But luck ran against me. The impact of the Luger striking the stock of the automatic rifle stung my hand. The barrel of the gun canted up sharply, just in time to deflect Hugo. It saved the Russian’s life.
He gasped in pain as the knife cut across his chest. His reflexes were fast He turned on his heel, swinging the Kalashnikov blindly at me in the dark.
The gun caught me across the left biceps, paralyzing every nerve from my shoulder down to my wrist. Wilhelmina fell out of my hand. I slashed at him again with Hugo. Once more the Kalashnikov slammed into me, knocking me to my knees.
Whoever he was, the Russian was powerful. What saved my life was his obvious lack of training in night combat. He should have stepped back and blasted away with the Kalashnikov. I wouldn’t have had a chance. Instead, he closed in and tried to hit me again. It was the only chance I was going to get, and I took full advantage of it. My knuckles slammed into the bridge of his nose.
Blindly the Russian dropped the rifle, grabbing at me with his hands. Fingernails raked across my back. One of his hands clamped itself around my wrist, immobilizing Hugo. I slammed my left elbow across his throat.
He tucked his chin into his chest and tried to butt me with his head. Christ! He was all hard skullbone! It was as though he’d hit me with the Kalashnikov. I took the blow on my shoulder.
His face was tucked into my collarbone so I couldn’t reach his eyes. His grasp on my wrist was like a steel handcuff. In my ear, the heavy, panting rasp of his breathing was like a roaring bellows as he sucked air into his lungs in spasmodic gasps. He tried to get a grip on me with his other hand, but his fingers kept slipping off my forearm. My chest and arms were still wet with the blood of the man he’d tried to kill earlier. It made it impossible for him to hold on to me.
And then I twisted my right wrist out of his fingers. He could feel his grip loosening. In desperation he tried to knee me in the crotch. I took the blow on my thigh instead.
Hugo was still in my right hand. And Hugo was free now. My forearm jabbed forward. Just a few inches, but that was all that was necessary. Hugo touched him and slid into him just below his rib cage, opening a small, bloody mouth in his chest. I kept driving my weight against the Russian, lifting him off the ground, my left hand finding his face in time to clamp his mouth shut and prevent him from crying out.
He grunted hard, a muffled sound, and then he collapsed, stumbling away as if he were suddenly tired and wanted to rest. He took one lurching step, and then another, and then he was falling away from me into a seemingly boneless dark heap on the ground.
Wearily I straightened up, dragging deep, painful breaths into my aching lungs. The Kalashnikov lay on the ground near my feet. I picked it up, checking it over in the darkness as best I could. At least now I was on more even terms with the other Russian.
I heard him call across the inlet:
“Petrov!”
He called again. “Petrov, answer me!”
I didn’t have time to hunt for Wilhelmina. With Hugo in my left hand, I cradled the Kalashnikov in my arms and began to trot slowly around the rim of the beach. The sand cut into my bare feet with every step I took. It was like running on a carpet of steel brushes.
I knew he could see me, but that was alright It was so dark that it was impossible for either one of us to make out more than movement That I was slimmer and taller than Petrov couldn’t be discerned. Nor the fact that Petrov had been dressed and that I was stark naked.
The Russian finally caught sight of me, because he yelled out, “Damn you, Petrov, answer me! Have you seen them?”
I was around the inlet now, less than fifty yards away from him, trotting toward the sound of his voice. In my hands, the Kalashnikov was pointed in his general direction. I still couldn’t make him out because he wasn’t moving, but I had the safety of the rifle off, the switch was on “auto” fire, and my finger was on the cold, cross-hatched metal of the trigger.
“Petrov?”
This time there was uncertainty in his voice.
“Da!” I shouted back, and the moment’s hesitation on his part before he realized that I was not Petrov was enough to get me as close as I needed to be.
My finger was tightening on the trigger when the beam of a powerful flashlight slammed into my eyes. Even as I flung myself to one side, I opened up with the AK-47. I hit the ground in a rolling tumble and stopped firing.
I must have hit him with that burst because his flashlight dropped away. It came to rest between us, its beam streaming along the sand. In its reflected glow I saw him standing with his legs wide apart, straddling Clarisse’s supine form, his own Kalashnikov aimed at where I’d been a moment before.
Furiously he pulled the trigger, racketing the night with the blasting staccato roar of the gun, searching for me with a spray of lead.
Even before he ran through the clip, I was returning his fire, keeping him in my sights as the bullets slammed him off his feet onto the sand. He lay motionless, arms wide, legs drawn up like an enormous dead insect. I waited for him to move. After awhile I rose slowly, still aiming the AK-47 at him as I approached his body.
I rolled him over. He was still alive.
Half a dozen yards away, the flashlight shone along the sand, its spreading beam giving off enough light for us to see each other.
There was an expression of surprise on his face as his eyes roamed over me, taking me in from head to toe.
“Naked...” he gasped. “B-bloody...” They were his last words. The breath wheezed heavily out of his chest and with it went his life. His eyeballs sightlessly reflected the beam of the flashlight.
I turned away from him, picked up the flashlight and went to Clarisse. She was unconscious. I felt her head gently, finding the slight swell of a contusion behind her right ear. I pried open one eyeball and shone the beam of the light on the retina. There was a normal reaction. Apparently, the Russian hadn’t hit her too hard; she’d be okay, I knew.
For the time being I didn’t try to bring her back to consciousness. I had other things to do first that it would be best Clarisse knew nothing about.
I went down to the water and washed myself clean, scouring my skin with handfuls of rough sand. I dried most of the moisture off my body with quick, scooping slashes of the edge of my palms before I donned my shorts, slacks, jersey and sandals. The leather felt cool to my burning feet.
Dressed, I went back to the first Russian I’d killed to find Wilhelmina. Finally, I returned to the crevice that had been my original hiding place. I shone the light between the boulders onto the Russian. His eyes closed against the brightness of the light in his face.
“Well...? Why are you waiting, tovarich? Shoot me quickly.” He spoke angrily in Russian.
“Wrong guess,” I told him. “It’s your friends who are dead.”
There was a moment’s pause before he answered, his eyes still tightly closed.
“Both of them?”
“Both of them.”
“Turn the light away, please.” This time he spoke in English with only the faintest touch of an accent. I moved the beam so that it reflected off the boulders. He opened his eyes and looked up at me.
“You... you are very good, whoever you are,” he said. He drew a deep breath.
I made no reply.
“And now?” he asked after several seconds.
“It depends on you,” I said. “I can walk away and leave you here...”
“Or?”
“Or I can give you the sanctuary you were trying to find when your friends caught up with you.”
He took a moment to think it over. Hurt as he was, this Russian didn’t panic easily.