Highlander - Donna Lettow [110]
“Is that what you told Marcus before you killed him?” The katana was in his hand. MacLeod was ready.
Warily, the two Immortals began to circle. “I didn’t want to kill him. He gave me no choice.”
“And those men in Hebron,” MacLeod said, looking for an opening. “I’ll bet they were a threat to you, too. Weaponless, on their knees, praying to God. Some threat.” He was trying to get Avram angry, get him off-balance.
Avram wasn’t biting. “They served their purpose,” he said calmly. “Some mistrust here, a little fear there, sprinkle on a good dose of hate, and little by little the peace train goes off the tracks. And when it finally derails, they won’t even know which side did the final deed.” He feinted with a quick jab to the right which MacLeod’s katana easily batted away. “I’m just sorry you had to get in the way, MacLeod. Losing your head over a piece of Arab tail—I hope she was worth it.”
MacLeod knew when he was being baited, too, and didn’t allow his anger to impair his judgment. He lunged to his left, then, when Avram had committed himself, corrected, and slashed to the right. Avram, overbalanced, couldn’t recover in time to block, and the katana left a neat slice down Avram’s face in its wake. First blood. “Now I’m giving you no choice. Fight me.”
Avram didn’t command the power that MacLeod could put behind his blade, but he was quick and he was cunning. His fighting style combined the precise tactics of his Roman teacher with years of desperation, centuries of fighting with his back against the wall. It made him unpredictable, and that, along with the difference in their heights, allowed him to get under MacLeod’s guard more than once, scoring a jab to ribs, a slash across the abdomen.
But despite the difference in their ages, MacLeod was the more experienced and better-trained swordsman, and in time experience won out. A combination attack, right and then left and then hard to the left again, and Avram was off-balance again. A slash to the head, and he was on his knees, the katana to his throat. MacLeod kicked the sword out of Avram’s hand.
Avram glared up at MacLeod with defiance. “Go ahead and kill me. Everyone in that room’s dead anyway.”
MacLeod stopped dead in his tracks, his sword poised at Avram’s neck. “You put a bomb in your own embassy?”
“Kill me or don’t kill me, I still win, MacLeod. Go on, take my head.” Avram deliberately bared his throat against the gleaming blade of the katana. “Take my head! And by the time you’re finished with the Quickening, there’ll be nothing left of that agreement but a pile of rubble.”
MacLeod shook his head. “You’re bluffing. You’d never kill your own Prime Minister.” He could feel his hands sweat on the ivory hilt of his sword. It was a hard call—the Avram he knew had been a lousy poker player.
“C’mon, coward, do it,” Avram goaded. “Remember Marcus. Think about how I made him beg me before I killed him.” He rubbed against MacLeod’s blade so a thin line of crimson appeared at his throat. “And that Arab you’re screwing. I bet I could make her beg me, too—if she wasn’t already dead.” He looked up at MacLeod, his eyes filled with victory. “Or do you think you still have time to save her?”
“God damn you, Avram,” MacLeod growled through clenched teeth. He pulled back the katana for the killing blow, swung hard—
—and sliced him viciously across the midsection. Avram’s eyes grew wide, and he gurgled out a single sound. Then he fell to the ground, dead.
For now.
MacLeod ran back toward the embassy building with all his strength. When he was barely within earshot of the guards at the east entrance, he was yelling to the Palestinian. “Tawari’! It’s an emergency! Give me your communicator. I have to talk to Farid!” At the door the startled guard handed him the earpiece and started pulling the transmitter from his pocket. MacLeod was already running into the building with it. “Farid, can you hear me? It’s MacLeod.