Fear No Evil

Chapter 31

Seeing Brooker’s eyes up close like this — cold, ruthless, amoral — triggered the intensive training deep in Sampson’s brain.

He no longer cared about the knife at his neck or the fact that the spook of his nightmares held it or that said spook claimed to have brought sad tidings from M. The only thing that mattered to Sampson now was that Brooker had been sent to kill him, and if he did, Willow would become an orphan.

That was not going to happen. He was not going to let that happen.

He heard a calm voice in his head say, Weapon?

Sampson’s service gun was in the house; his backup was at his ankle.

Hand, he thought instantly. He trusted that thought.

Pick a target, the voice said.

Lower ribs, liver, he thought. And again trusted that thought.

Strike.

Brooker smiled at the same instant Sampson used his superior size to yank out of the assassin’s grip. Brooker was thrown off balance and twisted to his left.

Sampson felt the tip of Brooker’s knife skitter and cut skin along the side of his neck; he pivoted on the balls of his feet and drove his left fist hard into Brooker’s side about ten inches above his hip with his full weight behind it. He heard and felt the assassin’s rib snap.

With a deep grunt, the killer staggered sideways across the sidewalk toward the lawn. He dropped into an odd crouch, his head and torso bent, guarding his broken rib and potential liver laceration.

Brooker was injured, no doubt, but still not down.

Weapon? the calm voice said again.

Sampson reached to get the small nine-millimeter Ruger he kept in his ankle holster just as Brooker attacked, exploding from his protective crouch and slashing the air with the knife. Sampson jumped back, the blade just missing him.

He landed on his heels, off balance, and almost went down. Brooker saw it and charged forward with the blade tip leading.

Left forearm.

Throat.

Sampson did something then that the assassin did not expect. Instead of trying to stay away from the blade or grabbing the man’s wrist, he ignored the knife, found his balance, and stepped forward with his entire weight, holding his bent right arm at chin height.

He felt the stab like a gut punch at the same time the ulnar bone of his forearm smashed hard into Brooker’s throat, almost crushing his larynx; they crashed off the sidewalk and onto a neighbor’s lawn. Sampson felt the wind go out of him on impact. He knew the knife was in him and that he’d been wounded badly.

Brooker struggled beneath him. Sampson pushed himself up and off the knife and straddled Brooker’s hips.

Though wild-eyed and gasping for air, Brooker stabbed Sampson in the thigh. Sampson howled with pain but heard that calm voice in his head again.

Weapon? Target?

He knew both answers and trusted them.

Sampson raised both fists as one and hammered them down on Brooker’s solar plexus, just below the center of his rib cage. Brooker doubled up in pain but did not let go of the knife. He yanked it from Sampson’s thigh and pulled back to stab him once more. Sampson smashed his right fist into Brooker’s solar plexus and his left into his broken rib, again and again, and then he put his hands around the man’s throat and finished crushing his larynx.

Brooker began to suffocate. His hand let go of the knife finally and his eyes lost all their ruthlessness before he lay still.

“John!” Jannie screamed. Sampson, dazed, looked back at his house and saw Alex’s daughter running at him with Willow, hysterical, behind her.

Sampson started to hyperventilate and shake from the shock of being stabbed twice and all the adrenaline from the fight.

“Call 911,” he gasped at Jannie before keeling over next to the man M had sent to kill him.