By some feat of focus, however, Faruk managed to keep hold of the knife. I immediately grabbed onto his knife hand with my other hand. I was looking for the Valley of Harmony — the fleshy V between the thumb and pointing finger of his hand. When I found it, I used one hand to hold his wrist and the other to pinch down with every ounce of strength I had. The Valley of Harmony is an acupressure point. Pinch it lightly and you can relieve headaches and other ailments. Pinch it like you want to kill the guy and you can inflict a massive amount of pain.
Faruk dropped the knife. I heard it clank down to the catwalk below. I was pretty sure I had him beat at that point. I was already mentally moving on to my next target. But then he tried to strangle me. His lightning-fast hands encircled my neck, threatening to collapse my windpipe. I needed to make a move, any move, but Faruk held me there, starving me of oxygen. He squeezed harder still, a self-satisfied grin on his lips, and once again I saw the metal glinting in his mouth. He had me exactly where he wanted me.
It wasn’t like when I had had the garrote around my neck. I reached for his hands, but I couldn’t remove them. He was like a human boa constrictor slowly squeezing the life out of me. I swear that I felt my feet leave the ground as he lifted. My eyes must have been bulging at that point. All I could think was that I wanted to bring him down. I wanted him to crumble so he couldn’t squeeze me anymore.
I took a chance and reached for his collarbone, poking my fingers deep into his flesh until I found his clavicle. The long horizontal bone was like a handle. I used it to pull him off balance, getting him to ease up slightly as he recovered, dropping me back down to the catwalk. Then I twisted my hips. My neck stayed where it was, but I retracted my right leg, throwing all my weight into a kick aimed squarely at Faruk’s left kneecap.
The side of my foot connected with his knee and I heard it blow out. It shattered backwards, bones and cartilage smashing until it drooped inward on itself. The result was immediate. Nobody can take that amount of pain without showing it. The body just doesn’t have the resources. Faruk immediately had to take all his weight on his right leg, and as he did, he loosened his grip on my neck a little more. I could barely breathe, but I could still kick, so I retracted my leg again and powered into his other knee.
I heard the same crack of cartilage and bone, and this time he collapsed onto both broken knees, releasing his grasp entirely. I gasped, sucking in the fresh air. There was only one move left. Gravity. I retracted my right leg and aimed for his midsection in a massive side kick. I aimed for his torso, because I wanted to move all of him, his entire body off the catwalk. And it worked. Faruk crumpled backward, under the rail and off the crane.
But even as Faruk plummeted to his death, my problems were far from over. Because when I looked up from the catwalk, I was once again staring down the barrel of a gun.
Chapter 64
Meryem's gaze was almost as hard as the black steel of her pistol. She aimed her SIG at me in a two-handed stance, the crane operator already descending the ladder behind her. My palm hurt where it had gripped the barrel of Faruk’s pistol. I was sure that I had a nasty burn that would swell and blister later.
“You should not have done that,” Meryem said.
“Like you said, I didn’t have much of a choice.”
I heard the thump of Faruk’s body as it hit the courtyard floor below.
“It was you on the ship that exploded, wasn’t it?” I said.
“Yes,” Meryem said. “It was me on the Green Dragon ship. The Dragons asked us to destroy it. To cement our partnership.”
“Why? Why did they want to blow that boat up?”
“Perhaps to destroy evidence. Perhaps to destroy you.”
“What evidence?” I asked. “That tuning fork thing? I saw it, you know.”
Meryem just smiled.
“The Dragons were using you all along,” I said. “They were using you to find the Device.”
“Maybe so. But who possesses the Device now?”
It was then that I understood why the crane operator was descending the ladder. Because somebody else was coming up. Azad. He smiled at me piggishly as his head came up through the ladder well, his eyes level with mine.
“Your husband?” I asked.
“Colleague only,” she said. “The henna party, this was for you. Please understand that I am sorry for many things I have done. But they were necessary. Everything was necessary.”
Azad sat in the operator’s chair and pecked away at the laptop keyboard. After that, I knew that I was out of time because the rush of the wind was drowned out by a long sibilant groan. The buzz of the sphere gradually overtook the crane. The buzz was soft at first, but grew louder like a million electric hornets were protecting their nest. And then the sphere began to glow.
“Hands up, Michael,” Meryem said. “It is over.”
Not if I could help it. It was obvious that Azad was going to fire the Device. The targeting mechanism was installed. Given that I had already seen the sphere fire once, I knew that the directed-energy beam would vaporize whatever it hit. I was still wearing the empty backpack in front of me like a kangaroo pouch. I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to like what happened next. I wasn’t going to like it at all.
But I did what I had to do. I sprung forward like a cheetah. Then Meryem fired the SIG from twelve feet. It was an easy shot for her, aimed at my center mass, like she had been taught. But I didn’t cringe from the bullet. I held my backpack in front of me and ran into it instead. It was a 9mm round and it hurt when it hit. It felt as though I had gotten hit with a sledgehammer. I felt the ceramic plates in my pack shatter and absorb the impact. I felt the Kevlar lining of the backpack flex. But I didn’t feel my ribs break. I got lucky there. The shot didn’t knock me down. It only knocked the wind out of me. But I could still function. I had to.
Meryem was puzzled. I saw that. She had put a 9mm soft-nose slug in my center mass, but I was still up. I took advantage of that puzzlement. I took one big step forward and raised my left arm in a swift block deflecting the SIG skyward. Then I twisted my hip and hauled back with my right arm delivering a devastating straight-arm punch to Meryem's face. I hit her on the nose. I was pretty sure that I’d broken it, but I figured we were about even because she’d buried me. But I wasn’t done. I grappled Meryem's gun hand with my left, twisting her wrist around the way it wasn’t meant to go. I’m pretty sure I had almost snapped off her finger in the trigger guard, but the move had the desired effect. She dropped the gun.
But then I made a mistake. I was merciful. Instead of following through with overwhelming force and snapping her arm back on itself, I let her fall to the catwalk. That’s when she got me. She scissor kicked my legs right out from underneath me. I fell to my knees. And she reached once again for the gun. But I wasn’t gong to let her have it. Not this time. I picked up the SIG. Then I aimed it point blank at Meryem's thigh.
I was careful about where I shot her. Careful to avoid the femoral artery. Even given everything that had happened, I didn’t want to kill Meryem. What I wanted was a clean shot, through and through, and when I pressed the trigger I got it. Meryem was more or less immobilized.
The sphere began to glow blue behind me. It became brighter and brighter, the humming building in intensity until I could hear nothing else. It was as bright as day on the catwalk. I could no longer see through the cab window. Just my reflection. Then a bullet cracked out at me through the night. Even at that close range, I could barely hear it due to the buzzing of the sphere, but I watched the windshield shatter from the inside. The shot had missed me, but barely. I had felt it fly by.