Barry Eisler Quote

When I was about a meter away and beyond the range of his peripheral vision, I took a deep step in, dropped into a squat just behind him, and wrapped my arms tourniquet-tight around his legs just above the knees. I felt his body go rigid, heard him suck in a breath. In my adrenalized, slow-motion vision, I logged every detail: the height of the guardrail; rust marks on the metal; chewing gum ground black into the cement tiles from which his feet were about to suddenly levitate. I brought my hips in and exploded up and out. He shrieked, a high, atavistic sound of sheer animal panic, and I felt a spasm of terror rip through his body as I launched him into the air over the railing. The cigarette tumbled out of his mouth. His limbs swam crazily, uselessly, against the air around him. Then he was gone, below my field of vision. The wild shriek continued, cut off a second later by the sound of a resounding, dull thud twenty feet below. Tires screeched. Another thud. Crunching sounds. More screeching tires. Then silence.