He was going to make his move before then. I could feel it.
“Well, gentlemen,” one of the Russians said, “we brought Alazans, no? They are yours now. So this… not our problem.”
Smart. He wasn’t going to wait for that car, either. He picked up the duffel bag and nodded to his companion. They started walking to their car.
The bodyguard stepped back a few paces to maintain his ability to watch all the players, but he made no move to interfere with the Russians’ departure. The one with the bag started to smile. Then his head exploded.
Maybe the bodyguard was willing to see that five million go. But Dox wasn’t.
The bodyguard’s mouth dropped open. And in that instant of his surprise and distraction, Hilger dropped down to one knee, drew a pistol free from an ankle holster, and shot him in the stomach. The man staggered backward and twisted around. Hilger shot again, and again. The bodyguard dove to the side of the car and I couldn’t tell if Hilger’s subsequent shots had hit home.
Apparently not. I saw muzzle fire come from under the car, from the bodyguard’s position.
The second Russian grabbed the bag and started to dash for the Lexus. He took exactly two steps before Dox quietly blew his head off.
Belghazi jumped into the back of the van. I heard the doors slam behind him.
Hilger moved to the front of the van and pointed his pistol at the driver-side window. I thought, Shit, he’s going to drop Belghazi, his own asset. Remind me not to cross this guy unless I really need to.
The Toyota screeched into the turnaround. I heard shots and saw muzzle flashes from the passenger-side window, explosions of dust in the dirt around Hilger and Belghazi’s other men. The two Arabs dove behind the van. Hilger, still on one knee, turned from the van, took his gun hand in his free hand and coolly fired a half dozen shots, all of which hit the car. Either he hit the driver or the man panicked under the hail of gunfire, because a second later the car swerved and smashed into the concrete abutment on its right. It spun a hundred and eighty degrees and screeched backward along the abutment, its side throwing sparks into the air. A second after it had come to a stop, the driver-side door opened and a man jumped out. Another Arab. He knelt behind the door and started firing a pistol in Hilger’s direction.
Hilger dove to the side of the van, seeking cover there. But there was none to be had. The van’s engine roared to life, and it lurched forward. Belghazi must have scuttled forward, into the driver’s seat. Hilger shot at its side, but apparently without effect.
I switched back to Dox’s channel. “Take the shot!” I hissed.
“He’s keeping down, I don’t have a shot,” I heard Dox say. Amid the gunfire and confusion, his voice was almost supernaturally calm. He was in his sniping zone.
“Then take out the tires!” I said.
A second passed. The van was pulling even with my position. I was going to have to try to take out the tires myself. From this distance and with only a pistol, I wasn’t optimistic about my chances. And my fire would alert everyone to my position.
But there was no need. The front passenger tire exploded and the van lurched to the left. The rear followed a second later, and the van swerved hard to the right. It crashed through the container port’s chain-link fence and slammed into a stack of containers about ten meters beyond. The containers, stacked five high, tumbled down on the roof, coming to rest behind the van and to the sides.
“Lost the shot,” I heard Dox say. “Can’t see past those containers.”
“Cover me,” I said. I doubted that anyone caught up in the firefight would notice me stealing across the road thirty meters north of their position, but I wanted backup just in case. I eased to my feet and scrambled down the embankment, my pistol out. I crossed the street in a crouch and ducked through the hole the van had punched in the fence.
Once inside, I slowed down and moved more cautiously. I held the gun in my right hand, the barrel angled down slightly, my wrist pressed tight against my solar plexus. My left hand was at chin level and further out from my body, where it could deflect an attack and keep Belghazi away from the gun if he sprang in suddenly.
The street was well lit, and the container area was dark by comparison. My eyes weren’t fully adjusted. The van was obscured by the containers that had fallen around it. I couldn’t see the driver-side door.
I moved up slowly, inching forward, my eyes scanning left and right, the gun tracking my searching vision. Scan and breathe. Front foot down. Slide forward. Pause. Check position. Again.
Belghazi’s eyes wouldn’t be any better adjusted than mine, but I knew the streetlights were backlighting me, exposing my position. I needed to move into the dark. I started to circle to my left.
Something hit me in the left ribs like a battering ram, finding its mark between my chin-level free hand and the stomach-level gun. There was an explosion of pain and I went flying backward. As I hit the ground I could hear Delilah’s voice: With his kicks he can break individual ribs.
Or maybe three or four at a time.
My body did a judo ukemi breakfall of its own accord, a quarter century of muscle memory taking over without any input from my conscious mind. The breakfall distributed the impact and saved me from further damage. Lying on my back now, I tried to bring the gun up to where I thought he would be, but he had already moved in. His foot blurred off his chambered hip in some sort of fouette or spiral kick and the gun blew out of my hand. I felt the shock up to my shoulder.
He reached inside his jacket. What he pulled out flashed in the lights reflected from the street and I realized razor, just as Delilah had warned me.
I brought my legs up to try to kick him away, and was surprised to see him take a step back. I thought, He knows your background, he’s being careful about closing, even with the razor, but then I saw him wiping blood from his eyes and realized the pause was driven more by necessity than by tactics. He must have gotten smacked around when the van hit the containers.
He swayed for a second, and in that second I rolled backward and sprang to my feet. I felt a hot stab in the ribs where he had nailed me and thought, If I get out of this, I will carry a blade, I don’t give a shit about all the good reasons not to.
I took two more steps back to buy a little distance, then glanced down at the ground. I didn’t see the gun. There were too many shadows, and too much junk lying around: cracked wooden pallets, container doors, sections of chain-link fence. To my right was a pile of what looked like oversized metal hubcaps. I swept one up, liking its heft. If there had been a handle on it, I might have used it as a shield. Instead, I slung it like a Frisbee. It hissed through the air straight for Belghazi’s midsection. He jumped left and it sailed past him. Damn, even with the head injury, he was light on his feet, more like a dancer than a typical kickboxer. He started to move toward me and I snatched up another of the metal disks, seeing as I did so that after two more I would be out of ammo. I sent it flying. He dodged again. I grabbed the third and fourth and flung them rapid-fire. The first went high and he managed to duck under it. But the duck cost him his mobility, and he couldn’t get out of the way of the next one, which was heading straight for his head. He raised his razor hand to protect himself and the disk slammed into it, knocking it back into his head. I saw the razor tumble out of his grip and felt a rush of satisfaction.
He stood up and glanced down, and I immediately took two long steps toward him. He looked up at me, knowing that he wasn’t going to have time to grope for and recover the weapon, and we stood facing each other for a moment, each of us breathing hard. He hitched his pants up slightly, creating a little more freedom of movement for his legs. That’s it, I thought. Give me one of those fucking legs. I promise to give it back when I’m done with it.