Chapter 15

IF YOU CAN’T run, wait until your attacker is close, use their momentum against them to take them off balance. Then make quick, succinct blows in critical areas until the threat is neutralized.

It was the mantra her father had repeated over and over when teaching Cassie basic self-defense as a young teenager. A mantra that she had repeated to herself various times during her military training. A mantra that reverberated in her head as she backpedaled in surprise and slipped and fell in the ice-cold spring as the tattooed man closed the distance between them.

He splashed into the spring as Cassie crab-walked backward onto dry land. She didn’t have time to get to her feet and run, so she let herself fall on her back, her knees and elbows up planklike, waiting.

His hands went for her throat.

Cassie waited until his full body weight rested completely over her.

Then she kicked upward and to her right. The man flopped over, half in, half out of the spring. Cassie got on top of him.

Succinct blows in critical areas until the threat is neutralized.

She balled her fist, cocked her elbow, and delivered a punch in the fleshy part of the man’s throat just to the left of the Adam’s apple, directly on the carotid. The man’s mouth opened and closed, his eyes bulged in surprise, his arms went limp by his side and his eyes fluttered shut.

Cassie spun off the man, found her feet, and immediately twisted her body sideways as a blade slashed by her. The second man had lunged and missed, stumbling into a thicket of brush.

The man wasn’t big.

He was skinny actually—malnourished even.

The tattoos on his back, biblical images and foreign symbols, were numerous and crudely done. But Cassie wasn’t paying attention to the tattoos; instead she planted her feet and positioned her body for the next attack.

The second man found his balance and turned to face her. The knife glinted in the sun and the man’s eyes went skyward, right to where that white, buzzing speck zipped above.

The man licked his lips, and Cassie noticed that even his tongue was tattooed.

Control the blade hand, Cassie thought as the man lunged again. She let the blade come in close to her stomach before she pivoted and grabbed the man’s wrist. Her free hand clamped down on his elbow and she used his momentum to spin him while simultaneously twisting the blade hand.

The man bellowed and the knife fell to the ground. Cassie then shifted course, planted a knee behind the man’s legs, and tripped him backward.

He fell back and she was on him. She aimed for the throat but the man raised his arm in defense. Cassie’s fist glanced off the man’s forearm.

She hit him again.

And again.

The man kept his hands over his face and throat.

This one knows how to fight.

Cassie changed tactics—aiming lower, she hit him in the diaphragm. Hard. She heard the breath leave him. He sputtered and gasped like a beached fish.

“Who the hell are you!” Cassie screamed.

She hit him again.

“Why are you attacking me?”

She hit him again, this time in the ribs.

“Where are we? Why are you attacking me!”

A series of words escaped the man’s mouth. It definitely wasn’t English—it had a Slavic harshness to it.

The man then spat in her face and attempted a punch. Cassie blocked the blow, saw her opening, then delivered a well-timed fist at the man’s throat.

The effect was instantaneous.

Cassie got to her feet, shaking, confused. She went for the knife. Held it. It looked new, recently sharpened and perfectly maintained.

The first man still lay unconscious, the second man clutched at his throat. Cassie was having trouble comprehending what had just happened.

The knife trembled in her hand, and before she could run, she heard a loud piercing whistle from above. The whistle grew louder and louder until something landed with a resounding thunk at her feet.

Sticking halfway out of the mud was a stainless steel canister the size of a coffee thermos.

Cassie bent down to examine it when the top of the canister burst open and sprayed a mist of orange in all directions. The familiar foul-smelling chemical cloud engulfed her.

Cassie staggered backward and tried to run but lost her balance and toppled over.

Then all went black.