Chapter 57
AT SIX-FIFTEEN THAT Tuesday evening, the last of the Chinese gymnasts stuck her dismount off the balance beam, landing on her feet with nary a bobble.
The crowd inside the Chinese Gymnastics Federation’s luxury box high in the arena roared with delight. With one round to go, their team was winning handsomely. The Brits were a surprising second, and the Americans sat solidly in third place. The Russians had unexpectedly imploded and were trailing a distant fourth.
Amid the celebration, Teagan set her drinks tray on the bar and then dropped a pen on purpose. She squatted and in seconds had the thin gas line running beneath her wrist, up across her palm, past her little finger and attached to the back of the ring.
She stood to smile at the bartender. ‘I’m going to clear glasses for a bit.’
He nodded and returned to pouring wine. As the Chinese team moved to the vaulting pit, Teagan’s senses were on fire. She slipped through the crowded luxury box towards a stocky woman in a grey suit who was watching at the window.
Her name was Win Bo Lee. She was chairman of the national committee of the Chinese Gymnastics Association, or CGA. She was also, in her own way, as corrupt as Paul Teeter and Sir Denton Marshall had been. Cronus was right, Teagan thought. People like Win Bo Lee deserved exposure and death.
As she neared the woman, Teagan held her right arm low and by her waist while her left hand slipped into the pocket of her uniform coat and felt something small and bristly. When the distance between her and Win Bo Lee was less than two feet, she snapped her hand sharply upward and squeezed the right side of the ring with her little finger.
With a soft spitting noise rendered inaudible by the joyous conversations in the hospitality suite, the tiny dart flew and stuck in the back of Win Bo Lee’s neck. The CGA’s chairman jerked, and then cursed. She tried to reach around the back of her neck. But before she could, Teagan slapped her there, dislodging the dart, which fell to the floor. She crushed it with her shoe.
Win Bo Lee twisted around angrily and glared at Teagan, who looked deeply into her victim’s eyes, savouring them, imprinting them in her memory, and then said, ‘I got it.’
She crouched down before the Chinese woman could reply and acted as if she were picking something up with her left hand. She stood and showed Win Bo Lee a dead bee.
‘It’s summer,’ Teagan said. ‘Somehow they get in here.’
Win Bo Lee stared at the bee and then up at Teagan, her temper cooling, and said, ‘You are quick, but not quicker than that bee. It stung me hard!’
‘A thousand pardons,’ Teagan said. ‘Would you like some ice?’
The CGA chairman nodded as she reached around to massage her neck.
‘I’ll get you some,’ Teagan said.
She cleared the table in front of the CGA chairman, took one last look into Win Bo Lee’s eyes, and then left the glasses at the bar. Heading towards the exit with no intention of returning, Teagan was already replaying every moment of her quiet attack as if it were a slow-motion highlight on a sports reel.