by Schafer, Ben
“I don’t know what he has told you,” Abbas said as he gestured with to Jamil, “but I don’t want to kill my wife. I love her.” I was surprised by the honesty in the colonel’s voice. “When she suffers, I suffer. She is my wife, and I have an obligation to care for her.”
His voice became a growl. “But she cannot continue to make reckless decisions and then avoid the consequences for those decisions. Those consequences are painful for everyone, not just her.”
He pointed to Hashim, who anxiously rocked back and forth on his feet. “My son is innocent in all of this. He should be home at school with his friends. Home with me. But Azima took him away from that life, a life of comfort and happiness, to risk his life in one reckless stunt after the next. I want you to think, Mr. Hoyek, really think about how many times Hashim has been in danger since you arrived. Think of the shootings and explosions he narrowly survived. Consider the death and destruction you have forced my six-year old son to witness. Tell me that Azima made the right decision.”
I hate it when the bad guy starts making sense. “That doesn’t explain the bruises,” I said.
“It is an unfortunate truth, but nothing motivates any living being better than pain,” Abbas replied. “I don’t enjoy hurting her, Mr. Hoyek. If I resort to those methods, it is only because I have exhausted all other options. As I said, I love Azima. But if I am forced to choose between my rebellious wife and my only child, my legacy, well,” he sighed. “In the end, that is no choice at all.”
“You’d kill her out of revenge?”
“She left us,” Abbas thundered. “She chose to abandon her family. When she couldn’t bear the loneliness of her decision, she did what she always does. She made someone else suffer for her mistakes. She kidnapped my son, someone she abandoned for weeks, and nearly got him killed.”
“Key word: nearly,” I quipped.
Abbas took that comment almost as well as Cuvier had. “Do you take this as a joke? I was moments away from killing my wife. I had my finger on the trigger when your call came through. I am not exaggerating when I say that you spared me from committing the most tragic act in my life.”
This had taken an unexpected turn. If Abbas really cared so deeply for his wife, even in his own perverse and controlling way, maybe he would allow us to walk free. “I’m glad to hear that you’re agreeable to my terms, then.”
Abbas frowned. “I am afraid that you misunderstand my intentions. I can’t let my wife leave my side. Otherwise she would just do something stupid like try to abduct my son again. And, of course, I would never abandon Hashim to be raised by a stranger.”
Abbas looked at Scarface. “Take the boy inside. Things are coming to a close here, and he has seen enough bloodshed as it is. Once he is secure, return so we may finish this.” The man nodded his head and led Hashim into the safety of the steel building.
Oh, crap. I should have known that Hashim was the sore spot in this whole negotiation. Neither Abbas nor Azima would ever walk away without their son. They were both uncompromising and stubborn. Now it looked like the whole deal was going south in a hurry. Abbas had a half-dozen special forces soldiers at his command while Azima could only rely on her Knight in dusty leather armor.
This time, it might not be enough.
I couldn’t beat them in force, but I still had an angle I could play. I lifted the Browning and pointed it at Jamil’s neck, where it would be in plain view of Abbas and his men. “I’m not bluffing, Abbas. Let them go or, I swear to God, I will put a bullet in him.”
“If you do that, you lose your only leverage,” Abbas replied, echoing Nadir’s words from the dock.
“That’s true,” I admitted. “I know the second that I pull the trigger my life is over. But do you think that you could put me down before I manage to take you with me? I barely need to twitch to send more rounds your way, and your gun is still at your waist. How about it? Will Azima walk out of here as a divorcee or a widow?”
“Listen to him, Abbas,” Jamil sobbed. From waking up in a warzone to this nightmare, he was having a crappy day. “He’s crazy. He’ll do it. Just give him the girl and we can come to an understanding.”
“Your friend is pretty smart, Abbas,” I commented. “There’s a way we can all walk away from this, but the window of opportunity is getting smaller by the second.”
Abbas stared at me. “Or perhaps the window was never really open in the first place.”
I rolled my eyes. “Look, I get that you brought some muscle and you’re trying to intimidate me and that’s cute. It is. But I’ve faced longer odds than this, so you’re not as scary as you think you are.” I laughed. “Hell, this isn’t even the craziest thing I’ve done this week. And I’ve got to assume that your buddy is more valuable alive than dead. Is that a fair assessment?” I looked to Jamil, who nodded frantically. “That’s what I thought. So my leverage still stands. And unless you want to see his brains explode out of his face, you need to—”
Abbas was fast, scary fast. In a single blur of motion, his Colt flipped up and delivered a single round through Jamil’s eye socket. Jamil’s head was reduced to a big, bloody mess. I recoiled as blood sprayed onto my face.
It all happened so fast, I hadn’t had time to think. But it didn’t take a genius to realize that there were bound to be more bullets coming. Jamil’s body fell back toward me, and I reflexively caught him. I learned an important lesson that day: dead people are heavy.
I braced for the inevitable barrage of gunfire. Some analytical part of my mind noted that the bullet hadn’t penetrated Jamil’s skull, meaning Abbas wasn’t loaded with full-metal jacket rounds that would pierce all the way through. With any luck, Jamil’s body would absorb some of it. I’ll admit, it wasn’t a great plan, but you work with what you’ve got. And what I had was one pistol, one corpse . . .
And no way out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THERE was little I could do but wait for Abbas’ men to fill the air with bullets. Ten seconds passed, then twenty, and still no one fired another shot. I wedged myself under Jamil’s body, so my line of sight was broken. I struggled to shift my head so I could get a glimpse of what was happening. Was he about to execute Azima before returning his attention to me?
Fortunately for her, Abbas still aimed his weapon at me. Scarface, who had returned from the warehouse and now stood at his commander’s side, tilted his head toward Jamil’s corpse. “Gotta admit,” Scarface mumbled, “Never seen that before.”
“Yes,” Abbas said absently. His voice grew louder, obviously aimed at me. “Normally I would love to see whether your macabre body armor would do you any good. But this is a special occasion. Release him. Put down your weapons and I promise that no harm will come to you or Azima. Not yet.”
Jamil’s body was crushing me, making it hard to breather. I wheezed out, “Why should I trust you?”
“Because the alternative is for my men to shoot you both. With all the trouble we have both gone through, is that really the way you want all this to end?”
Jamil was a big guy, and I was getting tired. My only hope was to figure out what game Abbas was playing and turn the tables. Anything less meant certain death, and not just for me. I took a step back and the body plopped to the asphalt.
I lifted my hand to clean my face. Scarface and the Mustache Brothers reacted swiftly, their weapons trained on me in an instant. Meanwhile, the man holding Azima kicked her to her knees and placed a Makarov pistol to the back of her head. I held my hands open, then slowly set the Browning on the ground beside Jamil’s corpse. I lifted the combat knife out of its sheath and placed it beside the handgun.
“There,” Abbas mocked. “Isn’t that better?”
I wiped the blood out of my eyes. “He was your friend,” I shouted at Abbas. “He trusted you!”
“He was dead the moment you broke free.” His voice betrayed absolutely no emotion. If he felt guilty about killing his friend, he was doing a good job of hiding it. “He knew that. This was never about h
im. This is about you.”
That explained why Jamil had been so afraid of what should have been a simple exchange. I thought that it was odd that he would rather remain my prisoner than return to his boss. He must have known this was coming. “So, what? This was just to lure me out so you could capture me again?”
Abbas snapped his fingers. Scarface lowered his Skorpion and took the Colt from his colonel’s hand. Abbas then began to shrug out of his coat. “I still don’t think you understand your purpose in all of this,” he said. “You don’t realize how detrimental your influence on my wife has been.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know more about you than you think,” Abbas replied. He passed his coat off to his subordinate and stretched out his neck. “Believe or not, my wife has not always been this rebellious. There was a time after our marriage that we were happy together. She cared for me and I provided for her and protected her. The trouble started after Hashim was born.
He began to step toward me, loose bits of asphalt and glass cracking under his boots. “Suddenly, Azima fought me on every decision I had to make. What we should name him, where he should go to school, who should be his nanny—”
I smirked. “The way I understand it, it was your nanny who allowed Azima to take Hashim out from under your nose.”
Abbas pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes,” he stretched out the word. “That was regrettable. But it doesn’t change the fact that a wife is expected to support her husband, not challenge him at every turn. Every time she challenged my decisions, every time, she invoked your name. She would talk of her father and compared him unfavorably to your parents.”
He shook his head. “Can you imagine? My wife wanted to mold our son after your image, not that of his father. Just look at you, a mercenary who drifts through life without commitment. Is that the model Hashim should emulate?”
“I don’t think that’s—”
Abbas wasn’t finished. “Imagine my surprise when my associate informed me that you were the one leading that little band of traitors out of Syria.”
He kept walking toward me as he spoke and took each step with methodical precision. The click of his boots on the pavement was like a metronome. Abbas wasn’t rushing into this. He was acting smart, careful, and observant. Usually, the bad guys underestimated me. It didn’t seem that Abbas shared that weakness.
“You should have seen her when your voice came over the radio,” he said, disbelief in his tone. “She was battered, bound to a chair, and staring her own death in the face. But then you spoke, and she did the last thing I expected.”
“She started singing show tunes?” I guessed.
Abbas shook his head. “She smiled. Azima knew, with absolute certainty, that you would come for her. It didn’t matter that I held a loaded gun against her forehead. I had already lost, or so she believed.” Larger pieces of glass crunched under the colonel’s boots as he drew ever closer.
“It was in that moment that I understood what drove her to rebel, why she never stopped running away from her problems. It had nothing to do with me or her father. She was consumed by the naive fantasy that she deserved to live a life without restraints. She failed to understand that the things she perceived as shackles were the things that gave her life purpose and direction. You were the root of that fantasy, and you have been since you were children.”
I realized why Abbas agreed to our meeting. “To destroy that fantasy once and for all, you decided to bring me out here and kill me in front of all the world. Well,” I corrected myself, “in front of your cronies and any voyeuristic Russians who happen to be watching. Why not just shoot me when you had the chance?”
“Any fool can pull a trigger,” Abbas said. His fist clenched and I heard his knuckles pop. “This needs to be done right. I am a man of honor—”
“Who beats his wife,” I interjected.
“I am a man of honor,” Abbas repeated, irritation plain in his voice. “I will give you a fighting chance to survive.” He was so close that he barely had to whisper the words for me to hear them.
I started to back away. Abbas was a huge guy, and I wouldn’t last long if I didn’t have room to maneuver. I took two steps before one of the soldiers behind me tracked my movements and positioned himself to block my retreat. I was encircled and cut off.
The soldier shoved me back into the “ring” with Abbas, who was almost within my reach. In my attempt to get away from Abbas, I had backed myself into a corner. I had to buy some extra space or this would end fast and bloody.
For such a big guy, Abbas moved incredibly fast. He took three bounding steps toward me and flew fist-first at my chest. I hadn’t been anticipating Abbas to attempt such an aggressive move so early in the fight. But that must have been the point. Because of my confusion, the blow landed squarely on my solar plexus and drove the wind out of my lungs.
Abbas didn’t slow down as he threw short, powerful jabs at my floating ribs. I made a feeble effort to block them, but Abbas just kept pounding away at my defenses. This fight was going bad for me right out of the gate. If I didn’t get control of this confrontation soon, I wasn’t going to have the slimmest chance for survival.
Sensing that his victory was near, Abbas moved in for the kill. Thick gorilla hands wrapped around my throat and closed like a vise. I only had a handful of seconds before I blacked out. I could already see spots dancing around the corners of my vision.
The key to fighting is physics. I don’t care how strong you think you are, my back and shoulders can apply more force than your fingers any day of the week. I grabbed Abbas’ thumbs and yanked his hands violently away from my neck. As I enjoyed the sweet feel of air in my lungs, I drove my knee into his abdomen. That drove him back a step and gave me enough room to slide between him and his goon and into the open space at the center of the “ring.”
He sidestepped to the right and I did the same. I winced as I rubbed my neck. I wasn’t about to let him get in close like that again, not unless I had some sort of advantage. Unfortunately, my knife and Browning were still out of reach. In any event, I had the feeling that if I went for either of those items, Abbas’ men would put a bullet in my head. So I had to improvise.
Abbas barreled toward me again. The first time had been devastating, but this time I saw it coming. I smirked and dodged to avoid the charge. Maybe Abbas only had the one move. An overwhelming and effective move, perhaps, but predictable nonetheless.
I should have known better. The charge was a feint. He stopped short and used his momentum to kick out with his left leg. If I had remained still, I would have been in a prime position to block such a move with relative ease. As it happened, his leg smashed into my ribs with tremendous force.
Abbas gave me no chance to recover as he stepped in to close the gap. His fist rose as if he was performing an uppercut, but instead of hitting my jaw he threw a solid punch to my stomach. I doubled over and wheezed. Abbas stepped in even closer and closed his hands together to drive me to the ground. Before he could, I snapped my head back quickly and clipped the big guy’s nose.
He stumbled backward. I followed the attack by swinging my right elbow at his jaw. He bobbed his head out of the path of my initial strike, so I decided to change tactics. With my elbow still in mid-swing, I wrapped my left hand around my right fist and drove the elbow straight back into Abbas’ throat.
He growled in fury, then put a meaty hand on either side of my face. He slammed his forehead onto the bridge of my nose. While my quick version of that move drew blood, his struck so hard that I was knocked to the ground. I scrambled to crawl out of his range as he stomped a heavy combat boot into the space my neck had recently vacated.
I was still on my hands and knees when Abbas kicked me in the ribs once more. The blow sent me sprawling on the asphalt. I lay there, gasping for air and crawling over gravel and debris. Unless I figured out a way to change the game, we wouldn’t be playing around much
longer. I rolled onto my back and sprang to my feet, hands balled tightly into fists.
As Abbas closed in on me, I threw a quick jab at his bloody nose. He sneered and moved to block my hand, but he’s not the only one who knows how to use misdirection. Before my arm fully extended, I flicked my wrist and flung a cloud of gravel and glass into the colonel’s eyes. The move surprised him but wasn’t a serious threat. That is, it wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t used the momentum of my punch to slam my open palm into his face. Shards of glass carved at his eyes, nose, and cheek. He twisted away from me on reflex, the motion drawing thin red lines of blood down to his chin. His sneer turned into a snarl as he clawed at his face.
He threw his right hand out in a wild haymaker punch that didn’t come close to connecting. Before he could withdraw his arm, I grabbed his hand with my own. I swiveled my body clockwise and placed my left forearm against his elbow. Then I pushed with my full body weight, completely locking Abbas’ elbow. I maintained the twist and forced him to the ground. In this case, his bulk worked against him. If he didn’t yield this fight, it would take relatively little effort to pull the shoulder out of its socket.
It turned out I wasn’t the only one willing to cheat. As soon as he realized I had him pinned, Abbas screamed at his men. “Shoot them!” he struggled to escape my grip without dislocating his shoulder. Debris and blood still filled his eyes, and his head jerked around blindly seeking someone who would follow orders. “Shoot them both!”
Scarface was only a few steps behind me and I heard him mutter, “Finally,” under his breath. I was forced to release Abbas to deal with this deadlier threat. As Scarface raised his Skorpion, I pivoted and grabbed his wrist with my left hand. I pressed with all my might to push the weapon clear of my body, then delivered a swift palm strike to the soldier’s throat. He dropped to his knees but held his grip on the gun.
When he dropped, I caught a glimpse of Azima over his shoulder. The guard behind her pressed the Makarov directly against the base of her skull and started to put pressure on the trigger. Part of me wanted to scream for her while another part wanted to look away from what would come next. Instead I stood there, throat paralyzed by horror and too engrossed in my own battle for survival to get to her in time.