Calculated Risk

by Stephanie Doyle

Sabrina felt the customer next to her turn and stare. She stared back. “Problem?”

  He nodded to the TV with his chin. “You found that stuff out about the girl?”

  “The information was there to be found.”

  The old man looked skeptical. “The producers of that show couldn’t find it. Heck, they thought she was only twenty-four.”

  “Yeah, well, I aim to serve the public by providing the truth.”

  She’d used the line before, but tonight it tasted particularly sour in her mouth. What she did was hack allegedly unhackable systems to find information on celebrities that she could then sell to the tabloids. Certainly, not a noble profession. But at least she didn’t contaminate that system with a virus that would shut down the entire network. She was head and shoulders more honorable than Ploxm in that regard. After all, trashy newspaper stories would come and go, but hard drives and data…those were lost forever.

  Still Bubba praised her contributions to society much like a father would, if only her father knew where she was or what she did for a living. “Oh, that’s our Sabrina all right. A smart one, I tell you. She was the first to find out about that one Academy Award-winning actor who was gay. And the first to figure out that the big-time cable newscaster was a drug addict. There’s no secret she can’t find. I keep telling her she should go to work for the government, but she doesn’t listen to me.”

  “They couldn’t afford me.” Sabrina said. Another old line. She wondered when she had gotten so tired of it. “Speaking of affording me…how bad is the tab for this month?”

  Bubba checked the book he kept under the counter and winced a little.

  That bad. Sabrina thought about the state of her checking account and winced herself. She’d sold a few stories to the Star Watcher last month, but was still waiting on her check. She hadn’t been completely joking to Krueger when she said finding a job, the right job for her anyway, was tough. A steady income would be nice for a change.

  Sabrina shook her head. Yeah right, that’s why you got back in the game, so you could pay off your bar tab.

  “Bubba, if you could just give me a few more days-”

  “Oh sure, girlie, sure. You know, if you’re interested… Well, it’s not legal or anything, but those fellas in the back behind the partition, if I didn’t know better I would say they were playing cards. Now, I can’t be held responsible for what I don’t know. “

  Instantly, she straightened on the stool and saw the chips on the table. Her mouth watered.

  “Travelers?”

  “They’re here for some convention at the college, but the hotels were all booked up so they’re staying at the Stop and Sleep just outside of town. Came here looking for some food and beer and a chance to unwind.”

  “Bubba, are you telling me there is a group of men back there playing poker with real money and not one of them knows who I am?”

  Bubba merely smiled. “Like I said, I don’t know about any gambling or anything like that. Just looks like they’re having a nice conversation to me.”

  Sabrina leaned over the bar and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Spot me a twenty?”

  The man pulled the money from the register and slid the single bill across the bar top.

  Sabrina pocketed it and pushed her hands into her jeans. She flicked her curls off her face and strove for an innocent dupe expression.

  It had been so long since she’d played cards. She could almost feel her hands sweating. When they found out about her in Vegas, she’d been banned from every casino on the Strip. It had taken less than two days for Atlantic City to catch on to her. She’d made the trip to Monte Carlo once, but she reserved that spot as her fallback for emergencies only.

  Naturally, she’d played out her welcome with everyone in town. For the most part she didn’t think about it unless times got really tough and she was forced to seek out an Indian Reservation. But with a bar tab looming over her head and a cell phone bill due that she simply had to pay-especially now-she was willing to take the opportunity that had presented itself.

  “Gentlemen. Hello.”

  The group of five lifted their heads and checked her out from her boots, up her long, jean-clad legs to the bulky, gray wool sweater she wore. Maybe some thought she was an overdressed hooker looking for a customer. Maybe others thought she was a cop about to bust up their game, it was hard to tell. They would find out soon enough who she was.

  “I’m bored and I’ve got twenty bucks to blow. Mind if I sit in on the next hand?”

  The group looked at each other, then one man with a mustache shrugged. “I’m out. Let her sit in.”

  A portly fellow in the corner chortled. “I don’t have a problem taking a woman’s money,” he warned her.

  “That’s good. I don’t have trouble taking anyone’s money either,” she fired back as she took mustache man’s chair. “I’m Sabrina.”

  “Chuck.”

  “Paul.”

  “Bill.”

  “Mike.”

  “Jim.” The one with the mustache, who was now only a spectator, finally introduced himself.

  “So what’s the game?”

  “Texas Hold’em,” Chuck, the portly one, announced dramatically. “We’re playing all or nothing. Last man standing wins. Or woman.” He laughed again.

  Sabrina furrowed her brow. “Texas…that’s a poker game?”

  Mike was kind enough to explain the rules to her and Bill took the deck and shuffled it fresh, tossing her the first card.

  When she looked at her two cards, her face remained expressionless. Pocket eights, a spade and a club. Instantly, Sabrina calculated the odds of winning with such a hand and began to do her thing. She watched the flop and memorized the cards that had been turned over. Then she studied each of the players in turn looking for tells that would clue her into what they were holding.

  Going with the dumb blonde approach, she stumbled over the betting. “I want to raise. Raise, that’s the right word, isn’t it?”

  “You got it, honey,” Mike told her.

  She beamed at him. “Then I want to raise five dollars.”

  Paul would be the only one to call her bet. And Paul would lose with a jack and ten off suit and nothing in the flop, turn or river that would help. Bill had tossed his cards over in frustration when he folded, or possibly as a ploy to gauge the table’s reaction. But because of that, she now knew that at least two of the diamonds were on the bottom of the stack.

  When Mike started betting heavily against the three diamonds in the flop, she knew that he was looking for the flush. But with only a twenty-nine percent chance of having one of the remaining nine possible diamonds in the deck turn up, she was a lock with her triple threes and she went all in. Sabrina took the pot and eliminated Mike.

  Then next to go down was Bill. His shuffling was getting looser with each beer he consumed, which made it ridiculously easy for her to determine what cards were left in the deck and what would be coming out on top.

  Glancing down at the ace and seven suited she had in her hand, all Sabrina had to do was keep raising and wait for it. On the flop? No. On the turn? No. There it was…the other ace on the river. Bill had gone all in with the pocket kings. She beat him soundly, and smiled sweetly as she gathered up his chips.

  It was like taking candy from a baby. Her next target was Chuck.

  A little less than three hours later and three hundred and eighty dollars richer, Sabrina beamed at the table. “Can you believe that? And I had never even heard of this game until tonight.”

  The four losers grumbled about beginner’s luck and Jim smiled back at her, apparently pleased he’d left the table before she sat down.

  Sabrina counted out the cash and laid down two hundred dollars on the bar in front of Bubba, plus two twenties. One for the spot, the other for the payoff. “That about cover me?”

  “That about does it,” Bubba chuckled, pocketing the two twenties. “See you around, girlie.”

  After bundling her
self back into her winter gear, Sabrina gave the bartender a negligent wave as she walked toward the front door. Behind her she could hear the five guys grilling Bubba as to whether or not she was a ringer. She heard Bubba laugh out loud and thought that at least she had done something good tonight.

  Realizing she’d forgotten her hat, Sabrina pulled it out of her front pocket and tugged it on past her ears. She took a deep breath and opened the door to the cold. Walking down the empty sidewalk toward her house, situated just off the main street, she cursed herself for not bringing the Jeep. She hadn’t wanted to risk drinking and driving.

  Not that she’d hurt anyone but herself tonight. It was a time of hibernation for Stansfield, Pennsylvania. Once the football season of the state college nearby was over, the town dwindled from a bustling hot spot on weekends to its regular smattering of locals. A few staff members employed by the college. A few shopkeeps and professionals. Two doctors, four lawyers and one sheriff. And Bubba and Nick, of course. Two men whose establishments tried to keep most of the coal miners, now long unemployed since the great “shutdown of ’94,” drunk and numb to their woes.

  “What the hell am I still doing here?” she asked the empty newspaper dispenser as she walked by. It wasn’t the first time she had asked herself the question. It’s just that when she did, the answer was always the same. She had nowhere else to go.

  Three days and nothing. Maybe Krueger didn’t understand what it had meant for her to take this assignment. Maybe he didn’t understand how desperate she was to get her life back on track. It was a very real fear for her that if she stayed on this endless path to nowhere, she might just disappear. At some point she decided she’d couldn’t let that happen.

  What if he found Ploxm?

  No, she told herself firmly. It wasn’t possible. She had the best credentials. He’d said so. Arnold had been one of her mentors. There was no question she had the best chance of cracking his code.

  And besides, she hadn’t done anything to get fired.

  Yet.

  The bank across the street boasted a new sign that blinked the time and temperature. It was 10:52 and eighteen degrees Fahrenheit. Inexplicably, Sabrina converted the number to Celsius and continued on her way until a gust of extra cold wind whipped around her. Even though there were no cars coming she paused out of habit before she crossed the street.

  That’s when she heard a sound behind her. Shoes on the sidewalk.

  Instantly, her senses were heightened. It could be Krueger or whomever he’d sent to take her to Arnold’s cabin. But why follow her? Why not just make his presence known when she was waiting for him? The other alternatives surfaced.

  Without making any sudden movements she continued on her way down the sidewalk at a slightly faster clip. In her mind, she began to measure the distance between herself and her house. Then she took into consideration the length of her stride and her conditioning and made the calculation of how long it would take her to reach her house if she began to run at top speed.

  Seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

  She was really out of shape.

  Making a mental note to begin more regular workouts, Sabrina focused on the next aspect of the equation. The question was how tall and how fast was the man following her. That he was following her wasn’t an issue. Her body knew it. It was there in the adrenaline that was pumping through her system. Built-in genetic mechanisms began to take over and the message her muscles received was flight.

  Instantly, she took off into a full sprint and cursed. The bulky down coat she wore, the scarf that blew around her neck, the ladies’ construction boots that kept her feet toasty, she’d factored none of these into her equation. She considered the extra weight, the drag time against the wind, and listened to the pace of the steps of the man who was now giving chase behind her.

  He was tall. And fast.

  Given her own recalibration, factored against the rate at which he was closing the distance, escape was statistically impossible. Sabrina had to come up with a new plan.

  The only option left to her was to fight.

  Chapter 3

  Even as she ran, Sabrina took stock of her surroundings. When engaged in a physical confrontation, a fighter should, if possible, control the environment, the weaponry and the enemy. It was an adage that Sabrina took very seriously. Veering off around the last building on the block to her right, adjacent to nothing but an empty lot, she found the Dumpster exactly where she expected it to be.

  It was always hard to tell what a person might find in an alley. But there was always potential for loose crate slats with protruding nails, or any other type of debris that might serve as a ready-made shank.

  She stopped in her tracks while she scanned the contents around the Dumpster. Inhaling deep cleansing breaths, both to control her fear and to reoxygenate her muscles, Sabrina considered removing her jacket, but decided not to. It might serve as protection if her pursuer had a knife.

  If he had a gun, then the game was pretty much over because, like an idiot, she’d left hers at home. Krueger had assured her that she was safe from any kind of kidnapping so she hadn’t felt the need to walk around town armed. Besides that, she didn’t have a holster for the damn thing. When she’d shoved it in the back of her jeans it annoyed her. It was a really big gun.

  Sabina wanted to kick herself for her own stupidity, but there was no time. When she found nothing useful as a weapon on the ground she cursed. Her next step was to try inside the Dumpster, but it was too late. The sound of the shoes on pavement grew louder as the man chasing her turned the corner.

  There was nothing else to do but assume a balanced stance and wait.

  She saw his shadow in the moon at the end of the empty lot. Puffs of chilled air emanated from his mouth and nostrils as he, too, tried to catch his breath after the chase. She couldn’t see his face, but his silhouette proved what she had earlier suspected.

  He was tall. That he was a man had never really been in doubt. The sound of the shoes had given him away.

  A dozen phrases leaped to her tongue.

  What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?

  You lookin’ for me?

  Now that you’ve caught me, whatever are you going to do with me?

  If he possessed any sort of intellect and strength, the next few minutes would be a considerable challenge. She didn’t figure that witty banter, as great as it played out in old black-and-white movies, would serve much purpose in this situation.

  She watched his head tilt slightly to the right as he studied her offensive pose. She gathered that he now comprehended her strategy was to fight. No doubt he took some time to reconcile that with the person who had run from him. He turned his head quickly in both directions to check the surroundings and assure himself that they were alone. Then he advanced cautiously.

  It had been a while since she’d engaged in battle with an opponent but she wasn’t worried about forgetting how to do it. Fighting was all about physics. Force, speed, angles. Sabrina had always been a whiz at physics.

  The man continued to approach, and he held his hands up as if to show he wasn’t carrying a weapon. Or possibly in a gesture of surrender. But if he was surrendering, then why was he still moving?

  “Stop,” she commanded, wishing her voice sounded a little firmer. Unfortunately, she had a slight cold which made her sound more nasal than ominous.

  “I just want to talk,” he replied even as he crept forward.

  There was an eerie familiarity about his voice that Sabrina immediately recognized, but she couldn’t dwell on it. He was only eighty-one inches away. Just outside her long-legged reach.

  Until he took another step closer.

  “Talk to this,” she said, swinging her leg up and over in a roundhouse kick that she aimed toward his head. A second before her booted foot would have made contact with his jaw he pulled his body out of reach. And as her leg crossed his face he caught it in his hand with a grip that was too strong for
her to break.

  Balanced on one foot she knew that the slightest tug from him would send her to the ground. In cases like these, it was always best to get there on her own terms. Propelling herself off the ground with her other leg, she jumped and with her free foot aimed for his knee. Unable to avoid the blow while he still held her right leg, the man quickly released her, but not before she was able to make contact with enough force to send him stumbling back.

  Together they fell. But knowing that’s where she was headed, Sabrina had the upper hand. She twisted her body and used her hands and feet to brace against the impact, essentially executing a prolonged push-up. Flipping over on to her backside, she did a kip-up, using the palms of her hands to bounce herself back onto the soles of her feet and into a standing position.

  She watched the man favor his knee slightly as he, too, sprang to his feet in a fluid motion. Not even the long, dark overcoat he wore got in the way of the move.

  “You want to play?” he asked, his voice a low snarl now.

  “Not particularly,” she replied. “Hey, I know. How about you let me go?”

  “Not until we talk.”

  “Tell me who you are,” she insisted. The accent was American, not foreign, but it didn’t do as much as it could have to alleviate her fear. Kahsan could have easily sent someone within the country to get her. Possibly one of the sources inside the CIA Krueger had mentioned.

  Not going to kidnap me, huh, Krueger? Thanks a lot!

  The man remained stubbornly silent to her request.

  “You don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk. So where does that leave us?” she asked, lifting her hands, palms up. Hoping to catch him in a moment of surprise, she threw a side kick that made solid contact with his stomach. He barely reacted to it. Instead, he used the opportunity to throw a right hook at her jaw.

  Sabrina felt the blow and was stunned by it. She hadn’t forgotten how to fight, but she remembered that the other part of fighting was learning how to take a hit. She quickly remembered it wasn’t any fun.

  Blood gathered at the corner of her lip. She swiped it away with her tongue and backed away a step. Thinking he’d subdued her, he took a step forward only to be greeted by her own not-too-shabby left hook. His head turned at the impact, but he recovered faster and raised his hand again. This time she was quick enough to defend the punch with her forearm.