The Silver Spoon Drop

Don't look at the clock. Don't look at the door. And definitely, definitely don't look at the waiter's left hand.

Len stared at the floating crouton in his tomato soup. It looked like a tiny, drowning raft. His collar was too tight, a stiff ring of starch that pinched his neck every time he swallowed. He hated this suit. It smelled like the back of his dad's closet—mothballs and old cedar. But the itch wasn't the problem. The problem was the man pouring the water.

He was new. Len knew all the staff at the Lodge. He’d been coming here for the Winter Summit since he was six, dragged along because his dad said it was 'good for his character' to see history being made. Mostly, history just looked like old men eating soup and talking about borders. But the staff usually stayed the same. This guy was different. He was too tall. He moved too fast. And he was wearing brown loafers with a black tuxedo.

Rule number one, Dad always said: *Details matter. If the shoes don't match the suit, the man doesn't match the job.*

Len gripped his spoon until his knuckles turned white. The metal was cold. Everything in this room was cold. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Swiss Alps were just jagged teeth of grey rock and white ice, smothered in a blizzard that had been howling since dawn. The wind rattled the glass in a low, vibrating hum that set Len's teeth on edge.

"You're not eating," a voice said from across the table.

Len looked up. Samantha was watching him. She was twelve, same as him, but she looked like she was already running a small country. Her navy dress was perfect, her hair was pulled back so tight it looked painful, and she was cutting her bread roll with the precision of a surgeon.

"Not hungry," Len mumbled, dropping his gaze back to the drowning crouton.

"The chef will be offended," Samantha said. She didn't sound concerned about the chef. She sounded like she was testing him. "It's a local specialty. Very... rich."

Len glanced at the adults at the long main table in the centre of the room. His dad was there, laughing at something the French ambassador said. They looked so relaxed. They didn't see the Brown Shoes waiter hovering near the kitchen doors, hand twitching by his side.

"I think it's sour," Len said, pushing the bowl a millimetre away. "Like it's gone bad."

Samantha paused, her knife hovering over the butter. Her dark eyes flicked to Len's face, then to his bowl, then—very briefly—towards the waiter Len had been watching. She saw it too. He knew she did.

"Sometimes," Samantha said, her voice dropping to a whisper that was barely louder than the clink of forks, "things spoil when they sit out too long. You have to clear the table before it makes everyone sick."

Len’s heart did a weird double-thump. She knew. Her dad was the one arguing with Len's dad all morning about the trade routes, but Samantha wasn't her dad. She was just a kid stuck at the kid table, same as him.

"I need to tell the chef," Len said, his hand twitching towards the edge of the table. "About the... sourness."

"Don't," Samantha said sharply. She picked up her glass of water. "The kitchen is busy. You'll just get in the way. Besides... the maitre d' is watching."

Len froze. He hadn't checked the maitre d'. He looked towards the entrance. The head of staff, a bald man with a face like a crumpled napkin, was standing by the podium. He wasn't looking at the guests. He was looking straight at Len.

Okay. Okay, this was bad. This was 'Red Bag' bad. That was the code he and his dad had. If things got Red Bag bad, Len was supposed to go to the car. But the car was outside in a blizzard, and the keys were in his dad's pocket, and there was a guy in brown loafers who might have a gun—or worse, a poison vial—under his tray.

The Bread Roll Drop

"Pass the salt," Len said. His voice cracked a little. He hated that.

Samantha slid the silver shaker across the white tablecloth. It made a harsh scraping sound, like skates on rough ice. "You know," she said, leaning forward slightly, "my father says too much salt is bad for the heart. It can stop it. Just like that."

She snapped her fingers. The sound was swallowed by the heavy velvet curtains.

"My heart is fine," Len said. "I just need... to flavour it. To make it safe."

He needed to warn his dad. But he couldn't just stand up and scream, 'Hey, the waiter is an assassin!' That only happened in movies. In real life, the security guards would tackle him, his dad would be embarrassed, and if he was wrong, he'd be grounded until he was thirty. But if he was right...

He looked at the waiter again. Brown Shoes was moving closer to the main table. He had a bottle of wine in his hand. A fresh bottle. Uncorked.

Len felt a bead of sweat trickle down his back, right between his shoulder blades. It felt freezing cold.

"Did you bring the game?" Len asked suddenly.

Samantha blinked. "What?"

"The game. The Switch. You said you brought it."

"I..." Samantha narrowed her eyes. She was smart. She realized he was changing the subject for a reason. "Yes. It's in my bag."

"Can I see it?" Len asked. "I'm bored."

"Now?"

"Yes. Now."

Samantha reached down beside her chair. She pulled up a small, velvet purse. She didn't take out a game console. She took out a compact mirror and set it on the table, angled towards the main dining area.

"I don't have the game," she said, her voice flat. "But you can look at the... graphics."

Len looked into the small circle of glass. The reflection showed the room behind him. He could see his dad's back. He could see Brown Shoes approaching. The waiter was holding the bottle by the neck, not the base. Who holds a wine bottle by the neck?

"The graphics look... glitchy," Len whispered.

"Very glitchy," Samantha agreed. She picked up a bread roll. She tore it in half. It was violent, the way she ripped the crust. She pulled out the soft white dough from the centre and balled it up in her fingers. "You should go fix it."

"I can't," Len hissed. "The maitre d'."

"He's looking at the window now," Samantha said. "Checking the snow. You have three seconds. Maybe four."

Len looked. The bald man had turned his head to frown at the blizzard battering the glass. It was a tiny window of opportunity. A micro-window.

Len grabbed his napkin. He bunched it up in his left hand. He didn't have a plan. He just had panic and adrenaline. He stood up. His chair legs squealed against the parquet floor. A few heads turned. His dad didn't turn. His dad was too busy nodding at the French ambassador.

"Bathroom," Len announced loudly to no one. "I need the bathroom."

He didn't walk towards the bathroom. The bathroom was to the left. The main table was to the right. He walked straight, aiming for the gap between the tables.

Brown Shoes was three steps away from his dad. Two steps.

Len didn't run. Running was suspicious. He walked fast, like he really, really had to pee. As he passed the waiter, he didn't dodge. He stumbled. He let his foot catch on the edge of the thick Persian rug.

He went down. He made sure he went down hard.

He threw his hands out. His left hand, the one with the napkin, slammed into the back of the waiter's knee.

It wasn't a karate chop. It was a clumsy, flailing collision of a twelve-year-old boy and a grown man. But it worked. The waiter's leg buckled. The man lurched forward, losing his balance. The bottle of wine in his hand flew out of his grip.

It smashed onto the table. Red wine exploded everywhere. It soaked the white cloth, it splashed onto the French ambassador's shirt, it dripped from the centerpiece flowers like blood.

The room went silent. Dead silent. Just the sound of wine dripping onto the floor. *Drip. Drip. Drip.*

Len lay on the floor, his knee throbbing. He looked up. Brown Shoes was staring down at him. The man's face wasn't angry. It was blank. Terrifyingly blank. His hand was reaching inside his tuxedo jacket.

"Len!" His dad's voice. Shocked. Angry.

Len scrambled back, crab-walking across the rug. "I tripped," he gasped. "The rug... I tripped!"

Security was moving now. Two large men in grey suits were stepping out of the shadows by the walls. But they were looking at Len, not the waiter.

"I am so sorry, sir," the waiter said. His voice was smooth. Accented. He pulled his hand out of his jacket. He wasn't holding a gun. He was holding a handkerchief. He dabbed at the wine stain on the table.

Len stared. Had he been wrong? Was it just a waiter with bad shoes? He felt a hot flush of shame creep up his neck. He was an idiot. A baby who watched too many movies.

Then he saw it. As the waiter bent down to pick up the shards of glass, his jacket fell open. Just for a second. Tucked into the waistband of his trousers, right at the back, was a handle. Not a serving knife. A black, rubberized handle.

Len looked at Samantha. She was still sitting at the kid table, holding her torn bread roll. She wasn't looking at the wine. She was looking at Len. She gave a tiny, almost invisible nod.

"Clumsy boy," the French ambassador grumbled, wiping wine from his lapel. "No harm done. Just a waste of a good vintage."

"I'll get a fresh bottle immediately," the waiter said. He bowed. He stepped back. He looked at Len. His eyes were like the ice outside—flat and hard. "And perhaps a towel for the young man."

Len's dad stood up, sighing. "Len, go get cleaned up. We'll discuss this later."

"But Dad—" Len started.

"Now, Len."

Len scrambled to his feet. His knee hurt. His pride hurt. But his heart was hammering a warning rhythm against his ribs. The waiter was walking away, back towards the kitchen. Back to get a 'fresh bottle'.

Len retreated to the kid table. He slumped into his chair.

"Nice trip," Samantha murmured. She didn't look up from her plate.

"He has a knife," Len whispered. "In his back. A big one."

"I know," Samantha said. She took a bite of her bread roll. "And the maitre d' just locked the front doors."

Len whipped his head around. She was right. The bald man was turning the brass lock on the main double doors. He slid the bolt home with a heavy *thunk*.

"Why?" Len asked, his voice trembling.

"Because," Samantha said, "nobody leaves until dessert."

She pushed her plate towards him. On the edge of the porcelain, hidden under a sprig of parsley, was a small, silver key. It looked like it belonged to a filing cabinet, or maybe a service elevator.

"What is this?" Len asked.

"My dad dropped it," she said. "By accident. Or maybe not. I think it opens the pantry. The one that connects to the tunnels."

"Tunnels?"

"This is an old lodge, Len. Smugglers used it in the war. There's a way out."

"We can't leave them," Len said, looking at his dad. His dad was laughing again, oblivious.

"We aren't leaving," Samantha said. She wiped her mouth with her napkin, calm as anything. "We're going to pull the fire alarm. But the alarm is in the kitchen. Where he is."

She nodded towards the swinging doors where Brown Shoes had disappeared.

Len looked at the key. He looked at the waiter's shoes. He looked at the wine stain spreading on the main table, dark and jagged like a wound.

"I'm fast," Len said. "I'm the fastest runner in my grade."

"Good," Samantha said. "Because I think he's coming back. And he's not bringing wine this time."

The lights in the dining hall flickered. Once. Twice. Then they dimmed, just a fraction, as if the lodge itself was holding its breath.