I didn’t do it.
“I am so sorry, Michel.”
“Sorry for what? Going all psycho on me?”
He breathed heavily on the floor in front of me. I was within striking distance. I felt confident. I watched him squirm on his back on the floor beneath me, wearing nothing but his hammam towel, his body slick with sweat.
“No, my friend. I am sorry you have to die.”
Obviously, Jean-Marc wasn’t the upstanding Gallic cousin I’d been led to believe he was. But I still felt confident. I was down on one knee, with one hand on top of his head and my fist aimed at his throat. I could finish him and he knew it. I expected whining from him, pleading, there wasn’t much else he could do. But he was a slippery bastard. The whole situation should have told me that. Instead of buying time with lies, he squirmed to the side, lifting his left shoulder off the floor.
It happened in the blink of an eye. One moment he was helpless and the next he had reached beneath him for some kind of gleaming blade. It must have been tucked flat into the back of his towel because I hadn’t seen it in the takedown. He came up fast and furious with his left arm slicing towards me. It was all I could do to leap away. Even then I felt his razor-sharp blade shave the hairs off my forearm. Just lovely, I thought. A knife. I really, really didn’t like knives.
Jean-Marc arched his back and leapt onto his feet. He was brawny, but he was also fit as was evidenced by the move. It required strong legs and a limber back and excellent abdominal muscles to jump up like that. In that moment, I realized that I may have underestimated him as an opponent. No doubt he’d done martial arts training of some sort, judo, or grappling of some kind. I had no idea why he had turned on me, but I was in for a fight.
I stood back, dancing on the balls of my feet on the slick floor, loose and ready. I hadn’t been hit yet and I didn’t want to be, given the weapon Jean-Marc was now brandishing. It wasn’t a regular knife. It was a short saber with a forward-curved blade and a bone hilt called a yatagan. In my brief time in Turkey, I’d already seen several of them for sale in shopkeeper’s windows. The sword had probably been hidden behind one of the stone basins prior to my arrival at the hammam. The yatagan’s single-edged, hand-forged steel blade gleamed in the mist. It was short enough to be concealable, but long enough to provide a good reach. I had little doubt that a single swipe of its high-carbon steel would be fatal. The trick would be, not getting hit.
Jean-Marc didn’t waste time talking. He let the blade speak instead. I twisted to my left watching him swing the glinting steel through the space I had occupied only a moment before, his wet towel making a stretching snap as he moved. I was thankful that he was still wearing it. I guessed he’d brought a spare towel to choke me with.
“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about this?” I said.
“I am sure, Michel.”
I continued to back up toward the marble octagon in the center of the room. Go to a knife fight without a knife and the number-one thing you want is a gun. Barring a gun, second choice is room to move. I didn’t need Jean-Marc swinging his yatagan at me with one hand while some well-meaning wall held my back in place for him. I stepped backward, Jean-Marc matching my step.
“Jean-Marc! What the hell are you trying to do to me, man?”
“It is not you, Michel. It is the job.”
“What job?” I asked.
Jean-Marc smiled.
“Killing you, my friend.”
Chapter 8
I felt the adrenaline surge through my body as he said the words. I’d struck his groin and flipped him on his back, but the Frenchman was tough, I gave him that. Whatever damage I’d been able to inflict, it hadn’t been near enough. Jean-Marc parried forward with the blade, scything by my shoulder for a second time. I glanced back, counting two more steps behind me before I hit the marble octagon in the middle of the room. I knew I couldn't keep backing up. Defense may keep you alive, but it doesn’t win a fight. I wanted to know, scratch that, I needed to know why my colleague was attacking me. And that meant I needed to go on the offensive.
But Jean-Marc didn’t need to know that. Better for him to think he had me. I counted another step backward. Jean-Marc grinned like a man possessed, sweat glistening on his forehead. The guy seriously wanted to hurt me, there was no question about that. He darted forward and thrust his yatagan down again. I turned, spinning on my left heel. Even so, I felt the blade connect with the tiny hairs on my arm for a second time. Any closer and he’d have me. I needed a plan.
That’s when I saw the old guy sneak out of the smaller hammam room. He had confused expression on his wet, wrinkled face. Jean-Marc must have followed my eyes. An essential rule of hand-to-hand combat is that you carefully control your eye contact. Just as an askance look can tell you what your opponent might do next, your eyes also telegraph your every move. But in this case, I didn’t mind Jean-Marc being distracted. I wanted him to be. I could use that to my advantage. Except for the fact that I hadn’t anticipated his response. Not entirely anyway.
Jean-Marc scythed around with the blade and connected with the old guy’s throat, just below his right ear. He parried forward far enough to ensure solid contact and continued spinning in a viscous arc, slashing the old man’s throat from ear to ear. The poor guy fell to the floor, bleeding out like a geyser before he could even scream. Crimson blood sprayed the walls. And Jean-Marc’s momentum carried through to me, big drops of blood glistening off the yatagan’s blade.
Now I was curious, but more than that, I was angry. Why had he gone after a civilian? Two possibilities: either the old guy wasn’t a civilian or, more likely, Jean-Marc didn’t want to leave any witnesses. And that’s why being mad was a problem. Because being mad could compromise my judgment. And in a life-and-death situation, compromised judgment kills as quickly as a bullet.
“Are you sure you don’t want to share whatever it is you’ve got on your mind?” I said.
“There is nothing to share, Michel.”
Michel. The way he said Me shell, with a long e and soft c, it sounded like a girl’s name. It didn’t matter, I wasn’t taking the bait. Jean-Marc slashed down with the yatagan, the tip of his blade millimeters from my heart. I actually felt the hot humid air part as he scythed through the move.
The way he slashed the sword told me something about him. It told me that Jean-Marc was a bit of a one-trick pony. Sure he was solidly built with a massive upper body. And he was pretty quick too. I knew that he’d crush me if he got me into a hold. But I hadn’t seen any real grace out of him since he’d flipped off his back to a standing position on the floor. Some guys are like that. They know a few good tricks, but not a whole lot more. That was my advantage. Now I needed to seize it.
I took my final step backward as Jean-Marc parried forward again. Except it wasn’t a step. It was a leap. I leapt up onto the marble octagon directly behind me, my toes gripping the smooth wet marble as I landed in a crouch. The truth was, I almost slipped. Wet marble surfaces aren’t to be toyed with, but neither are knives, so I was two for two, and more important, I was still standing.
The leap took Jean-Marc by surprise, I could tell because his balance was thrown off as he slashed downward missing me handily. He was leaning forward. Not far enough forward that he was in any danger of falling over, but far enough forward that he was off balance, if only slightly. The other thing working to my advantage was the blood. The hammam floor was now slick with the old guy’s blood and Jean-Marc had just stepped into a river of it.