by Sam Sisavath
He was going to die anyway, right?
Might as well have a little fun first.
As the gunshot echoed, he said into the radio, “You hear that?”
“You’re close,” Pollard said.
“I’ll be seeing you very soon.”
“Don’t keep me waiting.”
Keo clipped the radio back to his hip and pushed up to his feet, then away from the tree and stumbled forward. It was good to be moving again. For some reason, it felt worse when he was resting, which was a bit of a mystery. Shouldn’t it have been the other way around?
Christ, he hoped the stitches on the back of his head hadn’t snapped. Maybe Jacks’s flying knee strike had been more effective than he wanted to believe—and it had been pretty damn effective already.
He stopped for a moment to catch his breath for the—how many times was that?
He should really feel the back of his head to see if he was bleeding back there.
No. Ignorance is bliss.
Yeah, let’s go with that.
*
The park visitors’ building was still. Too still. There should have been someone standing around the vehicles still scattered across the yard. From his position, he could make out three ATVs sprinkled among the trucks. There were no sentries on the rooftops this time, and for the next twenty minutes as he sat quietly and watched, he didn’t see a single sign of life coming from inside or outside the building.
He hadn’t counted the cars when he was here yesterday, so he had no idea if Pollard had taken off in one of them or not. That was unlikely, though. He would have heard the sound of engines as he approached his target if Pollard was retreating.
Not that he expected Pollard to run. The man had chased him for almost three months, committing his fighting force in the name of revenge. Whether Pollard was in that building by himself or surrounded by his men at this very moment, he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Not while Keo was still alive, anyway.
Who’s the dummy here? Him or me?
Maybe both.
Nah, definitely me.
He positioned the submachine gun in front of him, and making sure he was still invisible inside the tree line, unclipped the radio and pressed the transmit lever. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
He lowered the radio and waited for a response.
Five seconds passed.
Then ten…
“I’m disappointed in you, Pollard,” Keo said into the radio. “I expected you to be waiting for me outside the yard for one of those old-fashioned Mexican standoffs. But I don’t see you anywhere. You’re not hiding from little ol’ me, are you?”
Another five seconds.
Then another ten…
“All right, then,” Keo said. “Let’s do this the hard way.”
He stood up—
Crunch-crunch-crunch!
He spun around, just in time to see a dark black shape smash into his chest, almost at the exact same spot where he had been kneed less than half an hour ago by Jacks.
What is this, kick Keo in the chest day?
The radio went flying out of his hand and his mind was still spinning when he felt the brutally cold steel—all five inches of it—sinking into his side. The blade only stopped its penetration after it ran out of steel and there was just the plastic handle of the knife bumping up against his skin.
Pollard, his face a mask of something that could be anger, pain, misery, or possibly just raw determination, picked Keo up from the ground and threw him out into the open yard with a loud, inhuman howl.
“Die!” Pollard shouted, stalking out of the tree line after him. “Why won’t you fucking die already?”
CHAPTER 16
Goddamn, that’s red, was the thought that ran through Keo’s mind when he saw his blood coating the tactical knife gripped in Pollard’s right fist. For some reason, it never occurred to him that his blood would be that bright and that red. Then again, it could just be the crisp glare of the morning sun playing havoc with his vision.
Or the pain. Yeah, it was probably the pain.
Pollard’s fingers were clenched so tightly around the brown handle of the eleven-inch weapon that they had turned pale white. The man’s face remained contorted in that odd expression—a mixture of hate and exhilaration—as he walked toward Keo, as if he had all the time in the world, and not at all like a father about to exact his long sought-after revenge against the man responsible.
Keo had lost the MP5SD. Between being picked up and tossed out of the woods (as if he were a child, which was pretty damn embarrassing) into the front yard of the park visitors’ building and flying through the air, the submachine gun had been dislodged despite the strap. He could see the steel suppressor jutting up from the blades of overgrown grass between him and Pollard. No way he could reach it in time before Pollard gutted him.
The Sig Sauer was also gone, and Keo couldn’t figure out how that had happened. Unlike the Heckler & Koch, though, the .45 was lost somewhere among the weeds. It was going to take a miracle to find it again.
His fingers were covered in (his) blood when he groped for and found the handle of the Ka-Bar knife. Lou’s. Or Chris’s. Either/or.
He slid it out of its sheath as he picked himself up from the ground. He expected Pollard to bull-rush him again, but the man actually slowed down, content to let Keo get up. It could be that the ex-officer was being sporting. Or maybe he was just confident.
Keo looked down at his left side. His shirt was soaked and blood trickled out through the small cut (almost invisible to the naked eye) in the fabric. The knife had gone in deep. All five inches of it. At least it hadn’t punctured anything vital, so the only thing he had to worry about was bleeding to death.
And the pain, of course.
Goddamn, there was a lot of pain.
“I didn’t know you did the dirty work yourself, Pollard,” Keo said.
How did he sound? Out of breath? Rushed? Hurt? He couldn’t tell by Pollard’s expression. The man had stopped moving and was standing a meter away from him. So close that Keo could hear the vengeful father’s haggard breathing. Or was that his own breathing?
Either/or.
“Now who’s being presumptuous?” Pollard said. “You don’t know me from Adam, son.”
Up close, Pollard looked older than he had expected. He might have been in his fifties, but the pained expression on his face made his lines more noticeable and tightened his eyes too severely. He had flecks of gray sprinkled among his short hair and a growing stubble. There was something else—a fresh red scar across his right cheek that looked like a perfect line. A bullet graze.
I guess I didn’t miss completely, after all.
“I think I know you enough,” Keo said.
“You have no idea,” Pollard said.
He was an inch shorter than Keo, but he was muscular, the kind of strength that came with years of hard work. Keo wasn’t looking at a commissioned officer who had spent his time in the office while his men sweated in the sun. Pollard knew physical labor, and it showed in the way he had effortlessly lifted Keo up and tossed him around.
Goddamn, he’s strong.
“Where I’ve been,” Pollard continued. “What I’ve seen.” His mouth twisted into a smile. “But you will!”
He charged, the knife slashing.
It was a good strike, the kind that came with a lot of practice. Unlike with Lou last night, there was no Primal Mode here. This was a calculated attack with a lot of thought behind it. It didn’t surprise Keo at all that Pollard was ex-military. He would have guessed as much even if he hadn’t known the man’s past from Fiona.
Keo’s Ka-Bar was two inches longer than Pollard’s knife, but that extra length was useless. It didn’t help that he was slow to react, moving almost as if he were stuck in molasses. It was the pain and the bleeding, both of it coming from his left side where Pollard’s knife had already taken a big chunk out of him.
Yeah, that’s it. That’
s the reason.
He barely managed to parry the slashing blade, but even as he sidestepped it, Pollard quickly readjusted his forward momentum and elbowed Keo in the face. He staggered back, more stunned than hurt, expecting to feel blood rushing down his nose at any second.
It was broken, wasn’t it?
Maybe not, because there was no river of blood pouring into his mouth. Not that the lack of the red stuff made the pain any less, because there was a lot of that, as if something had exploded inside his head. He did the best he could to fight his way through it, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Not even close.
Keo was busy stumbling backward, still reeling from the blow. Somewhere along the way, he had lost the Ka-Bar.
Shit. Where did it go?
Pollard was righting himself before darting in for another attempt. This time he came within half an inch of slicing open Keo’s forehead. Keo managed to snap his head back just in time as the blade (still covered in his blood, no less) flashed across his face.
The Ka-Bar. Where the hell is that knife?
Here, little Ka-Bar. Here, little Ka-Bar…
He struck out with his left hand, his only available option given their positions, and hit Pollard across the face. If he thought that was going to do anything, he was sadly mistaken. Pollard shook it off as if it were nothing and followed Keo, smashing his meaty left fist into Keo’s face.
That threw Keo for another loop, and he stupidly lowered his guard.
Pollard took advantage of the opening. He lunged and barreled his shoulder into Keo for the second time. Keo had no ability to resist and he went down, hard. The back of his head slammed into the ground and the universe seemed to cave in on him.
Oh yeah, that’s gonna snap those stitches, all right.
Then Pollard was on top of him, straddling his waist. The older man punched Keo in the face again, using the same fist that was clutching the knife.
Keo grunted, felt blood this time, and knew his nose was broken.
Pollard grabbed a handful of Keo’s hair and cocked back his knife to finish it. His face was wild, eyes bulging, the composure starting to disappear. Keo could see the Primal Mode starting to assert itself. And there was just the ghost of a smile on his lips, which somehow made it even worse.
“This is it, Keo!” Pollard shouted. “This is three months in the making! You ready, son? You ready to get what you have coming to you?”
Oh, shut up, Keo thought, and managed to reach up with his right hand and slip his fingers around Pollard’s throat, while his left snaked out and snatched the wrist holding the knife that was arcing toward his head.
Keo was hurt. His world was collapsing in on him. The burning fire in his left side hadn’t gone down since Pollard drove the knife into it. That, combined with the roaring pain from his broken nose, made him want to give in right then and there. But he didn’t. Because he couldn’t.
Gillian would so kick my ass.
He could taste his own blood dripping into his mouth. He just hoped the nose wasn’t too badly broken. Maybe he could reset it later. Didn’t girls dig guys with broken noses? Maybe Gillian was one of those gals—
“Die!” Pollard shouted, somehow managing to get the word out despite Keo’s fingers tightening around his throat. “Die already! Why won’t you just die?”
Pollard must have summoned every ounce of strength he possessed. Maybe he even dug deep down and found more, because Keo was losing the fight. Pollard’s right hand was moving, the knife traveling an inch closer and closer toward Keo’s—
He screamed when the point of the blade dug into his left cheek and drew blood. He didn’t cry out so much from the pain but from the surprise of having a steel instrument penetrating his skin and seeing it happen with the corner of his eye.
“For Joe!” Pollard shouted. “This is for my son!”
Keo was choking the life out of the man. So how the hell was Pollard seemingly getting stronger and stronger with every second, while he got weaker and weaker? How was any of this possible?
The only thing keeping Pollard from driving all five inches of the knife into Keo’s cheek was Keo’s hand, holding it back. Barely.
That is, until Pollard decided if he couldn’t go in, he would go up, and began pushing the double-bladed knife up instead of in.
The alien feel of the cold instrument slicing into his flesh sent all kinds of sensations coursing through Keo’s body. He wanted to scream out again, but couldn’t figure out how to do it this time. Maybe it was the pain from his side, or the one from the back of his head, or the knife cutting open his face at this very moment—
“Die!” Pollard shouted. “Just fucking die already!”
“No!” Keo shouted back. “Fuck you, and fuck Joe!”
He didn’t know how he had managed that little comeback. It must have also taken Pollard by surprise, because his eyes widened even further (was that even possible?) and the brutal mask of hate and anger and fury seemed to slip.
It wasn’t for very long—maybe a half second—but it was long enough that Pollard briefly stopped carving Keo’s face like a jack-o’-lantern.
Now now now!
Keo let go of Pollard’s neck, pulled his arm back, and punched the man in the throat. Pollard gagged and the knife cutting into the side of Keo’s face disappeared momentarily. It was just enough time for Keo to lift his entire body slightly off the ground, twist left, and cock his right arm in the air before driving it back and smashing the elbow into the side of Pollard’s neck.
He swore he heard something break as Pollard’s entire body seemed to go slack and he toppled sideways off Keo, landing in the grass on his side. Keo rolled away, then fumbled up to his knees and looked over at Pollard, expecting the man to get right back up, too, with the knife in his fist ready to finish the job.
But Pollard was lying on the ground, his head turned at an awkward angle. His hand, still gripping the knife, twitched, as if he kept trying to move it, to strike out at Keo, but couldn’t make it obey. His eyes remained intensely focused on Keo, though, and his lips quivered but no words or sounds came out.
Keo stumbled up to his feet. Blood was flowing in rivulets out of the cut along the left side of his face. He didn’t know how deep or long the cut was, but there was enough blood to know it was just deep and long enough. He put his hand over his left side, where Pollard had knifed him earlier. His palm was instantly slick, telling him he was going to need something better to stanch the bleeding than just blood-soaked fingers.
Pollard wasn’t dead, but he looked halfway there. He might have been paralyzed. Or, at least, he didn’t appear to be breathing anymore.
Keo crouched next to the man and stared back at him. “You should have left me alone.”
Pollard’s lips quivered, but no words came out.
“I’m sorry about your son,” Keo continued. “But Joe was a piece of shit and he deserved everything he got.”
Pollard’s body trembled and his eyes snapped shut.
Keo had seen men die in worst ways than what Pollard was going through. Some of those moments were the result of his handiwork. He thought he was used to it, up close and personal, but this…
He stood up. He didn’t need or want to see this play out.
He staggered around, looking for his weapons instead. He found the MP5SD nearby and slung it with some effort, trying not to pass out when he leaned down for the submachine gun, then again when he straightened back up. He couldn’t find the Sig Sauer anywhere, but did locate the Ka-Bar after about ten seconds of looking around. If it had been any better hidden, he would never have found it. Thank God it was nearby.
He looked over when he thought Pollard might have said something. But the man was looking in the wrong direction, and whatever sound had come out of his mouth had gotten lost in the late summer heat. If he had said anything at all. It might have all been in Keo’s head.
“Hey,” a voice said.
That one was definitely not in his head.
Keo turned around, fumbling with the MP5SD. Or he thought he was. He was in so much pain, and everything had gone so numb that he could have been flexing against the air and wouldn’t have known the difference.
“You look like shit,” a short figure standing next to him said.
It was a woman. Or a girl. Definitely female.
The sun was in his eyes, so he couldn’t really make her out. She looked small and frail, or maybe the brightness of the open field was playing tricks with his mind. God knew the pain was overwhelming every single one of his senses at the moment.
“Yeah?” he managed to say.
“Yeah,” the figure said. “You gonna die now?”
“I think so,” Keo said, and fell into the grass.
He might have slammed into the ground on his face, or his cheek, or actually managed to summon forth some still-remaining sense of self-preservation and reached out with his arms to stop his fall just in time. He couldn’t really be sure, and at that moment, he didn’t really give a damn.
The ground felt warm against his face, though that could have just been the blood.
Either/or.
CHAPTER 17
Thoom-thoom-thoom.
He was swimming in a fog filled with mud and pain. Throbbing, piercing pain. The kind that made you want to never open your eyes again.
Thoom-thoom-thoom.
He had no idea how long he had been asleep. The fact that he was waking up at all was a miracle. He was supposed to be dead. Right now, he wouldn’t mind a permanent—and most importantly, peaceful—rest.
Thoom-thoom-thoom.
There was that damn awful sound again. What was it? Flesh hitting wood?
Thoom-thoom-thoom.
He wished it would stop. It was bad enough he couldn’t breathe without feeling like his ribcage was going to implode. Keo had been shot, stabbed, and at one point almost paralyzed before, but no one had ever tried to cut off his face with a five-inch blade. That was a new one.