The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

She made her decision calmly. In the manner of prisoners all over the world,
she'd found a way of getting a piece of metal with an edge on it. It was, in
fact, a segment of razor blade from the instrument with which she was allowed to
shave her legs once a month. She removed it from its place of hiding, then
pulled the sheet – also white – from the mattress. It was like any other, about
ten centimeters thick, covered with heavy striped fabric. Its trim was a loop of
fabric in which was inserted a rope-like stiffener, with the mattress fabric
sewn tight around it to give the edge strength. With the razor edge she began
detaching the trim from the mattress. It took three hours and not a small amount
of blood, for the razor segment was small, and it cut her fingers many times,
but finally she had two full meters of improvised rope. She turned one end of
the rope into a noose. The free end of the rope she tied to the light fixture
over the door. She had to stand on her chair to do that, but she'd have to stand
on the chair in any case. It took three attempts to get the knot right. She
didn't want too much length on the rope.
When she was satisfied with that, she proceeded without pause. Petra
Hassler-Bock removed her dress and her bra. Next she knelt on the chair with her
back to the door, getting, its position and hers just right, placed the noose
around her neck, and drew it tight. Then she drew up her legs, using her bra to
secure them between her back and the door. She didn't want to flinch from this.
She had to show her courage, her devotion. Without stopping for a prayer or
lament, her hands pushed the chair away. Her body fell perhaps five centimeters
before the improvised rope stopped her fall and drew tight. Her body rebelled
against her will at this point. Her drawn-up legs fought against the bra holding
them between the backs of her thighs and the metal door, but in fighting the
restraint, they merely pushed Petra fractionally away from the door, and that
increased the strangulation on her upper neck.
She was surprised by the pain. The noose fractured her larynx before sliding
over it to a point under her jaw. Her eyes opened wide, staring at the white
bricks of the far wall. That's when the panic hit her. Ideology has its limits.
She couldn't die, didn't want to die, didn't want to –
Her fingers raced to her throat. It was a mistake. They fought to get under the
mattress trim, but it was too thin, cutting so deeply into the soft flesh of her
neck that she couldn't get a single finger under it. Still she fought, knowing
that she had mere seconds before the blood loss to her brain . . . it was
getting vague now, her vision was beginning to suffer. She couldn't see the
lines of mortar between the even German-made brickwork on the far wall. Her
hands kept trying, cutting into the surface blood vessels of her throat, drawing
blood that only made the noose slick, able to sink in tighter, cutting off
circulation through the carotid arteries even more. Her mouth opened wide and
she tried to scream, no, she didn't want to die, didn't – needed help. Couldn't
anyone hear her? Could no one help her? Too late, just two seconds, maybe only
one, maybe not even that, the last remaining shred of consciousness told her
that if she could just loosen the bra holding her legs, she could have stood and
. . .
The detective watched the TV picture, saw her hands flutter towards the bra,
searching limply for the clasp before they fell away, and twitched for a few