by Barry Eisler
“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said, now thoroughly convinced I was insane, and no doubt wanting more than ever just to be away from me.
I didn’t stop my agitated rant for a second. It’s difficult to talk and attack at the same time. The average person needs to get his mind right, focus, concentrate first, even if only for a moment. Accinelli would recognize this, on some level, and would therefore find my mad logorrhea comforting by comparison with what he’d feared a moment before.
He picked up his keys and shouldered past me. He kept his head turned toward me for an extra-long beat as he moved by, but I showed him my hands, palms forward, my arms held back, to demonstrate my harmlessness, and kept up my blathering.
Finally, his head turned. At the instant I was in his blind side, I shot in and looped my right arm around his neck, yanking him toward me, getting him back on his heels, off his base. The inside of my elbow centered on his windpipe, just hard enough for positioning, not hard enough to crush anything. I caught my left biceps in my right palm, brought my left hand around to the back of his head, and squeezed. I had learned the technique at the Kodokan as hadaka jime, naked choke, better known in the West as a sleeper hold.
Accinelli grunted and backed into me, trying to get his weight under him, to find his balance. His left hand scratched at my right forearm but found only the slippery neoprene gauntlet of the bicycle glove. He dropped his keys and reached back with his right, by instinct or long-ago training going for my eyes, but I buried my face in his shoulder and his scrabbling fingers were stymied by the bicycle helmet.
It was over in less than five seconds. Some people last a bit longer, some a bit shorter, but no one can go very long once the carotids have been closed off and oxygen is no longer reaching the brain. His groping hands abruptly fell away and he slumped in my arms. I leaned back against the wall, supporting some of his weight with my body, and held him there.
I was very conscious of how much pressure I was using. In the heat of the moment, it would be easy to apply too much, which at a minimum would cause bruises. The purpose of the choke was just to deny his brain oxygen. Anything more than that was unnecessary and would leave signs. I had a lot of experience with hadaka jime from my judo days, and always had a knack for it. I could feel just how firmly to squeeze.
I remained like that, controlling my breathing, counting off the seconds. Someone might have come down the elevator or in through the door, but the possibility didn’t trouble me. If it happened, I would just drop Accinelli, walk away, and deal with Hilger and everything else afterward. In any event, there was nothing I could do to influence, let alone control, the eventuality. I knew how I would react if it happened and that was enough.
I imagined what would come next: his mistress tries him on his cell phone, then checks downstairs when there’s no answer. Or some other resident finds him here. No sign of foul play—no gunshot, stab wounds, or blunt trauma—and therefore no justification to expend resources on an autopsy. There would be questions, of course, but he was a prominent man, and his family would be only too eager to close the matter quickly and obscure the details of where he died and what he might have been doing there. The cause would remain unknown, and would probably be treated as an embolism or some other such story that doctors proffer to families to help them find closure when death can’t otherwise be explained.
After four minutes, I knew he was past any attempt at resuscitation. I eased him down on the floor and looked outside. Two women in wool coats and fur earmuffs walked by, laughing about something, maybe on their way to an early lunch. I watched them pass. No one else was coming. Okay.
I picked up the box and stepped outside. I left the keys where they had fallen. Logical enough that Accinelli had been holding them when he was struck down by his mysterious embolic event, and that they would wind up on the floor beside him.
I headed down the stairs, glancing south on Mott as I moved. All clear. I glanced north. Then, only by virtue of years of experience, I turned my head away and continued down the stairs as though I had noticed nothing of any relevance.
What I had noticed, in fact, was the blond guy from Saigon. Hilger’s backup. And he was walking straight toward me.
24
DOX WAS STANDING next to his cot, doing isometric exercises against his chains. He knew from the sounds on the boat that they were in a port somewhere; that, unusually, three of them were off the boat; that the one who’d stayed behind was Uncle Fester. Despite knowing it was a victory for the psycho, he couldn’t help feeling dread. Fester was going to give him the “surprise” now, he could feel it. That, or something worse.
Things were quiet for a while, and then he heard Fester’s footsteps, coming down the stairs, heading his way. He sat up on the cot and pulled futilely against the chains, not for the first time. Goddamnit, if there had been just a little more slack. He’d thought a hundred times about improvising a weapon, something sharp, but there wasn’t a single thing in the cabin, not a doorstop or a window crank, the workings in the toilet tank, nothing. With a weapon, he might, just might, have had a chance. But as it was, he couldn’t stand straight, he could barely fucking move, he couldn’t even defend himself against Fester’s knees and elbows when the psycho paid him a visit, how the hell was he going to take the man out like he needed to?
Fester looked in through the window, then opened the door. He was carrying a large canvas bag and smiling, and Dox thought, Nothing good can come of this.
“I was just thinking about you, Uncle Fester,” Dox said.
Fester smiled. “Yeah? I’m glad I didn’t find you touching yourself, then. It would have been embarrassing.”
“Well, funny you should say that, ’cause that’s exactly the thing I was thinking about. I was wondering if you’d ever had any kind of psychosexual workup. I think you might be intrigued by the insights. Did you know that eighty-five percent of people with an inclination to torture were bed wetters and fire setters?”
Fester’s eyes narrowed and his ears flattened against his scalp, and Dox was pleasantly surprised. He was making this shit up as he went along, but who could say what kind of fucked-up childhood might produce an adult specimen like Uncle Fester? Anyway, it seemed like he’d just hit a nerve.
“No,” Fester said. “I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yeah. It’s all in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Harvard Psychiatric Review. You ought to read the articles, you could learn something about your nature.”
“Yeah, cabrón? I wonder why you enjoy reading those articles.”
“Oh, psychos like you are a hobby of mine. For example, did you know that almost eighty percent of soldiers who volunteered for work as interrogators in World War Two were denied the necessary security clearances because the tests proved they were latent homosexuals? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. Gay será, será.”
Fester smiled and one of his eyes twitched. “Remember how we talked about these?” he said, reaching into the bag and taking out a car battery and alligator clips. “When we waterboarded you and you screamed like a girl. It made me think…why not?”
“Oh, Fester, you shouldn’t have. Sharing your toys with me like this, it’s touching.”
“Keep talking, motherfucker. It’s a nice warm-up for screaming.”
Dox smiled, continuing to play the game, but inside he felt a rush of adrenaline at the possibility that had just suggested itself. So this was the “surprise.” Fester wasn’t going to settle for a few well-balanced pops today. He wanted to use electricity, instead, which would involve getting close and staying close while he fucked around with a bunch of wires.
No one else was on the boat. There was never going to be a better chance.
“See, that’s what I’m talking about,” Dox said. “Don’t you ever wonder why you enjoy this shit so much? Or were you afraid if people found out about it back in old Mexico they’d have turned you out good and made you somebody’s bitch? And the worst
part is—admit now, it’s just the two of us—you secretly wish somebody would.”
Fester smiled his psychopath smile again. “Turn around, cabrón.”
“Sorry, amigo, but giving my back to someone with your documented proclivities would likely spoil my whole weekend.”
“Turn around, cabrón. Or I’ll turn you around.”
Dox felt a dip in the boat that told him someone had just stepped onto it. Then footsteps on the stairs. Shit. He’d been so close to provoking Fester into a heedless charge. Well, maybe he could cause a little more animosity, enough to guarantee another encounter like this one.
“Come on, Fester, tell me the truth. You like those photos, don’t you? Where the men are wearing black leather masks and holding cat-o’-nine tails? Maybe some Nazi SS uniforms, you know what I’m talking about, the good stuff. I’ll bet you’ve got yourself a collection, I’ll bet you know all the best Internet sites.”
Fester’s face went white and Dox thought, Damn, I’ve nailed you dead to rights, you damn pervert.
The door opened and the young-looking guy walked in. He looked at Fester, then at the battery he was holding. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Fester said. “Why are you back so soon?”
“What’s with the battery?” the young guy asked, his expression indicating he had a good idea of the answer and didn’t like it at all.
“Uncle Fester finds gratification in getting in some extra licks when he thinks no one’s looking,” Dox said. “This is just the first time he’s been caught in the act. You are all aware he’s homosexual, right? Ask him about his photo collection.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Fester snarled, and took a step toward Dox.
The young guy had a gun in his hands, and was pointing it at Fester, so fast it seemed like a magic trick. Dox blinked, wondering for a second whether he was seeing this right.
“I can’t allow that,” the young guy said, his voice perfectly calm.
“Mind your own fucking business,” Fester said, and the look in his eyes was so hate-filled and dangerous that Dox decided the young guy had shown first-rate judgment in not waiting to draw his weapon.
“I am,” the young guy said, still in the same no-nonsense tone. “And you’ll thank me for it later, when you’ve had a chance to cool off. For now, I want you to back up and go through that door. If you do anything other than comply with my clear instructions, I will shoot you dead.”
For one second, the room was perfectly silent. Then Dox said, “This is a difficult way to come out of the closet, Fester, but there are organizations that can help you with the transition. Hotlines, things like that. You just have to…”
The young guy took a step back. Keeping the gun on Fester, he turned his head to Dox. “You, shut the fuck up,” he said, and something in his tone made Dox decide he ought to comply.
Fester backed out as directed, and the young guy followed a moment later. Dox heard the door lock, then their footsteps going up the stairs.
He sat there for a long time after, thinking. He wasn’t sure whether he’d just created an opportunity for himself, or a death sentence. The one thing he did know was the next time Fester managed to be alone on the boat with him, he was going to find out.
25
A BEGINNER WOULD HAVE looked more closely, checking his perceptions, telling himself until it was too late it couldn’t be so. Someone with a bit more seasoning would have glanced away, but only after a startled reaction, and some visible effort, which would have warned the enemy he’d been spotted. A real survivor understands the essentials instantly. And what couldn’t be understood now, I would consider later.
I took the steps to the sidewalk and set down the box so I was standing between it and the bike. I put my back to Mr. Blond and started “unlocking” the bike chain, watching him in the side-view mirror attached to my shades. He was twenty yards away, not hurrying, but not taking his time, either. He was wearing a black wool hat, not so much against the cold, I was sure, as to make him harder to describe if there were witnesses. It might have been enough to throw me off, too, but his gait had that same liquid ease I remembered from Saigon, and that was all I’d needed to make him here.
How he’d found me didn’t matter for the moment. What he was here for, I could assume. My main advantage was clear: not only had I given no sign I spotted him, he didn’t even realize I knew who he was.
Now that my back was to him and he didn’t know I was watching, I looked more closely in the side-view mirror attached to the helmet. He had on a black, waist-length leather coat and, I now noted, gloves. It was how I would have done it. The hat to obscure features; the gloves to prevent prints; the coat as light armor in case something goes awry and the target rallies with a weapon. He was wearing shoes with thick soles, almost certainly rubber, and his footfalls were noiseless.
However he planned to do it, it would be close. If it were a gun, it would be small caliber for reduced noise profile, and he’d want the muzzle right against my head. Even if it were a suppressed larger caliber, he’d want to be as close as possible to be sure of the shot. A knife, of course, would be quietest of all. Regardless, by giving him my back, I would increase his confidence, change the implicit risk/reward calculus I knew was running through his mind, reduce the apparent dangers of proximity and thereby encourage him to enter the range I wanted.
I watched in the side-view. Ten yards now. A fresh dump of adrenaline surged through my gut and my limbs.
Eight yards. I unwound the bike chain from the frame. It was over three feet long and close to ten pounds, and attached at both ends by a heavy steel lock. I took hold of the end opposite the lock, pretending to wrap the chain around the stalk under the seat, letting him see my hands at work, keeping his confidence high.
Five yards. His right hand dipped into his coat pocket and eased out, his arm staying close to his body, his hand just in front of his thigh. His thumb flicked a lever and a blade appeared. A decent bet, I thought, that he’d decided to exploit the apparent opportunity to take me from behind by cutting my throat. The advantages would be certainty of lethality, and blood spurting away from him rather than onto his clothes.
Three yards. My heart was thudding like a war drum in my chest. I fought the screaming urge to turn and face him before he got any closer.
Two yards. He started to ease to the right to get around the box I’d set down. Now.
I spun clockwise, the chain in my right hand, the lock on the end of it coming around like the racket on the world’s nastiest tennis backhand. Mr. Blond’s reaction was instantaneous and showed a lot of training: he brought his left hand up to the right side of his face, turtled his shoulders, dropped through his hips, and, most important, stepped forward, inside the arc of the chain, where a blow would deliver less force. But I’d anticipated all of it, and action beats reaction every time. Between the length of my arm, the length of the chain, and the flex of my hips and legs, I had a lot of room to adjust. I drew in by an equivalent distance, and the lock snaked around and blasted into his upraised left hand and right temple like the end of a medieval flail.
His head snapped to the left and he staggered in the same direction. The chain came about, and as it passed my centerline, I swiveled my hips and swung it in again, forehand this time, coming in from my right. Mr. Blond’s weight was on his left foot and he couldn’t move out of the way. But somehow, even with his circuits scrambled as they must have been, he managed to drop his weight and get his left hand up again, high this time, palm out, his forearm protecting his face. The lock blasted his arm back into his head and rocked him to the right. But with a wounded quickness that amazed me, he managed to snake his arm around the chain and get a hold of it before it bounced past him.
I tried to yank the chain away. Mistake: he pulled in the other direction and used the counterforce to find his balance. His left foot was forward now, a few inches from my right, our bodies mirror images attached by the short length of chain
. He took a half-step in with his right foot, and a left sidekick blurred into my ribs. The impact knocked the wind out of me and plowed me backward into the bike. Only my grip on the chain kept me from going over.
He still had the knife in his right hand, close to his body. I felt what he was about to do: shuffle step in, engage me with his left hand, stab with his right. And my side was wide open.
I reached back with my left hand. He shot forward off his left leg, the right foot trailing, closing the distance, the knife coming into range. My groping fingers closed around the bike frame. His weight was carrying him forward now, the momentum channeled through his legs and into his knife hand. Supercharged with fear and adrenaline, I swung the bike around like a discus thrower, getting it between us just as he closed and went for my guts with the knife. His hand punched through the wheel spokes and I twisted away a half-inch from the blade.
He froze there for a split second, his left hand still gripping the chain, his right caught in the bike wheel, trying to process these novel circumstances. I didn’t know what kind of training he had, but it was a safe bet getting a bicycle wrapped around you wasn’t part of the curriculum. Plunge forward? Jerk back? Let go of the chain? So many options, so few neurons…
I didn’t give him time to come up with something effective. I sacrificed my hold on the chain and grabbed the bike wheel with both hands, twisting and rotating it to my left. His elbow was pushed into his body, and his hand cranked past his shoulder. He howled in pain, his fingers came open, and he lost the knife. I twisted harder, and he bent sideways at the waist to keep his elbow from being broken. His right knee was torqued at almost ninety and twisted in, and he had too much weight on it to get it out of the way. I rotated counterclockwise, raised my right foot, and stomped down through the back of his knee, breaking it. He howled again and as he collapsed over his ruined leg, I twisted the wheel harder, and his elbow snapped, too.