London Twist: A Delilah Novella

legitimately acquire? Because they needed to denigrate and hurt someone else to reassure themselves they weren’t pathetic and powerless? Because a man could tolerate his own lack of status as long as there was a class of people he could remind himself was of lower stature still?
    They paused outside the front door. Delilah would have preferred not to. The vibe she had picked up from some of the men inside had been ugly enough to make her wary of creating unintended opportunities for anyone. Not that she thought she couldn’t handle whatever trouble might come her way, but her way of handling it would likely expose her as something more than a civilian photojournalist—the same sort of thing that had gotten her in trouble in Paris with John.
    “Sorry if I got a little intense,” Fatima said.
    “To not get intense over what happened to your family, you’d have to be dead inside.”
    Fatima nodded and looked at Delilah as though pleased she understood. “Yes. That’s exactly it. Exactly the choice they impose on us.”
    Again, Delilah noted the active voice, the focus on the doer rather than the done. This was a woman who was bottling up a lot inside. Under the right circumstances, if a small opening could be created, some of those pressurized contents would leak.
    Delilah heard the door to Momtaz and glanced back. Two young men were heading out, their stride fast and purposeful. She had noted them inside—close-cropped hair and dark facial stubble, ugly faces and expensive shirts. Their stares had been particularly hostile. Now their eyes locked on Delilah and Fatima, and Delilah saw the satisfied recognition, the pleasure of confirmation and ensuing confrontation. She felt a hot rush of adrenaline and thought,
Merde
.
    “We can’t figure it out,” the taller of the two said, his English Arabic-accented, as they strode over.
    There were two expected responses. One was, “What?” The other was silence. Either would betray nervousness, and therefore embolden the enemy. The correct move was a non sequitur, something incongruous that would momentarily occupy the enemy’s cognition while his brain tried to process the unanticipated response. So had she been alone, Delilah would have answered, “The square root of pi?” or “Given sufficient salinity, freezing does become more difficult, doesn’t it?” or some other wildly off-track comment, and then dropped the lead guy by attacking the throat, or the knee, or whatever other target of opportunity presented itself. An overreaction? She didn’t think so. A man’s natural ally was his upper body strength. To counter it, she had speed, surprise, and violence of action. A man’s strategy was attrition. Hers was blitzkrieg. In a drawn-out confrontation, a man could press his advantages and negate hers. She wouldn’t allow that. If she had to err, she knew which side to err on.
    But then she would have to explain herself to Fatima. And regardless of what Fatima herself might make of Delilah’s capability with violence, her people would have their own views, probably ones fatal to the op itself.
    So she said nothing—in her judgment, the lesser of the two available evils. Fatima, less savvy, said, “What can’t you figure out?”, her tone dripping with derision.
    It was a stupid move, though Delilah didn’t blame Fatima for not knowing better. In a confrontation, you don’t insult, you don’t challenge, you don’t deny it’s happening. And you always leave your adversary a face-saving exit. If he takes it, great; if he doesn’t, you act. But blustering en route serves only to engage the other person’s temper and his ego, while impeding your own opportunities for surprise. Fatima, whatever her involvement in her brother’s network, wasn’t trained, and she wasn’t experienced.
    The two men stopped, so close Delilah could have hit one with a stomp to the instep and the other with a knee to the groin. The shorter one said, “What you’re doing out alone, the two of you. This is what we can’t figure out.”
    Fatima laughed contemptuously. “Alone, the two of us? Here, let me ask you the same thing. What are the two of you doing out alone? Did your parents not notice you sneaking out of your bedrooms?”
    They both reddened and the shorter one’s eyes narrowed. Delilah admired Fatima for her brass, but bluff was dangerous if you couldn’t back it up.
    “You know what I think?” the shorter one said. “I think you’re two whores