I woke with a jolt. Knowing I'd heard a sound. No one wants a sound there.
A pen-sized flashlight was flickering around the room. A dark shape blocked half of its beam. Cautious. Quiet.
I lay watching through slit-shut eyes, wondering how close I was this time to the pearly gates. From sheer inconvenience, my pulse started bashing against my eardrums. Fear stirred up the adrenal glands. The hairs on my legs fought to stand on end.
I kept my breath even. I slid my arm over to the side of the bed. Reached to the floor. Any weapon was better than none.
Feeling nothing but carpet under my fingers.
The flashlight swung in a small arc. The scrap of light shone on the vital care stand beside me.
I drew the arm back into bed and lay still. If my intruder's intention was to kill me, they might have done it by now. Whatever this person intended, I had little chance of avoiding.
A clammy crawling, feeling over my skin. Jaw tight clenched with tension. Dryness in the mouth. Head feeling as if it were swelling. I lay and tried to beat the physical sensations. Tried to throw them away.
My intruder stood there, contemplating. Quick soft steps on the carpet. A hand fastening on my hair. Yanking my head back. The flashlight beam full in my eyes.
"Why didn't you take the tablets?"
I knew the voice. I shut my eyes against the light and spoke in as bored a drawl as I could manage.
"Dr Mia Malkova, I presume?"
"You're brilliant."
She let go of my hair and stripped the bedclothes off with one flick. The flashlight swung away and fell on top of them. I fell on top of them. I felt her grip on my neck and front of my nightgown. As she wrenched me off the bed and on to the floor. I fell with a crash.
"That's for starters," she said.
She was fast. Strong, and ruthless, and used to this.
She swung her arm and hit me with something hard. When it followed through to the tiny light, I could see what it was. A walking-stick.
I tried to disentangle my legs, roll over, and get to my feet. She shone the light on me to watch. When I was halfway up, she knocked me to the floor again.
"You have killed many SVR agents," she said in an ominous tone. "And you must pay."
I rolled fast, and my head missed the next swipe. It landed on my injured leg. I cursed, loud enough as I thought they could hear me.
"No one can hear you scream!"
"Why not?"
"They've been called away." I sensed her arrogance. "To a false emergency."
She swung the walking-stick. I rolled away at the right instant.
The little flashlight sought me out. She didn't miss the second time, but it was only my arm, not my face.
"Why does your country want Pendimethalin?" I asked.
There was a moment's pause.
"I can tell you, as you won't leave this room alive." She said. "It's effective killing crops, wheat, and barley."
"Who sold it to you?"
She came at me again.
I'd been trying to roll towards the door. made it near enough. Stretched backwards over my head and felt my fingers curl round the bottom of the vital care stand. The castors rolled in silence across the carpet. With one scything movement, I swept the business end round at knee level.
It caught her square and on the back of the legs, just as she herself was in mid-swing. She overbalanced and crashed half on top of me. I reached out and caught something. Part of her coat. Gripped and pulled. Tried to swing my good leg over her body to hold her.
She wasn't having any. We scrambled around on the floor, her trying to get up and me trying to stop her. Both of us scratch, punch, and gouging.
The flashlight fell across the room. Shone on the wall. Not enough light to help. Too much for total evasion of her efficient fists.
The vital care stand toppled over, and the bottle smashed. Malkova reached into the ruins and picked up a fragment of glass. I just realised shimmer on it as she slashed towards my eyes. I dodged it by a millimetre in the last half second.
"You bitch!" I said with bitterness.
We both grasped for breath. I loosened the grip on her coat. Both hands are free to face the glass. She felt me let go. Heaved herself back on her feet.
I was lying on the vital care stand. The castors digging into my back.
I twisted my arm underneath me.
Grabbed the stand. Swung it at her.
Our weapons met and crashed together in the air. I held on to mine for dear life and rolled towards the bed.
"You cannot win," she said.
"Fuck you!"
I made it to the bed. Lay in the angle between it and the floor. She couldn't get a good swing at me there. I turned the care stand round. Held it with both hands. To hit me where I was lying. She needed to come nearer.
She came. Her dark shadow was above me. Exaggerated by the dim torchlight. She leaned over, swinging.
I shoved the care stand upwards.
It went into her. She screeched.
She dropped the walking-stick on top of me as she reeled away, clutching at her groin.
"I'll… kill you… for that…" Her voice was full of pain. She groaned, hugging herself.
I pulled myself across the floor, dragging my sore leg, aiming for the red button on the wall above the bed, to summon the nurse.
I pressed it.
It rang along the corridor, at the nursing station. A nurse calling out. Annoyed at being summoned.
Dead careless, I was. Didn't hear a thing. The walking-stick connected with the back of my head. I fell over the bed and crashed to the floor.