She was well trained, which, oddly, reassured him. He choreographed the next ten seconds in his head, preparing a counter-response to her probable actions. The fact that she was well trained was her weakness. He knew what she would do because he knew what she had been taught. He had taught enough people those very maneuvers. But after twenty-five years in the field, he had a far richer repertory of moves, of experiences, of reflexes. It would make all the difference.

“My poppa used to tell me, ‘Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight,’” she said. “Don’t know about that. I was never the worse for having a backup blade.” She gripped the knife handle like a fiddle bow, loosely but firmly; she was obviously somebody who knew how to wield it with slashing force.

Suddenly, he fell forward, grabbing her extended arm; she raised her knife hand, as he had predicted, and he delivered a crushing blow to its wrist. The median nerve was vulnerable about an inch from the heel of her hand; his precisely directed blow caused her knife hand to open involuntarily.

Now he grabbed the weapon she had released—yet at the same moment, her other hand shot out toward his shoulder. She dug her thumb deep into his trapezius muscle, jolting the nerves that ran beneath and temporarily paralyzing his arm and shoulder. A bolt of agony shot through the area. Her fighting stance was awesome, the triumph of training over instinct. Now he swept his foot toward her right knee, causing intense pain and destabilizing her footing. She toppled backward, but his own leg sweep wrong-footed him, and he ended up falling on top of her.

He could feel the heat of her sweaty body beneath him, feel her muscles tense as she squirmed and thrashed like a practiced wrestler. With his powerful thighs, he pinned her legs down, but her arms were capable of doing him serious damage. He could feel her striking at his brachial plexus, the bundle of nerves that reached from the top of his shoulder to the vertebrae of his neck. He hammered his elbows outward, and pinned her arms to the ground, relying on his greater weight and brute strength.

Her face, inches from his, was contorted in rage and, so it seemed, disgust with herself for having allowed him to gain the stronger position.

He saw the muscles of her neck flex, saw she intended to break his nose by butting with her forehead, and pressed his forehead to her own, immobilizing it. Her breath was warm against his face.

“You really want to kill me, don’t you,” Janson said, almost with amusement. It was not a question.

“Shit, no,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “This is just foreplay as far as I’m concerned.” Struggling mightily, she thrashed beneath him, and he only barely maintained his position.

“So what did they tell you? About me?”