Highlander: The Measure of a Man

by Nancy Holder

  He rushed back up the stairs and across the floor, and climbed back out the window. He leaped to the ground, intent upon entering at the ground level.

  But the bottom floor was engulfed in flames. He threw a hand protectively over his face and took a step backward, shouting, “Woodrich!”

  “Freeze!”

  MacLeod whirled around. Two police officers, guns drawn, sprang from a police unit, its lights an odd counterpoint to the glowing shadows of the flames.

  MacLeod pointed to the building. “There’s a man in there!” At least one. Or had they taken him away? Taken him to Machiavelli?

  One of the police officers pointed his weapon directly at MacLeod. “Stay right there.”

  He raised his hands. “Has the fire department been called?”

  “Don’t move.”

  The police officer unslung a pair of handcuffs from his utility belt. MacLeod huffed in frustration. He didn’t want to do this, but he couldn’t allow himself to be detained.

  Feigning compliance by holding out his hands, he executed a knee wheel, throwing the officer off-balance, and knocked the man’s gun out of his hand. The other police officer fired, but MacLeod rushed him and pushed him down without being hit. He backhanded the man across the face, knocking him out, and ran.

  Through the alleys, back to his loft, he leaped into the elevator and crashed into his home.

  “Samantha!” he cried.

  But he knew she was gone.

  ENDGAME:

  CHECKMATE

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Tire them by flight.”

  —Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  En route to Narita Airport, Tokyo

  The sunset.

  The cherry blossoms.

  Umeko…

  Samantha came to with a gasp. She pulled at the straps that bound her and tried to think through the throbbing in her head. Ruffio sat across from her, reading an Italian men’s fashion magazine. They were on one of Nicky’s private jets, either the Augusta or the Angela. She had been tied into one of the plush gray seats that were more like chaise longues than chairs. Many times, they had flown to Venice for dinner, to London for a rock-concert benefit. Now she was a prisoner.

  After Duncan had left her, she’d pulled on her black jeans and sweater by the time she had heard him running outside. Grabbing her sword, she’d darted into the center of the loft to investigate.

  Ruffio had been waiting for her, and gave her no quarter. With one stroke of his sword, he had disarmed her. As he swung her around, someone else had rushed her from behind, grabbed her by the hair, and yanked a cloth bag over her head.

  Ruffio looked up from his magazine. “You’re awake.”

  She said nothing.

  “It’s been a long time, cara. I have been very patient. Machiavelli promised me I could take your head myself. Although you won’t produce much of a Quickening, I’m afraid.”

  She steeled herself not to shrink from him. “In a fair fight, I could take your head.”

  He sneered. “What do you know about anything? He only took you into his bed because you were useful.”

  “And he only—” She bit off the rest of her childish insult. Perhaps he meant Duncan, and not Machiavelli. “It’s all a ploy to get her to trust me so I can use her to get to Machiavelli and take their heads.” She might die without ever knowing how far he would have gone to achieve his ends.

  “Only one more hour before we land,” Ruffio announced, obviously enjoying the sense of drama. “Given the amount of writhing Woodrich is doing, he might be dead by then. No matter.” He showed Samantha a shiny computer CD-ROM. “He’ll live on in the hearts and minds of our private global network.”

  “Your what?”

  He slapped her. “Don’t play stupid with me. We know you know everything.”

  “Yes. She does.”

  “No,” Samantha gasped, as Satoshi Miyamoto stepped from the shadows. “Sato, what are you doing here?”

  “Taking care of my master’s business.” He laughed. “You should be proud of me, ‘Sammi-san,’ for I have learned duplicity at my master’s knee. You never once suspected me, did you?”

  “But you died!”

  “You died. I only pretended. Machiavelli-sama would never have put me in real danger. We’ve been laughing so hard. Every time you called Tokyo and spoke to any of us, Machiavelli-sama was on the line. Did you know that?”

  She was devastated. Of course she hadn’t known.

  “Satoshi, you’re mortal. Why?” she asked.

  “There is a saying in English about hitching your wagon to the proper star. Do you know it?”

  “Yes,” she said, despairing.

  “You should have done it.”

  “Is… what has happened to the others?”

  “Our spies are fine, of course. But all your earnest coconspirators are dead.” Miyamoto turned to Ruffio. “I called on the plane phone. The bread factory burned to the ground. Those men we used to help us get Woodrich are nothing but ashes by now.”

  “Oh, God,” she murmured.

  “Indeed,” Miyamoto said, and then his eyes bulged and he fell forward, splaying across her as she screamed.

  Ruffio picked him up and dropped him to the floor. There was a knife hilt pushed deeply into the base of his skull.

  “Madonna, he was a bore,” Ruffio said, and leaned into her.

  “How will you feel if you see your beloved Duncan seated with our master, watching you die?”

  She said nothing. She would not cry.

  And no matter what he did to her, she would not scream.

  “Mac,” Dawson said as they drove into the airport parking lot, “we talked about this before. This is exactly what he wants you to do.”

  “I know.” MacLeod looked left, right, surveying the scene for police, for Immortals, for any of a number of other potential enemies or obstacles.

  “She probably hopped into a cab and trotted on down here. My God, MacLeod, he’s done this to you before. He almost killed you last time. What’s going to stop him this time?”

  “I could always hold him hostage again.” MacLeod flashed a wry smile at Dawson, but his mortal friend was buying none of it.

  MacLeod scratched his chin and started to duck as a uniformed woman sauntered by. She was an airport parking-lot “security officer,” whose main function was to deter the local gang kids from breaking into parked cars.

  MacLeod got out of the car and hefted his overnight bag from the backseat.

  “I’m flying under an assumed name,” he reminded Joe.

  Dawson groused, “That won’t help at all. He has spies everywhere.”

  “I’ll be all right.” He began to walk away from the car. Joe followed. Mac shook his head. “I’m less recognizable apart from you. Machiavelli knows we’re friends. Besides,” and now he chuckled, “the police are looking for a man wearing a bloodstained yukata.”

  “Damn it, Mac. Be serious. You could get killed.”

  “Then you’d be out of a job.”MacLeod meant it to be funny, but he saw at once that to Joe it was not. Dawson cared about him beyond Watching him for history’s sake. It was a startling thought to him; he wasn’t used to thinking of himself in terms of how other people felt about him.

  Unless they simply wanted to kill him.

  Dawson put out his hand. “Take care, Mac. And come back. I… a lot of people do care what happens to you.” As if he had read MacLeod’s mind. “Wish there was more I could do for you. Water your houseplants. Feed your cat.”

  MacLeod shook with him. “I travel light.” They had already agreed that Dawson would check his desktop computer every day, collect the mail, and look for any other communications from Machiavelli. They had also agreed that if MacLeod didn’t report in or come back in three days, Dawson was to let the world know what he knew.

  “Have a good flight,” Dawson said.

  They regarded each other. MacLeod replied, “Thank you, my friend. If we’d had a Dawso
n at Culloden, perhaps the clans would not have fallen.”

  Dawson smiled, clearly pleased by the compliment. “No doubt of that, MacLeod.”

  MacLeod headed for his plane, and Dawson stayed behind, Watching from afar.

  There was another Immortal on the plane.

  On alert, MacLeod moved down the gangway with the rest of the first-class passengers. The Japanese flight attendant at the entrance of the plane bowed deeply, oblivious to MacLeod’s intense scrutiny, then dismissal. She was not Immortal. Nor were the crew members in the cockpit.

  Could it possibly be Samantha? He studied the faces of the other passengers as he put his small suitcase in the overhead compartment and located his seat. Then, as the first-class attendants passed out warm towels and took drink orders, he checked the coach cabin. Next the lavatories. The presence persisted.

  The captain requested that everyone take their seats. Knowing his absence would only cause a delay, MacLeod complied, every sense on alert, laying his seat belt across his lap so that it looked fastened, although it wasn’t. He would not be restrained in the vicinity of a potential adversary.

  “Is this your first trip to Japan?” an elderly woman in an elegant suit asked as she sipped a flute of champagne.

  “No,” he replied, “although it’s been some time since I was there.”

  “Ah,” she said, and finished off the flute. She held it up. The flight attendant glided efficiently toward her and gave her a fresh one. She downed that one, too. Turning to MacLeod, she smiled uneasily. “May I hold onto you?” she asked. “I’m so terrified of flying.”

  Was she working for Machiavelli? Warily, he nodded. She wrapped her hands around his biceps.

  “Oh, my, you’re tenser than I am.” She waved a hand at the flight attendant. “My friend would like something to drink.” She smiled at him coyly. “Something strong.”

  “Scotch,” he said, and drank it when it came. The plane taxied down the runway and took off. The woman clung to him. He looked left, right, saw nothing and no one move. Would the other Immortal honor the Rule about fighting in the presence of mortals?

  For an hour he waited. Another, another. His seatmate became quite drunk and prattled on about her grandchildren and her Pekingese dogs. MacLeod got up several times to scan the aft cabin and the cocktail lounge, returning in frustration to his seat.

  Then finally, they reached the Sea of Japan, and MacLeod rose. He would be at a disadvantage when getting off the plane. He had learned never to make himself vulnerable, if he could help it. He thought of Samantha, and smiled grimly.

  The woman, barely able to lift her head, looked enquiringly—the seat-belt sign had been turned on—and he smiled and pointed to the lavatory.

  Inside the cramped space, he found a book of matches in his pocket and pulled a wad of paper towels from the dispenser. He wadded them in the sink and lit them, ducking quickly out. Then he jimmied the door to make it difficult to open.

  He was halfway to the first-class galley area when the smoke alarm went off. Two flight attendants barreled down the aisle; he stepped aside, then ducked into the galley, and into the crew elevator that led to the lower level.

  He stepped out into the bowels of the plane, the area known as “the pit,” by the time the smoke alarm went silent. He knew that the other Immortal would have been alerted, and standing ready.

  Drawing his sword, he burst into the small lower galley, hemmed in on all sides. Slashing furiously behind himself, he forced his way into the cargo area. It was dim, but not dark; he was caught in a maze of large metal containers. Along the bulkheads, large tarp enclosures held piles of luggage. At the nearest of these, he slashed large X’s, searching for his adversary.

  There was no one there. Yet the sense of another followed him through the labyrinth as he slashed at the tarps.

  He moved forward, katana raised upward like a shotgun, inching his way to a room filled with switches and lights. A sign read “AVIONICS.” He stepped inside.

  And his adversary leaped at him from the shadows.

  He was Japanese, dressed like a businessman, and hopelessly inept. MacLeod deflected his parry and took a step back.

  “My name is Taro Honda,” the man said. He held his sword in classic kendo style, looking frightened but determined. He lunged; MacLeod had nowhere to go, so he angled his sword and caught the other’s blade. The man, seeking the advantage, attacked again. His style was a strange amalgam of kendo and épée, effective in its way but sloppy, with too many sword strokes.

  The man was doomed, and appeared to know it. MacLeod thought of the havoc a Quickening could cause on the plane: the navigational systems gone amok, the hydraulics frozen, the plane slamming into the sea.

  “I have no quarrel with you,” MacLeod said in Japanese.

  “You have with my master.” The man flew at him, slicing left, right, aiming low, high. MacLeod deflected his blows and tried to hurt him, if only to stop him.

  “Machiavelli?” MacLeod asked.

  The man looked surprised. “Yes.” Again he attacked; again MacLeod held back. He was hampered by the smallness of the room; as he attempted only to defend himself, and not to take Honda’s head, his blade slammed into a bank of lights. Sirens went off, startling the other man.

  “You knew from the beginning I would take your head,” MacLeod shouted. “Why did you hide down here for so long?”

  The man looked abashed and uncertain. MacLeod narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t know what to do, did you? You didn’t even know how to challenge me.”

  “That’s not true.” Taro Honda slashed ineffectually. They were near the main seal. A Quickening might blow it. MacLeod backed up, leading the man out of the room and into the cargo area.

  “How long have you been Immortal?”

  “My master, Machiavelli-sama, gave me eternal life four months ago.”

  “Gave you? That’s what he told you?” Farther he moved back, farther still. He would wound him only, cut him down and kill him, then tie him up—

  “He gives us life.” The man was perplexed as he advanced on MacLeod. He was not hampered by his fear for the passengers on the plane. “He gave you life. He told me so. But you betrayed him. You left him. Therefore, that life is forfeit.”

  MacLeod seethed. Good old Machiavelli, lying to get his way, throwing people in his path like pieces of furniture to give himself the merest advantage in the chase. “He didn’t give me this life. And he didn’t give you your life. We were born this way.”

  The man pursed his lips. MacLeod couldn’t tell if he believed him or not.

  “It’s the truth. I bear you no ill will. Let me spare you. Lay down your sword.”

  “I cannot.” The man steeled himself. “I have sworn.”

  MacLeod tried again. “I’m telling you, he lied to you. He did not give you this life. He’s an evil man who knew I would probably take your head if we fought. He only sent you to inconvenience me.” Not very polite, but there it was. “If there’s a Quickening, all the people on this plane may die.”

  “There is no such thing.”

  Oh, God. “There is, Honda-san. And it will be your Quickening.”

  The man shook his head. “I’m obligated to keep my word.”

  MacLeod thought of his recent dream of Hamza. He thought of himself as a young man, dooming another to death for the sake of honor. He thought of his pledge not to take Machiavelli’s head.

  “Don’t do this,” MacLeod said. “Walk away.”

  “I cannot.” He began to swing and swing, almost blindly. He practically leaped on MacLeod’s blade. MacLeod parried and retreated, parried and retreated. Honda was wild. MacLeod remembered the Duke d’Fabrizi, and said, “Have a care.”

  Honda actually looked pleased, as if he thought he was winning. “I have sent many to their deaths for the sake of my master.” He smiled crookedly. “I know where the woman is. I betrayed her. I betrayed all of them. He has dealt with the disloyal ones.”

  Saman
tha? MacLeod advanced on him. “Where is she?” he demanded. “Tell me!” His anger rose. “Tell me.”

  “We will win.” Chuckling, the man raised his sword and sliced an overhead cable.

  The cargo area went dark except for a sign that lit up immediately, reading “CARGO EXIT.” The plane rumbled.

  MacLeod slashed.

  The man screamed.

  Damn, MacLeod thought, as the man’s head loosened from his body. He hacked at the sign and pushed the body out, leaped after it.

  They fell in the darkness, plummeting to earth like huge comets; the tail that emerged from the other man was the Quickening; it enveloped MacLeod like a thundercloud and shook him, shook him with its lighting and savagery; primeval, earth-shaking, earth-changing

  I am more

  more than I was

  I am

  I remain

  eternal

  I am a prince of the universe

  He was on fire from head to foot, twisting and dropping, that which was Honda melting into him; the poor, foolish man; they were all poor, foolish

  pawns

  falling

  falling

  into the sea.

  Dying there, on the huge, frozen waves of gray, as the whales called; as memories sucked him under

  Tessa

  Debra

  Maria Angelina

  all the others, so many,

  all his loved ones

  Samantha.

  Pulling him beneath the currents as the water rushed in and he died, gasped, died, looked overhead at the silhouette of a plane against the moon and raised a fist as if to push it up, to hold it in the sky.

  The fist unfurled; the hand sank.

  He died again.

  Again.

  Again.

  His clothes, his passport, and his wallet were soaked with stinking harbor water, but everything appeared to be in good working order. He had lost his cell phone.

  When he got to shore, it was raining hard, but not hard enough to clean his clothes. The eerie feeling of déjà vu of Venice swept through him again. He ducked into a row of harbor shops and got outfitted in French jeans and a black turtleneck sweater. The young girl who helped him told him how sorry she was that he had been drenched by the rain. She told him to go next door to buy a phone card and an umbrella, complimented him on his excellent Japanese, and wished him a good day.