But this one was — he countered with a combination series of fists that pounded Khan’s right cheek and jaw. Khan realized the awful splintering sounds in his ears were his own bones breaking. Yet he was able to jump back to make time and distance his allies. The figure before him was considerably smaller than he was, which perhaps accounted for why he hadn’t been able to finish Khan off when the advantage was his. Well, he’d had his chance and missed it. Khan bellowed and unleashed the fury of his sticks in a blurred frenzy.
The disciple named Thaddeus elected to hold his position. He had been expecting more of the giant Mongol than this. There had to be some sport, some enjoyment. He would bait him, let him have his chance to use the killing sticks.
Thaddeus stood his ground as Khan charged. The Mongol’s half-swollen face held no expression; the sticks twirled nimbly in his hands as he made his charge.
Khan lunged in with sticks crisscrossing the air in a vortex of death. Thaddeus caught the hands blurring through the night in midmotion. He twisted the Mongol’s arms together at the elbow and jerked them mightily. A snap as loud as a gunshot sounded, and one of the arms hung limply by the Mongol’s side.
Khan still had one stick left, which he sent into motion a breath before he saw the stick he had lost was in the hand of his opponent. The last thing he remembered was switching his motion to a blocking form — too late — as the enemy’s stick slid under the defense and bashed into his nose, driving the bone backward through his brain.
Khan stood there briefly before he crumpled, and Thaddeus wondered how it could have been so easy to kill a man of such reputation.
Fox was finished with the whole damn business. His first few kills had come smooth and sweet and then everything had fallen apart. Targets impossible to reach, or even to find. The wrong man killed on the most recent occasion. Messy, very messy, and Fox hated mess above everything else.
Well, fuck the albino Japper and his mother, too.
Fox hit his home turf of Boston running, making straight for the bank that held his safe-deposit box. He’d clean out the cash and jewels and disappear for a while. The Jap fuck wouldn’t know the difference, and his whole plan was gonzo anyway.
Fox had just finished emptying the contents of his safe-deposit box into his black leather briefcase when the lights in the cubicle died. The silenced Beretta was in his hand a second later, while the other hand found the doorknob and twisted it open. The whole damn, windowless box area was pitch-black. A power failure now. If that didn’t beat fuck all…
Fox heard the sound just before he started to head in the general direction of the exit door. Someone else was with him in the darkness. Not another customer, obviously; he was alone when he came in, and no one had entered since. The guard, then, perhaps…
The sound came again, not made by a guard at all, because a guard would have spoken and wouldn’t have tried to conceal his presence.
Fox fired a silenced round in its direction.
Another sound sprang from the opposite side of the twenty-foot square room filled wall to wall with safe-deposit boxes. Fox fired again, and this time the bullet ricocheted madly.
I know you’re in here, fucker.
The sound of rushing footsteps sounded to his right, and Fox shot that way. More footsteps came from the left, and he wasted two more bullets.
There’s more than one of them, he thought. There’s gotta be. Well, that suits me just fine!
Fox slid away from the door to the cubicle and pressed his back against the middle row of safe-deposit boxes against the far wall. Muzzle flashes would give him away sure as shit. He’d keep his ass calm and make sure he had something to fire at next time before he shot. Better yet, better yet…
Fox holstered the Beretta and pulled out a killing knife courtesy of cool, blue Vietnam. The separation of sounds told him three figures were in the darkness with him. Just like the good ol’ days as a tunnel rat, squeezing his big frame into the passageways dug by gooks and slitting their throats as he passed them along the way. Yup, darkness suited him just fine.
Fox moved away from the boxes and joined the darkness. He owned the fuckin’ night in Nam, and he would own the asses of the men who had invaded this darkness. If he couldn’t shoot them, they weren’t about to shoot him, which placed the odds in his favor.
I’m gonna get you, motherfucka!
Fox figured the enemy was shittin’ their pants trying to find him in the pitch-black, when he walked straight into a gun barrel. Nothing behind it he could feel, just cold steel touching his forehead.
“Hey!”
Fox had time to scream that as he whipped his blade out at a target as untouchable as gas. Funny thing was he heard the gun go off, actually heard the shot that blew the brains out the back of his head.
The disciple named Peter did not need the light to see. Yes, the darkness kept him from seeing shapes, but auras showed up plain as day, and he decided to taunt this one before finishing the job. All in all, it was boring, disappointing.
There had to be someone out there who could provide a bit of a challenge.
Somewhere.
Part Five
Vision Quest
Chapter 30
Even though the bunker’s conference hall was huge, those seated at the table felt cramped and uneasy. Only the shape seated in the shadows at the front of the room remained immobile as always, apparently unfazed by the exchange of words that had been going on for some minutes now.
“I’m telling you, it’s out of control!”
The voice of Virginia Maxwell, droning into the hall through an unseen speaker from Gap headquarters in Newport News, had a desperate ring to it.
“Nothing is ever out of control.” These words emerged from the shape at the front of the room.
“This is an exception, and I am not the one to blame for it,” the head of the Gap said. “I did not lose McCracken in Brazil.”
“But you were the one who insisted we involve him in the first place.”
“I had nothing to do with the series of failures that followed. Using him for our own best interests was the best track to take. If everything had gone as planned, he would have eliminated the six killers and led us to Takahashi himself.”
“But it didn’t go as planned, did it?” said Pierce. “Your Mr. McCracken — and the people working with him — ended up dangerously close to the truth, and now all of them have vanished.”
“I’m doing my best to correct that,” Virginia Maxwell said.
“How?”
“McCracken, Belamo, and the Indian have been red-flagged, marked for immediate execution. Shoot on sight, is the old terminology. Every intelligence agency in the book has gotten the word.”
“Your voice is not exactly brimming with confidence, Miss Maxwell.”
“I’ve done what I can.”
“But it isn’t enough, is it?” Pierce challenged her. “McCracken’s been red-flagged before and all it did was make him madder, more determined. I don’t like having him as an enemy.”
“That’s why I came to you with the problem.”
“You came to us because you are no longer capable of handling it!”
“What is it that you want?” the darkened shape asked from the front of the hall.
“He’s going to come after me,” droned the voice of Virginia Maxwell. “I want to let him.”