Oh, my God.
Phase one complete.
Josh walked out onto the promenade. A football player on the turf at Wembley must feel like this; but the walls, hung with sheets of membrane rippling with patterns, replaced the live thousands; while it was music, not cheering, that deafened. As he advanced he pulled up his sleeves, revealing unprotected forearms: a provocation. Several fighters turned, eyes narrowing.
A Blade and a Blood were facing off against each other, preparing to fight. If Suzanne had taught him anything, it was the power inherent in unexpectedness, interrupting automatic behaviour to spin minds into confusion.
This is it.
Off to one side, someone called a warning. "There's a renegade!"
I'm worse than that.
He drew closer to the pair.
You just don't know it yet.
Drawing his blade, he said, "I challenge."
The crouching fighters paused.
"Which of us?" asked the Blood.
"Both of you."
Unlike the semi-pro extras, all of their training for months had been geared toward one-on-one confrontation with varying degrees of armour. Now he was going to take them into new territory. It was his only tangible advantage.
Sophie, my sweet girl.
She was his intangible strength, his sorrow and rage and love combining to produce determination beyond mission focus, beyond military discipline: the purity of Zen with purpose.
Then he was into the fight.
He whipped a low kick across the Blood's leading knee, driving him back, and continued the spin like a discus thrower, releasing – now! – and his knife flew at the Blade's face, straight for the eyes, and as the man reacted Josh used a sprint step forward to launch the jump, through the knife defence and bringing up his thigh, power in the hip and his knee ramming into laryngeal tissue, a flying knee-strike to the throat; and then the fighter dropped, still living only because of the protective gear. But there was another fighter behind Josh – move fast – and he shoulder-rolled straight over the downed Blade and came up on his feet, spinning to face the pursuing Blood, his own right hand held high.
In it shone the knife he had stripped from the fallen man.
Now, you start to realise.
He cut twice, fast and downward, and the Blood was on the ground, eyes open and unable to move as Josh's knee dropped, a crack as the sternum broke, then he hammerfisted hilt into temple and the Blood was out of it.
"Who's next?"
"I challenge," called a Blade.
Beyond him, two other fights were in progress – the show must go on – with a Blood against a semi-pro, and a two-on-two between semi-pros only. The music grew louder, and Josh wondered whether any of the viewers were watching him yet, or if all the webcast camera angles were on the official fights. Time to steal the attention.
He broke into a run, then dodged behind a near-upright rubberised slab, hooking his left behind a support and running up it, parkour-style, before rolling over the top and dropping. The Blade, realising the danger, spun as Josh closed on him from behind; but Josh used a backfist to knock the left arm, and hooked a cut inside, tearing the left biceps, then he elbowed the ribs and twisted back up, corkscrewed his body to stab beneath the chin then disengage, whipping sideways and out of range.
The Blade's face was red with blood from beneath his chin, but he came for Josh regardless, whipping figureeights through the air, as Josh dodged sideways, then went low.
To the Japanese this would be a sutemi-waza, a sacrifice technique designed to win or die. It was a variant of kata-ashi-dori, known in the West as a single-leg takedown; but Josh came from the side, rolling down the shin he had hold of, spinning the man down, continuing to roll across the fallen man's body, and stabbed downwards once before twisting away and staggering to his feet.
That had been a hard one.
"Behind you 7 o'clock high."
Without Tony's warning he would have died, but instead he spun, a high arcing kick hooking to the rear, heel across the bastard's face – he was aiming for the temple – but he followed with a left hook, collapsing to a downward elbow strike, then reversing the spin with a diagonal slashing uppercut and then to the other side, an X drawn with upward strokes, and blood spurted from beneath the fighter's arms, his hips giving way, dropping onto both knees, cracking them on the flagstones.
The final blow was an uppercut punch that Josh powered upward from the ground, smacking the guy straight back. Beyond him, all along the promenade, the other fighters – Bloods, Blades, and semi-pros alike – stood frozen, their other fights forgotten, the focus only on Josh.
I've got the limelight now.
Phase two accomplished.
Then phase three became insane.
First up was a Blood but affiliations were irrelevant now, and so were surprise tactics, as Josh blitzed forward with forehand and backhand cuts, his left hand creating a dance of independent movement, parrying and distracting, like the chi sao with Suzanne taken to another dimension: desperate to keep the other's blade from him, feeling a momentary sting, then he powered a right roundhouse kick to the thigh, stabbed down into the leg while his left arm was a shield, then he whipped the blade left-right and pushed the falling man aside.
Faster now.
These were pros, drilled to fight in certain ways, proven in sport, but his style used different angles and distancing; and they were fighting for money and perhaps the love of combat, while he was defending Sophie and the world, and that made all the difference.
He dodged left-right-left moving forwards, swept a Blade's forearm to deliver a lunging thrust with everything behind it, and then the Blade was down, wounded or a corpse, and he was onto the next challenge.
Faster still.
A blitzkrieg, two at once, and he elbowed one into the other, tangling them both, kicking down to shatter a knee, punching the side of a neck, stab-parry-stab and he was free of them.
Yes, like that.
Both arms up to defend, and he dropped into a bouncing squat, skewering the next man's foot with his blade, then leaping clear, because he was not here to score a contest victory on every fighter: he was here to plough through them while staying alive.
A group of semi-pros was rushing him and he did the only thing he could, surrounded as he was by obstacles and no time to get behind them: he plunged into the centre of the attackers, irimi his strategy, deep in the heart of the whirlwind, and then he had a knife in each hand – one of the men no longer had need of a weapon, and never would – and he became a blaze of movement, twin blades cutting in all directions, and then he was through the bloodied group and out the other side.
None looked about to pursue him.
Good.
But there were plenty still ahead.
Keep going.
Next was the deadliest enemy: two men approaching on different diagonals, keeping the angle when he shifted sideways. They were coordinated and watchful, a greater threat than a mob-handed group, advancing at a pace to suit them. Facing them was dangerous, so he decided not to.
He turned and ran…
There.
…as far as the nearest tall slab, where he leaped high, left hand in an ice-pick grip, slamming the blade into the rubber, the knife forming a piton, hauling himself up, then throwing himself away from the slab, over the head of one of the incoming fighters, and he kicked downward before dropping, arms like cobras hugging the guy's waist, rolling him to the ground – Josh's blade was point up beneath the liver as they went over – and then Josh was standing, his right hand slick with blood, his blade glistening a metallic red.
His left hand was empty – the other knife was still in the slab, high up – so he took the downed man's weapon. Now he had two blades against the other fighter's one, and whether that was sporting he no longer cared, as he fell on the guy with criss-crossing attacks chained seamlessly, leaving no openings as he cut the right arm open, then sliced the face.
; For a moment, the guy staggered back and looked about to quit; then he swung toward Josh–
Oh, for God's sake.
–who stamped down hard enough to shatter the instep, smacked a headbutt into the guy's face, then whipped him over in a good old-fashioned hip-throw, because he could.
The double downward stab was unnecessary. He did it anyway.
Then a muscular man, one of the Blades whose name Josh actually knew – Foster, known as Mad Mick and one of Fireman Carlsen's protegés – stepped in front of him, and brought matters back to a formal footing, as though this were still a normal Knifefighter Challenge, and the Knife Edge finale.
"I issue challenge."
Josh really did not want to face this one.
"Accepted."
Everyone else fell back because they knew Foster's reputation, and his other name was Wall of Death because the air around him came alive with danger, every limb a weapon, not just the blade. At least one fighter had gone down when Mad Mick bit in hard, tore away a chunk of the guy's carotid artery, then spat it out and grinned.
In that case, the medics had kept the loser alive. They might not try as hard to save an unknown renegade who had gatecrashed the party.
Josh zigged and zagged, attacks that he dared not push to completion, setting up a rhythm only to break it, and then he was charging from the outside, almost behind his opponent; but Mad Mick was fast, a hooking cut and a massive kick knocking Josh back. His chest felt caved-in as he rolled, then straightened, feeling vulnerable as Mad Mick charged in with a crushing attack.
There was a semi-pro nearby, purely a bystander, but Josh twisted and lashed out, cutting deep, pushing the whimpering guy into Mad Mick's path. A long punch travelled over the guy and rammed Josh's head back, green spots fluorescing in his vision. But his cut had hit target, the injured fighter spurting arterial blood, and as Mad Mick stepped into a scarlet puddle his balance wavered, which was all Josh needed.
He stabbed high, kicked low, half-parried a burning thrust along his ribs, cupped blood in his left hand and scooped it into Mad Mick's eyes, because if ever there was a fair fight, this wasn't it. He punched hard, and again; then Mad Mick was on hands and knees, so Josh dodged past him and continued his advance.
Must keep going.
Then the mêlée fell upon him.
His limbs were a blur and so were theirs, the attackers, their number unknown, while time slowed down in the paradox of violence, his body flowing – a double slap, left-right against a weapon arm, a backhand slice across the cheek, a stab-and-throw designed to tangle two men together – and for a while he had no weapons save his own body but everything was useful, his chest a pivot point as he hooked a leg with his own, ducked and pushed, came up inside someone's arms, close enough to smell sick-laden breath, hooked his thumbs up along the nose and ripped outwards. For a moment his opponent's scream stopped everything as Josh flung his arms wide, an eyeball spattering to either side.
They fell on him again, but he had a knife once more – there, a liver shot, and the man folded, unable to drop because of the fighters pushing from behind – and now Josh was double-bladed again, and the thing that happened next was strange.
Awash with blood, he laughed.
Again they closed but there was a difference now, a hesitation, and he hook-blocked with a blade while ramming his knee into a thigh, then groin, a downward elbow to the back of the neck, slicing backhand to spin away through a group of three men, the others falling back, and he kicked long to break another knee, cut the falling man's face, piled onward, momentum carrying him through the last few fighters, and then he realised: he had fought his way through, from one end of the promenade to the other.
"Three seconds," sounded in his ear.
Two fighters approached and suddenly tiredness clawed at his arms, but he would not give in to it as he flung himself forward and down, using the last-ditch technique that fighters consider a circus trick and impractical, save for the Russian Spetsnaz special forces who developed their own way for the battlefield, and that was what he used now.
Focus. There is only the…
On one knee, he threw the knives–
…target.
–and they spun through the air to strike home with meaty thunks in the same moment the lights went out.
Phase four was the waiting.
Below water, he lay in coolness, staring up at the kaleidoscope of light rippling across the surface, hiding him from the world. The darkness had lasted only seconds, long enough for him to roll over the edge and slip down into the water. At the bottom, he had felt for and found the tiny breathing cylinder, the device he had tossed in earlier.
Breathe.
It was about remaining calm.
Control.
From the world above, the music was an attenuated, eerie thump, while the fighters and webcast crew regrouped, commentators talking with excitement about what had occurred, and the renegade who had disappeared. It would take time for them to finish up the preliminaries, and proceed to the bouts in the inner arena, with the final four fighters from each team, along with the two iconic pros, Carlsen and McGee, while all around them the dignitaries sat at their plush tables, flushed with champagne and the sick excitement of watching others face what they themselves could not.
For some twenty minutes, until Tony gave the signal, he would remain here, submerged, hidden by the surface reflections.
Breathe.
And then the signal.
"Phase five. Go now."
He rose through the water, flowed up over the brickwork edge into a crouch on the edge of the promenade. Before him, starting some twenty feet high, a wide strip of red carpet marked the way to the indoors auditorium. There were civilians standing with the semi-pros, whose part was over. None looked in Josh's direction, not at first.
Heads began to turn as he advanced, dripping.
The fabric of his clothes was water-repellent, living up to its name as it shed liquid, so he felt light rather than sodden, with a new mental clarity, as if a wide space had opened up behind his eyes. People stared, and then drew back, as he walked along the carpet strip.
Four guards stood shoulder-to-shoulder across the entranceway, facing him. They had the bulk of powerlifters, the stare of snipers, and each hip bulged with a holstered firearm. These were the real deal, a barrier of determination.
"Down on your knees," one of them said. "And put your hands on your–"
Josh ripped his shirt open, tore his gun free, and fired eight times.
Always bring a gun to a knife-fight.
It was an old dictum, sort of a joke, and he remembered it as he blasted across the row of thighs, shooting the legs, to wound and because they looked to be wearing body armour. The rounds contained neurotoxins designed to incapacitate, not kill; and the men were lying stunned, mouths working, when Josh jumped over them and stalked through the entrance.
Phase five complete.
Showtime.
Raised platforms stood like plateaus above a forest, in the brilliance of spotlights rather than the sun, while below were not treetops but linen-covered tables and the smart coiffures of guests, while the river-like glitter came from polished silverware. At the far end, atop a yellow dais, stood the two team coaches, Fireman Carlsen and Ice Pick McGee, who would face off when the remaining pairs of fighters had finished. To one side of them, in plush red throne-like seats, Zebediah and Zak Tyndall flanked the prime minister, Billy Church.
All around, massive wallscreens replicated in realtime the pictures being webcast to the watching world. Those millions of remote viewers were five seconds behind the action; and the authorities believed that gave them the ability to cut transmission should the unexpected occur. They were yet to learn who was in control here.
Someone grabbed Josh; he struck them down.
"Holster the gun."
Hiding the weapon he continued down the red-carpet ramp, among the richly-dressed diners who more and more were turni
ng to look at him. There were bodyguards everywhere, but he was headed for Carlsen and McGee, and that made them hold back – that and the knowledge that their every action would be seen by millions.
Someone shouted, and hands grabbed both his sleeves.
Shit.
He twisted, one hand rising as the other descended, both circling, his torque and body weight stronger than their arms, and two men spilled to the floor, rolling against two more who had been closing in, and if he continued like this then their weight and number would bury him, and none of this would work.
Edge Page 33