Lion, Tiger, Bear 1157 Fight-or-flight switch flipped, Beas interlaced fingers cracked at the knuckles as her adrenaline cascaded like Victoria Falls, What the hell, load an armor-piercing round… She tossed her champagne in the Colonels face, kneed him in the bollocks, and punched him in the solar plexus hard with a yell just as she had been taught by the Gebirgsjdger Mountain Division, felling him-like a small tree. Nearby, revelers gasped and laughed. You rotten little cunts! yelled one of the shady ladyfriends, tossing her red wine in Beas face and pushing her with both arms into Alice. Alice pushed Bea in return. Have at her! Bea socked the impolite woman so hard her paste pearls came apart when she hit the tiles. People tripped and fell. She then grabbed the champagne bottle, and, thinking of Lutz, Hans Stuck, and Rudi Caracciola in the old days, pitched it end over end with both hands like a tomahawk into the big mirror behind the bar that had hung there for eighty-two years of grand gilded reflection. Fuck all of you! That did it. Two French ofiicers grabbed her but she kick-boxed and elbowed them off one by one. Vive la bloody France! yelled Bea. Appearing from behind, Bernie then hit both Frenchmen square, noses smashed. Organically the violence spread, table to table, palm to palm. Laughter and gaiety, horror and shock. Wasted spirits and precious ice. Waiters went down with trays of delicacies and the last of the chilled French Rose. Another table was flipped, then another, and someone hit a British general nearby rudely calling him a German spy. A disgruntled Egyptian man, tired of the British occupation and its history of imperial duplicity, pulled a pistol and shot three rounds into the ceilings hand- carved centerpiece while yelling: Long live Rommel and Hitler! Ten officers of various nationalities tackled him, beating the man half dead. Photographers captured it all with flashbulbs popping, the BBC radio crew reporting on the fly. Five ambulances and two trucks carrying Military Police arrived. From behind, Alice jumped onto the other demimonde woman who then twirled around screaming trying to shake her off. Ive got this one! yelled Alice.