Markus made an experimental probe with the knife. He barely came within a foot of my body before withdrawing. I rolled my head, loosening the kinks in my neck, but that was my only reaction. I had read the lack of commitment in Markus’s attack. ‘Come on, arsehole,’ I grunted, ‘let’s get down to the real business.’
‘I aim to.’ There was no commitment to his words, and I knew he was trying for the sneak attack. When it came, I was still a half-second too slow to react.
His arm whipped forward, the KA-BAR zipping from his extended hand like a flash of blue flame. Only the fact that I was already sailing on adrenalin saved me. Reflexively I dropped low and the blade slashed through the exact place where my head had been a moment earlier. But the handle struck my head and left a fresh wound in my scalp. ‘Son of a bitch…’
It surprised me that he’d thrown the knife, giving up a major advantage. But Markus crouched down and his hand slipped into his boot. When he came up, it proved he wasn’t as stupid as I’d thought, because he was clasping a homemade shiv and there was a gleam of familiarity in his eyes. He’d chosen to throw away the KA-BAR so he could employ his personal killing weapon on me. He must have noted the recognition in me, because he came fast, ripping up at my gut with the tip of the blade. As I dodged to one side, Markus moved with me, angling the blade as though it was an extension of his thumb and he was hiking a lift. Unchecked, the knife would pass over my left shoulder and into my neck below the ear.
I was prepared for the secondary attack. I pivoted towards the knife, my cloth-covered forearm impacting with Markus’s wrist even as I swung a looping elbow strike into his chest. The force of the blow staggered Markus, but not enough to flatten him completely. Markus disengaged, then jabbed at my chest, but immediately reversed the trajectory and went for an overhand thrust at my face. What followed was a blur of action that stuttered through the beams of starlight, reminiscent of dancers moving through strobe lights. Markus jabbed and slashed; I moved defensively, my bandaged forearm and cupped palms redirecting his attacks. Nevertheless I was an unarmed man against a skilled practitioner with a super sharp blade, and fresh spots of blood grew on my chest and hands.
I was breathing loudly as he slashed and stabbed. My posture had contracted slightly, and I was growing heavy-footed. Conversely Markus was moving with more grace. His face was set in a death’s-head grin. I was damned if he didn’t appear to be enjoying the fight. The cloth around my arm was now a shredded rag. I desperately jumped away from Markus, shaking my arm. Blood spattered the floor from a wicked gash on the back of my right wrist.
Finally Markus had got through with a telling strike. There was a flash of his teeth at the knowledge that he had his quarry on the back foot. He came at me again, more determined than before.He obviously wasn’t enjoying the fight as much as I’d assumed and was now ready to finish things having drawn sufficient blood.
To get my arse into gear, I stepped up the pace of my defensive tactics and each was now delivered with a corresponding counter-attack. As I blocked his stab, I struck with my other hand. As I redirected a sweep of Markus’s blade, I kicked at the man’s supporting leg. As Markus speared at my gut, I rammed my stiffened fingers into his throat. I had to take him apart bit by bit — or more correctly destroy Markus’s ability to attack. I ignored the slash of his blade through dermis, concentrating only on avoiding anything that could maim or kill me immediately. Cuts to my chest and arms now leaked blood, as did one on my left cheek. I disregarded them, concentrated on injuring him in turn. My blows were aimed at the muscles of his upper arms, his deltoids, to his inner and outer thighs. Markus began to seize up as his limbs shut down. If he couldn’t move, he couldn’t wield his blade.
Up until then I’d been too busy warding off his stabs and had avoided striking his face or groin, but now they became targets for my punches and kicks. I knocked a couple of teeth out, kneed him in the balls. The shiv hung limp in Markus’s hand as he bent forward, gasping.
An uppercut knocked him back on his heels.
‘How does it feel now?’ I demanded through gritted teeth. ‘Like those little girls felt at your father’s hands? And as Andrew and the others did when you brutalised them?’
Markus opened his mouth to reply, but there was nothing I wished to hear from him. Before he could form words, I drove into him with a kick that lifted the murderer from his feet and threw him backwards into the stack of furniture. Chairs toppled over him, half concealing him from view. I charged in, throwing aside the clutter to get a clear target, and crouched to deliver a right cross to Markus’s face. There was a crunch of teeth as Markus’s jaws were rammed together. I wasn’t finished. I threw a left, and heard the crack of a bone that signified a broken jaw.
Surprisingly Markus wasn’t finished either. He swiped his blade at my chest, scoring a fresh line across one collarbone and almost adding another to my cheek. It won him a second’s respite and he came to one knee, jabbing at my groin. I butted the knife away with a jab of a knee. Pivoting, I rammed a back kick into Markus’s face and the murderer crashed back among the heap of furniture. His broken jaw now hung loose, blood and saliva in drooling ribbons on his chin. His eyes were rolling, going in and out of focus. The shiv clattered among the legs of broken chairs and ended on the earthen floor, out of reach of either of us.
I stepped back, lining up a kick to the man’s prone body. A hand was placed on my shoulder. I could feel the heat radiating off Rink in waves. ‘It isn’t over until he’s dead,’ I told my friend, aching still to crush Markus beneath my heels.
‘He’s finished, Hunter,’ Rink said: an echo of something he had told me the day we became firm friends. On that occasion I’d been poised to deliver a finishing blow to a more honourable opponent than the one lying before me now.
‘You’re going to allow him to live… after everything he’s done?’
‘The circle of murder has to end.’ Rink stooped down to pull the unconscious man into the clear.Then he hefted the noose he’d taken from around his mother’s throat. ‘But we do this the way we originally planned, OK?’
I looked down at the despicable piece of human crap at our feet. What Rink had in mind was too good for the bastard, but what could I say? First and foremost, Markus had always been Rink’s burden of obligation to deal with.
Chapter 43
Detective Jones had cautioned his younger partner to go easy and to await the arrival of appropriate back-up before trying to effect an arrest of their murder suspect. Finally they’d pieced together the connection between the wives and sisters of the murdered men, and this had led them to records of others ensconced at Rohwer Relocation Facility. Cross-checking had brought them to a marginal note in the file of one Charles Peterson, who had apparently been re-posted following complaints from his fellow guardsmen that he was brutalising some of the camp internees.
Following Peterson’s trail, they found other mentions of assault on females during his civilian life until a point in 1970 where the man had disappeared from the records. It was only in recent years he’d shown up again, supposedly forty years younger, and working at the same correctional facility where both Bruce Tennant and Mitchell Forbeck were incarcerated until a few short weeks before their deaths. Though they had no proof that Peterson was their man, they’d shown enough circumstantial evidence to raise an arrest and search warrant.
A back-up arrest team of uniformed officers was already en route to the scene, but Tyler had proven too enthusiastic for his own good, and instead of listening to good sense had wanted to snatch a headline or to impress their bosses with a quick arrest. Whatever his reason was, it had forced a rash decision and look where it had got them. Both of them injured and their suspect at large and causing further terror. Tyler could still expect headlines but not the kind he’d longed for, and the attention coming their way would be less than impressive — except for its volume of recrimination.