The 4 Phase Man by Richard Steinberg

behind her as he lifted her higher on the table and began to spread her flailing legs.
    “Mr. Smith!” the German called out angrily.
    Reluctantly the man backed off.
    Valerie slowly pushed herself off the table.
    “Please cover yourself, Congresswoman,” the second said solicitously. “Then open the case.”
    Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Smith angrily panting as she pulled up her jeans.
    “This isn’t over yet, bitch, he muttered beneath his breath.”
    “Too right, she mumbled back, then turned to the case.”
    Standing it on its end, she dialed a combination into one lock, then a different number into the other. There was an audible click, and a wave of relief around the table.
    Then Valerie spun around, the handle of the case coming off in her hand revealing two large, pointed spikes. She plunged them deep into the right side of Smith’s face.
    The man’s pained screams were more animal than human and they filled the room and corridor beyond. He collapsed on the floor, rolling around, blood covering his face and forming abstract art on the pale yellow carpet.
    Valerie was wrestled back onto the table, held painfully in place by two men.
    But her interrogators were stunned into silence by her smiling face, bent up toward them, speaking in a quiet, almost satisfied tone.
    “Not till I get what I want.”
    But that had been ten hours ago. Ten hours spent locked in a small windowless empty office. Handcuffed, gagged, but somehow satisfied. Because she knew that soon the waiting and the planning and the praying would be over, and the end would come.
    For all of them.
    She looked up as the door was opened. Two of the men from earlier walked in—tense, worried looks on their faces—followed by a big man whose face revealed nothing.
    The new man looked her over casually, then shook his head. “Unbelievable, was all he said as he turned to leave. Then he stopped, walking back into the office, crouching by Valerie. He reached over, gently pulling down her gag.”
    “So the boss finally shows up,” Valerie rasped out of her too dry throat.
    “In a manner of speaking.” He gestured at her cuffs and she was quickly unlocked. “You’re a tough little cow, I’ll give you that.”
    Valerie cautiously stretched, then stood, after the big man stepped back. “Have my children been released?”
    Canvas smiled. “I bet you’re dying to know.” He stepped toward her, leaning close, whispering in her ear.
“Wonder for a bit longer, sweetheart.”
    He easily caught the kick that was aimed at his crotch, held her by the ankle for a moment, shook his head like a parent who’d caught his child in a foolish lie, then simply tipped her over onto the floor.
    “I like spirit, Valerie. May I call you Valerie?” As she scrambled to her feet, he spun backward to his left, catching her too-slowly-thrown punch at the elbow and throwing her forward. Again, she ended up in a pile on the floor. “But there’s a time and place for it.” He shrugged as she got up more slowly, more cautiously, this time. “And this is neither the time nor the place, right?”
    He reached out so suddenly that Valerie was unable to do anything as she was shoved back against the wall, an iron grip squeezing the life from her throat.
    “We’ll talk later,” Canvas said casually after a full minute of her breathless struggling.
    Then he was gone, leaving a chilling presence, like bad aftershave, in the air behind him.
    “Where’s Smith?” he asked after the door had been locked behind them.
    “Lying down,” one of his escorts reported flatly. “One of the meds sewed up his face, shot him with some painkiller and shit. But I figured you’d want to talk to him before we sent him to a hospital.”
    “Yeah.”
    A minute later they were in the improvised infirmary where Smith—half his face concealed by a bloody bandage—was drinking Dewar’s from the bottle.
    “I’ve got to go to the fucking hospital,” he said in a pained mumble