Somewhere behind it, on the other side, the shouts and gunfire were fading. There were footsteps coming rapidly up the stairs.
The Killer kept staring at Ricci in silence. He did not move the knife from Julia’s throat.
The footsteps had reached the door now. Behind it, an urgent shout:
“Ricci!” Glenn’s voice. “Ricci you in there?”
Ricci didn’t answer.
“Stay out,” Ricci said. “Tell everybody to back off.”
Through the door, Glenn said, “What’s happening? Is Julia—?”
“She’s okay,” Ricci said. “Thibodeau and the others will be right behind you on those stairs. Just keep everyone down the hall. Don’t ask questions.”
Ricci looked at the Killer.
“Let her go,” he repeated a third time. “It’s finished.”
The Killer did not move his knife.
“She’s piecework to you. Nothing. Just another job,” Ricci said. His gun remained level with the Killer’s heart. “You do her, I do you, what’s the point? But there’s still something in this room you want. Something you’ve wanted since Khazakhstan. Since Ontario. And I’m giving you a chance to have it. I’m promising you the chance.”
The Killer watched Ricci’s face.
Studied it for another long, long moment.
Then he dropped his knife hand from the soft white flesh of Julia’s throat, went behind the chair, cut the ropes around her wrists with one quick slice, crouched, severed her ankle bindings, and straightened. Only the gag remained uncut.
Ricci nodded slowly.
“There’s been no circulation in her legs,” he said. “Step away from the chair — two steps to your right — so I can help her up.”
The Killer stepped back.
Still covering him with the gun, Ricci moved toward the chair, slipped an arm around Julia, and eased her to a standing position, not letting her stumble, holding her erect with his own strength, gradually feeling her legs take over. Above the gag, her face remained composed.
“You can make it on your own now,” Ricci said to her. Then he tilted his head back toward the door, raised his voice. “Glenn… you hear me?”
From outside the door: “Yeah. Hearing you fine. Sounds like they’ve got things under control downstairs.”
“Good,” Ricci said. “I’m sending Julia out. Stay away, don’t come near the door. Don’t let anybody else get close to it, either. No matter what, got me?”
“Ricci—”
A pause.
“Yeah,” Glenn said, then. “Yeah, man. I do.”
Ricci backed toward the door, his gun on the Killer, his free hand on Julia, steadying her, guiding her along with him. He reached behind him again, opened the door just wide enough for her to pass through and nodded for her to leave.
She hesitated, looking at him.
“Go,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”
Julia held her gaze on him for another moment. Then she nodded and went through the opening.
Ricci slammed the door shut behind her.
“We’re almost ready,” he said. His weapon pointed at the Killer. “Better slide that chair across to me.”
It was pushed forward. Ricci swept it around his body and leaned it against the door, wedging its back under the doorknob. Then he set his gun down on a small table he’d seen out the corner of his left eye.
Outside the door, he could hear Thibodeau’s voice shouting up from downstairs, then Glenn answering him, telling him Ricci had gotten Julia out, that she was free of any threat. There were some more words exchanged between them, followed by the tread of heavy ascending footsteps.
Ricci saw something like a smile on the Killer’s face as he dropped his knife to the floor, and then pushed it aside with his foot.
“Now,” the Killer said, “we take our chances.”
Ricci nodded.
“Now,” he said.
Kuhl and Ricci advanced on each other, sidling for position as they moved into the center of the room.
His fists clenched, his sinewy arms raised to protect his head, Ricci bounced a little on his knees to loosen them up. His opponent had a good three inches on him, a longer reach. Probably twenty or thirty more pounds of muscle slabbed over his broad frame. He would have to get in close and tight, rely on speed to overcome those advantages.
Kuhl shifted now, feinted toward him. Ricci didn’t buy it. His hands still blocking, he wove around him, found an opening under the massive arms, came in low with a right uppercut meant for the chin.
Faster than he looked, Kuhl parried the blow sidearm, tried grasping hold of Ricci’s outthrust wrist to pull him off his feet. But Ricci slipped the grab, got back away from his reach, and then rounded again, setting himself to throw another punch across Kuhl’s body.
This time Kuhl was even more prepared, his left foot snapping out at the moment before contact, getting between Ricci’s legs to kick the inside of his opposite shin and throw him off balance. Before Ricci could recover, a right hook came smashing hard against his cheek.
Ricci went staggering, the side of his face exploding with pain, blood filling his mouth, his vision momentarily dimming. And then Kuhl was coming in on him again, hitting him with a series of powerful jabs, his fists repeatedly, brutally pounding Ricci’s face and neck.
Ricci felt gravity pulling him down, dragging at his legs and head, and managed to resist it barely in time to duck an overhand right that seemed to shoot straight for his eyes out of a grainy nowhere. He sucked in a breath to fill his chest with air, inhaled again, again, and then shuffled a little to get his heart pumping and dispel the motes of swirling nothingness from his vision.
Kuhl was not about to give him that opportunity. He launched forward, his fingers pointed outward, going for Ricci’s eyes, trying to blind him, gouge his eyes from their sockets with the tips of those stabbing fingers. Ricci shifted back, bobbed down under the hand, swallowed more air, got more of the blackness out of his face, and then came up under the Killer’s throat, came up
Kuhl grunted, swayed a little. A small, moist sound escaped his throat. Ricci pressed him, knowing this might be his only break, needing to make the most of it. Chin low, feet planted wide, he bored into Kuhl, pistoning his fists into Kuhl’s stomach and sides, pounding him with lefts, rights, jabs, pressing, pressing, his knuckles hammering him with one blow after the next.
Then Ricci felt the Killer loosen up, or maybe slip, he wasn’t sure, didn’t care, just knew he had him where he wanted him, and rammed his kneecap up between his legs, digging it into his groin.
Kuhl went down to the floor, kneeling, sagging forward, attempting to brace himself from going flat on his face with his outspread palms. But Ricci stayed on top of him, kicking his face, arms, legs, and body, making him bleed, opening wounds all over him, watching the redness spurt from his torn, lacerated flesh.
Wanting to bring him down as low as he possibly could.
And then, suddenly, coming up in the Killer’s fist, a bright flash of steel.
The combat knife.
He’d gotten the knife off the floor.
It flicked up, and then out, as Kuhl successfully thrust the blade in Ricci’s direction, jabbing its point into the back of his right leg.
Ricci felt its hot/cold penetration deep in his thigh muscle, swung a final kick at the Killer’s hand with his
