To his right, he heard the other door open and thunk shut.
His hand edged closer to the Beretta. He was jumpy, his pulse still hammering from the opening minutes of the show in the arena above.
Then the mist on the far side of the room seemed to clear for a moment and he saw briefly, as though through gauze, the shaggy figure of a man, staring at him.
It jolted him. He sat upright, instantly alert. But the steam immediately obscured the figure. He took the Beretta in hand and stood up and took a few cautious steps across the slippery tile floor toward the figure. Was he large or small? Fat or thin? Gruber wasn’t sure.
He sensed, but never actually saw, the figure. It materialized for an instant, tore off his towel and ‘vanished back into the mist. The Beretta clattered on the floor. Gruber stood in the room, naked. Panic began to gnaw at his stomach. He bent his knees and lowered himself slowly down toward the gun, peering into the thickening mist.
Another hiss of steam from across the room. It distracted him for a moment. The kick came from nowhere, a sudden jarring pain from out of the mist, bang! Just like that.
He didn’t see who kicked him, didn’t even hear it coming. But he felt the heel rip into his side, felt the ribs crack and the tendons tear loose. His feet thrashed from under him and he went down on his side, sliding across the tiled floor, and hit the wall.
All of his finely tuned systems went haywire for a moment. Then he twisted his body, ignoring the fire in his side, got quickly to his knees, and waving the pistol in front of him, pointing at everything and nothing, he stood up, keeping his back against the wall.
He hardly had time to appraise the situation.
The second time it was the toes, hard as a cake of ice, that came from nowhere into the pit of his stomach, digging up deep into his diaphragm, slamming him into the wall. He gagged as the air gushed out of him, and the back of his throat soured instantly with bile.
He jack-knifed forward, caught himself with his hands, the Beretta still clutched in a sweaty fist, and rolled away from the wall, seeking the sanctity of the thick steam himself.
As he started to get up, he caught a fleeting glimpse of something, a spectre that seemed to materialize just long enough to shatter the right side of his jaw, before it was enveloped once again in mist.
The pain screamed out along his nerves and flooded his brain. This time he screamed, but as he fell, he swung the Beretta up and got off one shot, its flat spang echoing off the walls.
Karate.
Traditional.
Okinawan.
What was the best defensive stance possible under the— Whap!
He felt his wrist snap, saw the black pistol spin away into the fog, heard it smack the floor and slide into a corner.
He spun quickly in the direction of the blow.
Nothing but swirling clouds of hot steam.
He was beginning to shake. Sweat was gushing from every pore in his body. His breath came in laboured gulps. He turned and lurched for the door.
His feet were swept from under him, soundlessly, effortlessly, invisibly. He fell flat on the wet floor, his broken jaw smacked the wet tile, fire raged in his ribs, his ruined hand was folded uselessly under him.
Groaning uncontrollably, he was fighting to stay conscious. He decided to stay down until he could get some strength back. The ice bucket was a few inches from his good hand.
He rolled slowly on the other side and inched across the floor until he got a grip on the handle and rose very slowly to his knees, his eyes darting fearfully in their sockets, his ears straining for any sound of warning. Pain warped his judgment.
He had to get out of the room. The door was behind him and perhaps six or seven feet away, lost in the haze. Gruber backed toward it, swinging the ice bucket in wide arcs, growling like a hurt animal.
The chop came from behind and separated his left shoulder. The ice bucket soared from his hand and hit the benches nearby. Ice showered down around him.
He was helpless, his left arm and right hand useless and needled with pain, his jaw hanging crookedly, his side swollen and red.
‘You son of a bitch,’ he groaned hoarsely, partly in English, partly in German, ‘show yourself.’ But he was washed up and his nerves began to short-circuit and then everything went, and shaking uncontrollably, he collapsed against the bench.
From the other side of the room a voice said, in perfect English: ‘Be out of Japan by five tomorrow afternoon.’
The Beretta, from out of the fog, slithered to his feet. The clip was gone.
Gruber heard the door open, felt the cold rush of air from across the room.
‘Bon voyage,’ the voice said, and the door banged shut.
