De Klerx clenched his fists into tight, furious balls. ‘How did she die?’
‘She fell into the frozen lake.’
He shook his head. ‘No. No! She knew Iceland, she knew the lake. She would never have been that careless! What really happened?’ His eyes narrowed, fixing upon Eddie. ‘What did you do?’
‘Does it matter?’ Eddie asked, assessing the Dutchman’s mental state. He was close to snapping in sheer rage, meaning he might be provoked into doing something unwise…
‘Yes, it matters!’ De Klerx snarled. ‘Tell me! Tell me now!’
‘Remember that grenade launcher you had in Greece? I fired it into the ice underneath her. Boom.’ He mimed pulling a trigger, then raised his hand to blow smoke from an imaginary gun. ‘She went swimming with the elves.’ Sarah was shocked, Mikkelsson’s face still an emotionless mask — but De Klerx was now at the point of explosion.
‘Eddie…’ said Nina in surprised warning.
He pressed on, forcing a mocking smile. ‘Yeah, I killed her. What’re you gonna do about it, clog boy?’
Detonation. ‘I will kill you!’ De Klerx’s voice rose to a shriek as he launched himself at the Yorkshireman.
39
The attack caught the North Koreans by surprise, the soldiers hurriedly pulling back as De Klerx ploughed into Eddie. One brought up his gun, but Kang waved him down. A soldier hauled Nina away as Eddie fought back. The two brawling men lurched across the control room.
‘Rutger, stop!’ Sarah cried, but De Klerx ignored her as he drove a series of furious punches at the Englishman. Eddie blocked most of them, but a couple got through, making him stagger backwards. The soldiers moved to encircle the fight, turning the room’s centre into a ring. Some of the technicians left their stations to get clear, others watching in fascination.
‘Ik zal je vermoorden!’ De Klerx shrieked, sending another frenzied blow at his opponent. Eddie swept his forearm up to intercept it, then snapped a punch under the Dutchman’s guard to hit his mouth. De Klerx’s head jerked back. The taste of blood from his split lip enraged him even more — and he charged at the other man with an incoherent scream.
Eddie raised both arms to block him, but De Klerx had momentum on his side. Both men thumped into the human wall surrounding them. The soldiers retreated, one stumbling over a technician’s chair. Eddie slammed a fist into De Klerx’s stomach, making him gasp, but before he could follow up the attack a North Korean clubbed him with a rifle butt. He yelled in pain, stumbling forward, only to take a blow to his jaw.
Kang laughed. Now having approval from their superior officer, the soldiers broke their silence to jeer and holler at the battle as if it were a boxing match. Or, Nina realised from the sadistic glee on their faces, a cage match, a cockfight. They had enjoyed similar spectacles before, and were looking forward to seeing one of the contestants being beaten half to death.
Or fully.
‘Stop them!’ she cried. Even the head technician was entranced, letting out thrilled little gasps each time a punch landed. ‘This is insane!’ She turned to the Mikkelssons. Sarah was weeping, her face buried in her husband’s shoulder, while the tall Icelander watched the brawl with cold intensity.
‘They are fighters,’ said Kang, mouth curling with relish as blood began to speckle the white-painted floor. ‘Let them fight.’
Nina turned away in disgust as the two technicians in charge of loading the Crucible ran up the stairs to see what was going on. One of the other operators suddenly remembered that he had a task to perform and whirled back to his control panel. He pulled the lever to close the radiation shield, the grumble of the vacuum pumps becoming audible over the accelerator’s whine. That done, he turned back to watch the fight.
The large digital wall display climbed again, two thousand and rising…
Eddie jerked sideways to avoid a kick. He jabbed at De Klerx’s head again, but only caught the Dutchman a glancing blow. A snarl, and another strike came — aimed at his groin. He twisted away from it—
A rifle butt thudded against his shoulder. He gasped, reeling as hands shoved him back into the centre of the amorphous battleground. De Klerx was waiting, his boot heel hitting Eddie’s knee. The Yorkshireman yelled as his leg gave way, only just catching himself as he dropped to the floor. Another swing of his enemy’s foot struck him in the side. The impact bowled him into the soldiers’ shins. They jumped back, a technician looking over their shoulders almost falling as they collided with him. Kang cackled, the others echoing the sound sycophantically.
More kicks, this time from the Koreans. Eddie scrambled clear. De Klerx was right on him, his foot thumping painfully against his hip. He rolled again, this time using the movement to jump upright. De Klerx advanced, balled fists raised. Eddie made a circling retreat, trying to stay out of reach of the soldiers behind him—
‘Eddie! The power’s building again!’
Nina — but why would she tell him that? He glanced towards her. She was beyond the wall of leering soldiers, another man holding her arm with one hand. The Type 58 rifle in his other was pointed at the ground, not his prisoner. And just behind her were the control panels, the operators gawping at the fight rather than watching their instruments…
He realised what she was trying to tell him. Another glance, this at the stairwell to the lower floor. Nobody was watching it. An escape route — if they could reach it.
Which was a big if.
De Klerx closed in. Eddie hurriedly sidestepped so the Dutchman was between him and Nina — then dropped his head and made a screaming charge at the other man.
They collided with a whump. De Klerx lurched backwards. He hit two of the soldiers, one in turn reeling into Nina and her guard. The redhead arrested her fall on a control panel, slapping a hand down on to it — and twisting the dial controlling the power flow.
It was only a tweak, as she didn’t want to risk drawing attention. She didn’t even know if it would be enough to make a difference. But as her guard recovered and pulled her away, she checked the large display. The numbers were still climbing, now well past four thousand… and rising faster than before.
Nobody else was watching the indicator, though. All eyes returned to the brawl as the soldiers forced the Yorkshireman back into the makeshift ring. De Klerx leapt after him, smashing another blow against his head. ‘You dyke-poking fuck!’ Eddie snarled, anger powering a new volley of punches against the Dutchman. De Klerx bobbed and jinked, blocking most — but then crying out as one cracked his nose. Blood squirted from his nostrils.
He drew away, huffing to clear his airways before wiping his face on his sleeve. Eddie circled to position his adversary between himself and Kang. The soldiers shifted, blocking any retreat. He glanced at the digital display — approaching the five thousand mark — but then locked his eyes back on De Klerx as the Dutchman rushed at him.
Eddie swept up one arm to knock away a punch — only for a second jab to catch him squarely in the face. It was not a fight-ender, but it jarred his senses enough that he was too late to block the next. He fell against the hooting soldiers behind him. They shoved him back into the arena—
De Klerx wound up for a brutal haymaker, Eddie stumbling right into its path. He tried to dodge, but had nowhere to go.
The punch hit his skull like a sledgehammer. He went down hard to the floor, the metallic tang of blood filling his mouth. His vision blurred, sounds suddenly echoing. He looked up, seeing howling faces whirl nightmarishly around him. Kang’s took on form, the little colonel pumping a fist in glee.