The First Casualty

47

Jason watched for what seemed an eternity, but the bedclothes remained as placid as a pond with no wind. He flicked his eyes around the room, searching for the phone.

There wasn’t one.

As far away from the bed as he could get, perhaps three or four feet, he stooped, reached up his pants leg, and came up with his killing knife. One step and the tip of the blade was lifting the top sheet.

What happened next took place as a blur in his memory. The sheet lifted and something struck, something long and brown and angry.

The thing had made a leap, or strike, that was long enough to have reached Jason, had it not hit at the knife’s point instead. Now it was on the floor, twin needles of fangs facing Jason. Anvil-headed, dappled brown, with Satanic horns above each catlike eye, and a flicking tongue that seemed to be savoring a victim already. From long ago desert training, Jason recognized the deadly horned desert viper.

A native of the nearby Sahara, this one was unusually large at just over a couple of feet. Its venom was a witch’s brew of toxins that affected everything from kidneys to heart to bowels.

And it was definitely not in a good mood.

The snake had no intent of giving ground; and if the strike from the bed was any example, Jason was within easy range even adding the length of the blade. Attempting to use the knife was going to get him too close to those fangs. Keeping his eyes on those of the serpent as though they might telegraph intent, Jason poked the sheet with the knife again as he slowly backed up to put the bed between him and the snake. The creature advanced quickly across the tiled floor, a sideways movement like the sidewinder rattlesnake of the American Southwest, a movement adapted to the loose, shifting sands of the desert.

In less than a minute, Jason was going to be out of room.

Impaling the sheet on the tip of his knife, Jason waved it in front of the viper, drawing another strike, this time at the fabric.

A second attempt achieved what Jason had hoped for: The snake’s fangs were caught in the cotton threads of the sheet.

Swallowing the almost atavistic fear of snakes, Jason quickly stepped on its head, pinning it to the floor. A single stroke of the knife and the headless body wriggled furiously, leaving a thin trace of blood and slime across the tiles before it went still.

Jason carefully lifted his foot, unsure if he might still be in danger from some death spasm that could send those fangs into his foot or leg. If he ever could have used a shot or two of Viktor’s vodka, it was the time.

He started for the door, to get someone up there to remove that thing before he stepped on it in the dark.

No, wait.

The viper didn’t get in here on its own, and there is no point in alerting the would-be assassin it failed. Let him wonder. Mental advantage Jason.

Jason speared the head on the tip of his knife, carried it into the bathroom, and flushed it down the toilet followed by sections of the snake’s body he fed into the spinning waters one at a time.

Jason placed his knife and a recently unpacked .40-caliber Glock on the bedside table before turning out the light. Armed or not, sleep was not going to come easily.