Chapter 5
They had tied Alexis like a nurse.
Not like someone trained to escape restraint under stress.
They saw a medic.
They saw a woman with bandages in her pouch and dirt on her knees.
They did not see the special operations course.
They did not see the survival training.
They did not see the classified file that said she had spent six months learning how to stay alive behind enemy lines.
They definitely did not see the tiny ceramic blade taped under the medical patch on her sleeve.
Alexis bent her wrist, caught the edge, and began cutting.
Slow.
Small.
Silent.
Outside the door, boots ran past.
Men shouted.
Hassan was angry now.
Angry men were loud.
Loud men missed things.
The rope loosened.
Alexis pulled one hand free.
Then the other.
She rubbed blood back into her fingers and crossed the cell.
There was no window.
No vent big enough to crawl through.
Just concrete, a steel cot, a drain, and a door.
She knelt beside the cot and reached under the frame.
Her fingers found what she had hidden when they first threw her in there two hours earlier.
A thin strip of metal from a broken food tray.
A piece of wire.
And a medical syringe cap.
Nothing dangerous by itself.
Everything useful in the right hands.
Alexis worked fast.
The lock was old.
The guard was young.
The commander was arrogant.
And the camera was blind.
Three advantages.
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That was all she needed.
Read Part 6 to see why opening that cell door became Hassan’s worst mistake.
