He’s not sure about the snakes.
He’s thinking about all this as he comes off the ramp from the tunnel and into the animal holding area of Wild World Live! hears the growl from one of the big cats hidden nearby. It’s a wide, sunken space, feeding into backstage, covered overhead by a massive awning meant to shield those below from the sun. The holding areas themselves are separated by sixteen-foot-tall curtains, and he imagines this is done to keep the animals from eyeing one another, though clearly it does nothing to hide their scents. The cat-or perhaps a different cat-growls again, and maybe the beast is smelling Bell, or maybe it’s just pissed off at having been left alone on this scorching day.
It’s a sound that sinks through flesh and awakens primal warnings that evolution has done nothing to dull. It’s a sound that makes his muscles tense, and draws his attention unconsciously from what he’s doing and where he is to the more urgent need to be certain-absolutely certain-that some pissed-off jaguar or indignant and hungry lioness isn’t about to make a meal of him.
This is why Jad Bell doesn’t spot the Tango until it’s too late.
This is what he tells himself later, at any rate.
He’s coming around one of the holding pens, this to his right, the heavy, high curtains blocking the sight lines of one animal to another. The stage is to his left, the literal backstage, and another curtained block lies dead ahead. He hears a snarl, this one unquestionably a warning, a declaration, catches the scent of fresh blood and offal, all suddenly clear; the ammonia tang of urine. He hears what he thinks is the sound of a baby’s whimper.
The curtain beside him flutters, parts. Head turn, a quick flash, a cage, a jaguar, a dead gazelle torn open stem to stern, organs spilling into a burgundy pool on the concrete ground. And the Tango, most important, the Tango: Caucasian, no more than his midtwenties, still in Tyvek, no mask, no gloves, black hair and startlingly blue eyes. A submachine gun in his right hand, and Bell identifies the weapon without thought, an MP5K. The man is grinning, opening his mouth to speak in the moment before he realizes Bell is standing, unexpectedly, in front of him.
Bell pivots, raising his weapon and trying to take a half step back all at once. The Tango is fast, or maybe he’s panicked and that makes him fast, but his left snaps up, into Bell’s hands, knocks the.45 out of line and out of his grip, sends the gun clattering to the concrete. Mouth opens, and he starts an inarticulate shout of surprise, but Bell is now stepping forward, snapping his forehead into the Tango’s nose. The cry is stifled, turns to a choke, his nose shattering, and he staggers back.
Bell presses, pursuing, trying to put his fingers through the man’s trachea. But the Tango is swinging the submachine gun up, wild, and the weapon begins to speak and spit even before it’s in line, and Bell throws his left forearm up instead, blocking the swing. He’s inside the man’s guard, drives his right at the Tango’s throat, hits his chin as the other man instinctively tries to protect his neck. Still surging forward, smashing the Tango’s back against the bars of the cage. The jaguar within roars, meal threatened.
The MP5K shouts again, another rattle of shots, wild, deafening in Bell’s left ear. He shifts, moves from the waist, gets his right onto the Tango’s wrist, slips to a finger, twists and pulls, feels bone snap. The Tango shouts as he loses his weapon, pounds his left down, trying to catch Bell at the back of the neck. Misses, the punch just low, hitting the spine and the mass of muscle. Bell grunts, right forearm rising to cross, again going for the throat, and now each man has a grip on the other; Bell can feel the Tango’s fingers clawing at his face, straining for his eyes even as Bell tries to force the man’s head back, tries to crush his windpipe with his arm. The Tango drops his weight, Bell’s purchase vanishes, and he feels half his wind rush free as his back collides with the cage. Punches with his left, hard and fast twice to the man’s midsection, and the Tango takes both punches and is now trying to crush the back of Bell’s head against the bars, through the bars. The jaguar roars again, and Bell feels a searing heat blossom at his lower back.
There is an awful clarity, a pristine knowledge, that comes to Jad Bell then and there. He is getting old, he is getting tired. He is a hard man, a warrior soul, a soldier, but this man, this Tango, is younger and faster and maybe stronger. This Tango, he fights like they taught Bell to fight; he fights dirty, for his life, and to win.
Jad Bell is about to lose this fight.
He strains to move his head against the Tango’s pressure, turns his mouth enough to find the meat at the side of the man’s hand, bites. Tastes sweat, copper, feels his teeth tearing skin, struggling to meet. This time, the Tango screams, uses his other hand to punch Bell in the face, breaking the bite, lurching backward. Bell lunges, again trying to press his small advantage, and the two are grappling again, out of the pen, into the open, clutching at each other, pulling at clothes and flesh.
Tango twists, using Bell’s momentum, trying to shake him, swinging him about. Bell hangs on, lungs burning, gasping for breath. This much exertion, sweat is pouring off him, pouring off the other man. World spins, peripheral information, all the things that fight-or-flight take in when fight is at full. He can discern the velvet-like fabric of the black curtains, sees a new set sweeping wide, revealing another Tango, armed, cage behind him. People in that cage.
He thinks he sees Amy.
Then they’re gone, out of sight, heavy fabric enveloping him, opening, as he and the man trying to kill him spin into a new pen. The Tango brings his knee up, sharp, catches Bell in the hip, frees one hand, follows the blow with another attempt at the neck. Bell shields, catches it on the jaw, light sparking behind his eyes and blood spilling in his mouth, and his grip is gone and he smashes into something hard and smooth. Feels it give way and an instant later, the shattering of glass.
He hits the concrete, feels the abrasion on his cheek, the weight of the Tango falling on him as he tries to roll. Vision clearing, and he snaps an elbow back, catches the other man a glancing strike to the head, too high for the temple. Rolling over broken glass, hearing it snap, and Bell sees dirt and rock and branches spilled on the ground, the cases on their stands, the snakes in their cases.
He’s on his back now, the Tango over him, feels his vision burst again, a rock-heavy impact and another, punched twice more in the face. Trying to bring one leg around, to lock the other man, but he doesn’t have it left in him, there is not enough air, there will never be enough air, and sweat stings, drips off this Tango into Bell’s eyes. Feels the hands at his throat, the cloud pressing into his mind, slowly trying to blind him. He flails, right hand straining amid the debris at his side, broken glass beneath his fingertips.
Something hisses like steam escaping a relief valve, the hood of a cobra spreading in the corner of Bell’s eye. The Tango’s grip loosens for a moment, the man looks, he can’t not, and the shard of glass is cold under Bell’s hand. He feels it cutting his palm as he takes hold, pours all the strength that remains into his right arm, striking up and in, feels the sadly familiar sensation of stabbing a living body. The Tango’s eyes snap wide as Bell shoves the piece of glass into the man’s neck, driving it upward, carotid, jugular, trachea, twisting it to make the wound crueler and quicker.