful contact.
“Better. Let’s try that again, and I’ll show you another couple ways out of it—”
“Whoa, am I interrupting something, ’cause I could definitely come back later.”
The voice from the doorway of the exercise room made both Kate’s and Jacob’s heads turn. Recovering first, Kate reached between Jake’s legs with her free hand and grabbed his crotch while scooting down underneath his legs. Emit-ting a startled yelp, Jacob reared up on his knees, enabling her to emerge from under him and whirl around, finding him ready for her with a small yet genuine smile on his face.