Reckoning (32 page)

Sarah's gaze strayed across A Book of Five Rings and the large knife that Gage had laid on the cover, the broad blade still concealed in the sheath.

Casually, she gestured to the knife. "What is that, exactly?" she asked. "It must be special."

Two weeks ago Sarah would have considered a knife just a knife. But exposure to these men had changed her. Now she realized that virtually every weapon these super-soldier warrior-guys used had an almost scientific purpose behind it, and, according to them, required an almost encyclopedic level of knowledge and understanding to use effectively.

Until now she had not voiced her incredulity, but she had
listened with a slightly concealed amusement as Sandman and Gage had earlier launched into a long and tedious discussion over methods for insuring the best defense of the cabin. And she had hidden a faint smile as Sandman insisted on the superiority of security methods named after Jomini.

In any case, it was an amazingly
complex discussion over flanks, support positions, cover for movement, retreat, or maybe it was pursuit (she could never tell which), and the topographical advantages of attack or counterattack.

She remembered how she had jumped pleasantly into the middle of the discussion. "Why doesn't somebody just go up on the hill and keep a lookout?"

The question provoked a shocked stare from Sandman, though Gage had laughed. It even seemed that Chavez had laughed, though she couldn't be sure. After that she merely listened, learning, and, strangely enough, had slowly come to appreciate the genuine complexities of what they were doing.

Still, Sarah wrestled against the wound he carried within him. No matter what, she didn't want him to think she doubted his abilities. At all. He needed to believe that she still held him in the highest respect, the highest confidence.

It was a tightrope.

He smiled vaguely at her question. "Why do you say it must be special?"

Sarah laughed. "Because whenever Barto or I ask, 'Hey, what's that,' we never get a simple answer. It's never 'just a rifle,' or 'just a gun.' It's either some kind of Winchester double-something with a bull barrel and who knows what inside it, or it's some kind of space-age quasi-nuclear bomb that will burn up anything on earth." She gestured to the knife again. "So what is it?"

Gage smiled, then reached over and picked up the knife. "You're not going to like it."

"Why?"

"Because, despite the fact that most people realize the world needs police officers and soldiers to defend them from threats, they don't want to know how it's done."

Sarah watched him steadily. "I can stand it," she said. "In fact, you'd probably be surprised at what I can stand."

Gage laughed, looking at her for a long moment. His smile was tender, affectionate. He picked up the knife.

"Maybe so. I guess I'm the one that doesn't handle it so well, anymore. A knife reminds me too much of how I used to be."

Only a moment, and Sarah reached out.

"You know, we've all got a past, Gage," she whispered, her fingers finding a hold in his shaggy hair. "Don't let it haunt you like this. You're better than this."

His face softened, their eyes meeting. Slowly he touched her face, moving his hand down her skin. His eyes held a longing in them, as if he had been waiting for this moment.

She leaned forward, forehead to forehead, their faces inches apart, eyes closed.

"Just let it be," she murmured.

He released a sharp breath, something like a groan, then his entire face set, hard and bitter. He couldn't find it in him, she saw, couldn't let go. Not now. Even though he wanted to, some kind of iron control kept him from releasing himself to her.

Together they rested, close. Sarah was silent for a long time, trying to find a way through. Finally, though, her gaze had strayed to the knife in his other hand.

"Do you think it will come to that?" She gestured to the knife.

He frowned. "I hope not. I'm going to try and keep away from it because he's better than I am. A lot better. And he knows it. I was just a soldier. I was good at this type of thing, but not like him. This guy lives for the chance to kill with his blade. He's pure."
A pause. "I got this out because I'll need every advantage."

"Can't you just shoot him?"

Gage laughed. "I tried that last time. Sometimes things don't work that way. You can run out of rounds. Guns can be unreliable. They can jam. You can lose them. Sometimes it comes down to stuff like this."

In some strange, internal way, Sarah crossed the line to be with him. "So, tell me what's special about it."

Gage shook his head. "Some consider it a prototype of the ultimate fighting knife. It was made by a guy named Jim Hammond who lives in a little town in Alabama. There's an art to creating a blade for fighting. And this guy is probably the best in the world at creating fighting knives, and this was probably the best blade he ever created. Maybe the best anyone ever created. It's supposed to exceed all of the tactical requirements for the perfect edged weapon."

Sarah gazed narrowly at it. "Show it to me."

Gage leaned over, lifted the sheath, solemnly unsnapped a strap. Then he removed the blade, inch by slate-gray inch. Sarah reached out, and Gage put the blade in her hand. The heavy steel blade appeared to be well over a quarter-inch thick for its entire length, even at the finely razored point.

"Overall, it's fourteen inches long," Gage told her.

She studied the blade. "Is that long?"

"Your blade needs to be one inch longer than your opponent's," Gage replied, pointing to the black hilt. "The hilt is designed to give you two more inches of reach than the average knife with the same size blade."

Slowly, trying to get a sense of the world as Gage knew it, Sarah gripped the handle more firmly, imagining using the knife for fighting. Instantly her index and middle fingers slid, quite naturally, into grooves cut into the bottom of the hilt, near the guard. She turned the knife, gazing at the finger grooves.

"What are those for?" she asked, holding her hand to display the grooves forged into the hilt.

"Drawing," Gage commented. "When you cut, you pull the knife away at an angle, using your thumb and those two fingers for direction. The finger grooves provide better control. It's... like carving, or swirling the blade. If a man can keep his head in the chaos of combat, he can do a lot more damage pulling the blade away than he can on initial contact."

Sarah waved the knife in the air, felt the almost perfect
symmetry, the effortless ease of control, and she realized that there was, indeed, a terrible beauty in the blade. She could understand its perfection. But the entire concept of fighting with this weapon was horrid, even appalling. It was unbelievable what men could do to men in the cause of war.

Sarah frowned slightly as she studied the weapon. "Does this thing have a name?"

Gage laughed shortly. "I don't know what Jim calls it now. The guys in my old unit called it 'Dragon.'"

"After you?" she asked slowly.

Gage shrugged. "I guess. I'm not sure. But it's not really important." He touched a flat, minutely serrated section cut into the top of the thick blade, near the upper part of the hand guard. "This is where you place your free hand for a power sweep. You hold onto the hilt with your right hand, and place the heel of your left hand on this flat section and sweep from left to right in a vertical slash, pushing out on the blade with your left hand. It reinforces the move and gives you twice as much power as you'd have with one hand. A power move. This knife could cut a man through the ribs, both lungs, and the heart with one slash. It's double-edged for almost its entire length, which makes it perfect for stabbing. But the design also makes it perfect for slashing and cutting. And it's heavy enough to easily sever an arm or a leg." He was silent a moment. "It puts me and the Japanese on even ground."

Sarah twisted the blade in her hand. Already, she was comfortable with it, and the thought amazed her. "It's strange," she remarked, absently, "how much thought men put into killing each other."

Gage stared somberly at the blade, then looked off towards the darkened ridge.

Sarah spoke quietly, felt her heart and breath catch with the question. "Can you beat him?"

Silence.

"I don't know," Gage replied, eyes narrowing with the thought. "If I hurt him badly enough, he'll try for Ai Uchi."

"Ai Uchi?"

"Mutual death," Gage said simply. "It's a samurai concept that dates from feudal Japan. Basically, it's a tactical move to strike a death blow while receiving a death blow. For him, Ai Uchi would be a great victory. Take a deadly blow to give a deadly blow. Ai Uchi."

Upon the ridge, a cold wind howled through gray unseen trees.

Sarah lowered her head, heard the words again and again in her mind.

"... Ai Uchi ... It would be easy ... A great victory for him ... Mutual death
..."

Gage was silent, and she longed to reach out to him to comfort, and to be comforted. But then she stiffened, remembering that surrendering to deeper feelings would only complicate things. It would distract him. And he had enough distractions.

Gray eyes softening, Gage watched her face. She raised her head, gazing back at him, hiding nothing. After a moment he smiled, somewhat sad and tender. She reached out to lightly brush back his hair from his forehead. He seemed to share her thoughts. He leaned closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, whispering into her ear.

"Don't be afraid," he said softly. "We'll be alright. I'll bring an ending to this
.”

Sarah leaned her head on his shoulder, feeling the moment, and nodded slightly. One hand went up to find his arm, and she held him in silence. The gray, familiar cold swept down from the barren stands on the surrounding hills. And Sarah heard the wind raking limbs; a dry, whispering chorus.

Gage was silent. But, from his weary demeanor, and his slightly bowed head, she knew that he was worried, worried that perhaps he was outmatched, facing a force he could not defeat.

Enough, she decided. Enough of this. Sadness and doubts and fears won't help. Only action can help. This only makes us feel worse.

She leaned back, slid down from her perch on the woodpile, reaching again for his arm.

"Come on. I'll bet dinner's ready."

Gage nodded, rising to his feet. "And I bet Barto has already eaten it."

She laughed easily, slipping her hand into his.

* * *

Alone, Gage stared at a pale, haggard moon, ignoring the cold night wind that embraced him, alone with thoughts even colder.

Slowly, stiffly, he rubbed his hands together, feeling the thick bandages around each wrist that covered the last thin wounds his hands had sustained in combat with Sato. Impulsively, he tugged at the straps, loosening the gauze.

At the first exposure of the sensitive skin to the night air he hastened the movement, finally freeing his wrists and hands completely to the coldness. He stared at his healed hands, curling the fingers, testing, clenching and unclenching.

Emerging like a ghost from the dark, Malachi was suddenly and quietly beside him. Gage hadn't heard the approach but revealed no surprise. He had already learned that the professor could sometimes move with the casual silence of an Indian in what seemed an unconscious stealth.

Malachi smiled at him, casual and relaxed, then leaned against a porch beam.

"It's a good night." Gage turned slightly to lean back against the opposite post.

Malachi laughed. "Yes. I have forgotten how much I missed the night sky." He paused. "It was part of my greatest pleasure in archeological digs, particularly in the Negeb, where the sky is never more beautiful."

"I guess you've seen just about every place there is to see," Gage said finally. "You've traveled a lot. Probably even more than me."

"Oh, yes," the old man answered with a smile, "but nothing changes, really. It has always amazed me to see how familiar all the distant countries of the world can appear. The Carpathian
mountains, for instance, in Northern Romania are virtually identical in size and design to the Appalachians of North Carolina. And in Israel the plains of Giliead are the same as the eastern deserts of Arizona. The world is not so dissimilar, you know, from where we stand. Nor is history, for that matter. There is nothing new, even in this situation that has not happened before."

He fell quiet a moment, studying the terrain.

"Like this, for instance," Malachi continued easily, his gaze sweeping along the ridge. "The terrain here reminds me of the Valley of Elan in the Shephelah, where one of Israel's greatest battles took place." He gestured toward the hill. "It was a battle of military might against a single man's faith. And upon that ridge stood Goliath, the greatest warrior the world had ever known."

Gage shifted to look at the ridge, somehow drawn in by the old man's mesmerizing authority.

Malachi pointed gravely to the center of the ridge, concentrating.

"All of Israel trembled at the feet of the giant, Israel's most feared enemy. Standing over nine feet tall, he was customarily
armed with an iron sword, a unique and superior weapon for that era. And to make him almost invulnerable he was armored within a long breastplate of brass and bone and leather that weighed almost two hundred pounds." Malachi lowered his arm again, stared at the ridge a moment as if he could behold the haunting vision. "He had never known defeat."