A Knife Edge

FIFTY-FOUR

I broke into a run. I slowed only when our stakeout hut came into view. The gunshots came from inside. I stopped at the edge of the cleared area, dropped to the ground, listened and watched. Nothing. The hut was dark and quiet. I considered how to approach it. If the people inside had the angle right, they'd be able to see me coming while I wouldn't be able to see squat.

My hand went automatically for the butt of the pistol in my pocket. It felt good, reassuring, a friend. I massaged my palm against the roughness of the checkering on the handgrip while I figured out a plan. I didn't have much to work with. I had no radio, no backup. I removed the Colt and gave it the once-over. All the blueing seemed intact. My thumb found the safety and satisfied itself that the weapon wasn't going to go off unexpectedly. I popped the clip. Seven rounds plus one in the chamber — .357 semi wad cutters. Make a hell of mess of someone. WCs reduced the weapon's effective range. And they didn't so much as put holes in you as turn you inside out. The choice of ammunition said something about the guy who packed this weapon — the word “fuckhead” came to mind. Perhaps the Korean assholes now sharing a headboard back up the valley weren't soldiers. I pulled back the slide. It was a well-oiled, well-maintained piece. The ground-away front sight… now, that was the sort of modification someone who regularly pulled a gun from a holster would make. I wondered how many tickets this piece had punched. Perhaps the owners of these weapons were bad asses from North Korea's Research Department for External Intelligence. NK's CIA equivalent. Who or what was inside our hut? More RDEI hitmen?

I'd heard two shots and they hadn't come from the same weapon. One, I was reasonably sure, had come from Rossi's. It had made a sound like a phone book smacked with a broom handle. The kind of sound a suppressed weapon might make. The other shot made a straight-out bang—a handgun sound, not unlike the one warming up my right hand would make when it went off.

There was no way to approach the hut except through the front door, which wasn't even a door. The windows were too high, and there was no way to get under the floor on account of it was a concrete slab poured onto the earth. I doubted the roof would take my weight. Even if it could, there was no way up there other than by pole-vaulting and, typically, I'd gone and left my vaulting pole in my other pair of pants.

The front entrance was it. No other option than to walk straight up and press the doorbell. I approached from an angle, running crouched over. It was quiet, too damn quiet. I figured whoever was inside wanted me inside with them. I sat down against the side of the hut, adjacent to the opening, and counted to three before rushing it. I thumbed off the safety, cocked the hammer. Click.

One … two … three …

I went in low. I managed to get three paces into the main room — the bedroom — before what I saw made me stop dead.

“You just won't fuckin' die, Cooper, will you?” It was Butler. He was sitting on one of the beds. There was a smile on his face. I could almost have believed he was happy to see me, except for the Glock 17 in his hand pointed straight at me. Curled up on the bed beside him was Sean Boyle, groaning. From the position the professor was lying in and the sounds he was making, I was reasonably sure it wasn't food poisoning. The blood oozing from a stomach wound was also a dead giveaway. His face was squeezed into a grimace. On the floor, beside the entrance to the bathroom, lay Rossi. She wasn't moving. There was a lot of blood on the floor beneath her face and neck. It was seeping out of her chest, which told me her heart was still pumping. She was alive. Only, for how much longer?

“How the fuck did you survive the fuckin' fall? Sprout fuckin' wings or something?” Butler asked, shaking his head.

“I think you should put the gun down,” I said. I had the .45 in a two-handed assault grip, Butler's nose bobbing in the space where the front sight would have been. I thought about the last time we'd been face-to-face, dropping through the troposphere at one hundred and twenty miles per hour and him sawing through my chute harness. Oh yeah, I wanted to squeeze a couple of pounds of pressure into that trigger finger.

“And why should I do that?” he asked.

“Because otherwise I'm gonna have to give you a really bad nose job.”

The professor moved a little and cried out in pain.

“He looks bad,” I said. “Doesn't sound too good, either.”

“Thank your friend for that,” Butler said, with a nod at Rossi. “She walked in on us. Shot him, just like that. So I shot her. The prof will live, even if it's with only one kidney. As for the bird, you shagging her?” Butler changed target. He swung his arm and lowered his hand so that the gun pointed at the back of Rossi's head. “You should. She's got a wicked arse and she can handle a gun. Makes me horny just thinking about it. She's alive, but one more bullet — not even a well-aimed one — would probably finish her off. Lost a lot of blood, as you can see. I think it'd be a shame myself, but the call's yours.”

“Where's Dortmund?” I asked.

“He let us off down the road. At the moment he's taking a tour group to the airport. With any luck, he'll be along later.” I pictured Dortmund behind the wheel of the Lexus, Ratipakorn's machine-gun-toting Humvees in hot pursuit smashing through the jungle.

“How did you know which hut we were in?” I asked. I was playing for time, hoping some interesting plan might pop into my head. Also, I was genuinely interested to know, just in case I ever had to do something like this again.

“I don't get it with you, Cooper. You're here, which says you're good at some things, though only God knows what, exactly. Maybe it's just being able to stay alive. Anyway, it's like this: There are nine huts scattered up the hillside. All except three were lit up at night. So either these unlit huts were unoccupied, or occupied by people who didn't use lights. We'd re-connoitered two of the darkened huts. They were empty. That left yours. According to my new Korean pals, there seemed to be movement coming from inside. Now, when people move around in the dark without turning on any lights, there's usually a good reason, isn't there?”

Yeah, I thought. Good point, even if it was made by a patronizing Limey shithead.

“Our patrol came across your friend here, and called it in. We just put it all together and dropped in to say hello … Hello.”

“You're pretty relaxed about things,” I said, annoyed at my own tactical stupidity. Goddamn it, it's not easy sneaking up on the SAS — that's why they're the SAS. “I get the feeling you think you're just going to walk on out of here.”

“Actually, sunshine, I think that's exactly what I'm going to do.”

“And I'm just going to let you?”

“You won't have a choice.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you're going to be dead, Cooper. That's why I'm here.”

“You came back, just to kill me?”

“Had to. Had three good reasons to.”

“You need three?”

Butler smiled like he was enjoying himself. “Pride. I wanted to prove to myself that killing you could, in fact, be done. Also, it's clear you just won't give it a rest until I do. And finally, I promised a mutual friend. So there you go — had to.”

“We have a mutual friend who wants me dead?” A mutual friend? I was glad whoever it happened to be wasn't an enemy. Who could that be? Boyle groaned.

“Don't for a moment think I'm going to tell you who,” Butler said. “I've said too much already. I'm going to enjoy sending you off to hell guessing. So, what's it going to be, Cooper? Shall I put a bullet in your friend here, or do you want to give her a fighting chance?”

I didn't have a whole lot of choice. My arms, stretched out in front of me, were beginning to cramp. I glanced at Rossi. She was continuing to lose blood. She needed a hospital and she needed one now.

I nodded.

“So, what? I just surrender?” I asked.

“We put our guns down and we go at it, hand to hand, man to man. Remember this?” He kept his gun on Rossi, I kept my gun on him. Mexican standoff. His moves were slow, deliberate, and very careful. I shuffled into the room a little further and took a couple of steps off to the side. I didn't want Dortmund, if he arrived, coming up behind me. Butler reached under a fold in a bedcover and pulled out a long, slender, and very lethal blade. Yeah, I recognized it all right. Ruben Wright's Fairbairn-Sykes.

“You been going through my gear?” I asked.

“What can I say?” he said with a shrug. “I'm bad.” He held the blade up and read out the inscription on it. “And the American Way.” He glanced from Rossi to me. “‘Truth, Justice, and the American Way.' Wright was a right bloody nutcase, he was. The twerp really thought he was Superman. I couldn't believe it. He even had that dumb S symbol tattooed on his shoulder, remember?”

I remembered.

Another snort. “I used his own knife to cut him out of his harness. I wonder if he was surprised to discover he couldn't fly.”

I didn't say anything. Butler was reminiscing. So was I. In fact I was reminiscing about him doing the same thing to me.

“I was fucking his bird senseless because he couldn't get it up anymore. Some Superman. I don't think he liked it much, me fucking his missus. But Amy did. She was a screamer. Couldn't get enough pork sausage, if you know what I mean. There was nowhere we didn't fuck, and I'm not talking about venues.”

“So what do you want, Butler? Seen too much? Can't take it anymore? Looking for a nice retreat in a closed country where they hang people up by their toenails?”

Butler's eyes narrowed. “Let me answer that by asking you what you're going to do when your government decides it's time for you to retire?”

“Become a marriage counselor — I've got it all figured out. But before then, I've got a nice set of nylon cuff ties in my bag. You probably saw them when you were going through my gear. I'd like you to just slip a pair on.”

“I don't know about you, Cooper, but nothing I've done or been involved in over the years has made half a snot's bloody difference. I've seen brave men killed and cowards win. I've helped monsters get rewarded and had a hand in taking down good men. The heroes I know aren't anything more than PR fantasies — creations for recruitment drives. None of it has meant shit at the end of the day, none of it. I want something for all the hard work, for the failed missions, and for the ones that came off. I've risked, and now I want return. Something more than a pension—”

“I'm not sure what you're selling, but I'm not buying, Butler. You killed a buddy of mine. You tried to kill me the same way. And the people who pay my salary don't like you all that much, either.”

“What is it you Yanks say? Wise up? You look like you've been around the block yourself a few times, Cooper. You know the score.”

He was right, I did know the score. And mostly it was 10-0 in the other guy's favor. But that's life, isn't it? I'd never known it any different. Not when I was a kid growing up in Shit Hole, New Jersey. Not in my first marriage. Not now. It'd be great if it was different. But it never would be. For some reason, I thought of Anna and the fact that she was now seeing some JAG lawyer. Yeah, 10-0 in the other guy's favor all the way. “So you're overworked and underpaid. Join the human race,” I said. “But, before you do, put down the gun and the knife.”

“Do it your way, and the girl dies, no question,” said Butler. “Do it mine and she might live. Depends on whether you're up to the challenge.” He raised Ruben's dagger in his right hand, like he was going to throw it at me. I crouched, bracing to shoot him, arms tensed. He lowered the blade and tossed it across the rough concrete floor. It clattered to a stop by my front foot. I picked it up, moving slow, not taking my eyes or gun off Butler.

Butler pulled his own knife from a scabbard attached to his thigh. He held it up, giving me a good look. If I wasn't shitting myself, I might have been impressed. The weapon was a variation of a Ka-Bar military combat knife, though it was longer and meaner than any Ka-Bar I'd ever seen. It had to be around sixteen inches in length. The blade was hollow ground, tapered carbon steel that came to an end in a fanglike swept tip. One edge was serrated, the other honed sharp enough for a surgeon.

“I pop the girl in the head, or you and I resolve our differences hand to hand. You've got five seconds to decide, Cooper. One.”

I hesitated.

“Two.”

I had a clear shot. If I took it, would Butler still be able to squeeze off a round into Rossi's brainpan?

“Three.”

Could his trigger finger beat the bullet, a simple muscle contraction that—

“Four.”

I didn't like Rossi — her profession, her organization, or her methods — but that really didn't matter. I had no options.

“Five.”

I said, “You first. Gun down.”

“That's the problem with the world today — no trust.”

“Nope.”

“We do it together,” he said. “Our pieces go on the floor. Put your foot on it, kick it toward that corner.” He indicated which corner with the point of his chin. “Make sure it goes all the way there.”

I bent at the knees and put the Colt on the floor, mirroring Butler's moves. Removing my hand from the grip felt like saying good-bye to a buddy. Butler and I stood up, each with a foot on a handgun. We both kicked at the same time and the weapons tumbled together with a clatter into the corner and came to rest there.

My breathing was short and sharp. Sweat soaked my armpits and ran down my forehead. My pulse throbbed in my temples. Every sense was heightened. A couple of mosquitoes hummed somewhere close. Being a federal agent, I'd removed plenty of weapons from the hands of unwilling servicemen over the years. Most of them had had a skinful at the time, or didn't know what they were doing, like Boris and his baseball bat back at Elmer's sporting goods store. Disarming Butler would be a completely different proposition. SAS guys knew how to use a knife. He proved me right by holding the blade so that the steel ran back down the inside of his wrist and forearm. There was no way either of us could get out of this without being cut. I just had to hope that, in my case at least, it wouldn't be anywhere vital. There was a good chance we'd end up killing each other — our own personal Mutually Assured Destruction. I swapped the dagger to my right hand and crouched, poised. Butler did the same.

Sean Boyle groaned. Rossi shifted her weight a couple of inches.

A dribble of sweat rolled down Butler's forehead, ran into another droplet, and gained speed. An instant later it hit another droplet, accelerated, and fell into his eye socket. He blinked. I thrust. Not a slash. No back swing. More of a jab. He caught it, steel on steel. Tang to tang. No advantage. We disengaged. Separated.

I feinted to the left. He covered the movement, exposing his front leg. I kicked him in the thigh with my right shin, driving it into him with all my body weight. It was a heavy hit, but Butler shrugged it off, merely hopping on his good leg a couple of times as we came apart. At least I'd let him know it wasn't just the knife he had to watch out for.

Butler switched his blade to his left hand, letting me know it wasn't just his right I had to watch out for. He swung the knife at my face. I felt the change in air pressure as the tip swept by an inch away from my eyeballs.

Butler suddenly leapt toward me and tried the same slash again. I moved into him this time, stepping inside his range, and smashed my forearm down on his arm as he brought it through. This inside move caught him by surprise. His neck was exposed to an elbow strike, but Butler was ready for it. He dropped to the floor before I could hit him and he rolled away, coming up in stance, perfectly balanced, ready to kill. We moved in toward each other, circling. I thrust with the Fairbairn-Sykes, hoping to open up his gut. Butler moved, and I missed. My momentum carried me forward, a little out of control, and I slipped on my own sweat. I fell forward. I tried to roll as Butler had, but slipped again. Butler was all over me like cheap aftershave. He stabbed his knife down toward the back of my head. I sensed this and moved. The point of his knife tip slammed into the floor beside my cheek and I felt a small concrete chip ping off my ear. I twisted away and came up on my knees before he could repeat the thrust. Butler saw his opportunity. He jumped forward and stood on the Fairbairn-Sykes, jamming it against the floor under his boot. I was vulnerable to a slash across the body, which would have opened me up like a ripped trash bag. I had no choice. I caught the blow with my arm. His blade buried itself deep in my deltoid, the muscle below the shoulder ball joint, almost cutting through to the bone. Oddly, I felt no pain. I watched it happen like it was someone else's arm. Butler ripped the knife out, cutting, tearing, and small hunks of muscle and skin clung to the knife's bloody serrations as he brought it away.

I fell back against the wall before he could bury the knife in my guts, the blood surging from the severed blood vessels in my arm. I had nowhere to go. Butler had my knife as well as his. He came toward me, grinning, waggling them — one in either hand as if to say, “Now, which one will I use to finish you off?”

I had no weapon, but I had a belt. The belt had a buckle on it. I struggled to my feet, unfastened it, and pulled it through the loops. A weight suddenly fell down through the inside of my pants and clattered onto the floor. I was so surprised I kicked it accidentally with my heel as I moved, and it flew across the floor. Goddamn it, the second .45 confiscated from the NK patrol, the one I'd jammed into the small of my back, held there by the belt. I'd completely forgotten about it. It spun into the pool of blood around Rossi. She suddenly lifted her head and picked it up. She had my full attention. Butler's, too. She thumbed off the safety. Aimed the gun. Bang! I opened my mouth. She shot Sean Boyle as he lay on the bed, clutching his stomach. The slug, a wad cutter, entered beneath his chin, smashing through his palate and turning the bone there into splinters that continued on through his brain, changing it to the consistency of mousse, and then blowing the top of his head clean off. Clumps of Boyle's brains spattered across Butler's face, momentaily blinding him.

I threw myself forward into Butler as he clawed the gray matter out of his eyes. My knee slammed into his ribcage and I felt it cave in like rotten wickerwork. We both fell backward and I came down on top of him, his Ka-Bar sliding away out of reach. He brought up his leg. That's when I saw the small-bore revolver in a holster strapped to his ankle. I reacted, kicking his leg away, but he was determined to get to his gun. Life. Or death. I went for his neck, wrapping my hands around it. His skin was slick with brains, which oozed between my fingers like gray mud as I squeezed. With the busted-up knuckles of my left hand, I couldn't get a grip. Strangling the guy wasn't an option so I used my elbow, mashing it into the side of his face, twisting his brain stem, giving him something to think about. Butler's head rolled about, but he was still conscious, still going for that goddamn gun.

I was exhausted. So was Butler. I kicked his leg away from his hand. I moved to hit him again. He moved his head to avoid my elbow, and that's when I saw Ruben's dagger — the Fairbairn-Sykes. It was under Butler, pressed between his body and the floor. I reached for the handle and pulled. It came away. The diversion gave Butler the chance to reach for his revolver.

I had no time to think about what I did next.

I slid the blade through his shirt, beneath his skin, between the bone fragments of his broken ribs. The cold steel blade sliced through small then large intestine. More pressure was needed to carve up through the tough muscle wall of his diaphragm. Butler gasped like he was wading into icy water. I heard the click as his thumb cocked back the hammer on his gun. I pushed up on the hilt, the blade's edge overcoming the resistance of muscle and tissue. Bom-bom-bom… I felt his pulse through the hilt when the tip of the dagger came to rest up against the wall of his throbbing heart. I was ready to call it quits. I didn't want Butler dead. I still had questions, and maybe this was the only guy left alive with the answers.

Butler's mouth was open, his eyes wide. I heard the gun he was holding clatter to the floor. I relaxed. Suddenly, I felt his hands on mine around the knife's handle, slick with blood, sweat, and brains. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. With a final burst of strength he drove the blade higher, deeper into himself. And then, transmitted through the steel, I felt his heart explode, impaled on the tip of Ruben Wright's Fairbairn-Sykes.