Reckoning (22 page)

“Nice try, son of a bitch, but not good enough,” Dockrell sneered, hefting the aluminum shaft of the ice ax in both gloved
hands as he advanced.

“You’re not mean enough or smart enough to take me, Dockrell.”

“I’ll admit one thing’s been bothering me, Savage. How come you always knew where I was going to hit next?”

“You don’t know?”

“I know there must be a pattern,” Dockrell said. “I haven’t been able to see what it is.”

“I had guessed you didn’t know Abdel Saleh was dead.”

“Who’s he? Some fucking Iranian?”

“He’s the man who hired you,” Dartley told him.

“I never met him. So you got him before you reached me,” Dockrell said admiringly. “I like that.
Very much. You know more about this thing than I do. If it’s true what you say about him being dead, this whole thing is over.”

“Harrison Murdoch was the last one anyway,” Dartley said.

“You’re asking me to take your word for that?”

“It’s all academic, Dockrell, because you’re going to be carried out of here on ice.”

“Funny. You want to do a deal?”

“No way,” Dartley said.

“I got the ice ax. You got that army knife. Who’s gonna win?”

Even a man as contrary as Dartley could see that Dockrell had a point. But Dartley meant what he said about Dockrell not being
mean enough or smart enough to take him. And Dartley liked to test his opinions in real life.

Dockrell smiled scornfully at Dartley’s knife, which was no match for a double-bladed steel axhead on a two-foot aluminum
shaft. He kept between Dartley and the thinner ice near the water’s edge, backing him onto firmer level pack ice. As Dockrell
advanced, Dartley gave ground.

Then Dartley made a surprise lunge with his knife. The blade came within a few inches of Dockrell’s parka, but even if it
had connected, the layers of clothing would probably have protected him. Dockrell whirled his weapon like a medieval battleax
and took some wild swipes at Dartley. But neither man could find firm footing on the ice beneath them, and neither
could get a firm grip on their weapons with the thick clumsy gloves they wore.

Dartley put some space between them, pulled off his right glove and threw it on the ice. His fingers closed tightly on the
hardwood handle of his knife, and he advanced slowly again on his ax-wielding opponent.

Dockrell didn’t like this. He was the one who had been doing the stalking. He lurched forward and made the ax blade whistle
in front of Dartley’s nose. Dartley feinted a couple of steps to the right, then to the left, blade extended before him. The
knuckles of his bare hand holding the knife were turning blue with cold.

Dockrell took some more swipes at him with the ax, but he couldn’t get a proper grip to maneuver it fast with his thick gloves.
Dartley lunged and slashed open Dartley’s parka over his left ribs. Dockrell was shaken. He moved backward quickly and pulled
off both gloves. Now he gripped the shaft of the ax, bared his teeth in a Viking grin and advanced on his victim, who had
only a knife and nowhere to hide on the icy wastes.

It was now Dartley’s turn again to back down. He made no more attempts to lunge, concentrating on keeping just outside Dockrell’s
reach. Dockrell was enjoying himself. He had no objection to stretching out the experience. This man could back down before
him as long as he could manage. It would still do him no good.

Dartley was in bad trouble, running away and even stumbling in front of his opponent. He had switched the knife to his left
gloved hand, trying to warm his right
hand in his parka pocket. Dockrell moved in on him, ax held over his head, in a steady trot.

All of a sudden, Dartley stood his ground and once more grasped the wood handle of his knife tightly in his bare hand. Dockrell
halted, then stepped in swiftly for the death blow, ax held up ready for the swing.

With a fast zigzag, Dartley made a mock lunge with his knife, pulled back at the last moment and grabbed for the ax shaft
with his gloved left hand as the weapon descended on him. He had no chance to get a good hold on the ice ax, only to deflect
it and to yank it hard in Dockrell’s grip.

Dockrell cringed and screamed as the skin of his right palm and fingers, frozen to the metal of the shaft, tore away from
the tissues of his hand.

Dartley seized his advantage. He drove his wood-handled knife point first through the slash he had previously opened in Dockrell’s
parka. He felt the blade scrape between two ribs. He forced it home to the hilt and twisted the steel sharply in the man’s
innards.

Dockrell’s knees buckled. He slid slowly off the knife blade, the aluminum shaft of the ice ax still frozen to his left palm,
his right hand sprinkling the white ice with scarlet drops.

Dartley looked him in the face as he died. Then he dragged him by the collar over the ice like the carcass of a dead seal.

He ripped the ax off the dead man’s left hand and chipped a shallow grave in an area where the ice had a thick snow cover.
Dartley slid him into the long furrow,
lay him on his back and crossed his bloody hands on his chest. Dartley had been brought up to be a bit formal about funerals.

Pushing the snow in on top of him, it chanced that Dartley had left the head till last to cover. Dockrell’s eyes were open.
He had the angry look of a man who has failed to get a place on a plane.

Dartley decided that first he had to get off Antarctica, then someone could explain. But now he was having Dockrell’s problem.
He wasn’t due to leave for a month! He demanded compassionate leave, explaining that the death of his valued associate Harrison
Murdoch, before his eyes, in the seawater, had completely unhinged him. The body had not been found. This made two for McMurdo
in two weeks. There was no suspicion of foul play. Dartley had cleaned up before the chopper arrived. He was on a plane that
evening.

He stepped onto the airfield at Christchurch, New Zealand, and his nose picked up the strangest, pleasantest smell it had
in a long time. It took him a moment to figure, after all that frigid ice, he was smelling earth and grass again.

Ten American oil experts kicked out of Iran. Ten wanted men on a hit list stretching clear across the globe, They’ve started
dying one by one, within weeks of each other, the mode of murder different in every case. The kill count stands at five down,
five to go.

It’s a case of international petroleum politics at its dirtiest and bloodiest. The big energy conglomerate doesn’t want to
pay the million, but it knows it has to. Because only Richard Dartley the world’s most expensive assassin and the man who
never misses, can beat a professional terminator every bit as deadly as himself.

THE CRIME MINISTER