Moseby heard Derek fart, groan in his sleep as he rolled over. Moseby waited, listening to Derek and Chase snoring softly on either side of him in the tiny mining shack. Even sleeping they clutched their weapons, locally made assault rifles with speed clips and top-of-the-line Chinese night-vision scopes. The two young hillbillies were still better company than Gravenholtz and the raiders who had packed the Chinese helicopter on the five-hour flight from New Orleans to the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. The raiders were foul-mouthed drunks who delighted in shooting cattle while the chopper skimmed along at two hundred miles an hour, laughing as the locals dove for cover. Gravenholtz paid his men no attention, watching Moseby the whole way, the red hairs on his arms waving in the draft.
Gravenholtz had assigned Derek and Chase to be his guides around the mountain camp, but they didn’t take him anywhere he wanted to go. They were his guards, accompanying him night and day, steering him away from exploring the tunnels honeycombing the mountain. Instead they took him on long walks through the foothills-they shot squirrels with their sidearms gunslinger-style, pelted each other with pinecones, their accents so heavy he could barely understand them at first. Easy duty for them, but Moseby spent the days cataloging the men who roamed the camp, learning their gaits and their speech patterns, memorizing the narrow paths and valleys, making a mental map of the immediate area. He had been invisible before, he would be invisible again.
Three days he had been stuck here waiting for the Colonel to return. Gravenholtz had plucked him from his home, racing back here as though they didn’t have a moment to lose. but the Colonel was gone when they arrived, called away to quell some uprising in his rugged domain. Moseby had tried calling Annabelle, but the phone was dead. No signal of any kind on the mountain, took a certain kind of secure phone to call in or out, and access to those was strictly forbidden to all but the select few.
Nothing to do but wait, said Gravenholtz, refusing Moseby’s request. Jeeter will keep your wife and that sweetmeat daughter occupied, you don’t have to worry about them being bored without you. Do you good to get away from her anyway. Clean country air and honest work. Might do her some good too. Gravenholtz’s tongue flicked out. That wife of yours got restless eyes. First time she spied me I thought she was going to suck the clothes right off me. No offense. I just got that effect on the ladies.
No offense, Moseby had said. Promising himself again that once this was over, he was going to forget Christ’s stricture to turn the other cheek. Time enough to ask forgiveness once the redhead had been taught a lesson in manners.
Derek rolled over again, the cot creaking. Pine needles drifted across the corrugated tin roof, the wind rushing past.
Moseby rolled out of bed, rolled out so smoothly that the cot didn’t make a sound. He grabbed Derek’s camouflage jacket, glided toward the half-open rear window. The first night the two guards had set up a motion detector, but Moseby had taken care of that. Three times that first night he had flicked pebbles onto the floor, setting off the alarm, rousing Derek and Chase while Moseby yawned and asked what was going on. After that third interruption, Derek had turned off the motion detector, kicked it across the shack.
Moseby listened at the window, then hooked his fingers on the top of the frame and pivoted himself out through the narrow opening. He shivered in the cold mountain air, started walking, shoulders hunched, head bent slightly. He missed the warm breeze off the Gulf, the heavy, perfumed air of magnolia and hibiscus. Most of all he missed his wife and daughter. He missed home. He sometimes wondered what would have happened if he hadn’t met Annabelle on his sixth mission into the Belt. Would he have stayed a shadow warrior, sworn to duty, bound to nothing and no one other than the Fedayeen? All he was certain of was that the moment he met her, there had never been any doubt of what he would do.
Clouds drifted across the crescent moon. It was the time of Salat-ul-Isha, the final prayer of the day. Moseby had converted to Christianity, not just with his mouth, but with his heart-still, even after all these years in the Belt, he wondered if he would ever not hear the call to prayer echo inside his skull five times a day. Ah, well, there were worse things. He nodded at three miners passing a bottle around a campfire, and kept walking. Men were arriving and leaving the mountain every day-miners and soldiers, tradesmen and truckers. No one noticed Moseby.
Violating his Fedayeen oath was a capital crime, but Moseby had willingly taken the risk. It was Annabelle he was worried about. She was considered as guilty as he was. Moseby had covered his tracks well, living quietly, moving every few years…until he woke one night with a knife at his throat while Annabelle slept beside him. A young shadow warrior stared down at him in the darkness. Young, but good. Very good. Better than Moseby. Annabelle had moaned in her sleep, turned over, and Moseby had been oddly comforted by her heat, the softness of her skin beside him. He asked the young warrior to kill him quickly, but spare her life. The young warrior hesitated…nodded. He had asked the young warrior his name. Rakkim Epps. Moseby offered Rakkim his blessing and closed his eyes, waiting to die. A few moments later he opened his eyes, the knife still at his throat. What is it? Moseby asked. Rakkim brushed his hand across Moseby’s eyes, closed them. Moseby waited for the blade. When he opened his eyes again, Rakkim was gone. Moseby never saw him again.
Moseby heard voices in the distance. Cheering and raucous laughter. He slipped through the trees, heading toward the voices, not making a sound. A ghost. Twice he almost stepped on chipmunks who didn’t hear him until the last moment. He wasn’t alone in the woods, though, there were other men hurrying in the same direction, loud men charging through the brush, rifles slung over their shoulders as they called out to each other. This was new terrain for Moseby. The trees thinned out, became stony ground. Torches danced atop the next ridge and the sounds were louder now. Moseby moved nimbly over the boulders, leaping from one to the other in his haste, leaving the other men behind.
Small searchlights ringed a deep cleft in the mountain, cast shadows across the natural arena below. Men huddled around burn barrels, drinking and smoking, cheering as they watched the action. Most of them were locals, or soldiers, but there were about a dozen-all of them taking the best spots-with their hair buzzed distinctively short, whitewalls around their ears, hard men. Raiders, that’s what Derek had called them, when Moseby pointed them out. They’s Gravenholtz’s boys, Derek said, voice lowered. You best not mess with them. Moseby eased his way through the crowd to get a better look, avoiding the Raiders. The crowd smelled of sweat and coal and sour beer, foul smells, like a dirty copper penny. He stepped back in surprise, then forward again. Gravenholtz was at the bottom of the cleft, but the redhead was too busy to notice Moseby.
Gravenholtz and another man squared off below, both of them bare-chested in the cold air. Gravenholtz’s torso was tautly muscled, his skin a pale, freckled fish-belly white. The other man was skinnier, his body covered in bruises, eyes blackened, his dirty-blond hair matted-he moved easily across the rocks in a half-crouch, sidestepping, never taking his eyes off Gravenholtz.
The blond was Fedayeen. A shadow warrior, just like Moseby. No one else moved like that across rough terrain. No one else held their hands just so…loose, fingers slightly curled, ready to strike or grasp. Moseby looked pleased. He had no idea how the shadow warrior had been injured, or how many men it had taken to do the job, but one-on-one? Gravenholtz had no idea what he was in for.
Catcalls from the crowd on the rim above, whoops and hollers. The shadow warrior dodged a hurled beer can with a slight turn of his head, not even acknowledging the missile. Gravenholtz closed in, agile himself, more agile than Moseby had suspected, slowly cutting the ring in half.
Gravenholtz threw a punch. The shadow warrior countered, hit him with a solid right just under the heart. Should have shattered Gravenholtz’s floating ribs and disabled him, but the redhead just moved in, smiling. A flurry of punches from Gravenholtz. The shadow warrior barely dodged, countered again with a right and a left to no effect. Gravenholtz backed him into a cul-de-sac, but the shadow warrior scampered away. Circled behind him. Launched a roundhouse kick that caught Gravenholtz on the side of the head, sent him sprawling. The shadow warrior rushed in to finish the job, but the redhead was too quick, tripped him, punched him as the shadow warrior scooted away. It was a glancing blow, but the shadow warrior grunted in pain, bit his lips shut.
The crowd whistled. Stamped their feet. One of Gravenholtz’s Raiders, a scrawny killer with a broken nose, danced a jig on the rim of the amphitheater, bared his ass to the shadow warrior to a chorus of laughter.
The shadow warrior clutched his side where he had been hit, breathing hard. He moved slightly slower now, and Moseby could see bumps on his rib cage and collarbone where bones had been broken and healed unevenly. Moseby wondered how long the man had been imprisoned here. How many bouts he had fought against the redhead, because clearly they had faced each other before.
Gravenholtz advanced, moving lightly on his feet. His left ear was bleeding from the shadow warrior’s kick, but it didn’t seem to bother him.
The shadow warrior weaved in the torchlight, made a move that was distinctly Fedayeen-a shoulder feint that was in fact a genuine killing attack, “faking the feint,” it was called. Fools the skilled opponent, and the unskilled is dead already, that’s what their instructor had taught them. Not tonight. Gravenholtz caught the shadow warrior with an uppercut that sprayed teeth on the rocks.
The shadow warrior backed away, spitting blood. He pressed himself against one wall, seemingly exhausted, only to dodge away at the last moment as Gravenholtz swung again. Gravenholtz’s fist hit the wall hard, and he whirled around, cursing. It didn’t make sense, but Moseby thought it looked like the rock face had cracked under the blow.
The shadow warrior moved in, jerked back, then sweep-kicked Gravenholtz off his feet. He tromped the redhead’s ankle, then turned and scrambled up the sheer rock face, faster and faster, pulling himself higher with fingertips and toes, blood running down his chin. It was an amazing feat, even for a shadow warrior, and the crowd fell silent for a minute, then commenced jeering, expecting him to fall at any moment.
The shadow warrior didn’t fall, but redoubled his efforts while Gravenholtz raged below, beating on the rock walls. As he reached the top of the slope, the Raider with the broken nose pumped the butt of his rifle at the shadow warrior’s head. Missed. Missed. Missed. Holding on to an outcropping of rock with one hand, the shadow warrior grabbed the rifle away with the other-he shot the Raider twice in the chest before losing his grip and tumbling back down the ravine. He lay still, one leg twisted under him.
Beer bottles shattered around the shadow warrior, the men on top screaming for the redhead to tear his head off.
Gravenholtz snarled the crowd into silence, then limped across the rocks and stood over the crumpled shadow warrior. The wind howled around them, the flames from the torches sending shadows across the redhead’s bare, freckled skin. With his muscled torso and skull tufted with short reddish hair, Gravenholtz looked more like a hyena than a man. He squatted, picked up two of the shadow warrior’s teeth, and shook them in his fist. The clicking sound echoed off the rocks. He grinned as he tossed the teeth, snapped his fingers. “Snake eyes!” He scanned the faces along the rim of the arena.
Moseby tucked in his chin, moved out of Gravenholtz’s line of sight.
Gravenholtz grabbed the shadow warrior by the back of the neck, held him up for all to see. “He’s not dead, don’t worry.” He beamed as the shadow warrior groaned. “See? Fedayeen are hard to kill. We’re going to play with this one for a long time.”
The crowd cheered.
“Give him a week, he’ll be ready again.” Gravenholtz tossed the shadow warrior onto the rocks. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Touched his ear and winced. He kicked the shadow warrior, looked up at the rim. “I’m thirsty. Which one of you peckerwoods wants to buy me a drink?”
The crowd roared.
Moseby joined the throng moving slowly back through the woods, listening to their happy voices, their obscene glee in the fate of the shadow warrior, their delight in the prowess of their redheaded champion. They were right. Moseby had never seen a shadow warrior beaten like that. Not by anyone other than another Fedayeen, and Gravenholtz was no Fedayeen. What was he, though?
Moseby peeled off from the group, shivering now as he remembered his promise to teach the redhead a lesson. The shadow warrior was fast and skillful, deadlier than Moseby had been in his prime, and he was long past that point. Yeah, the shadow warrior was good, but Gravenholtz was better. Clouds slid across the horn of the moon, darkening the night as Moseby made his way back toward the shack. He walked heavier now and there was ice in his guts. He wasn’t tired. Shadow warriors didn’t get tired. That’s what they told themselves anyway. No, Moseby wasn’t tired. He was scared.