six minutes had elapsed since he had started running for the palm tree in the backyard. The adrenaline fizzing in his veins had made it seem more like six hours, yet each moment was etched into his brain like frames of film. Outside, the battle was dying down. Either the ranks of SEALs or guards had dwindled to nothing. He had no way of knowing.
Beyond the living room, a wide, window-lined gallery stretched the length of the northern wing of the house. The SEALs had shot out the tall transomed windows to his right, so the air was free of smoke. Opposite the windows, French doors opened into other rooms — a book-lined library, a silk-draped billiards room, a small cinema that had probably been the music room when the house was built at the turn of the century. The last door of the gallery led to Kenji’s study.
Mercer stealthily made his way along the promenade, quickly checking each room he passed. The door just before the study was open, and as Mercer approached, a foot kicked out with incredible strength. The MP-5 flew from his grip, tearing some meat off his right index finger where it had caught on the trigger guard. Before he had time to react, a fist pounded into him, catching him just below the heart. Mercer’s breath exploded in a wheezing gasp.
He staggered back a few paces, massaging his ribs. Kenji stepped into the corridor, wearing a black gi and no shoes. His dark eyes blazed with pure hatred as he gazed at the Occidental interloper.
“I do not know who you are, but I will take great pleasure in killing you for what you’ve done.” His voice echoed from someplace deep within, an empty chasm which contains normal men’s souls. Kenji had none.
Mercer struggled to draw his pistol, but Kenji paced forward cutting the distance between them in the blink of an eye. His foot flicked out with the speed of a viper’s tongue and the Beretta spun away as Mercer’s right hand went numb. Though Kenji was nearly twenty years his senior, Mercer had no hope of defeating him. Even if Mercer hadn’t been battered so much in the past week, Kenji would still be able to take him apart at a leisurely pace.
“Are you another of Kerikov’s errand boys?” Kenji asked mildly, cracking a hardened foot against Mercer’s ribs.
Mercer fell against the wall, clutching at the rough stucco to keep himself on his feet. His chest felt as if it had been worked over with a baseball bat.
“What are you talking about?” he gasped.
A fist slammed into Mercer’s stomach, doubling him over into Kenji’s knee, which shot upward into his face. Kenji spun away as Mercer went sprawling onto the flagstone floor. “Did Kerikov send you with those assassins at Ohnishi’s house?”
Mercer retched painfully, a trace of blood in the rancid bile that shot from his mouth and nose. Kenji’s questions had thrown him off as much as the brutal hits he’d taken. Dazed by the punches and kicks, he wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “I’m not with your Russian allies.”
Kenji kicked again, but Mercer managed to block the shot with his arm. Kenji was thrown off balance by the move, giving Mercer precious seconds to regain his feet.
“Where are your Russian sponsors, anyway?” Mercer asked through gritted teeth as Kenji stalked around him.
Kenji gave a derisive laugh. “As dead as Ohnishi.”
He threw a combination punch at Mercer, the first blow knocking against Mercer’s skull and the other cracking two more ribs. Despite the pain, Mercer managed a counterpunch, but his fist felt like it merely bounced off the muscled cords of Kenji’s throat.
“Like Ohnishi, the Russians were pawns to be used and discarded by myself and my true allies.”
“The Koreans?” Mercer wheezed, understanding a bit.
“They have backed me for months in a double-cross against both Ivan Kerikov and Ohnishi.” Kenji wasn’t even breathing hard while Mercer was sucking in great draughts of air. “We triggered Ohnishi and Kerikov’s pathetic coup and shifted American interest away from the volcano and its mineral wealth. To Kerikov, the coup was a means to an end; for Ohnishi, it represents a lifelong dream. To us, it was simply a diversion.”
“You piggybacked onto Kerikov’s plan, took his idea and his agents for yourselves. Then it was you who rescued Tish Talbot from the
“As ordered by Kerikov for the benefit of Valery Borodin, I believe. But she has no use in my plan, so my allies hired some assassins to execute her in Washington.”
“Not quite.” Mercer managed a wry smile. “She is very much alive and well.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“No matter, I’ll have her killed later on.”
“The fuck you will,” Mercer said, hatred giving him a reckless courage.
He dove at Kenji, slamming a shoulder into his chest. Both men flew backward, pounding into the wall hard enough to break away some of the plaster. Mercer recovered an instant before Kenji and fired three heavy punches into the older man’s muscled torso. Kenji grunted with each blow, but still had the strength to pick Mercer off his feet and toss him away. Mercer scrambled up as quickly as he could, his cracked ribs keeping him slightly doubled over.
“I thought killing Ohnishi would give me the greatest pleasure, but now I realize your death will be even better,” Kenji said menacingly as he came for Mercer.
Kenji’s kick contained every ounce of strength in his body. It was a killing blow. Mercer bent backward the instant Kenji’s foot rose, ignoring the pain that exploded in his chest with the movement. As he straightened back up, his hand reached for the Gerber knife suspended from his harness.
The steel pommel of the knife cracked against Kenji’s foot with all the strength Mercer had left. The blow shattered the delicate bones as though they were glass, checking Kenji’s attack. Mercer whipped the knife upward in a last desperate lunge. The tempered steel parted Kenji’s abdominal muscles, sliced through the tough membrane of his diaphragm, and punctured his left lung.
Kenji reeled back, yanking the knife from Mercer’s fingers. He stared down at the blade sticking from his chest with crazed and panicked eyes.
“You,” he sputtered, blood spraying with his word.
Mercer had fallen to the floor after his attack. He was too weak to rise, so when Kenji pulled the knife from his body and turned the bloody blade at him, he had no defense. The savagery was draining from Kenji as fast as his life’s blood, but he still had enough time to kill his last victim. Mercer lay sprawled like a temple sacrifice, arms at his sides, legs slightly parted. He could not avoid the blade plunging toward his chest.
The kinetic energy of the first bullet arrested Kenji’s downward thrust and nearly stood him upright. The second shot tore another hole through his chest, shredding his heart and damaged lung. The final shot blew out the back of his skull.
Mercer twisted around in time to see one of the SEALs, bloody and battered, fall to the floor. A full sixty seconds passed before Mercer recovered enough to get up and check on the wounded SEAL. When he turned him onto his back, Mercer was staggered. The man who had saved his life wasn’t a SEAL at all.
Through a mask of dried and caked blood the unknown man opened his one undamaged eye. “
The use of Russian shocked Mercer for a second, then he understood.
“Kerikov.”
“No.” The man coughed up a bloody ball of phlegm and spat it on the floor. “I am Evad Lurbud, major in the KGB, Department Seven, and Ivan Kerikov’s assistant. Thank you for allowing me to kill that pig.”
“Where is Kerikov?” Mercer demanded sharply.
“Last I knew, he was headed toward Europe. Now, who knows? You are a member of the American Special Forces, yes?”
“I’m the guy who blew your entire operation.”
Lurbud chuckled painfully. “I doubt that. No man could stop every contingency we laid down.”
“I bet your men in New York wouldn’t agree with you.”
“That was you?”
Mercer smiled modestly. “It was nothing really. But it did lead to all sorts of interesting things, little things like disguised submarines named
