No sooner did she say the words when two men appeared next to their table. From Shoshana’s reaction to their arrival, Jennifer didn’t even need to see the handgun one of them had, but he flashed it from under his jacket anyway.
In accented English, he said, “You two will come with me.”
Chapter 44
Jennifer acted appropriately surprised at the sight of the gun, preparing to profess innocence, and Shoshana said, “Don’t bother. This is from the man with the acne scars. We aren’t going to convince them we’re harmless.”
Jennifer caught Shoshana’s eye and Shoshana nodded slightly, telling Jennifer to get ready. The gesture brought a sense of calm, and Jennifer rose from her chair.
If the two thugs next to the table had any sense of awareness, they would have rethought their decision, but like a mouse sniffing the jawline of a boa constrictor, they had no appreciation of the danger. There was no innate instinct in the human condition that would trigger a primordial response from Shoshana. It simply had to be experienced, but, unfortunately for the men, it wouldn’t be a learned response, because just as with the mouse, misjudging Shoshana was usually a permanent mistake.
Shoshana followed Jennifer, standing up from her chair. The thug with the gun pointed at their purses and the other man stripped them from their shoulders. Gun Man pointed down the balcony and the other man took the lead. Shoshana and Jennifer followed, sandwiched between the two.
He led them down the balcony to the end, then up another, shorter stairwell to a room above, the structure like a bell tower built on top of the second floor. The lead man opened the door and waved them in. Jennifer saw what was clearly a storage area, with buckets of paint, drop cloths, and cleaning supplies scattered about, a window on the far wall letting in the dying sunlight.
In the center was a wooden chair bolted to the floor, the arms poorly stained a mismatched brown. She saw the same stains on the floor underneath it and realized they weren’t from paint.
Seated in the chair was the man with the acne scars. He said, “I only have a few questions, and as long as you’re standing, you’re doing well. Trust me, neither of you want to be sitting in this chair.”
Jennifer heard the door close and turned around, finding the man with their purses directly behind her, the other one—the one with the gun—behind Shoshana. She returned to the man in the chair and said, “You’re making a mistake. We’re Americans, and the US embassy knows where we are.”
Acne Face said, “Americans, yes. I suspected that from the store downstairs. Juan, is that true?”
The man behind Jennifer threw their purses on the floor in front of the chair, and Acne went through them. He pulled out Jennifer’s passport and said, “Well look at that. You’re telling the truth.” He flipped the page open and flashed her picture. “Jennifer Cahill.”
He tossed the passport onto the floor and said, “Tell me, Jennifer, why are you asking questions about a credit card you do not own?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. My husband lost his credit card and we’re trying to find it.”
He glanced over her shoulder and the man behind her thumped her in the back of the skull, hard. She shook her head and glanced at Shoshana, seeing something dark beginning to grow behind the other woman’s eyes. She knew it wouldn’t be long until Shoshana unleashed that blackness into the room. She waited for Shoshana to act first.
She returned to the man in the chair and said, “Okay, okay. Look, we stole the maté kit when the owner wasn’t looking, and it had the receipt. We were just trying to scam him, but you caught us. You can call the police if you want.”
Acne glanced up from digging through Shoshana’s satchel and said, “Stole it, huh. You sure it wasn’t something else?”
He withdrew Shoshana’s passport and stared at it in puzzlement. Heopened the first page and said, “Lebanon?” He glanced up and said, “You’re from Lebanon?”
Shoshana remained quiet and his eyes tightened. He looked over her shoulder and said, “Not as nice as before.”
The man raised his hand with the pistol and brought it down hard against Shoshana’s skull. Only Shoshana’s head was no longer where he’d aimed. She slipped her body to the left and the pistol struck air, the force of the swing throwing the man off-balance.
She threw her arm over the man’s biceps and clamped a hand to his wrist, twisting his arm and locking up his elbow. She planted her leg behind him, just above his knees, and threw him backwards, using her leg as a fulcrum. His body weight did the work, falling against the joint lock and shattering his elbow. He screamed, a high-pitched wail, the entire action taking milliseconds.
Jennifer saw the strike and turned, going to work.
The man behind her had taken a half step towards Shoshana’s fight, his entire focus on the melee to his left. Jennifer drove a palm strike with her right hand as hard as she could into his face, striving to hit the wall six feet behind him. She flattened his nose in a spray of blood, his head snapping back like someone had jerked it on a string. Jennifer followed the strike with a closed fist from her left hand, driving it just as hard into the man’s windpipe. He gurgled, his hands at his throat, and dropped to his knees. Jennifer danced back, focused her aim, planted her feet and then spun, smashing his temple with a roundhouse kick.
His body flopped to the ground and a gunshot exploded in the room. She whirled, seeing Shoshana standing over the body of the other man, his head split open. Jennifer caught movement to her right and Acne Face ran by her. He reached the door, flung it open, and she grabbed his sleeve. He jerked it free and was gone, bounding down the stairs.
She saw people looking up at the commotion they had created, then slammed the door closed and turned to Shoshana, who was searching the body. Shoshana looked up, a wicked grin on her face. She said, “For a second I thought I was on my own.”
Jennifer ran to the window in the back, saying, “Yeah, well, for a second I was regretting listening to you about getting ice cream.”
She threw it open and looked out, seeing the back wall running to the pavement below, the razor wire staked to the second-floor roof on the left and right, but clear below her. She leaned out and noticed a cast-iron drainpipe running from a gutter on the roof straight to the ground.
She turned back into the room, finding Shoshana gathering their purses. She handed Jennifer hers, saying, “I told you they were bad.”
Jennifer said, “Well, I’m still regretting listening to you.”
