I was able to take a few noiseless steps into the room.
Two men in black ambush jackets. One was large and heavily muscled with a Neanderthal forehead and a black brush cut. He was sitting at my desk, doing something to my keyboard, even though he didn’t look like the computer-savvy type. The other was small and slender with short mouse-brown hair, sallow complexion, and cheeks deeply pitted with acne scars. He sat on the floor beneath my huge wall-mounted flat-screen TV. He was holding my cable modem and doing something with a screwdriver.
Both of them wore latex gloves. They were also wearing new-looking jeans and dark jackets. Most people wouldn’t notice anything special about the way they were dressed. But if you’ve ever worked undercover, their clothing was as conspicuous as an electronic Times Square billboard. It was carry-conceal attire, with hidden pistol pockets and magazine pouches.
I had no idea who they were or why they were here, but I knew immediately they were armed.
And I wasn’t.
I wasn’t even dressed.
31.
I wasn’t scared, either. I was pissed off, outraged at the audacity of these two intruding into my living space. Messing with my computer and my new flat-screen TV.
Most people feel a jolt of adrenaline and their heart starts to race. Mine slows. I breathe more deeply, see more clearly. My senses are heightened.
If I simply wanted them to leave, I’d only have to make a sound, and they’d abandon their black-bag job and slip out. But I didn’t want them gone.
I wanted them dead. After we’d had a conversation, of course. I wanted to know who’d sent them, and why.
So I backed into the bathroom and stood there for a moment, still dripping on the floor, considering my options, thinking.
Somehow they’d gotten in without setting off the alarm. They’d managed to defeat my security system, which wasn’t easy. The front door was ajar, I noticed, and one of the big old factory windows was open. I doubted they’d entered through the window, on that busy street. That would have attracted all kinds of attention, even at night: I was on the fifth floor. But to have gotten in through my front door meant knowing the code to disarm the system.
Obviously they hadn’t expected me to be home. Nor did they see or hear me come in through the service entrance at the back of the loft, which I seldom used. They hadn’t heard me showering at the other end of the apartment: In this old building, water constantly flowed through the pipes.
My only advantage was that they didn’t know I was here.
Looking down at my pants, heaped on the bathroom floor, I ran through a quick mental catalogue. Just the usual objects that can be used as improvised weapons, like keys or pens, but only at close range.
This was a time when a little clutter might have been useful. At first glance, I saw nothing promising. Toothbrush and toothpaste, water glass, mouthwash. Hand towels and shower towels.
A towel can be an effective makeshift weapon if you use it like a kusari-fundo, a Japanese weighted chain. But only if you’re close enough.
Then I saw my electric razor. I’m normally a blade guy, but in a rush, electric is faster. Its coil cord was about two feet long. Stretched to its full length it would probably reach six feet.
I slipped on my pants, unplugged the razor, then padded silently, stealthily, into the main room.
I had to go for the muscle first. The computer guy wasn’t likely to be much of a threat. Once Mongo was out of the way, I’d find out whatever I could from Gigabyte.
My bare feet were still damp and a little sticky and made a slight sucking noise as I lifted them off the floor. So I approached slowly, tried to minimize the sound.
In a few seconds I was ten feet away from the intruders, hidden behind a column. I inhaled slowly and deeply. Holding the shaver in my right hand and the plug in my left, I pulled my right hand back, stretching out the coiled cord like a slingshot.
Then hurled it, hard, at the side of the bigger man’s head.
It made an audible crack. His hands flew up to protect his face, a second too late. He screamed, tipped back in the chair, and crashed to the floor. I jerked at the cord, and the shaver ricocheted back to me.
Meanwhile the computer guy was scrambling to his feet. But I wanted to make sure the