Sidney Sheldon 3-Book Collection: If Tomorrow Comes, Nothing Lasts Forever, The Best Laid Plans. Sidney Sheldon

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter Seven

      Time lost all meaning. There was never light in the cell, so there was no difference between night and day, and she had no idea how long she was kept in solitary confinement. From time to time cold meals were shoved through a slot in the bottom of the door. Tracy had no appetite, but she forced herself to eat every morsel. You gotta eat, or you won’t last here. She understood that now; she knew she would need every bit of her strength for what she planned to do. She was in a situation that anyone else would have considered hopeless: she was locked away for fifteen years, with no money, no friends, no resources of any kind. But there was a wellspring of strength deep within her. I will survive, Tracy thought. I face mine enemies naked, and my courage is my shield. She would survive as her ancestors had survived. In her was the mixed blood of the English and the Irish and the Scots, and she had inherited the best of their qualities, the intelligence and the courage and the will. My ancestors survived famine and plagues and floods, and I’m going to survive this. They were with her now in her stygian cell: the shepherds and trappers, the farmers and shopkeepers, the doctors and teachers. The ghosts of the past, and every one was a part of her. I won’t let you down, Tracy whispered in the darkness.

      She began to plan her escape.

      Tracy knew that the first thing she had to do was regain her physical strength. The cell was too cramped for extensive exercise, but it was large enough for t’ai chi ch’uan, the centuries-old martial art that was taught warriors to prepare them for combat. The exercises required little space, and they used every muscle in the body. Tracy stood up and went through the opening moves. Each movement had a name and a significance. She started with the militant Punching the Demons, then into the softer Gathering the Light. The movements were fluid and graceful and done very slowly. Every gesture came from tan tien, the psychic centre, and all the movements were circular. Tracy could hear the voice of her teacher: Arouse your chi, your vital energy. It starts heavy as a mountain and becomes light as a bird’s feather. Tracy could feel the chi flowing through her fingers, and she concentrated until her whole being was focused on her body moving through the timeless patterns.

       Grasp the bird’s tail, become the white stork, repulse the monkey, face the tiger, let your hands become clouds and circulate the water of life. Let the white snake creep down and ride the tiger. Shoot the tiger, gather your chi, and go back to tan tien, the centre.

      The complete cycle took an hour, and when it was finished Tracy was exhausted. She went through the ritual each morning and afternoon until her body began to respond and grow strong.

      When she was not exercising her body, Tracy exercised her mind. She lay in the dark, doing complicated mathematical equations, mentally operating the computer at the bank, reciting poetry, recalling the lines of plays she had been in at college. She was a perfectionist, and when she had got a part in a school play where she had to use different accents, she had studied accents for weeks before the play went on. A talent scout had once approached her to offer her a screen test in Hollywood. ‘No, thank you. I don’t want the limelight. That’s not for me,’ Tracy had told him.

      Charles’s voice: You’re the headline in this morning’s Daily News.

      Tracy pushed the memory of Charles away. There were doors in her mind that had to remain closed for now.

      She played the teaching game: Name three absolutely impossible things to teach.

      To teach an ant the difference between Catholics and Protestants.

      To make a bee understand that it is the earth that travels around the sun.

      To explain to a cat the difference between communism and democracy.

      But she concentrated mostly on how she was going to destroy her enemies, each of them in turn. She remembered a game she had played as a child. By holding up one hand towards the sky, it was possible to blot out the sun. That’s what they had done to her. They had raised a hand and blotted out her life.

      Tracy had no idea how many prisoners had been broken by their confinement in the bing, nor would it have mattered to her.

      On the seventh day, when the cell door opened, Tracy was blinded by the sudden light that flooded the cell. A guard stood outside. ‘On your feet. You’re going back upstairs.’