They frisked her with surprising skill, pulling off the two knives and throwing them onto the floor. One wrenched an arm behind her back, then reached for the other arm, but she held on to the desk’s edge so that he couldn’t move it.
They were going to be rough with her, and that meant she was going to be rough right back. It was her defiant nature; it had gotten her into trouble in the past, and if she took the time to be honest with herself now, she would have realized it was going to lead to trouble in the present.
But she held the desk firmly. Fuck these guys.
Another man began frisking her waistband, reaching under her crotch, squeezing, and then working his way down her left leg.
The .38 was on her right ankle, and she knew it would be detected within seconds.
Zoya struggled against the three men.
“Stop resisting!” one man said, clearly with an Israeli accent.
“Calm down and I will!” she screamed back. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
In answer, one of the men punched her in the kidneys, and her gloved hand came loose from the desk.
These boys didn’t fuck around, but neither did Zakharova.
The man had finished frisking her left leg, and then he rose back up and started working his way down her right.
Without thinking about what she was doing, she retaliated for the kidney punch. She used her left heel to find her way between the feet of the man frisking her leg. She wasn’t sure if this was the one who’d hit her, but she didn’t care. With all her might she shot her foot up behind her, between the man’s legs, and she heel-kicked him in the testicles.
She knew from the feel and the sound that she had scored a bull’s-eye, and the groan she heard next, along with the sound of a body impacting with the floor, only served to confirm this.
Another punch to her kidneys brought a loud grunt out of her mouth, and she felt momentarily frozen in agony.
Behind her she heard the man called Fox say, “She’s not to be harmed! Damn you! She’s not to be harmed!”
With both hands behind her now she felt zip ties cinching on her wrists.
* * *
• • •
Court had reached for his rifle bag and brought it closer to him, but he did not unzip it. He kept Brewer updated on what was going on across the street, but it was hard to do so. Every fiber in his being told him he had to get over there and help her.
“Are you fucking listening, Brewer? They are beating the living shit out of her.”
“Sounds like she’s getting her own licks in.”
“Defensively, only. Let me engage.”
“Stand fast. Let it play, Violator. Do not engage.”
“Fuck that. What if they kill her?”
“They aren’t going to kill her. They are just taking her into their custody. For all we know they are the police. Or else she could be working with them, and they just haven’t ID’d her yet. She sure as hell isn’t working for us. Don’t worry about Anthem; get photos of the others in the room.”
But Court didn’t grab his camera. He kept one hand on the binos, while the other hand reached for the zipper on his rifle bag and began to slowly open it while he held the binos to his eyes.
* * *
• • •
Zoya was pulled to her feet by her hair and shoulders; the two Israeli security men next to her strong-armed her around, and as soon as she faced the open, well-lit room, she saw the man she’d dropped with the kick to the junk trying to struggle back to his feet. He looked at her with eyes that told her he was not going to let her attack on his manhood go.
In Russian, she said, “Fox, tell that one to back off!”
Fox said, “He does not work for me directly, Zoya. I am trying.” He switched to English. “Ari . . . let it go.”
“Fuck this bitch!” Ari said. “She donkey-kicked me in the nuts!”
He spun his rifle behind his back, balled his fists, and started moving towards her. Zoya tried to pull away from the two men holding her arms but was not strong enough to free herself.
As the man closed, Fox shouted, “Ari! Don’t you—”
Zoya used the men grasping her tight as leverage, and she brought both legs into the air, then executed a mighty front kick, slamming her instep into the