Free The Terrorizers by Donald Hamilton

located and which way the paved walks ran under the trees.
    Trask was a different matter. He was important. I’d been making fuzzy mental notes about Tommy Trask ever since I understood that he’d been assigned to me for the duration. Now I clarified and completed my research on the subject. He was almost six feet tall and he weighed well over two hundred muscular pounds. Even in good health, I would have hesitated to test my strength against his. Like Kitty Davidson, he spoke with that kind of half-British-sounding Canadian accent I could never track to its source. He had longish blond hair and a heavy face that, as I’ve already indicated, had a hint of handsome boyishness. He wasn’t very bright but he wasn’t a bad guy…
    I didn’t know what I was waiting for, really, until that evening came. It felt right, somehow. I wasn’t going to get any stronger or smarter cooped up here. If I stalled much longer, something might happen to change my situation for the worse. I heard Trask coming, whistling to himself. It was a roast-beef night, I realized, and he liked being able to bring his private patient something good, unlike last night when the dinner menu had consisted of a mixed-up Chinese-type mess that no self-respecting Oriental would have fed to his cat.
    I watched the door open. I stepped back to the window as I was supposed to; we’d settled these small points of discipline long ago, quite amicably. Trask shoved the door wide, checked my location, and turned back to get the tray he’d left on the shelf beside the door so he’d have both hands free in case I had some notion of jumping him as he entered. His expression, as always recently, was slightly apologetic, indicating that he knew these precautions were unnecessary between us, but after all a job was a job and he liked to do it right. He pulled the door closed one-handed, just in case I should take it into my head to make a run for it while he was busy setting out my meal on the little table by the wall. The door could only be opened with a key, from either side. The key was in his pocket.
    “A little underdone, just like you like it, Mr. Madden,” he said cheerfully as he uncovered the plate. “And I got you a beer. Just a sec while I open it for you. Sorry about the steak knife, but that’s a nice tender piece of meat; you’ll do all right with your fork.”
    I grinned, coming forward as he stepped aside. “Sure. Hell, if I had a knife I might cut your throat. You never know with a dangerous character like me… Oh,
damn!
” I’d knocked the bottle off the corner of the table as I seated myself. “Oh, damn it, Tommy, I’m sorry…”
    He went for the bottle, which hadn’t shattered. It was rolling across the floor spewing beer and foam on the carpet. Bent over to grab it, he stopped abruptly, realizing what he was doing. That was when I hit him and broke his neck.

9
    I’ll have to admit that it surprised me almost as much as it did him. I’d known, somehow, that it could be done that way, but I hadn’t had any really good reason to think I could do it. I’d been ready to throw myself on top of him and pin him down and finish him off, one way or another, before he could recover from the first blow. It wasn’t necessary. He went down instantly. There were some ugly, convulsive jerks and twitches as the final, fading signals filtered through the damaged circuits; then he lay limp and still.
    I rubbed my hand, stinging from the force of the blow. It was badly bruised—apparently I wasn’t the brick-smashing type of karate expert—but nothing seemed to be broken. Okay. Keys and a weapon next. I got the keys from his pocket. I was fairly sure, from careful observation, that he carried no armaments, but I searched him anyway. Nothing. He’d been picked for his ability to deal with maniacs barehanded; and in a place like that you don’t want to give a maniac an opportunity to become an armed maniac. Only the security guards, the last line