Джеффри Дивер - The Final Twist

He began to lift his gun toward him. Shaw instinctively crouched, hands forward in a defensive posture.

Which is when the woman beside him — not audio expert Julia but Shaw’s friend Victoria Lesston — pulled the trigger of Shaw’s Colt Python .357, which was in the white envelope. Because she wasn’t able to aim, the big round missed Droon by a few inches and blew apart the side-view mirror of the plumbing van. Droon stumbled backward and fell, his gun flying into the brush. He rose and fled into the woods.

Victoria offered Shaw the Colt, but he said, “No, cover them.” Nodding toward the BlackBridge crew. He didn’t waste time searching for his Glock. Shaw turned toward the well-trod footpath Droon had disappeared down and sprinted after him.

Shaw caught up with the wiry man fifty yards away.

Breathing hard, Droon turned back, drawing the SOG knife from the scabbard on his belt.

“Okay, Reward Man. Pretty much had it with you, don’tcha know?”

Shaw ignored the words and assessed the terrain. A flat grass-covered clearing. Fair ground for both of them.

Never fight from a downhill position.

Droon moved quickly, dancing back and forth, the knife hand — his right — always in motion.

Shaw tried, and he only tried once. “It’s over, Droon. You know it. Don’t make it harder on yourself.”

“Haw, you’re a funny man to speak, Shaw.” He lunged and swept the blade back and forth. Shaw easily dodged. “We debated finishing you in the camper in Tacoma. I was for that. But Irena said you might have something else for us. Something helpful.” Another swipe. “And damn if you didn’t. You found that certificate. That made her day, my oh my.”

Shaw was paying no attention to the words. Let him talk, let him use up oxygen. What he was doing was studying Droon’s arms and hands. That’s what you always watched in a knife fight. He kept his own in front and kept dancing away from Droon, making the small man come to him, then backing off.

Instinctively, Shaw was thinking of the rules of combat with blade.

Rule One: If you’re attacked by someone with a knife and you’re unarmed, run.

Not an option here.

Droon, laughing, giddy, eyes filled with glittery light, kept jogging forward and back, sweeping the knife between the men. Shaw moved back, but returned immediately, keeping his own hands up and open — to avoid breaking a finger — and slammed them into Droon’s right arm, knocking it aside. As soon as the blade was past, Shaw cuffed Droon painfully in the face. Then moved back.

This infuriated the man, and his resulting expression accentuated his rodent features.

At one point Shaw, thinking the ground behind him was flat, stumbled on a root he hadn’t seen. He didn’t fall, but lost balance momentarily. Droon sprung and Shaw felt pain as the blade slashed the back of his hand.

Rule Two: You will be stabbed in a knife fight. Accept it and try to present non-vital portions of your body.

Shaw continued to dance away every time Droon lunged. Shaw kept up the palm slugging at his opponent’s face, stunning him.

He didn’t go for the knife.

Rule Three: Do not try to get the knife away from the attacker. He has a religious connection with it and no martial arts move will cause him to drop it.

Droon was no longer smiling. Shaw was not playing fair, dancing in and out, cuffing ears and eyes. Another slash to the upper arm. The jacket took the brunt.

Droon would pounce and Shaw would leap back, but every time he did so his right palm or left would connect with Droon’s face, which was now red in places and bleeding. That was his only target. In fast, out fast.

“How’d you like...” Droon took a deep breath. “... to be blind, son? That suit your way of life?” Like a fencer he thrust the knife forward. Shaw saw it coming. He stunned Droon with a blow to the ear. Hard enough and such a move can render your opponent unconscious. This strike didn’t do that but it disoriented him.

“I’m tired of you, Shaw. Let’s finish this.”

Rule Four: When the attacker draws back, counterattack to the eyes and throat.

Droon leapt forward, and the blade missed Shaw’s chest by inches. The second that the scrawny man turned slightly and drew the blade back, Shaw was on him, gripping the knife wrist in his left hand and clawing at the eyes. The man howled.

Shaw pressed his advantage and, still holding the knife hand, gripped the man under his right knee, lifted him into the air and slammed him onto his back on the hard, rock-strewn ground. His breath went out of his lungs.

The knife tumbled to the ground.

“No, son, no.” Droon held up his hands, as if for mercy, but then pressed forward and seized Shaw’s throat. Though he wasn’t a large man, there was formidable strength in the grip.

As his vision began to fade, Shaw picked up the SOG knife and, holding it firmly in his right hand, plunged it into Droon’s neck.

“No, wait, no.” He seemed surprised. Maybe he thought that for some odd cosmic reason Colter Shaw didn’t have the right, or wasn’t able, to stab him with his own blade.

The pressure on Shaw’s neck continued.

Colter Shaw thought of his father.

Thinking of one word:

Survival...

He twisted the blade, opening the rent in the man’s neck wider. Blood propelled.

“Look... No... I...”

The arms dropped.

In no more than ten seconds, the man had gone limp.

Breathing hard, Shaw rolled off him, rose and stepped away ten feet. He kept a firm grip on the knife.

Never assume even a downed enemy is no threat...

Droon coughed once. Then his breathing ceased. Shaw watched him, motionless, his unblinking eyes staring upward. They were aimed toward an oak bough, not far overhead, stark in the gray sky, thick with clusters of early-season acorns, which were a pleasant green in color, a deep shade.

Colter Shaw thought: Not a bad image to carry with you in your last moments on earth.

Got ’em on the wire,” Ty said to Shaw. “Listen.”

The operative, no longer in the park ranger hat, was playing the recording he’d made of the conversation among the BlackBridge crew as they’d waited in the plumbing truck.

Braxton: We can’t do anything with a damn ranger there.

Droon: We’ll hope he leaves. If he doesn’t, well, accidents happen, don’tcha know?

Braxton: No. We wait till he’s gone. I want it as clean as possible.

Droon: We’re going to have two bodies ’ventually. Three can’t gum up the works any more.

Helms: Not the ranger.

A fourth voice was that of the pale man, whose name turned out to be George Stone, a BlackBridge employee. He’d been a mercenary in Africa and the Balkans, Ty had learned.

Stone: We kill Shaw now?

Droon: Does that make sense? Don’t you think it might be better to wait till she comes back from the office, then take them out together?

Helms: All right, all right... Maybe make it look, murder-suicide.

Droon: Now there’s an idea for you.

Helms: Gahl. That son of a bitch. How did he even know about the money laundering? He was research .

Stone: He overheard something. Was in the old building. Nobody was separate then.

Braxton: Right. Was years ago.

Helms: At least half the finance infrastructure’s still in place. Most of the banks’re the same. And the contractors? Maybe he knew about taking out the councilman. Maybe there’s an email, a note. Jesus, that info could burn us to the ground.