'The next bullet goes in the middle of your forehead.'
'We're gonna die right here,' the leader said.
Sam knew he had a problem. 'Last I heard, gang leaders still had balls. I'll fight you. If I win, you let us pass and we take the girls.'
'What if I win?'
'Then you've got one less guy to deal with.'
'Killing you will be a pleasure. And after that, having her.'
Sam handed one gun back and put the other in his pants.
'You still got a gun,' the leader said.
'How about you?'
The leader raised his hands and turned.
'Your ankle.'
The leader reached down and removed a small revolver.
Sam handed back the second gun.
'You wanna come hit me with a pipe?'
'What are you, one of those kung fu assholes?'
'Nah. No kung fu. I could teach you to pronounce it some other time. But like all good martial-arts practitioners, it is now my duty to ask you not to fight. There is no reason not to let us pass.'
The other men looked a little nervous and began to spread out.
'Think about it. If you win, my friends here will have a case of the nerves and they'll start shooting hollow points out of these semiautomatics and you guys will have bullets going in the front of you and blowing holes out your backs the size of grapefruits. And your intestines will probably rupture and spew shit all over your insides and it will take, say, thirty minutes to actually lose consciousness and it'll hurt like hell as you're dying. Then you'll think back to how it was that you could have just let us walk through. Of course you'll be shooting at my guys, but they have Kevlar vests, and you don't, so you'll need a head shot. So if you're lucky, you'll lose the fistfight and just suffer some broken bones.'
The bangers took another look at one another.
'You gotta pay to get through. We'll take her and some money.'
'Okay. Well, let's fight then, one at a time.'
Sam turned to Grady and Michael. 'Now, you make sure that whoever wins gets gut shot. Unless, of course, I win. Then you don't have to shoot anybody.'
'I more or less specialize in the gut shot,' Michael said.
Sam had been moving closer to the lead man, the big fellow, who now had a pipe ready to swing.
'Here I am. Aren't you gonna take a swing? Or can you feel that lead blowing out your backbone?'
Sam kicked in a blur right up into the man's crotch. The man bent over clutching his privates. For the moment he couldn't breathe. Sam yanked the pipe from his hands.
'If you check carefully, you'll see that your nuts are still down mere, although they may have entered your abdominal cavity.' Sam swung the pipe up between the man's legs, breaking the bones in his hands. When the man's hands dropped, Sam swung again and hit the testicles a second time, square on. 'Never threaten a woman.' With the man doubled over, he pinched off carotid arteries from behind the neck until he lost consciousness.
'Right on.' It was one of the girls back in the shadows.
A man with a badly scarred face was near the tunnel wall, but he began moving nearer the others. He had a gun pointed at Sam.
'You can start a shooting war, but most of us will die.'
'Especially you,' the man said. Sam stepped closer, clos ing the distance. In his fear the man wasn't thinking about the metal breastplate in the flak jacket under Sam's coat. He was aiming right at it.
'Either squeeze the trigger or get out of the way,' Sam said with remarkable calm. The hesitation was in the man's eyes and it was all Sam needed. In a fast kick he sent the man's gun hand up and then grabbed the gun hand on the way down. Sam jabbed his solar plexus, and as the strength left the man, Sam swiped his gun away. Quite deliberately he shot the man in the foot and left him screaming. One of the five remaining now grabbed one of the girls and put a gun to her head.
Grady stepped forward with her guns leveled. 'Don't touch her!'
The four others were looking uncertain. Sam walked to the nearest, a short, stocky, bald man, and held his pipe low as if he meant to repeat the performance with the leader. The man moved sideways with his head down and his hips back. Without taking his gaze from the man's eyes, Sam brought the pipe up under the man's chin, snapping the jaw. Despite the fractured jaw, the man swung hard at Sam. Sam blocked it with his own pipe and struck the nose palm up with instant results.
The man with the girl was backing away and Grady was moving forward, step for step. The three nearest watched Sam with wary eyes. At that moment feet running on the gravel distracted everyone; in seconds it seemed there were blue suits everywhere. Lugger and the gang members doused their lights. Two of the suits had lights. Sam took three strides and kicked one out while Michael, already surrounded by several men, instinctively went for the only remaining light. He kicked it out of the man's hand and stomped it on the rock. Lugger's dog was snarling and men were shouting as the dog lunged at them with bared fangs.
Sam whirled, knowing that someone had been coming at him from the side and behind. Everything Grandfather had taught him about darkness would be useful in the next seconds. He stepped to the side so that any light-filled memories would be misleading. A body passed close by. The footsteps stopped. He moved to a fighting stance and stood perfectly still. There is a sense that is not touch and is not sound or sight but may be a bit of all three unconsciously ap plied. Grandfather had said that there was an additional sense that, working with the others, created a certain sensation when another living being came within one's personal space. Sam felt that sensation and placed the person at about three feet distant. He crouched. With his left hand he reached out slowly along the ground until he felt a shoe. At that instant he withdrew his left hand, put it to the ground, and pivoted on it, kicking hard where the leg should be. It was a knee-high kick. There was a scream as the knee popped. When the man fell, Sam was on him, first choking him, then using his left hand to line up the chin for a solid right punch to the jaw. He found a gun and threw it into the darkness. Then he found a knife, a switchblade-unusual for a suit-and kept it. He moved straight back to where Grady had been standing and discerned fighting nearby. From the sounds he guessed Michael was picking them off in the dark, much as he had done-only at Michael's location there were many more men and they all had seemed to go for Bowden.
A few feet away, the dog was in a fight for his life. First Sam smelled the perfume, then he felt for and found two hands, each with a gun.
'Grady,' he whispered.
'I think they have Michael,' she said. Quickly he moved her to the wall.
'Stay here.'
When he turned, he heard someone nearby skidding on the rock. No doubt they were turning, trying to see. They seemed within a few feet. He concentrated, took a step back, then delivered a head-high kick with momentum. He pictured the point of impact and his heavy shoe connected with flesh slightly ahead of his anticipated strike point. But it was very solid and probably close to lethal. Whoever had been struck went down. Quickly he felt along the ground, foundthe body, removed and threw away the shoes, and sliced the Achilles tendon with the knife. No scream. The guy had blacked out.
Next, he belly-crawled back to the central struggle. A man moving fast tripped over him. Instantly he felt for the shoes. Ordinary street shoes. Michael and Lugger wore boots. After slashing an Achilles and eliciting a scream, he upended the man, yanked off the shoes, and threw them.
Next he crawled up the thrashing body of the panicked man, found his neck, and choked off the carotids. The man began flailing and throwing wild punches. A fist smacked Sam's jaw, but he held on until the man quieted.
He went back to the fight sounds, again on his belly, and found boots under two or three men. Knowing that Michael was on the bottom made it easy. He cut an Achilles on one man and that started the screaming. What made it even eas ier was that the suits wore no body armor. They weren't cops. Sam unleashed a flurry of fists and kicks on unpro tected backs and flanks.
As near as Sam could tell, the man he had slashed was screaming in French that he had been cut. For the suits, castration would come to mind and fuel the paranoia.
