Barry Eisler - Rain Storm aka Choke Point

Once inside, I slowed down and moved more cautiously. I held the gun in my right hand, the barrel angled down slightly, my wrist pressed tight against my solar plexus. My left hand was at chin level and further out from my body, where it could deflect an attack and keep Belghazi away from the gun if he sprang in suddenly.

The street was well lit, and the container area was dark by comparison. My eyes weren’t fully adjusted. The van was obscured by the containers that had fallen around it. I couldn’t see the driver-side door.

I moved up slowly, inching forward, my eyes scanning left and right, the gun tracking my searching vision. Scan and breathe. Front foot down. Slide forward. Pause. Check position. Again .

Belghazi’s eyes wouldn’t be any better adjusted than mine, but I knew the streetlights were backlighting me, exposing my position. I needed to move into the dark. I started to circle to my left.

Something hit me in the left ribs like a battering ram, finding its mark between my chin-level free hand and the stomach-level gun. There was an explosion of pain and I went flying backward. As I hit the ground I could hear Delilah’s voice: With his kicks he can break individual ribs .

Or maybe three or four at a time.

My body did a judo ukemi breakfall of its own accord, a quarter century of muscle memory taking over without any input from my conscious mind. The breakfall distributed the impact and saved me from further damage. Lying on my back now, I tried to bring the gun up to where I thought he would be, but he had already moved in. His foot blurred off his chambered hip in some sort of fouette or spiral kick and the gun blew out of my hand. I felt the shock up to my shoulder.

He reached inside his jacket. What he pulled out flashed in the lights reflected from the street and I realized razor , just as Delilah had warned me.

I brought my legs up to try to kick him away, and was surprised to see him take a step back. I thought, He knows your background, he’s being careful about closing, even with the razor , but then I saw him wiping blood from his eyes and realized the pause was driven more by necessity than by tactics. He must have gotten smacked around when the van hit the containers.

He swayed for a second, and in that second I rolled backward and sprang to my feet. I felt a hot stab in the ribs where he had nailed me and thought, If I get out of this, I will carry a blade, I don’t give a shit about all the good reasons not to .

I took two more steps back to buy a little distance, then glanced down at the ground. I didn’t see the gun. There were too many shadows, and too much junk lying around: cracked wooden pallets, container doors, sections of chain-link fence. To my right was a pile of what looked like oversized metal hubcaps. I swept one up, liking its heft. If there had been a handle on it, I might have used it as a shield. Instead, I slung it like a Frisbee. It hissed through the air straight for Belghazi’s midsection. He jumped left and it sailed past him. Damn, even with the head injury, he was light on his feet, more like a dancer than a typical kickboxer. He started to move toward me and I snatched up another of the metal disks, seeing as I did so that after two more I would be out of ammo. I sent it flying. He dodged again. I grabbed the third and fourth and flung them rapid-fire. The first went high and he managed to duck under it. But the duck cost him his mobility, and he couldn’t get out of the way of the next one, which was heading straight for his head. He raised his razor hand to protect himself and the disk slammed into it, knocking it back into his head. I saw the razor tumble out of his grip and felt a rush of satisfaction.

He stood up and glanced down, and I immediately took two long steps toward him. He looked up at me, knowing that he wasn’t going to have time to grope for and recover the weapon, and we stood facing each other for a moment, each of us breathing hard. He hitched his pants up slightly, creating a little more freedom of movement for his legs. That’s it , I thought. Give me one of those fucking legs. I promise to give it back when I’m done with it .

I had to be careful, though. His physical skills and toughness were obvious, but more than that I expected his tactics to be sound, too. Old-style savateurs practice what they call malice , or dirty fighting, using improvised weapons, deception, anything to get the job done. It becomes a mind-set, a mind-set with which I am firsthand familiar. I expected that Belghazi would be equally so.

I circled left, my hands up in a boxer’s stance. He did the same, his hands held lower, his posture looser, again moving fluidly, light on his feet. Of course I had no intention of boxing with him or otherwise trying to engage him at a distance. That was his game, not mine. But if I offered him a familiar appearance, say, the appearance of the kind of opponent he was accustomed to facing in the gym and in the ring, his body might automatically respond to the recognizable stimuli, much as mine had done a moment earlier when I had landed with a judo ukemi . In which case he would begin to approach me as though I was another savateur , thereby, I hoped, creating an opportunity for me to close with him. He wouldn’t be unacquainted with grappling- savateurs call their grappling style lutte , a derivative of Greco-Roman wrestling designed more to maim than to restrain-but I had little doubt that, if I could take him to the ground, the advantage would be mine.

He chambered his right leg, feinted, then returned the foot to the ground. He repeated the maneuver. And again. The upraised leg started to return to the ground and I saw my opening. I shot forward. But the third time had been no feint, or in fact it had been the real feint, and the leg reversed course and whipped in from my left. I covered up with my left elbow and the toe of his shoe caught me between the biceps and triceps. It felt like I’d been hit with a hammer. He retracted the kick, then shot it in again, this time toward my forward knee. I lifted the leg just as his heel landed, and, although it hurt, the impact was dissipated enough to prevent meaningful damage.

He replanted his right foot and I shot my own kick in, a basic front kick off the back leg aimed at his knee. He twisted clockwise off the line of attack and parried inward with his left hand. I reached out and managed to snag his left sleeve with my right hand. I rotated counterclockwise, dragging his sleeve down and around, ruining his balance and forcing his body to follow. As he spiraled in toward the ground, I changed direction and brought my left hand up under his hand. I swept my right leg around clockwise along the ground and levered his arm backward, trying to break it. Even with his balance destroyed, though, his reflexes were quick. Rather than resisting the wristlock, he launched his body into it, getting ahead of the lock’s momentum and saving his arm.

He landed on his back and I immediately dropped onto his solar plexus, my left knee leading the way. He grunted and I heard the wind being driven out of him. I kept his arm and dragged it upward, simultaneously sliding my left foot under his ribs, preparing to fall back in a jujigatame armlock and take out his elbow. But again he showed both quick reflexes and sound training: as I whipped my right leg across his face and dropped back into the lock, he spun his body in my direction and retracted his arm like a man trying to yank out of a straitjacket sleeve. His reaction cost me some of my leverage, but I still held enough arm to damage him. He reached around with his left hand and grabbed his right wrist to prevent me from straightening his arm. I brought my left leg up and hacked at his wrist with my heel. His grip broke. I popped backward and levered his arm against the natural movement of the elbow joint. I felt an instant of resistance from the surrounding ligaments, then felt the joint break with a resounding crack. He screamed and writhed under me.