Fear No Evil(Alex Cross #29)(29)

“Heard you’re a big-time homicide detective now,” Brooker said.

“And I heard you’re a killer for the CIA.”

He laughed even harder than before, which started a ragged coughing fit. When it ended, he laughed again. “Sorry, no one’s called me that in years either. And it was never true, by the way. I went private security is all.”

“Good for you,” Sampson said, though he did not like mercenaries in general. “Why are you here, Brooker? Outside my house? Outside my church this morning?”

“Hey, man, I’m sorry about that. I honestly didn’t think you’d hear me out if I called.”

“Hear you out about what?”

“Making amends,” Brooker said, sounding quieter and more unsure of himself. “I, uh, got sober last year, John. AA. And this is step eight. Well, nine. Step eight, you write a list of everyone you ever harmed when you were under the influence. Nine is facing the people you harmed and making amends.”

“Okay?”

“I seem to recollect harming you,” he said and coughed again. “One drunken night in Kandahar.”

“You broke my jaw,” Sampson said.

“And you covered for me, said you fell on patrol,” Brooker said, lowering his hands. “I want to say I appreciated that and you in no way deserved a broken jaw. And I apologize. Seriously, I’m a different man now, someone who…ah, it doesn’t matter. I’d like to shake your hand and take that memory with me as I continue my search for inner peace. But if not, I totally understand.”

He took two steps forward, reached out his right hand, and held Sampson’s gaze with a sincere gaze of his own.

“Fine,” Sampson said, moving toward Brooker. “I don’t begrudge anyone trying to find inner peace.”

“Appreciate that, John,” he said, a slight catch in his voice. “I really do.”

Sampson reached for the former commando’s hand. He heard a soft click just before Brooker gripped his hand tight and came up with a knife blade in his left hand.

He yanked Sampson forward, shoved the knife tip against his throat. “I hate to say this, what with you being a recent widower and your little girl waiting for you, but I bring you sad tidings of your imminent death, John Sampson,” Brooker said. “From M.”





Chapter





31




Seeing Brooker’s eyes up close like this—cold, ruthless, amoral—triggered the intensive training deep in Sampson’s brain.

He no longer cared about the knife at his neck or the fact that the spook of his nightmares held it or that said spook claimed to have brought sad tidings from M. The only thing that mattered to Sampson now was that Brooker had been sent to kill him, and if he did, Willow would become an orphan.

That was not going to happen. He was not going to let that happen.

He heard a calm voice in his head say, Weapon?

Sampson’s service gun was in the house; his backup was at his ankle.

Hand, he thought instantly. He trusted that thought.

Pick a target, the voice said.

Lower ribs, liver, he thought. And again trusted that thought.

Strike.

Brooker smiled at the same instant Sampson used his superior size to yank out of the assassin’s grip. Brooker was thrown off balance and twisted to his left.

Sampson felt the tip of Brooker’s knife skitter and cut skin along the side of his neck; he pivoted on the balls of his feet and drove his left fist hard into Brooker’s side about ten inches above his hip with his full weight behind it. He heard and felt the assassin’s rib snap.

With a deep grunt, the killer staggered sideways across the sidewalk toward the lawn. He dropped into an odd crouch, his head and torso bent, guarding his broken rib and potential liver laceration.

Brooker was injured, no doubt, but still not down.

Weapon? the calm voice said again.

Sampson reached to get the small nine-millimeter Ruger he kept in his ankle holster just as Brooker attacked, exploding from his protective crouch and slashing the air with the knife. Sampson jumped back, the blade just missing him.

He landed on his heels, off balance, and almost went down. Brooker saw it and charged forward with the blade tip leading.

Left forearm.

Throat.

Sampson did something then that the assassin did not expect. Instead of trying to stay away from the blade or grabbing the man’s wrist, he ignored the knife, found his balance, and stepped forward with his entire weight, holding his bent right arm at chin height.

He felt the stab like a gut punch at the same time the ulnar bone of his forearm smashed hard into Brooker’s throat, almost crushing his larynx; they crashed off the sidewalk and onto a neighbor’s lawn. Sampson felt the wind go out of him on impact. He knew the knife was in him and that he’d been wounded badly.

Brooker struggled beneath him. Sampson pushed himself up and off the knife and straddled Brooker’s hips.

Though wild-eyed and gasping for air, Brooker stabbed Sampson in the thigh. Sampson howled with pain but heard that calm voice in his head again.

Weapon? Target?

He knew both answers and trusted them.

Sampson raised both fists as one and hammered them down on Brooker’s solar plexus, just below the center of his rib cage. Brooker doubled up in pain but did not let go of the knife. He yanked it from Sampson’s thigh and pulled back to stab him once more. Sampson smashed his right fist into Brooker’s solar plexus and his left into his broken rib, again and again, and then he put his hands around the man’s throat and finished crushing his larynx.