Breaking point - By Tom Clancy & Steve Perry & Steve Pieczenik Page 0,7

had met Carl Stewart, had never sparred with anybody who could beat her. Well, except for her teacher, Guru DeBeers. Guru was in her eighties now, still shaped like a brick and dangerous to anybody who might be stupid enough to think she was a helpless old lady, but if push came to shove, Toni knew she could best her teacher in a fight. Barely.

That was the thing about silat; it didn’t depend on strength or speed, but more on principles. In theory, a player always expected to go up against bigger, stronger, and multiple opponents, who were probably armed, and at least as well trained. Being able to survive and even prevail under such circumstances meant your technique had to be very good, and your system absolutely scientific. There were no perfect arts that would handle every possible attack—when Toni talked to martial artists who claimed their ancient systems were complete, she’d always ask them which form taught them how to defend against a twelve-gauge shotgun at thirty feet—but some arts were more effective than others. In her opinion, silat was better than most. Of course, she would think that, given her years of training in it.

Carl glanced at the wall clock. “Got an hour before the beginning class gets here. You want to get a cup of tea? Or coffee?”

Toni hesitated a second, then said, “Sure.”

There was no reason not to. Alex was back in Washington, and she was still not happy with him. She had programmed her com to bounce his calls, though he still tried to get through at least once every day. They were officially broken up, and she didn’t work for Net Force anymore. She had enough money to stay in London through the summer, if she felt like it, then she was going to have to find a job, and that would have to be back in the U.S. Meanwhile, she was learning a lot from Carl, who was easily the best silat player she had ever seen in person. He was a good twenty years older than she was, but there was an attraction that went beyond martial arts. He was in good shape, good-looking, and, she had found out by accident, rich. He hadn’t pushed it, but Carl knew she and Alex had split, and he was interested in her as a woman.

So far, she hadn’t pursued a relationship beyond exchanging ways to beat attackers to various kinds of pulp. So far. It was tempting—Alex had done so with Angela Cooper, the MI-6 operative they had worked with on the Goswell operation, and Toni was still very much pissed off at him for that. Yeah, sure, she had stumbled with Rusty that one time, but that was before she and Alex had become lovers. That didn’t really count.

The thing was, as angry as she was at Alex, as much as she wanted to break things and yell herself hoarse at him, she still loved him.

It was kind of hard to get around that, loving him.

Still, Carl was here, he wanted to get to know her better, and there were no strings on her. She had an idea that Carl would probably be a caring and considerate lover, and she and Alex hadn’t spent much time making love the last few weeks they had been together, and that had been more than a month ago. It was a thought.

Carl was halfway to the door before Toni realized she was lost in her thoughts.

She hurried to catch up with him.

“I’ve been thinking, there’s a place you might like to see,” he said. “You busy Saturday morning?”

“Not at all,” she said.

“Fine. I’ll pick you up at your flat. Around eight A.M.?”

“Great.”

Quantico, Virginia

Howard had to admit that the P&R had some advantages over the Smith. He recovered the sight picture for his second shot quicker, and the slightly longer sight radius made him more accurate. He was doing better than he usually did with the Smith, and for a new gun, that was fairly amazing. The trigger was crisp, maybe four pounds single-action, ten or so double-action. These people did good work on their hardware. Made in Plano, Texas, according to the information stamped into the black steel. Who would have guessed that? Texas.

Even so, Julio was beating him, just barely. And using a snub-nose Chief’s Special he had never shot before, that ought to be impossible.

After the last go-round, Howard put the Medusa down. He liked it. He could use it for a few