Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

It would make them nervous, and it would put their eyes on her as they tried to understand what she was thinking, what she was planning. As they tried to guess what she was going to do.

Chace loved it, she admitted it to herself. This was her pleasure, more than booze or sex or smokes, the moments like this, when she knew the stakes and felt the adrenaline. When she saw the test coming, and measured the chances of success and failure, and rolled the dice regardless.

They were all waiting for her, waiting to see what she was going to do.

What she did was this:

Stopping halfway to the block of shops that stood between the main platforms and the ticket booths, Chace removed her jacket and folded it beneath her arm, for no other reason than to give them something to talk about. Was she getting ready to rabbit? Was she armed?

She moved to the kiosk at her right, adorned with stuffed bears in red hats and powder-blue coats, all clutching their tattered valises in one paw, tagged with their earnest request to be looked after. The man working the stand was Indian, and he smiled at her but let her browse without comment, perhaps seeing that she wasn't a tourist.

Chace looked at the bears, examining one of the larger ones, turning it in her hands, as if considering its relative merits.

"How much?" she asked.

The vendor looked surprised. "Twenty pounds."

"Robbery," Chace told him, smiling, and she paid him with some of the bills from her wallet, then accepted an opaque plastic bag to carry her purchase.

She ducked into the WHSmith's and bought copies of The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Mirror. She also bought a Lion bar and then examined the display of disposable lighters at the counter. There were seventeen of them, molded plastic, cheap things.

She bought all of them, imagining the consternation on the net.

With all the purchases in the bag with her bear, she worked her way around one of the information points, giving the appearance of heading toward the platforms before curving back and making for the glass doors that marked the entrance to the Yo Sushi eatery. At another newsagent's, she stopped and bought all of his disposable lighters, bringing her total to thirty-one. She also purchased a new pack of Silk Cut, and that went into her jacket pocket rather than the bag.

The eatery was mostly empty, and Chace took a seat, draping her jacket over the back of a chair and setting her bag on the table, turning to look out through the wall of glass back into the station. She looked around, making no bones about it. There was no one in her immediate vicinity. She nodded to herself and rested the bag on its side, removing the bear and the newspapers, setting them beside it. Then she took out the Lion bar and ate it.

Next, she fashioned a paper hat for the bear and put it on his head. It was too big to fit properly, falling over his felt hat, but she did it anyway, just to annoy them. They'd see it and swear and call her unkind things, convinced she was mocking them. As that was precisely what she was doing, she didn't mind in the least.

Taking The Guardian, she opened the paper and draped it over the bag, still on its side, to create a makeshift privacy screen. Then she put her hands into the bag and began playing with the lighters, doing nothing more than sliding them back and forth, mounding them into an unstable pile, spreading them out and doing the same thing again. Most of the time, she looked in the bag at her hands, as if watching her work, then looked up and around, as if concerned she was being watched. She saw a woman she was certain she'd seen on her earlier walk hovering outside the doors, watching as she moved to enter, then thought better of it and fell back.

Good, Chace thought.

If they had been switched on before, they were boiling now, certain she was planning something big, and most likely with flames. Some of them would be agitating to move, but Kinney-if it was Kinney running this show-would be snarling at them to stand down, to stay at their positions. He was probably with the station security, watching it on the surveillance monitors, having commandeered the post for the time being, trying to keep his people in line from there. And much as Box might want to move on her, they hadn't yet, which meant they were waiting for something. And if all Chace did was annoy them, well, that wasn't enough reason to grab her. After all, she wasn't running; she was sitting at a table, playing with a stuffed bear and some lighters. And even the lighters wouldn't overly concern them. Sure, there were thirty-one of them, but that much lighter fluid wouldn't create an incendiary of merit. They'd have concluded she was creating some kind of distraction, and so thinking, they would then plan to ignore it.

They'd wait until they were sure she was running. That's when they'd move.

But they couldn't risk ignoring her entirely, and that was part of her plan, too.

Chace finished fiddling with the lighters, took the copy of The Telegraph, and crumpled several of its pages, stuffing it into the bag. Then she stuffed the bear, hat and all, inside after it. She got to her feet, slipped back into her jacket, then bent and stuck her hand into the bag a final time, as if reaching around. She counted to five, then withdrew her hand and started resolutely toward the doors back out to the station, taking her time, passing the woman still lingering at the wall without a glance. Chace paused at the newsagent's again, glancing back in time to see the action in the eatery, six of them all descending on her table, anxious to extinguish the conflagration they were certain was about to erupt.

She turned toward the platforms, making a purposeful beeline toward the second from the left, to where the London-Heathrow Express was waiting, accelerating, almost jogging now. A man emerged from the train, from the doors nearest to her. He was an inch or so shorter than she, broad at the neck and shoulders, and she thought she recognized him from earlier that day, but it could have been from the night before, or from a pub a year ago, or never at all.

When he emerged and turned toward her, she saw his earpiece, almost flesh-colored, and he was already raising a hand to stop her.

"All right, Miss Chace," he said.

There might have been more he had to say, but she never gave him the chance. Without breaking stride, almost plowing into him, she smiled and raised her right hand as if in greeting before driving it down, index and middle fingers jabbing into the notch beneath his Adam's apple. She felt the soft skin crush into the thickness of his collarbone, and he gasped, crumpled, already choking, while she put her left hand on his shoulder to guide him down to his knees.

He gagged, pitched forward, and she was past him now, and only then did she pivot left, sprinting for the edge of the platform. She leaped, landing between rails, nearly twisting her ankle on the ties, caught the opposite edge, pulled herself up on the next platform, then repeated it all again until she had vaulted onto the last one and righted herself. She saw the exit forty feet away, and Nicky Poole was there, standing over two men from Box. One of them was flat on his stomach; the other was on hands and knees, vomiting.

"Rabbit!" someone was shouting, and in the noise and echo of the station, the word seemed even more absurd. "Rabbit, she's gone rabbit!"

Chace ran, flying up the steps, passing Poole again, touching his hand as he held it out to her, taking the radio and earpiece he was holding. She burst through the doors, stuffing them into her pocket, felt the wet air slap her skin. She turned, looking for Lankford, saw another of the boys from Box coming at her, wincing at the lone headlight shining down on her. The man from Box turned, hearing the bike, trying to step out of the way, and Lankford clubbed him alongside the head with the helmet in his hand plus twenty miles per hour, sending him sprawling, before lobbing the helmet her way.