Khalil dove forward, grabbed his knife and rolled to the right, then sprang up and went into a crouched defensive position with his wrapped arm in front of him and his legs spread wide.
Boris stopped short, wheeled around, and came at Khalil.
Khalil held his position, and Boris feinted left and right, stepped in, then stepped back, then in again. He remembered Khalil's strengths and his weaknesses, and Khalil's major weakness was too much aggression, and too much impatience, which led him to an impulsive and ill-timed attack. But now, Boris saw, Khalil had apparently learned when to defend and when to attack.
Boris decided on another strategy and he backed away, putting nearly twenty feet between them.
Khalil came out of his defensive position and strode directly at Boris, who held his ground and was surprised to see Khalil stop.
Boris was beginning to think that Khalil had either learned caution or had realized that he should not have gotten into this situation with the man who taught him how to fight with a knife.
Boris took the offensive again and moved in, causing Khalil to move back. Then the two men silently circled each other in the middle of the large room.
Boris watched Khalil's movements. He knew that the Libyan was more agile and in far better shape than he was, but Boris had more bulk and believed he was still physically stronger than Khalil.
Khalil again dropped into a half crouch, with his legs spread and his coat-wrapped arm in a horizontal position--a defensive position that Boris did not think was called for with ten feet still separating them. Khalil, Boris thought, had misread his movements, or he was becoming anxious, which made Boris more confident.
Boris moved in quickly--a feint that he hoped would cause Khalil to backpedal and lose his defensive posture. But instead, Khalil unexpectedly charged forward and met Boris's forward movement as Boris was in mid-stride.
Khalil came in low under Boris's knife hand and under his wrapped arm and delivered an upward thrust that caught Boris below his left rib cage.
Boris let out a startled cry of pain, then pivoted away from the probing knife and delivered a high kick to Khalil's lowered head.
Neither man pressed the attack and both of them retreated to a safe distance.
Khalil nodded and said, "Very good."
Boris cautiously felt his wound and determined that it was a narrow puncture wound, perhaps deep, but not bleeding profusely, and not mortal.
Khalil watched the blood forming on Boris's white shirt and came to the same conclusion, saying, "You won't die from that."
Boris also determined that he wasn't going to win this fight--he was already out of breath, and the wound would bleed more quickly with further exertions and eventually weaken him.
Also, Boris admitted, Khalil was the better knife fighter--Khalil remembered the skills, but more importantly he remembered the tricks, and had learned some new ones. Boris also knew that Khalil possessed the will and the courage to face a man with a knife, and Boris was not sure that he himself possessed that will any longer.
Out of desperation, Boris said to Khalil, "It is over. You have won."
Khalil laughed. "Yes? Are you dead already? May I go now?"
"Asad--"
Khalil said, "There is another man who is going to die in this way tonight--so I had hoped you would be good practice for me. But now I see you are a poor opponent--too old, too slow, and too frightened."
Boris did not reply. He tried to think of another way out of this, and thought of the door. If he could work his way closer to the door... he began circling so that Khalil would circle too, and not be between him and the door.
But Khalil kept his position and said, "If you wish to run out of the room, I have no objections. But I must tell you, all you will find out there is a locked elevator and a locked staircase door. But perhaps you prefer a smaller room for this fight." He smiled and said, "I don't care where I slaughter you."
Boris took a deep breath and said, "You have made your point." He lowered his knife and said, "I have done nothing to you. I have taught you--"
"Shut up." Khalil took a few steps toward Boris, and as Boris moved back, Khalil said, "We have not finished this lesson. Do you not want to show me how you will disarm me and throw me against the wall as you did once? Do you think I have forgotten your knee in my testicles? Or perhaps the great Russian assassin has dirtied his pants, and he wishes me to leave to spare me the smell."
Boris felt the anger rising in him again, and he pulled the jacket from around his arm and snapped it at Khalil as he moved forward with his knife extended in his right hand.
Khalil stepped back and lost his footing on the loose area rug, then fell to the floor, losing his knife.
Boris charged him, and realized too late he'd again been drawn into a ruse, as Khalil raised his legs and caught Boris in the abdomen and hurled him into the air, headfirst into a china cabinet, which shattered in a loud crash.
Khalil snatched up his knife, jumped quickly to his feet, and watched as Boris pulled himself away from the cabinet.
Boris stood unsteadily, his face bleeding from glass cuts and his eyes blinded with blood. He had lost his knife, and he wiped his eyes with his hands as Khalil moved in for the kill.
Boris, his back to the shattered china cabinet, sidestepped along the wall, and Khalil followed him, then realized what Boris was doing.
Boris seized a floor lamp with both hands and swung the heavy base at Khalil's head.
Khalil ducked, and Boris missed, but then Boris pivoted in the direction of his swing and came around again with the base of the lamp now lower, and he caught Khalil's outstretched arm in a glancing blow that knocked the knife from Khalil's hand.
Khalil backpedaled quickly, and Boris, knowing this was his last and only chance to kill this man, charged forward with the floor lamp.
Khalil feinted right, then moved left and kicked Boris's leg out from under him. Boris crashed to the floor, losing his grip on the lamp, and Khalil was on Boris's back, with his knees straddling the big Russian and his right arm locked around Boris's throat.
Boris tried to rise on his hands and knees, but Khalil kept his full weight on the weakening man while tightening his chokehold.
Boris felt himself blacking out, and he gave one last upward heave with his body, then twisted with every ounce of strength he had left. He found himself on his back, staring up at the ceiling, which was dark and blurry. He felt his abdominal wound throbbing and he knew it was gushing blood now.
He knew, too, he should do something, but everything around him seemed quiet and peaceful, so he lay there and closed his eyes, his chest rising and falling, and his lungs filling with air.
He heard a voice say, "Get up."
Boris remained still, keeping his eyes shut and feigning more injury and exhaustion than he felt. He was vaguely aware that Khalil was close by, standing over him, then he felt a kick in his right side that knocked the air out of his laboring lungs. The second kick came, as he hoped it would, and Boris swung his legs and body around and knocked Khalil's legs out from under him.
Boris was on his feet, but it took him a second too long, and before he could react, Khalil was already up and delivered a powerful kick into Boris's groin.
Boris doubled over, and Khalil came around him and delivered a running kick to his rear that sent him sprawling.
Khalil dove on Boris's back and knocked the remaining air out of him, then put him in a headlock that again constricted his airway.
Boris remained still, hoping for another opportunity. His mind was cloudy, but his survival instincts had been aroused and his will to fight for his life had become stronger as he faced death.
Khalil's head was close, and Boris could feel the man's warm, steady breath on his neck. Then Khalil whispered into Boris's ear, "I underestimated you, and for that, I apologize."
Boris could not reply.
Khalil said, "And I thank you, Mr. Korsakov, for sharing with me all your skills and your
knowledge." He asked, "Are you proud of me?"
Boris lay perfectly still, not wanting to provoke the man because he felt a small glimmer of hope--not hope that Asad Khalil would spare his life out of compassion; the man had none. Nor would Khalil spare his life out of respect for a worthy opponent. But Khalil might spare his life, Boris thought, because he was satisfied with humiliating him--killing his bodyguards, beating him in a fight, and heaping abuse on him. Khalil, he knew, would not spare any other man's life for those reasons, but Boris knew that he was a special case, and that Khalil understood that the most satisfying conclusion for Asad Khalil would be to leave him a broken man. Yes, Khalil knew that...
Khalil said to him, "You taught me well, so I will not mutilate you or cause you a painful death."
Boris tried to nod his head, but Khalil tightened the pressure around his neck.
Khalil said into Boris's ear, "But you gave me some bad advice..."
Boris saw something in front of his blurry eyes, and he could not identify it at first, though he could see Khalil's free hand gripping something. Then he knew what he was seeing--the long, thin shaft of an ice pick.
"No!"
Khalil put the tip of the ice pick into Boris's left nostril and pushed it back into his brain.
Boris screamed again, but this time it was an unintelligible, animal scream.
Khalil withdrew the pick, which glistened with Boris's blood and brains, then positioned the tip into Boris's right nostril, and again pushed it up into his brain and kept pushing until the handle flattened Boris's nose and the tip of the ice pick came up through his skull.
Khalil left the pick where it was buried, then slid off Boris and rolled him over onto his back.
He watched him for a few seconds and saw the dark red blood beginning to trickle out of his nostrils. Then Boris began to convulse, small spasms, accompanied by a very strange sound coming from deep in his throat--almost, Khalil thought, like the moaning sound of the southern wind, the Ghabli, coming out of the great desert.
Khalil retrieved his knives, then walked to the dining table, retrieved his gun, and pushed the magazine into the butt. He peeled off his bloody clothes and washed himself with the linen napkins and mineral water on the table.
On the bottom shelf of the serving cart under a tablecloth was a dark shirt, dark trousers, and a black windbreaker that Vladimir had laid there for him. Khalil dressed quickly, put on his shoes and socks, then took a linen napkin from the table and stuffed it in his pocket.
He then texted Vladimir: It is finished.
He walked toward the door, looked through the peephole, and was about to slide open the bolt, but then a thought came into his mind.
Khalil walked to the large two-way mirror and looked down into the restaurant. It was more busy now, mostly families with children having their Sunday dinner. Directly below him on the stage were three women in tight dresses, and they appeared to be singing, though he could hear only the muted sound of the three musicians on the stage.
Khalil returned to Boris, who was twitching now, though the moaning had ceased. He dropped to one knee and lifted the big man in his arms, then raised him up over his head, took two long strides, and flung Boris through the glass.
The sound of the shattering glass died away, and there was a momentary silence, followed by a loud thumping sound, and then the screams of the people below.
Khalil drew his gun, then went back to the door, opened it, and exited into the anteroom, noting that Vladimir had disposed of the bodyguard's body and the blood. He opened the elevator door with his key and rode down to the basement. On his way down, he wrapped the linen napkin around his right hand and his gun, then put his hand in the side pocket of his windbreaker.
Vladimir met him in the basement at the elevator and escorted him through the dark storage area to a flight of concrete steps, which they both ascended.
Vladimir pushed on a metal door that opened to an alleyway between the buildings, filled with trash cans and plastic garbage bags, two of which, he understood, contained the corpses of the bodyguards.
Vladimir said to him, "God has blessed you, my friend."
"And you."
Khalil pulled his hand out of his pocket, and Vladimir thought he was extending his hand in friendship, but as he reached for Khalil's hand, he saw that the hand was wrapped in a bloodstained table napkin, and he hesitated.
Khalil fired a single bullet into Vladimir's forehead.
The man fell back into a pile of garbage bags, and Khalil tossed the smoking cloth on his face, pocketed the gun, then threw garbage-filled bags over him to cover his body.
Khalil walked up the alleyway to an iron gate, which he unbolted and exited onto the sidewalk of Brightwater Court.
There were a number of pedestrians on the sidewalk, and he glanced at the front entrance of Svetlana and saw that people were streaming out the doors. Some women and children were crying and some men were shouting excitedly.
Khalil moved through the crowd and saw his taxicab, which was now surrounded by people, one of whom was trying to get in the vehicle, but the driver had locked the doors.
Khalil did not regret throwing Boris through the window, but his act of self-indulgence had now created a small problem.
Khalil pushed through the crowd, banged on the driver's window, and shouted, "Rasheed!"
The driver unlocked the doors as Khalil pushed aside the man holding the rear door handle. Khalil opened the door and jumped in the rear, pulling the door shut as Rasheed moved away from the curb.
The taxi gathered speed as it moved into the traffic of the avenue.
Rasheed asked in Arabic, "What has happened there?"
Khalil replied, "A fire." He looked at his watch and said to Rasheed, "The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Hurry, but do not speed."
Asad Khalil sat back and looked out the window. He said to himself, "And now for Mr. Corey."
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Rasheed drove his taxi through the long Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and exited in Manhattan at West Street, near the site of the World Trade Center.
Asad Khalil made a cell phone call, spoke for a few seconds, then hung up and said to Rasheed, "Rector Street."
Rasheed continued on for a minute, then turned into the narrow one-way street. Parked on the short and quiet street, near the large Battery Parking Garage, was a tractor-trailer, and Khalil said, "Wait here."
Khalil exited the taxi and walked toward the large truck.
Painted on the side of the long trailer was CARLINO MASONRY SUPPLIES with an address and phone number in Weehawken, New Jersey. This company, Khalil was told, existed, but this was not one of their vehicles, and what was inside was not masonry supplies.
Khalil approached the tractor, and he saw the face of a man looking at him in the large sideview mirror. Khalil held up his right hand and made a fist.
The door opened, and Khalil climbed up the step and swung into the rear compartment of the big cab.
This large windowless compartment appeared to be a sleeping area, and also in this compartment was a burly man with a crew cut, dressed in jeans and a green T-shirt with the masonry company's logo on the front. In the driver's seat was another man, wearing a baseball cap, and in the right front seat was the man who had opened the door for him, who also wore a cap, jeans, and a blue team shirt that said "Mets."
These three men, Khalil understood, were European Muslims, Bosnians, and they had all fought in the war against the Christian Serbs, so they were not strangers to danger or killing. They all claimed to have lost relatives in the massacres, and they had undertaken this mission, according to Khalil's Al Qaeda contact in New York, not for the money--which Khalil knew was substantial--but as mujahideen in the holy war against the infidels.
Khalil was not so sure of their motives, and he would have preferred to be meeting Arabic speakers whom he could fully trust. But this part of his mission--the part that would end his visit here in mass destruction and death--was con
trolled by others, who felt that these Western-looking men were well suited for what needed to be done.
Each man introduced himself in English by his first name, and these were strange-sounding names to Asad Khalil--not good Arabic names, but names that he thought were some corruption of the Turkish language.
Khalil said to them, "You may call me Malik," using the name of his spiritual advisor in Libya--a name that meant "master," or even sometimes "angel," though these men would not know or appreciate that.
The driver, Edis, said to him, "We were stopped at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel."
Khalil did not reply nor did he want to know more--they had obviously gotten through the tunnel.
Edis continued, "The policeman asked to see my license, and it was good that I had gone to school to obtain a commercial driver's license for a vehicle of this size."
Again, Khalil did not respond.
Edis glanced back at Khalil and told him, "Two policemen made us open the doors." He paused, then said, "But all they could see were the stacked bags of cement, and they did not look further." He added, "They are lazy."
The man in the passenger seat, Tarik, corrected Edis and said, "We are good bluffers."
Khalil did not recognize that word, but he recognized their motives in telling him this--they wanted approval, or more likely more money, or perhaps another job.
Khalil had no way of knowing if they had actually been stopped, and what he did not see with his own eyes he did not believe. In fact, he trusted these three men even less now; he did not fully trust even Arabs who came to live in the West, and he felt less favorable toward these three who were Europeans and had most probably been corrupted by their Christian neighbors.
In any case, they would be dead in a few hours.
Khalil said, "Tell me what you have here."
Tarik in the passenger seat replied, "We have fertilizer." He laughed, and the other two men laughed with him. Khalil did not laugh, and the men became quiet. None of them particularly enjoyed working with the Arabs. The Arabs were almost without humor, and they did not enjoy a drink or a cigarette, as the Bosnian Muslims did, and they treated their women--all women--very badly.