And so al-Hazmi had been unforgivably complacent, which meant that he had missed the entry to the compound of this man — this man who was here, now, bursting through the door and aiming a gun –
Al-Hazmi reacted before he even fully realized what was happening, snapping round in his chair at the noise and releasing the janbiya he had been playing with as he sat monitoring the computers.
He watched it fly through the air with a savage grin.
Cole had never seen a man move so fast in his entire life.
He had burst through the door and seen the man sitting at a bank of computers, his back to Cole; and in the next moment, no more than the blink of an eye, the man had turned and thrown something.
Cole felt a piercing pain shoot through his wrist before he even realized what had happened; but then he turned to look at his arm and saw that his hand no longer held the gun, and the sharp blade of an Arabic dagger was sticking through his forearm, buried up to the hilt, its bloody blade coming right out the other side.
Cole realized it must be Amir al-Hazmi, the Hammer of the Infidel and the feared knife-master of the terrorist underworld. He was sorry to find out that the rumors about the man’s skill with a blade seemed to be true.
Eyes wide, Cole watched — half in shock — as the man leapt from the chair, withdrawing a second janbiya from his robes as he charged forward.
Cole barely managed to avoid the attack, his skewered right arm hanging uselessly by his side as he dodged first one way and then — as al-Hazmi swiped at him again — the other, the razor sharp blade missing him by quarters of an inch both times.
Instinctively Cole lashed out with his booted foot, connecting with al-Hazmi’s thigh, forcing him back while he tried to regain his own composure. But al-Hazmi gave him no time at all, recovering from the kick and advancing forward once more, swinging his dagger in controlled arcs towards Cole’s face and body.
Al-Hazmi rushed in, eager to finish him off, but Cole intercepted the knife arm with his left forearm, grasping hold of the wrist with his hand and snapping his head forward into al-Hazmi’s surprised face.
The man’s nose broke with the impact and — forgetting it was injured, the knife still impaled through it — Cole rammed the heel of his right palm up underneath al-Hazmi’s chin.
The blow might have broken the neck of a lesser man, but the thickly-muscled al-Hazmi shook it off and — in one incredibly smooth, powerful action — pulled another dagger from his robe with his free hand and swiped it across Cole’s midriff.
Cole arched his back just in time, the blade slicing through his flight suit and the skin of his abdomen but failing to penetrate further. But the pain laced right through him and his vision went momentarily blank; when it cleared, he saw the second blade coming back towards him, aimed for his neck.
Unable to block the arm, Cole released his grip on al-Hazmi and leapt backwards, the blade swiping through the air where his neck had been just moments before.
Distance between them now, the two men circled each other warily; but Cole was all too aware that he was badly injured and unarmed whereas the man he faced had two daggers, and the skill to use them.
The savage grin played again across al-Hazmi’s face. Whoever this enemy was, he was good; and it had been a long time since al-Hazmi had faced anyone who could pose any sort of threat.
He was disappointed to have lost his favorite janbiya, which was still lodged in the man’s arm, but knew the two he still had would do the job just as well.
As they circled each other, al-Hazmi kept the blades moving, cutting through the air in a pattern of intricate moves which served to hypnotize his prey. He knew — try as they might — that his victims couldn’t help but look at the blades as they described their figure-eights, confusing them, distracting them, so that when the killer blow came — as it always did — they didn’t stand a chance.
Cole knew what al-Hazmi was doing, and refused to be drawn in.
The movement of the blades was designed to confuse him, to mask the real attack; and so Cole stared right through them, to a point at the top of al-Hazmi’s chest, below the neck.
He knew that any movement would originate in that region, and watched it like a hawk. Cole also avoided looking at the eyes, as they too could deceive; but the body couldn’t lie, and Cole watched through the blur of the spinning blades as al-Hazmi’s body told him everything.
The attack came at the exact moment Cole predicted — seemingly out of the blue, but preceded by a tiny tell-tale preparatory movement — and as the blades arced through towards his face and neck, one after the other, Cole dropped to one knee, hands down for support and launched a kick at al-Hazmi’s groin.
The man cried out in pain but Cole didn’t stop to assess his handiwork; instead, he transferred his weight onto the leg which had just kicked, pivoted, and swept the hardened shin of his other leg into al-Hazmi’s knee, destroying the soft tissue around the joint and causing the man to drop like a stone.
Cole was on top of him in an instant, kneeling with one leg on al-Hazmi’s right arm while his own right hand pinned the killer’s left wrist to the floor.
Cole unleashed blow after blow onto al-Hazmi’s face with his free left fist; with his own heart rate elevated so high, and the man underneath him bucking for all he was worth, Cole was unable to target the vital points which would have ended the confrontation immediately, but his strikes were having an effect all the same — Al-Hazmi’s face was turning black and blue from Cole’s punches.
But still the man clung to consciousness, and spat a wad of blood right into Cole’s eyes. Momentarily blinded, Cole’s position was weakened and al-Hazmi used the opportunity, raising a knee up viciously into Cole’s groin and rolling him over in a reversal of position.
Cole grimaced as al-Hazmi mounted on top of him, his janbiya daggers shooting down towards him. Cole managed to grip the wrists with his hands but gravity was on al-Hazmi’s side and Cole watched with growing fear as the blades edged closer and closer towards his throat.
Yes, al-Hazmi thought as his blades pushed closer, the feeling inside him near orgasmic in its intensity as he visualized cutting the man’s head off his shoulders completely. Yes!
The man beneath him was strong, but al-Hazmi knew that he was stronger. How many men had he killed over the years with these weapons? It was too many to count, and this intruder would be just one more.
The blades came closer, closer; so close now to the man’s white skin, skin that would soon leak blood everywhere.
Yes!
Cole could feel his strength waning, knew that al-Hazmi was close to ending things forever.
But then all hope of finding the bombers would be gone forever too, and America would fall.
No, Cole told himself as the first blade touched his throat, I can’t let that happen.
And then Cole pushed up with his right hand and let go, head slipping to the side; in the next moment, al-Hazmi’s janbiya came scything down, uncontrolled.
Too high, it sliced the top of Cole’s ear clean off; but so engaged in the moment was he that he didn’t even notice.
Instead, in the very same breath, Cole took his now free right arm — al-Hazmi’s own dagger still embedded in it — and brought it crashing down on top of the man’s head.