They give you the idea of hope because hope creates fear of losing what you imagine you have, and that keeps you pliable.

He knew the training, knew the warnings, but this wasn’t the time.

He needed to believe.

Silence behind the door deepened.

It’d been an hour since the last spoken word.

He stood, took a deep breath, and pounded both fists hard against the door.

The hits reverberated through the room, shocking the quiet, and drove both men in the hall, swearing, to their feet. A fist punched the door back.

The same voice that held the knife threatened to bash his skull in.

Jack said, “I need the toilet.”

Both men laughed.

The man with the knife said, “Shit your bed.”

Jack waited for silence to settle, waited until the men had settled, and he pounded again, harder. The men swore at him, at each other.

One of them kicked the door.

He waited again and pounded again, mimicking with his fists the mental torture of dripping water and random squeaks, interruptive noises spaced just far enough apart that a tired brain begging to relax got just that close, only to be jarred and startled—pound wait pound wait pound—until the voice with the knife ordered the other to unlock the door and debate ensued and angry frustration won out over reason.

Keys jostled. The doorknob rattled.

The world slowed, and time fell between its cracks.

Jack reached for the lamp.

The door opened. Light spread through the widening gap and shifted, replaced by shadow. Jack drove the lamp upward, metal shade support as a spear tip, up beneath the chin of an angry oncoming face and through soft flesh.

He threw his full weight upward behind that thrust, tore knife from hand, stabbed into neck, and yanked down through the carotid triangle, severing muscle, windpipe.

He let the body drop, stepped into the hallway, into a rising PYa Grach.

Instinct took over, hands blocking wrist, slamming handgun into doorframe, shoving blade into throat to guarantee silence.

The sentry fought for control of the semiautomatic and clawed at Jack’s face, fingers fighting to reach his eyes.

Blade sliced wrist tendons.

Firearm clattered to the floor.

Jack dropped the knife, gripped head, rotated hard, fast, and took the neck with him. The man’s legs went out. The body fell.

Jack stood over the lifeless form, sucking air, catching his breath. Two dead. No gunshots.

Fifteen seconds, which had felt like fifteen minutes.

You need to know your opponent to outthink him.

Understand your enemy and you’ll know his plans before he does.

If these were the suit man’s bodyguards, he would have needed a different strategy, would have had a much harder fight.

But they weren’t. That was their first, second, third mistake.