There was iron in the man’s bones.
His efforts earned him no more than a grunt from the great box-like man and suddenly he was in a deathly embrace, the huge black arms enfolding him, lifting him. He could feel a hot pain as his ribs were compressed by the two human bands of iron encircling him. His arms pinioned and on fire, his entire upper body useless, Hawke’s racing mind surveyed his enemy’s anatomy, ticking off the possible vulnerabilities in milliseconds.
Kidneys? Groin? No. He was locked in a death vise which gave his own knees and feet no good angle. He felt the air going out of him. A familiar blackness laced with red was encroaching upon his conscious mind. He’d been in this place many times and knew automatically that he was out of time. It would be a near thing. He felt hot snorts from the giant’s nostrils as the man added crushing pressure, preparatory to killing him. Very hot breath against his face? Where? On his forehead. Yes. In a single, violent motion, Hawke whipped his head back, then forward, smashing the top of his skull against the man’s nose. There was a satisfying crunch of small bones and Hawke’s face was instantly drenched in a spray of the man’s hot blood.
The iron grip eased momentarily, and Alex collapsed to the pavement. Shaking his head, panting through clenched teeth, and trying to clear out the black veil, Hawke got to his hands and knees. He was nothing but a furious animal now, unthinking and bent on terrible vengeance. He was getting to his feet, eyeing his adversary through mists of pain, when the vicious blow of steel-capped shoe caught his ribcage, splintering three ribs and propelling Alex Hawke into the gutter.
“Ar kill you,” the giant said, speaking for the first time, his own voice garbled with blood and pain. Alex lifted his head and looked up at the towering figure with the blood pouring from his smashed nose. He struggled to rise, breathing deeply, summoning reserves of strength he knew had to be there. Kelly still wasn’t moving. He lay against a lamppost at a grotesque angle. Unconscious, one could only hope.
“On the contrary,” Hawke said through gritted teeth, “I read my horoscope this morning. Today’s going to be the best day of my life.”
Hawke staggered to his feet, ignoring the searing fire in his right side, and charged from a low crouch. He stayed low, feinting left and right before diving, and, then, lunging to his full extent, he hurled himself with all the force left in him directly at the man’s knees. Ligaments tore, cartilage ripped, and the giant bellowed in rage. But he did not go down. His face a mask of bloody fury, his coal eyes suffused with a red glow, he stooped and swung a great looping blow at Hawke’s head.
But Alex managed to scramble and roll away and was on his feet again, dodging and feinting, lunging forward to deliver slashing body blows with the edges of his hands, then springing back desperate for another opening. That’s when he saw the giant reach into the folds of his robe and withdraw a heavy flat blade from his waistband. Holding the hilt in two hands, the enraged monster advanced towards Alex, swinging his whistling sword like a scythe.
The first thrust flicked Hawke’s ribs, drawing blood. The next one Alex almost dodged, but he was a second late. The flat of the blade caught his left temple squarely. He staggered, willing himself to stay on his feet despite the roaring sound of blood pounding inside his head. The giant advanced, the blade poised above him, clearly meaning to split Hawke in half. Alex had other ideas. He managed to get his right hand up just as the stubby machete descended.
Six long weeks worth of recuperation later, Tippu Tip was released from St. Thomas’s Hospital. He had suffered a broken nose, a crushed sternum, a splintered clavicle, three fractured fingers, and two broken legs. In addition, his right ear had been torn off, but had been, somewhat successfully, reattached.
And Alex Hawke never did get round to sending him a get-well card.
Chapter Seventeen
The Emirate
THERE WERE A HUNDRED EYES IN THE ROCKY PASS, AND BIN Wazir could feel every one of them. His frozen caravan approached, then finally staggered to a halt at the outer walls of the fortress. The ancient white stone walls, some thirty feet thick, rose to a height of over sixty. Attila had taken this fortress once and was the only one who’d lived to tell the tale.
The White Palace.
Within minutes, the four sumo giants had unlashed and removed the ebony chaise from between the exhausted beasts. As bin Wazir was being lowered to the ground, Tippu went forward to the heavily armed sentries to announce their arrival. Such an announcement of the obvious was ridiculous but customary. When one visited the Emir, one adhered to custom.
The penalties for noncompliance were severe. Eyes gouged out, the living burial, the swift loss of hands and feet—these were only a few of the Emir’s ways of keeping order and control within the walls of his fortress and among the ranks of agents and sleepers flung to every corner of the earth. The cage was reserved for more serious breeches of decorum.
Snay bin Wazir would enter the gates in a simple black lacquer chair. It wouldn’t do for the Emir to see his elegant ebony sedan, or even the magnificent robes of snow leopard that bin Wazir now removed to reveal a simple black burnoose. The Emir knew of bin Wazir’s sumptuous and exotic tastes, but it would be the height of suicidal stupidity to remind him.
There was a grinding of steel on steel as the massive gates began retracting within the walls. The blizzard had abated somewhat and bin Wazir raised his eyes to the top of the wall, looking up at the sentries looking down at him. They knew who he was but it didn’t stop them from training their weapons on him. This was the Emir’s standard welcoming committee. Heavily armed men, largely unseen, would be watching every move he made until his caravan was once more outside these walls and the gates closed behind him.
But now they were standing inside one of the most closely guarded, highly fortified, and impenetrable places on earth. The vast white marble and stone complex, regularly swept clean of snow, contained a warren of small roads and paths leading to the various buildings, homes, shops, and military facilities within its walls.
And, buried deep beneath the fortress, a labyrinth of massive, bombproof bunkers. The deepest was said to be impervious to all but a direct nuclear blast.
The four sumos and Tippu Tip were subjected to a total body search. The Japanese had been forewarned and remained sublimely indifferent to what would normally be an intolerable degradation. The Pasha’s five men would be led to a garrison where they would be fed and housed for the night. The Pasha would meet alone with the Emir in the residence. A small sleeping chamber would then be provided for him until, hopefully, his party departed at dawn with their heads intact.
The camel drivers and camel boys took the mounts off to be fed and stabled, and bin Wazir found himself alone, ignored, and somewhat wobbly, leaning on his stout walking stick just inside the gates. A minute later, a group of six imperial guards, tall bearded men in identical white robes and turbans, approached him, bowed slightly, then separated to provide a space for him in the center of their formation. They turned and marched him up the main steps of the residence and through the arched entrance, then disappeared.
He stood alone, waiting in a massive empty chamber of pure white marble, keenly aware of the ascetic quality of the Emir’s residence. There was no trace of decoration, no hint of luxury within these walls and bin Wazir knew this was true throughout the entire fortress. It was said the simple purity of the white stone was but a shining outward reflection of the Emir’s soul itself.
Musing upon what this surely said about his own soul, he was startled by the appearance of a tiny man wearing the familiar yellow robe and a black turban. This was Benazir, the wizened personal servant of the Emir.
“Allah be praised, you’ve made it safely,” Benazir said, his hands clasped together before his small, wrinkled face. “Follow this way, please. His Eminence the Emir is with his orchids. He has been told of your arrival.”
Bin Wazir followed the little elf through endless marble halls and passageways until they came to the gardens. Benazir placed his hand upon a towering wall of glass and it instantly slid down into the floor. The thick air was wet, steamy and so redolent of blooming orchids as to almost stagger the still unthawed Snay bin Wazir.
The Emir’s White Palace had nearly two acres under glass.
Snay, who had no knowledge of botany, was passing through some of the most exotic species of flora
