Blown Circuit Read Online Free PDF Page B

by a wood bat. But the guy wasn’t down. I could feel that. The brief interval of shock did, however, give me the opportunity to get my hands over the garrote. I grabbed it overhand because I figured it was the only way I would be able to sneak my fingers in and I was right. I felt the garrote loosen as I sunk down on my left knee and pulled over my right shoulder.  
    The trick now was speed. Speed and finesse. I used my momentum and the garrote to my advantage, pulling my aggressor all the way over. It was a smooth move and the garrote, which a moment before had been my biggest problem, became my biggest asset. My attacker didn’t let go and it turned into a perfect handle to hammer him smack down to the floor in front of me. A second later I was staring into the eyes of Jean-Marc. I breathed in deeply, holding my fist above his throat, ready and willing to crush his trachea. And then I made my first mistake.
    I didn’t do it.
    “I am so sorry, Michel.”
    “Sorry for what? Going all psycho on me?”
    He breathed heavily on the floor in front of me. I was within striking distance. I felt confident. I watched him squirm on his back on the floor beneath me, wearing nothing but his hammam towel, his body slick with sweat.
    “No, my friend. I am sorry you have to die.”
    Obviously, Jean-Marc wasn’t the upstanding Gallic cousin I’d been led to believe he was. But I still felt confident. I was down on one knee, with one hand on top of his head and my fist aimed at his throat. I could finish him and he knew it. I expected whining from him, pleading, there wasn’t much else he could do. But he was a slippery bastard. The whole situation should have told me that. Instead of buying time with lies, he squirmed to the side, lifting his left shoulder off the floor.  
    It happened in the blink of an eye. One moment he was helpless and the next he had reached beneath him for some kind of gleaming blade. It must have been tucked flat into the back of his towel because I hadn’t seen it in the takedown. He came up fast and furious with his left arm slicing towards me. It was all I could do to leap away. Even then I felt his razor-sharp blade shave the hairs off my forearm. Just lovely, I thought. A knife. I really, really didn’t like knives.
    Jean-Marc arched his back and leapt onto his feet. He was brawny, but he was also fit as was evidenced by the move. It required strong legs and a limber back and excellent abdominal muscles to jump up like that. In that moment, I realized that I may have underestimated him as an opponent. No doubt he’d done martial arts training of some sort, judo, or grappling of some kind. I had no idea why he had turned on me, but I was in for a fight.
    I stood back, dancing on the balls of my feet on the slick floor, loose and ready. I hadn’t been hit yet and I didn’t want to be, given the weapon Jean-Marc was now brandishing. It wasn’t a regular knife. It was a short saber with a forward-curved blade and a bone hilt called a yatagan . In my brief time in Turkey, I’d already seen several of them for sale in shopkeeper’s windows. The sword had probably been hidden behind one of the stone basins prior to my arrival at the hammam. The yatagan’s single-edged, hand-forged steel blade gleamed in the mist. It was short enough to be concealable, but long enough to provide a good reach. I had little doubt that a single swipe of its high-carbon steel would be fatal. The trick would be, not getting hit.  
    Jean-Marc didn’t waste time talking. He let the blade speak instead. I twisted to my left watching him swing the glinting steel through the space I had occupied only a moment before, his wet towel making a stretching snap as he moved. I was thankful that he was still wearing it. I guessed he’d brought a spare towel to choke me with.
    “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about this?” I said.
    “I am sure, Michel.”
    I continued to back up toward the marble octagon in the center of