Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (178 page)

He finally caught up with him on the far side of the palace,
behind a makeshift shelter of lawn furniture next to the big
underwater-lit swimming pool. 'Captain, I've found a pocket of resistance in what I think is being used as a barracks buil
ding!' Schmarya was breathing heavily from the exertion, but
his eyes glowed with a resolute fever. 'I need a man with a
rocket launcher. As soon as the barracks is destroyed, that
should halve the resistance we're encountering.'

The captain signalled to one of the men who held a heavy portable rocket launcher on his shoulder. 'Perlman, go with
him. Then come back here immediately. In a few minutes
we'll start storming the palace.'

Schmarya led Perlman in that swift, stiff-legged limp of his
to the other side of the compound. Now he knew he hadn't
imagined it. The terrorists had definitely been cut off. The
outbuilding being used as a barracks and the palace itself were
still strongholds, but their defence had definitely been driven from outside the compound into shelter. Thus far, the Israeli
commandos were doing themselves proud.

Monika smiled. Insanely.

Daliah smiled right back at her. Tauntingly. Taking careful
steps backward, she beckoned with both her hands for the
German to come closer.

Monika stared at her, the insane smile turned savage, and
an unholy darkness came down over her eyes. She lunged forward, and as Daliah took evasive action, she drew unexpectedly back again and started to walk deliberate flat-
footed circles around her. The feint had told Monika what she
needed to know. Daliah was no combat expert, but her
reflexes were good and she'd had training—probably a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. Standard military training
and some judo, maybe even a little bastardized karate thrown
in. That one evasive tactic showed it all.

Monika's flame-blistered lips grinned, and she wiped her
sweaty hands on her fatigue pants. Then she continued her
stalking circles, waiting to catch Daliah when her guard was
down. It might be an interesting fight after all.

'Never be defensive. Whenever possible, take the offensive.'
The words of the military training sergeant, so long ago in the
Negev, came back to Daliah in a flash. Well, so be it. She'd
been defensive up to now, and it was time to show some fancy
steps. She crouched forward, gorilla-like, her fingers brushing
the floor.

In response, Monika prepared her hands rigidly for
Wing
Chun
chops.

A mere millisecond ticked, and then Daliah sprang into action; one second she had been stationary, and the next her feet should have connected with Monika's abdomen. But
Monika had whirled aside and parried the attack.

'Ha!'
Not wanting to lose the initiative, Daliah continued
the offensive—hands slashing and slicing, feet whirling and
kicking. With her every movement Monika was losing ground
and was slowly but steadily being beaten back toward the
Libyan. The German's moves were all defensive, deflective.

Surour could sense Monika's being beaten. By reflex, his
submachine gun followed Daliah and his finger tightened on
the trigger.

Daliah was oblivious of him and kept up her winning streak.
She was smiling grimly and sweat was flying off her, but her
movements were controlled and precise and confident. She
went for the kill, a flat chop to Monika's throat.

The blow was paralyzing—for Daliah. She hadn't even seen
Monika's left knee blurring up, but her kidneys exploded in a
flare of crippling pain, and then the right knee caught her just
under the rib cage. She buckled from the explosions racking
her body and sagged slowly to her knees. Wrapping her arms
tightly around her, she rocked forward and backward.

Monika turned her back on her and unconcernedly walked
a few steps away. Daliah knew what she was doing—adding a
dollop of insult to deftly applied injury, showing she had
nothing to fear. Daliah's rising anger subdued the stabs of pain
to bearable aches and triggered off a blast of adrenaline. She climbed slowly to her feet just as the German turned around.

For a long moment they locked eyes. And then, without
warning, Monika grabbed her by the left wrist and left ankle
and began whipping her around and around, as if Daliah were
a merry-go-round horse gone out of control. Daliah experienced a horror of dizziness as she flew in ever-quickening
circles through the air.

Jerking and writhing and screaming and kicking, Daliah struggled to free herself, but Monika, skinny and wiry as she
was, was solid muscle. Daliah's struggles only seemed to inten
sify Monika's fury and speed.

Vertigo and the centrifugal pull blinded Daliah; she was a
crazy carousel, going around and around and around again,
and then, up, around, down, and . . .

Monika let go.

Daliah had the horrifying helpless sensation of whistling
through empty space. She arched her head back and whipped
her arms together in an overhead diving stance as the blurry white wall loomed. Monika had misjudged. Instead of smash
ing headlong into the wall, Daliah was flung headlong down
the hall—straight into Surour's belly.

It was as if a torpedo had been shot at him. The big Libyan
let out a grunt and toppled backward, a spurt of wild automatic
fire spraying holes in the ceiling. He broke Daliah's fall, and she collapsed on top of him. Strangely enough, she could feel
no pain. There was only a dizzy disorientation. Try as she
might she just couldn't get her bearings. Everything was still
spinning wildly out of control.

Then, as the vertiginous spinning started to slow, Daliah
tried to stagger to her feet, but she reeled in a vain attempt to
keep her balance and fell to her knees. Her senses seemed
sluggish, and her body refused to obey her commands. Every
thing seemed fuzzy and far away, as though she and reality
were light-years apart. She swallowed and shook her head,
but the cotton would not leave her ears.

And then Monika cartwheeled into the finale. She was still rasping from her recent exertions, and sweat poured off her
like sheets of hot rain. She reached down, grabbed hold of
Daliah's single braid of hair, wrapped it around her right hand
twice like a rope, and then yanked Daliah to her feet.

Daliah jerked up and let out a scream. Every nerve ending in her scalp screeched and sang and protested. Tears of pain
stood out in her eyes. She was bound to Monika by her own
hair, but at least it was a very long rope of hair, so she had
some manoeuvrability, and she used it to advantage, twisting
and twirling unexpectedly, her elbows repeatedly smashing
into Monika's clavicle. Again and again she battered repeated
punishing blows into that exact same spot, concentrating on
weakening it and waiting for the bone to snap under the press
ure. With every blow, the German gaped open-mouthed and
expelled vast grunt after grunt of hot air mixed with sprays of
saliva. Forgetting herself for a moment, Monika doubled over
and loosened her grip on Daliah's hair.

Daliah moved fast, yanking the coil of braid from around
Monika's hand and kneeing her neatly in the belly for good
measure.

The German's eyes saucered, and another spray of hot air
and saliva flew out of her lungs.

One more clean strategic hit! Just one more
. . .
and I've got
her!

But one more elbow ram became two. And two became
three. And three . . .

Monika seemed to gather power with every blow she
received. With superhuman strength she pounded a fist in Daliah's chest and flung her aside. Then, like a stunned wres
tler in a ring, she slowly rose up straight, shook her head like a raging bull, and began to stagger in a wide circle around
Daliah, her chest heaving as she took deep lungfuls of air
and—
was it possible?
—psyched herself up for another round.

Daliah kept turning, watching her carefully. Even so, she
was not prepared when Monika came at her in a flash. Oblivi
ous of all of Daliah's pokes and punches, the wiry German
pinned Daliah's arms to her sides and enfolded her in an iron-
armed bear hug. And began to squeeze.

It was like nothing Daliah had ever experienced. Effort
lessly Monika lifted her off her feet, and although she
struggled like a fish, wiggling, twisting, and even kicking
Monika's shins, nothing seemed to make any difference. The
woman was too mad or too strong or possibly both. The steely
embrace tightened and tightened, a grotesque death hug.

With a series of involuntary gasps, Daliah flung her head
back as far as it would go, bared her teeh, and then, with the
speed of a starved vampire, caught Monika's right ear between
her teeth. Daliah clamped her incisors into the cartilage with
full force. Sharp enamel sliced neatly through gristle and
tugged. Spurs of thick warm metallic blood filled her mouth,
and she wanted to gag. Instead, she bit even deeper, jerked
her head back, and . . .

A fountain of liquid crimson velvet sprayed out from where
Monika's ear had been.

Monika instinctively loosened her grip, threw back her
head, and screamed. Involuntarily, one of her hands let go
of Daliah and she touched where her ear had been. Feeling nothing, her fingers clawed desperately. Her face contorted
with disbelief. 'My ear! You Jew bitch! What did you do with
my ear?'

Daliah felt Monika's hot blood trickling down her throat,
and with a massive effort to clear her mouth, she spat out the
ear and the mouthful of blood into Monika's face.

Stunned, Monika now let go of her complely. She staggered
backward in horror and brought her blood-wet hand away from where her ear had been and stared at the dripping red
fingers. Then her eyes scanned the floor, and she let out a
bellow when she saw the raggedly chewed piece of cartilage
lying in a pool of blood.