The First Casualty

23

“You will let me get off? Peters, you will be dead before then. You Westerners have no heart for what must be done, like killing a woman.”

He didn’t want to admit it to himself, certainly not to Natalia, but, yeah, he really did have qualms about killing a woman.

The thought vanished as she flicked her weapon at him, ripping the arm of his jacket with a tearing sound.

Fuck chivalry.

What she did next was as unorthodox as it was unexpected. With a move like a striking snake, she bent low, swiping his left calf with steel.

Jason’s reaction was to try to reposition the tip of his knife for a stab into her exposed back. But she was too quick.

Either too fast or his reservations were clouding his mind.

It took maybe a full second before the sensation arrived, a searing hot pain that brought tears to his eyes, tears she saw.

“Tell you what,” she said with a smile, “put down your weapon and I’ll let you live. No hard feelings.”

The thin carpet of the platform was getting slick with Jason’s blood. He was careful where he placed his feet and how he shifted his weight. A slip, certainly a fall, would be fatal.

He feigned a jab from the right, his plan to slash from the left instead, a maneuver requiring a minimum of movement. Even so, the poor footing caused him to slip, the aggressive sortie of a boxer rather than the graceful lunge of a fencer. He twisted frantically to avoid Natalia’s blade and his feet went out from under him, sending him crashing into the exit to outside hard enough to knock the breath out of him.

Worse, the killing knife clattered against the far door as it slipped from his hand.

He must have hit the button that slid the door open, leaving him on his back gasping for air, his head hanging outside the train with half a mile drop below.

Recognizing an easy kill, Natalia dropped to her knees, leaning over him. Her blade was raised for the coup de grâce. The knife was just before beginning its deadly down stroke when there was a woman’s scream.

Without completely taking his eyes from his opponent, Jason saw a woman’s horrified face through the glass of the following car. Natalia hesitated a fraction of a second.

Not much time, but all Jason had. Grabbing the vertical rails beside the open door, the very ones he had used to pull himself aboard, he brought his knees nearly to his chin at the instant Natalia put her weight down behind the killing stroke. For an instant, her body was balanced on Jason’s knees, an instant in which her face was frozen in the horror of realization.

Like a circus acrobat, Jason flipped his knees over his head, a backward somersault, flinging Natalia through the open door and into space.

Jason saw, or thought he saw, a figure, stiff with arms outstretched like a paper doll cut from black paper, that got smaller and smaller until it disappeared against the landscape half a mile down.

As he scrambled to his feet, the woman who had been looking through the glass had both hands over her mouth as though to staunch the low moaning sound she made as her eyes went from the open door to Jason’s bloody leg to the killing knife on the blood-soaked carpet. If ever Jason had seen sheer terror in someone’s eyes, he was looking at it now.

“These domestic quarrels can be a bitch,” he said before realizing how slim was the chance this woman understood a word of English.

No time to comfort strangers. The conductor was still around somewhere. He picked up his knife. Hugging the wall, Jason cautiously peered around the door and into the car in which he and Natalia had been sitting only minutes before.

Empty.

The burning agony of his leg was difficult to ignore, but the threat of the conductor made it imperative to do so. Jason did take the time to roll up his pant leg and note he had sustained a wound to the flesh only. Though deep, he could only hope there had been no, or minimal, damage to the muscle. Either way, he was already becoming light-headed from the loss of blood.

He used seat backs to help him walk to the quartet of seats where he and Natalia had sat. He picked up her purse, took out the wallet, and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. Doubtful a professional would be carrying anything of use, but he would look when he had time anyway.

Every second or two, he glanced up, making sure the complicit conductor didn’t surprise him. Eyes flicking toward the forward car. He used the knife to sever the shoulder strap of the Hermès purse.

Next, he used the knife’s razor edge to cut her jacket into strips. He could not help but note the four-pocket model had the distinctive interlocking Cs of Chanel on each pocket. Natalia and her fanatical Islamists might preach hatred for the West, but they had little reluctance to avail themselves of its luxuries.

He used the purse strap to bind the soft suede of the strips to the bleeding wound in his calf — possibly the world’s most expensive bandage. But it should prevent him from bleeding to death before he could get the cut stitched shut.

Returning the knife to its sheath, he drew the Glock. The police were going to get involved now for certain; Jason just had to make sure the conductor was accounted for and depart the train before the local heat arrived.