Читать книгу Sheikh's Honor - ALEXANDRA SELLERS - Страница 13

It was called Bent Needle River because of its shape. A long ribbon of water looped around an island that formed the eye of the needle. The river twisted at the bottom end of the island, so that from the air its shape was like a darning needle bent sharply just before the eye. Beyond it, a few hundred yards of creek stretched like a short thread trailing from the eye of the needle.

The cottage was on the far side of the island, and the sound of their approach, she knew, would be well muffled by the trees and thick foliage until they were around the bend and almost at the dock. She approached at low speed. The channel was not marked and there were shallows on both sides.

A small motorboat bobbed against the dock, secured only by the stern rope. Goods were stacked on the dock. Clio saw the television set, the video player, a cardboard box. The front door of the wide-windowed cottage gaped open, broken on its hinges. There was more loot collected on the porch.

Not a raccoon, then. She thought of her danger if she had come here alone, and threw Jalal a look as she guided the powerboat quietly around the bend and coasted up to the dock. Just then a man stepped out onto the porch, carrying the vacuum cleaner.

Jalal seemed to take in the whole scene with one comprehensive glance and make up his mind. “Stay in the boat, keep the engine running, and be ready to go if I give you the signal,” he commanded quietly. He leapt lightly off the boat onto the dock and stood there, leaning casually on the paddle he had taken with him.

She saw the man break stride for a second, then make up his mind to brazen it out. He kept walking down towards the dock. Thin and wiry, with shoulder-length dirty brown hair, in his forties, she thought. His clothes were grubby but not really dirty—a light grey T-shirt with some kind of logo, black denims.

“Hello there! Can I help you?” he called casually, but too loudly, and she hoped Jalal had picked up the information that there was someone else in the cottage.

“Are you moving out?” she heard Jalal ask, with easy interest.

“Oh, I wish, eh?” The man was grinning self-deprecatingly when she looked again. He clearly did not want to arrive on the dock, but had no choice. He set down the vacuum cleaner and straightened warily.

In the doorway of the house a shadow moved. “Naw, I’m just the hired moving man, eh?”

Jalal nodded. “I understand. But you have the wrong address. No one is moving from this house. So why don’t you get in the boat and go?”

The man feigned indignation. “Hey, buddy, who ya think you’re talking to, eh?” But Clio could hear his essential weakness in his voice and breathed a sigh of relief. He would bluster and then obey.

Already he was inching towards where his boat was moored.

“I know very well who I am talking to. Now I tell you, you are making a mistake, and you can get in your boat and leave, and your friends, too.”

He raised his voice. “Why don’t you come out? Your friend is leaving and you may go with him.”

A figure appeared in the doorway. “What the frig’s goin’ on?” he said, and Clio’s breath hissed in between suddenly clenched teeth. This man was very different from his partner. He was big and muscled, his head shaved, his lower jaw protuberant with low intelligence and aggression. His white singlet and camouflage pants were cleaner than his partner’s clothes. He wore a wide belt and hard boots, several metal studs in one ear.

He clumped deliberately down the broad steps from the porch and strode down to the dock with a threatening swagger. Jalal’s posture, negligently leaning on the paddle, did not change. The thug stopped a few feet away from him and spat deliberately on the ground.

“Hey, a Ay-rab!” His eyes swept past Jalal and over Clio with a look that turned her stomach. “And a skirt!” But he did not say skirt. She shuddered with revulsion. He turned to Jalal again. “Thanks for bringing my dessert, Saddam! You can go now, less you wanna be the main course.

“Oooffff!” The breath seemed to explode out of his body as, almost faster than she could see, Jalal drove the paddle into his solar plexus. The thug seemed to leap into the air and fold in the middle simultaneously.

“Behind you!” Clio screamed, as the smaller man leapt for him, and somehow, instead of connecting, the thin man seemed to sail over Jalal’s shoulder as Jalal dropped the paddle, grabbed his arm and assisted his forward motion.

He landed sprawling on the big man, and screamed like an animal, a sound that sent a rush of horror over her skin. His partner threw him impatiently aside, and the reason for the scream was suddenly evident as blood spattered the thug’s hands. The thin man had landed skidding on the knife that the thug had pulled from somewhere, and his chest was sliced from shoulder to waist. His T-shirt gaped. Blood poured from the wound.

The wounded man cursed violently. “I’m hurt, man, I’m hurt!”

The thug ignored him and got to his feet. He was sweating. “Okay, Saddam, you shouldna done that. You shouldna made me mad.”

Jalal stood with his arms loose at his sides. “Your friend needs a doctor,” he said. “Get in your boat and go.”

“Jeez, man, I’m hurt bad! Let’s do what he says!”

“Drop the boat keys on the dock, Saddam, leave the skirt, get in my boat and take off, and nobody’ll get hurt,” said the thug to Jalal, as if he hadn’t heard his friend’s cry.

Jalal said nothing. She could not see his face, but from the back he looked so lightly poised he almost seemed to move with the breeze.

“You hear me, Ay-rab?” The thug began to toss the bloody knife between his two hands, bouncing his weight from foot to foot. He was inches taller than Jalal, and thirty pounds heavier. And clearly he made it his business to be menacing.

Still Jalal made no reply.

“I’m not gonna hurt her, don’t you worry none about that. I’m gonna treat her real nice. Whereas you, I’m gonna hurt you bad, if you don’t—”

As if he were dancing, Jalal stepped to the side, and his foot arced up, connecting with the thug’s right hand as it was in the act of catching the knife. The man cried out with a shriek of pain, and Clio saw with ugly shock that his forearm now bent where it should not. Stumbling forward off balance as he clutched at it with his other hand, he suddenly felt Jalal’s hand close on his wrist and his scream changed note. Jalal’s other hand fell ruthlessly on his shoulder, and, tripping over the television set, the thug was propelled forward off the dock and down into his boat with a crash.

He screamed in wild, almost demented agony, clutching his shoulder, his arm, his shoulder again, as a stream of curses spewed out of his mouth. His face was cut, his eye already swelling.

“My shoulder!” he screamed, with such a terrible cry that Clio’s stomach started to heave again. “My arm!”

Jalal turned back to the other man, who was with difficulty scrambling to his feet, trying to stop the bleeding from his chest with his hands. His eyes widened at whatever he saw in Jalal’s face.

“I’m wounded, man! Don’t hit me!”

“Get in the boat and take your friend out of here.”

Clio gasped at the deadly menace in his voice.

“I can’t, man! I can’t drive a boat! Man, I’m all cut! You gotta get me to a doctor.”

“Get out,” Jalal said softly.

The man choked off his protest and stumbled to the edge of the dock, then let go of his bleeding chest to clamber into the boat. His friend was still screaming in agony. Somehow, the thin man got the motor started on the second try.

“Jeez, the rope! Untie the rope, will ya?” he cried.

Jalal bent to pick up the bloody knife, and with one powerful stroke he chopped down against the wooden dock, severing the rope that tied the boat, as if only now he let his anger escape.

The thin man swore in fear, dragging in the remnant of the rope, and clumsily steered around the powerboat and back down the river. Clio cut her own motor, and they stood listening to the sound retreating in the distance.