by Peter Albano
“Stinking, rotten world, Brent.”
“Yes.”
“Write me, Brent. Israeli Intelligence – Tel Aviv. I’ll get your letters.”
He reached into his pocket, handed Sarah a card. “You can contact me in care of NIS, Washington, D.C.”
Nodding, she pulled the car to the curb. “Here we are, Brent.”
“Where’s the entrance?”
She stabbed a thumb over her shoulder. “That way – a couple blocks. But I can’t park closer.”
In a moment, Brent had opened the door and unwound his huge frame with a sigh. Glancing down the dark street, he saw rows of dark delapidated buildings while bordering the road were two asphalt walkways cluttered with trash and debris.
In the distance, lights glowed through the misty darkness, two marking the entrance to the yard, and, in the far distance, the glare of floodlights at the graving dock. A door slammed and in a moment, Sarah was at his side. “We’d better say goodbye here, Sarah.”
“I’ll walk a little way with you… ah, we may never see each other again.”
“You’re afraid I’ll copy ‘Green One.’”
She laughed. “Right. Doing my job.”
He found her hands. Pulled her close. He heard her sigh, felt her lips brush his cheek, arms circle his neck. He wanted her lips. Found them. Warm, soft, hungry. And she pressed herself to him. He ran his hands up and down her back, felt her hard against him, moving her hips. Then her tongue, hot, desperate, slithering. He moved his hands down, pulled her hips. She moaned.
Then her hands were on his chest, pushing. “Please… please, Brent. It’s only been a few hours.”
“You mean this is too soon… too fast.”
She laughed. “No. That’s sophomoric. But—” she waved a hand, “it can’t work here. We’re just torturing each other.” She returned her hands to his neck, stared up. “Please, Brent.”
He was unconvinced. “Damn it! This world owes us something.”
“It gets in the way – too many wars – too many reasons not to be together.”
“I’ll find you in Tel Aviv.”
“You promise?”
“Yes. And we’ll shut out the whole damned world, Sarah.”
“Just the two of us?”
“We’ll be the universe.”
“It’ll just be for you, Brent. Just for you. Our own—” His lips cut her short.
For a long moment, they clung together, desperately. But to Brent it seemed that only a millisecond had passed before Sarah pulled away, grasping his hand, gesturing toward the lights.
“This way, Brent. This way. I’m due back… please.”
Grumbling, he allowed her to pull him along until, side-by-side, they approached the alley.
Brent had excellent peripheral vision – a great asset in sports. As the couple passed the alley, it saved his life. There was movement – quick movement that spoke of ambush. Pushing the woman away, he whirled, facing the alley. They were there. Two men charging, brandishing knives. But they stopped when they saw the ensign’s stance, balled fists.
“Brent! Brent!”
“The entrance, Sarah. There are guards from Yonaga!” He stared at the men. Both were smaller than he, dark, with wild, glistening eyes. One had a short, pointed beard which gave him a demonic visage. The other was squat, like a gorilla. Both looked like Arabs.
Sarah’s voice, “You can’t—”
“Goddamn it – leave!” He heard her feet pound the pavement – fade quickly.
“We’re going to carve you, Yankee. Like that Jew, Lefkowitz!” the demon said in a low soft voice, moving forward, saliva streaking his beard.
“By the time she gets back, you’ll be a curry,” the gorilla said, smiling. He circled his knife.
Brent stepped back, staring into the cold brown ice of the assassins’ eyes. He wondered about the sanity of men who used knives. A gun killed from a distance – maybe only inches – but still a distance. But the knife had to be pushed into a victim, ripping intestines, cutting tissues, pouring a torrent of blood on the user. Only a special kind of lunatic could use it. And he had met two of them.
His mouth was a desert and there was pounding in his temples. But his senses were unusually clear; mind, a computer. He needed a weapon. Anything! He stepped back on the walk, back toward the Toyota. Felt a board with his foot. Then timber piled high. He grabbed a rotten four-by-four.
“Now, you pricks,” he muttered, waving his weapon.
The killers laughed, one moving into the street to his left; the other crowded forward, knife poised. Brent knew he had to attack before he was flanked. Remove one. Even the odds.
Stepping backward, the young American faked a misstep, stumbled. Lured into a moment’s carelessness, the demon leaped forward, lunging for his stomach, screaming, “Sabbah!” Instinctively, with the speed and grace of a trained athlete, Brent stepped to his left, swinging the board.
The American’s quickness and strength took the demon by surprise. Despite a quick leap backward, the board caught the man squarely on the jaw, shattering bone, sending a spray of teeth and blood into the gutter. The Arab followed his teeth like a sack of potatoes, screams spraying blood onto the pavement and then the air as he writhed and twisted. The knife clattered.
Knowing the gorilla would attack, Brent twisted back to the alley, retreating. But the timber had shattered. He was disarmed. He felt panic as there was a shout of “Sabbah” and a low figure charged. Leaping backward, he twisted. But there was a burning flash leaving a fiery trail across his chest. He felt sudden warmth against his body. Gasping with pain, he slipped, almost fell. But recovered his balance. Retreated. Fists balled. Shoulders square to the killer. Ignoring the wound saturating his tunic.
The assassin chuckled. “That was only a taste, Yankee. I have more for you.” He stepped forward.
Brent continued the retreat, feeling the side of a building for a brick, pile of lumber — anything. But he found nothing. The assassin advanced. Knees bent. Knife held waist high. There was a pounding in Brent’s throat. His heart. And his breath was fast, hard. Spittle sprayed from his lips. Fear. A rare sensation, but it was there. He kept his eyes on the knife, long and broad like a butcher’s knife with both edges sharpened. He could stab or slash with both edges. And he was a professional. He shuddered.
“I was going to make it fast, Yankee. But now,” the gorilla nodded to his companion who rolled in the gutter, holding his head, moaning, “but now, we’ll make it slow.” He laughed. “I’m going to cut off your balls, first, Yankee. Send them to your Jewess. She needs them.” The laugh was hideous.
The threat to his manhood rocked the ensign. Rage broke through, pushed aside fear. He caught his breath, narrowed his eyes, felt his senses sharpen. He would rip him with his fingernails. Kick him. Choke him. Punch. Knife be damned. Certainly, he would not die without punishing him.
His foot kicked a bottle. Jumping backward, he scooped it up, broke it against a brick building. Holding it by the neck, he moved the jagged weapon from side to side.
“Come on, prick. Well see who leaves his balls in this alley – if you have any.”
“Sabbah!” And the squat killer dropped and lunged with inhuman speed. There was a ripping of cloth. A quick burn across the American’s abdomen. Brent leaped backward, unable to restrain a shout of pain. More blood. Flowing down his right leg. And then a new fear. The loss of blood. He would weaken.
“Next time a little lower and your Jewess won’t love you anymore,” the killer snorted, waving the knife.
Now, Brent suspected his opponent had built his courage, sharpened his senses with hashish. He cursed. Felt more blood. Knew he had to attack. He had one advantage. Superior reach. True, the knife was longer them his bottle, but he still had an advantage. He would use it, somehow.
Taking another step backward, he almost lost his balance as his foot landed on a pile of soaked garbage. He swung the bottle, then leaped back. The knife nicked the b
ridge of his nose. That was it… his chance… the extended arm. He gripped the shattered botde with new resolution, eyes gleaming with new fire.
“I’ll send your balls to Mecca – find Allah that way, Arab prick.”
The killer rose to the bait, angered. And there was the sound of hurrying footsteps echoing far down the street.
“Sabbah,” the man shouted. “Prepare infidel Jew lover to meet your Jesus, Jehovah, Mary or whoever your god may be.”
Brent leaped backward and twisted to his left as the Arab charged. And answering Brent’s prayers, the man slipped in the wet garbage, arm extended. With a shout of triumph, the American swung his bottle downward. Razor sharp shards caught the Arab’s arm elbow high, plowing downward on the bone all the way to the man’s hand, scooping muscles and tendons, unleashing a torrent of blood.
The howl was that of wolf ripped by a steel trap. Brent expected the man to break away, flee. But instead, he closed ferociously, tightening an arm around Brent’s neck like a steel cable. Locked, they fell to the ground, weapons clattering into the rubble.
Brent found himself fighting an animal – a howling, pain maddened animal with unbelievable strength that seemed to ignore its wounds. They rolled in the mud and garbage, coating their clothes, faces and arms, clawing, scratching, flailing, shrieking into each other’s faces. Brent felt teeth bite into his cheek. Then move down toward his throat. The mad animal wanted his jugular – his blood.
He forced a big hand between them, pushed hard. Levered a small opening. Then his other hand. The opening widened.
The American brought up his knees. Then pushed with all the strength in his arms and legs. The killer shot upward as if he had been propelled from a loaded spring, crashing heavily into a pile of lumber. Dazed, he rolled over on his back.
With a shout, the young ensign scooped up his bottle and leaped on top of his enemy, pinning him with his knees.
“Hasan ibn-al-Sabbah! Allah! Allah akbar!” the Arab cried, black eyes wild, rolling, saliva running off his cheek.
Staring down, a strange primed emotion swept through Brent like a wave of lava. Pressure in chest, head, even behind his eyes blurred his senses; blotted out everything except the squirming killer beneath him. Raising the botde, he pulled his lips back, baring white teeth. He was no longer himself. Something controlled him – something hungry for vengeance, hungry for blood.
“Here’s your fuckin’ Sabbah,” he spat, driving the bottle downward into his enemy’s eyes. There was the butcher-shop sound of cleaving meat and cartilage followed by the wild sounds of an animal keening.
The bottle stuck. Brent cursed. Put a knee on the Arab’s chest. Jerked the bottle free, pulling a round white object trailing a string-like cord with it. The eye rolled into the garbage. A wolf howled.
Again, the bottle was raised, and again and again the shards flashed downward, breaking bone, cartilage, spraying blood, broken teeth and bits of glass. Finally, the howling stopped; the body fell limp. But Brent could not control his arm. Something deep inside called for obliteration – complete and final destruction of his enemy. He heard an animal growl. It was himself.
The face was gone, replaced by a bloody mask with two black holes for eyes; bleeding, crushed cartilage for a nose; and a bloody, bubbling hole littered with broken bone and teeth where a mouth had been. The jugular. The jugular, a voice within him cried.
But there was another voice. Sarah’s. In a distant canyon. “Enough! Enough!”
He turned, saw Sarah standing behind him with Matsuhara and two seaman guards with rifles.
“He’s had enough, Ensign,” Matsuhara said softly, with a voice Brent had never heard before.
“No! No. Never enough,” Brent said, turning back to the Arab. But the darkness came, blotting out the Arab, the pain.
*
When the woman dressed like a soldier had rushed up to the yard’s single entrance. Commander Yoshi Matsuhara was the duty officer, standing on Yonaga’s quarterdeck at the head of the accommodation ladder. Answering the phone, he had recognized the voice of Chief Gunner’s Mate Koichi Sakakibira who was in charge of the four-man guard detail stationed at the entrance. The gunner had explained that the woman was hysterical, claimed Arabs were trying to kill an American officer. Sakakibira had assumed the bizarrely-dressed woman was either drunk or mad or both. Certainly, she had been drinking. But then she shouted the name of Ensign Brent Ross.
Leaving a lieutenant junior grade in charge, the commander had run to the dimly-lighted entrance followed by a pair of seaman guards, Teikichi Naka-hara and Ryunosuke Hori. Both were armed with 6.5 millimeter Arisaka rifles. A hollow, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach had told Yoshi something was amiss – terribly amiss. Running hard, he reached down, steadying the holstered 6.5 millimeter Rikushiki flopping from his duty belt. He felt new confidence.
Even in the dim light of the entrance, the khaki-clad woman had appeared beautiful. But the brown hair was disheveled, eyes wild and black with fear. Standing in the gateway just outside the guard house, she had gestured down the street, screamed into Yoshi’s face. “They’re killing him! Killing him. Two Sabbah!” And then, “Brent! Brent!”
Shouting, “This way!” and pointing with the cocked Rikushiki, the commander had led his two seaman guards down the street at a full run. The woman followed. He remembered wondering about a trap. They could run into a blast of machine gun fire. Grenades. The woman trailed, out of the line of fire. Perhaps she was a decoy, trying to lure the guards away from the entrance. That would be the most logical ploy. Admiral Fujita had warned repeatedly at staff meetings about suicided attempts to attack Yonaga with truck bombs. The dry-docked warship was vulnerable. In 1923, the dry-docked battle cruiser Amagi had been a complete loss when knocked from her blocks by an earthquake. A truck loaded with explosives and driven by a suicidal fanatic could hurtle into the dry dock, blow away blocks, do grave damage. Obstacles had been erected, guards posted; but there was no sure defense against suicidal attackers. And Yonaga was in the same dry dock where Amagi was lost. Truly, a bad omen.
But now as the Japanese officer approached a dark alley, he knew this was no ploy – no trick. There was a man in the gutter, rolling, moaning. Coming to a halt with the seaman guards at his heels, with rifles lowered, he heard the woman shout through labored breaths. “The alley! The alley.”
Pistol in hand and followed by the seaman and the woman, he advanced into the alley. It was dark, filthy, with trash and garbage crunching under his feet; lumber, barrels and debris piled against decaying brick buildings. He felt sick. This was Japan. This was what Japan had become.
He stopped, listened: heard animals; one keening with pain, the other growling. Then he saw them in ghostly moonlight reflected from wet bricks. He recognized Ensign Brent Ross squatting on a prone stranger. Ross had a weapon, a broken bottle. Again and again the young American drove the bottle into the other man’s face with sickening, crunching sounds. But there was no face; just bloody, ripped flesh, shattered bones and teeth.
Another scene of horror flashed for a millisecond. Ted ‘Trigger’ Ross killing Commander Satoru Hirata the same way. A long time ago. But the vision was clear. Trigger astride Hirata, beating him to death with relish, not stopping until his enemy had strangled on his own blood. For a moment, the ensign and his father were one and the same.
“Enough! Enough!” he heard the woman cry. Then, with his jagged weapon held high, the ensign turned. The face was that of a man pushed by fear and anger back to savagery – an animal fighting for survival. His eyes were glazed and unfocused; his nostrils flared with each hard breath; thin lips were pulled back from even teeth, spittle mixed with blood running from his chin. There was blood on his ripped tunic, soaking his trousers. The voice was low, hard monotone.
“Never enough! Never enough!” He turned back, raised the bottle.
Yoshi caught his breath, moved closer, spoke softly, “He has had enough, Ensign. Enough, Ensign!”
&n
bsp; Lowering the bottle slowly, the American began to turn. Then, with a long sigh, he collapsed on his enemy slowly like a deflating balloon.
“Nakahara! Guard the alley,” the commander shouted. And then to Hori, “Help me with the ensign.” Quickly, with the woman hovering over them, the two Japanese pulled the American free, dragged him out of the alley. He was very heavy.
“Brent! Brent!” the woman kept repeating.
Yoshi put his head to the ensign’s chest. A strong beat. And his breath was labored but steady. “He has lost blood, but the bleeding seems to have stopped.” He turned to Nakahara. “Nakahara, take care of that one.” He pointed to the man in the gutter. The seaman raised his rifle. “No, quietly – use your knife.” He expected to hear a reaction fromr the woman, but she stood like stone, staring at the American.
There was a glint of moonlight on cold steel as Nakahara leaned over the groaning figure, face-down in the gutter. Grabbing a fistful of hair and placing a knee in the Arab’s back, he pulled back hard until the man’s back bent like a bow. Then the seaman slashed his razor-sharp edge across the assassin’s throat like a musician pulling a bow across a bass viol. Severed jugulars squirted a torrent of blood, spraying upward and then puddling in thick pools. For a long moment, Nakahara held the killer rigidly and then, almost reluctantly, he released his grip and the dying man collapsed face-down like a sack of garbage in his own coagulating gore. There was a soft whistling sound and then silence. Matsuhara heard the woman vomit.
Hori spoke softly. “The other one, sir – the one with no face.”
Yoshi pondered for a moment. “Does he breathe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let him live – it is the worst thing we can do to him.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Holstering his pistol, Yoshi spoke. “Sling your rifles.”
He gestured to the American. “We will carry him back to the sick bay.”
Slowly and with heavy breathing, the three Japanese carried the big American down the dark street toward the distant lights. Trailing, Sarah Aranson walked unsteadily, hand to mouth.
