THE man sat suddenly upright.
The assassin thought: he smells me. It made things more interesting. He’d been trained to infiltrate like an odor, not as a man. Now the odor clung to him.
The man sniffed.
Click.
Very slowly the man got to his feet. A knife in his hand.
Now where had that come from?
The assassin smiled. He felt for his pouch. His fingers closed on something hard.
The man with the knife stood crouching, craning his neck.
“Who’s that? What do you want?”
The assassin didn’t move.
A breeze caught the tattered curtain at the window and it flapped. The man with the knife wheeled around, then back again. He peered into the dark.
He craned his neck. Very slowly he turned his head.
He was trying to hear.
The assassin waited. Watching.
The man’s head moved through the midway point of its turn.
The assassin flicked his wrist and the cord snaked out. He plucked it back with a fierce grunt and the man with the knife was jerked off balance, scrabbling with both hands at his neck.
The assassin gave the cord another savage tug.
The man started sawing at the air, searching to cut the cord. The assassin stepped out of the shadows and pushed him down. He caught the knife wrist and wedged his thumb between the tendons: the knife clattered to the floor as the hand spasmed open.
The assassin was astride him now. He put a hand to his belt and slid out a wooden spoon.
The man on the floor was choking.
The assassin slackened the cord for an instant. His victim gave a shuddering gasp, but it was a false respite. The assassin slipped the wooden spoon beneath the cord and began to twist it.