Barry Eisler: Hard Rain

Murakami didn’t seem unduly concerned. I guessed that a dog that took gunpowder and steroids with its Alpo and jalapeño pepper suppositories for dessert might growl at the fucking wind, and that Murakami would be used to the behavior, might even welcome it.

They came closer. The dog was starting to get out of control, snarling and straining at the leash. Murakami looked down at it. I heard him say, “ Doushitanda ?” What the hell is with you?

Then his head started to come up. He wasn’t as close as I wanted, but I knew his next glance was going to put things together. I wasn’t going to get a better opportunity.

I leaped out at them and closed the distance in two long strides. Murakami reacted instantly, releasing the leash and getting his hands up to protect his upper body and head.

It was a well-trained reaction and I’d been expecting it. Ignoring the dog, which I ranked as the lesser threat, I dropped to a crouch, cocked my right arm back, and whipped it forward like a tennis backhand. The baton started telescoping out. By the time it reached Murakami’s lead ankle, it had achieved its proper twenty-six inches. The impact of that steel to his ankle was one of the best feelings I’d ever known. If I’d missed, I would have been dead a few seconds later.

But I didn’t miss. I felt bone shatter under the steel and heard Murakami howl. An instant later all I could see was white dog, coming at me like a cruise missile.

I managed to get my left arm up in front of my throat. The dog shot forward and clamped onto it just above the wrist. There was an explosion of pain. The impact knocked me backward.

I knew if I fell to my back with that creature on top of me there wouldn’t even be body parts for the clean-up crew afterward. Partly by instinct, partly by judo training, I let our paired momentum somersault us backward and rolled into a squat on the other end of it. The dog still had me just above the wrist, snarling and shaking its head, holding on in a dead game grip the way it had been trained. I couldn’t feel anything in my arm anymore.

I tried to bring the baton up and crack the thing over the head, but I couldn’t. The dog’s claws scraped against the pavement, seeking purchase, leverage from which it could force me over onto my back.

I dropped the baton and reached around with my good hand, scrabbling for its testicles. The beast dodged left, then right, knowing what I was going for. I found it anyway. I grabbed that canine package and yanked downward as hard as I’ve ever yanked anything in my life. The jaws loosened and I jerked my arm free.

I lurched to my feet. The dog writhed for a moment, then got its legs under it. It snarled and looked up at me with bloodshot eyes.

I glanced at my left hand. It was clamped around the pepper spray canister with rigor mortis determination. The tendons must have locked up from the pressure of the animal’s jaws.

The dog’s muscles coiled together. I pried the canister loose with my good hand. The dog leaped. I turned the canister forward and depressed the trigger.

There was a satisfying sound of gas escaping under pressure, and a red cloud hit the beast directly in the face. Its momentum carried it into me and knocked me backward, but it was jerking and slobbering now, no longer attacking. I kicked out from under its twitching body and rolled to a crouch.

The dog started writhing on the ground, rubbing its snout frantically into the tarmac as though trying to wipe off the substance that was causing its agony. I held the canister closer. When the animal turned its wheezing face toward me, I aimed directly into its nose and depressed the trigger. A thick cloud jetted out, and then, just as suddenly, died, the canister’s contents exhausted.

But it was enough. The dog’s body launched into spasms that made its previous writhing look like playful stretching by comparison. Oleoresin capiscum irritant is ordinarily nonfatal, but I thought a concentrated dose like the one the dog had just received might prove the exception.

I looked over at Murakami. He was on his feet, but was keeping his weight entirely off his wounded ankle. He had the Kershaw in his right hand, held close to his body.

I looked down and saw the baton. I swept it up in my good hand and approached him, my left arm hanging uselessly.

He was growling from deep in his chest, sounding not unlike his dog.

I moved around him in a wary circle, forcing him to adjust, trying to gauge the extent of his mobility. I knew the ankle shot had been potent. I also knew that he might try to exaggerate the extent of the damage, to get me to overcommit and attempt to finish him too quickly. If he could grab the baton or otherwise get inside my guard, his knife and two good arms would prove decisive.

So I took my time. I feinted with the baton. Left, then right. I circled toward the knife hand, making it more difficult for him to snatch something with his free fingers, keeping him moving, stressing the ankle.

I let him get used to the left/right feints. Then I ran one straight up the middle, jabbing the steel directly at his face and neck. He parried with his free hand, trying to grab the baton, but I’d been expecting it and snapped the unit out of the way in time. The, just as suddenly, I backhanded it in, cracking him along the side of his skull.

He dropped to one knee but I didn’t rush in. My gut told me he was faking, again trying to lure me inside, where he could neutralize the greater distance afforded by the baton.

Blood ran down from the side of his head. He looked at me and for a split instant I saw fear sweep across his face like a sheet of driving rain. His feints hadn’t worked and he knew it. He knew I was going to wear him down carefully, methodically, that I wasn’t going to do anything stupid that he could exploit.

His only chance would be something desperate. I circled again and waited for it.

I let him get a little bit closer, close enough to give him hope.

I feinted and dodged, forcing him to move on his ankle. He was panting now.

With a loud kiai he lunged at me, reaching with his free hand, hoping to snag a jacket sleeve and reel me into the knife.

But his ankle slowed him down.

I took a long step back and to the side and snapped the baton down on his forearm. I traded force for accuracy and speed, but it was still a solid shot. He grunted in pain and I took two more steps back to assess the damage. He held his injured arm against his body and looked at me. He smiled.

“C’mon,” he said. “I’m right here. Finish me off. Don’t be afraid.”

I circled again. His taunts meant nothing to me.

“Your friend screamed on the way down,” he said. “He…”

I closed the distance with a single step and thrust the baton into his throat. He raised his injured arm to try to grab it, but I had already retracted it across my body. In the same motion I changed levels, dropping into a squat, and whipped the baton into his leg again. He screamed and crumbled to his knees.

I stepped behind him, away from any possibility of a lunge.

“Did he sound like that?” I snarled, and brought the baton down on his head like a hatchet.

He sank down to his side, then fought to regain his balance. I brought the baton down again. And again. Gouts of blood flew from his scalp. I realized I was yelling. I didn’t know what.

I rained blows down on him until my arm and shoulder ached. Then I took a long step backward and sank down to my knees, sucking wind. I looked over at the dog. It was still.

I waited a few seconds to catch my breath. I tried to jam the baton closed but couldn’t. I looked at it and saw why. The straight steel rod had deformed into a bow shape from what I had done to Murakami.