“Keep walking,” the hag instructed, the steel beneath her ancient sweater never moving from his ribs.
Who had sent her? Locke wondered. Obviously not Felderberg’s people, or she’d be leading him back to the station lobby instead of away from it.
They moved beyond the crowds and down into a tunnel where a sign warned NO PASSENGERS BEYOND THIS POINT in five languages. The air was dark and sooty, the only light provided by ceiling lamps strung irregularly. Locke knew the woman was taking him to his death now, but he dared not moved against her until he was sure they were out of earshot from the loading platform.
The hag slowed her pace, eyes searching for a closed-off spot to finish him.
That was Locke’s cue.
He whirled backward in a blur, grabbing the barrel of the gun and forcing it away from him through the sweater, shredding the material. He went for the hag’s throat with his other hand but she slithered backward, still trying to pull her gun free, and sank her teeth into his palm. Locke opened his mouth but managed to suppress a scream that would have drawn attention to their struggle.
The hag sank her teeth in deeper and clawed for his face with her free hand. Chris felt her nails find flesh and begin to tear as he threw himself sideways against the wall. His left hand lost the barrel briefly, then regained it. A shot rang out, kicking up dirt and cement chips behind him.
Locke yanked his hand from the hag’s mouth and smashed her hard across the face. She winced, bellowed, and came at him again, free hand tearing for his eyes. Chris deflected the fingers and grabbed them, jerking the bony hand back over. The hag howled in pain and started kicking wildly out with her scrawny legs. Locke’s shins and ankles bore the brunt of the assault as he pedaled sideways, trying to tear the pistol free from beneath her mangled sweater. But the hag’s grip was iron. Her eyes were bulging with rage.
He let go the fingers he was certain he had snapped and pounded her nose hard. The hag screamed again and blood gushed from both her nostrils. The hand he had snapped backward before shot forward and down. Chris felt the pressure on his groin like a vise closing and lost his breath. The hag shrieked as she squeezed as tight as her hand would let her. Locke tried briefly to pry the grip off but the fingers had taken hold like a pit-bull’s bite.
Finally, with the pain stealing all his breath, Chris latched his right hand over his left and pulled. The hag’s pistol came free and tore through her ragged sweater. Her eyes swelled with shock and she clamped her fingers harder over Locke’s groin in a grasp born of desperation.
This time it was Chris who found the breath to scream in agony as he brought up the pistol and smashed it across the hag’s face. She pitched to the side with a grunt. Blood poured down the side of her face.
Locke slid down the wall, his mind holding onto consciousness through the horrible pain in his groin. Holding the pistol tightly in both hands, he leaned over and puked his guts out.
The hag rushed him from her knees.
Chris turned the gun on her, cocked its hammer.
She stopped. Locke pushed himself to his feet.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
The hag spit at him.
“I’ll kill you slowly,” he threatened. “A bullet here, a bullet there. I owe you a lot of pain.”
She spit again. “Hah! You have all caused enough pain for a lifetime, you bastard.”
“All? What are you—”
“Their souls scream out for vengeance. You killed children! You are the scum of the earth!”
Then Locke realized. “The people who tried to kill me in London sent you!”
The hag spit a third time. “San Sebastian will not be forgotten. All of you will pay.”
The tunnel rumbled with the approach of a train.
“Kill me,” she ranted. “It doesn’t matter. Another will take my place. We are many and we will see you all burn in hell!”
The train roared closer.
The hag struggled to her feet, ignoring the blood that covered her face. Locke moved toward her. She stepped backward, keeping her distance.
“Who are you people?” he asked her. “You’ve got to tell me who sent you! Who do you think I work for? Please, you’ve got to tell me.”
“You will all die! San Sebastian will be avenged!”
The train thundered forward, catching them in the spill of its front lights.
The hag glanced at it and smiled.
“No!” Chris screamed, already in motion, reaching for her with his free hand. “Noooooooo!” It was too late. With a horrible wail the hag leaped off the platform directly into the path of the onrushing train. The train hurtled by, leaving nothing.
Chris leaned over and vomited again.
Kill me. It doesn‘t matter. Another will take my place. We are many and we will see you all burn in hell!
The hag’s people wanted him dead because they thought him part of the very force he was fighting. He was, incredibly, on their side. But they didn’t know it. And he didn’t know who they were.
Everywhere he turned he found new pieces that didn’t fit the puzzle. Chris started back toward the platform, limping again.
It was time to head to Schaan. Maybe the Sanii Corporation had some answers.
Peale waited in the shadows across the street from the Schaan Station. There was only one exit from the small building, so he knew exactly where his target would be emerging. He tightened the silencer around the Browning’s barrel and steadied it over his left arm, squeezing one eye closed to check his aim.
Peale knew Locke was good and also knew from a tape recording of his conversation with Felderberg that he would be headed for the Sanii Corporation there in Schaan. Peale never bothered to question Locke’s motives or aims. He had killed the blond man’s employer and that was all that mattered. Peale had never lost a man he was protecting before. The score had to be settled, and his soldier’s mind did not seek additional complexities. Life was easier that way.
People began squeezing from the station and Peale waited for his target. He had spoken barely thirty minutes ago with his people in Vaduz to learn that Locke had eluded them at the station there. Peale had expected as much. He held the pistol tighter, hunching lower in the darkness.
Locke emerged from the station, eyes nervously searching for a taxi. There were none to be found immediately. He started walking. Peale noticed his limp, glad for it because it would assure him of more than one shot if needed.
Peale focused his eye, ready to pull the trigger.
There was a scratching sound behind him and he swung quickly. A dark figure whirled before him. Something glimmered and Peale felt a tingle in his wrist as he spun away and tried to refocus in the darkness.
Long blond hair danced before him.
God, it was a woman!
Peale started his gun up to finish her, found it was gone, and looked down to see his hand was … gone too.
He realized the tingle had been the sensation of a blade slicing through his flesh. He screamed horribly as it came for him again. He dodged but it ripped into his shoulder on the side already missing the hand.
Now his mind accepted death as inevitable, but the woman had to be taken too. She came at him again but he rolled free, noting that she actually held two knives, one in each hand. They were Kukhri blades, weapons of the Gurkha soldiers from India.
Peale’s roll had taken him to his lost gun, still clenched in his severed hand. He tore it free and lurched to his feet, screeching to fuel his fury and deaden his pain.
The Kukhri knives came down together, meeting in his chest and carving it in two before he ever found the trigger. Peale’s last sight was of his killer, blond hair waving about the coldest eyes he had ever seen.