Checkmate (2006)

He was looking through a window. On the other side was a man holding a radio to his ear. He spun, saw Fisher, then raised a pistol and fired. The window shattered. Fisher jerked back, but not quickly enough. He felt warm blood trickling down his chin and neck. He plucked a frag grenade off his harness, pulled the pin, counted one-one thousand,tossed it through the window. There was a muffled boom. He peeked back over the edge. The man lay sprawled on the floor.

Beside Fisher’s head, a bullet punched into the roof. He looked up in time to see a man ru

Fisher crawled forward the last few feet, then turned and dangled his legs over the edge and dropped to the coupler below. As he landed, the door to the third car slid open. A man stood in the opening, a .357 Magnum leveled with Fisher’s chest. They stood staring at one another for a few seconds. And then, from behind the man, a face appeared. It was Zhao. “Shoot him, you idiot! Shoot . . . !”

Fisher knew there was nothing he could do; he was going to take a bullet. He was about to give his tac-suit’s RhinoPlate a true-life test. Not wanting to give the man a chance to adjust his aim and go for a head shot, Fisher went for his pistol.

The man fired. Fisher saw the muzzle flash, heard the blast, and felt a hammer-blow in the middle of his sternum. Even as he crashed backward into the door, he drew his pistol and shot the man in the throat. Behind him, Zhao dove to one side. Fisher adjusted aim and fired twice, but Zhao was gone.

Fisher reached back, groped for the door handle, turned it. The door crashed inward. His pistol slipped from his hand and disappeared under the train. He sprawled onto the floor. He rolled over, crawled to the door, slammed it shut.

The pain in his chest was crushing. He couldn’t catch his breath; it felt as though an anvil was sitting on his chest. Still alive, though. RhinoHide had done its job.

He felt the floor tilt beneath him as the train started up a grade. He climbed to his feet and looked around. The hot spot had been here, somewhere in this car. . . . The car was divided by a center aisle, with long, tourist-friendly benches on either side facing the windows. Ten feet away he saw the corner of a steel box beneath the bench. He rushed forward, dropped to his knees.

Made of brushed stainless steel, it was no bigger than an average suitcase with a latching footlocker lid. He laid his hand on the steel. It was warm to the touch.

Gotchya. . . .

The box shifted, sliding farther under the bench as the train chugged up the grade.

And then a thought: What had Zhao been pla

He pressed his ear to the lid and plugged his other ear with his finger. It took a few seconds to tune out the chugging of the locomotive and the wind whistling through the shattered window, but as those sounds faded, he heard something else. A faint mechanical whirring.

Like a flywheel.

And then another thought: Humiliated and hunted, his empire in ruins and his family dead, Zhao wouldn’t be satisfied by letting his revenge happen. His ego would demand that he do it. . . .

That he be the one to push the button.

Fisher pushed himself to his feet. Pain shot through his chest, doubling him over. He straightened up and stumbled down the aisle, fighting the incline of the floor. He reached the door, threw it open.

Across the coupler platform, he saw Zhao sitting in the doorway to the second car, legs splayed out before him. At least one of Fisher’s bullets had found its mark. The side of Zhao’s neck and face were bloody and his right arm hung limb at his side. With his eyes locked on Fisher’s, Zhao reached his left arm across his body and into his jacket.

Fisher lurched forward, but he lost traction on the sloped platform and fell to his knees. He got up, tried again. He grasped the hand railing and dragged himself forward.

Zhao’s hand came out holding a cell phone. He flipped it open, starting working the keypad with his thumb. Fisher drew the Sykes from its sheath and plunged it into Zhao’s thigh. Fisher felt the blade hit bone. Zhao screamed and dropped the phone, which slid toward the edge of the platform. Fisher reached out, snagged it with his fingertips, drew it back. On the screen was a nine-digit number. Underneath it, the words “Send? Y/N?”

He punched “No” and flipped the phone closed.

Zhao lay curled into a ball, his face twisted with pain. With his good arm he was reaching feebly for the knife jutting from his thigh. Fisher knocked his hand away. He grabbed the haft and gave it a twist. Zhao screamed again and arched his back. Fisher jerked the knife free and resheathed it. He stood up and looked down at Zhao.

“I think it’s time you and I say good-bye,” Fisher said.

Zhao didn’t respond, but turned his head and glared up at him.

“No arguments,” Fisher said. “Better we part company while we’re still friends.”

He grabbed Zhao by the foot and dragged him farther out onto the platform. Using a pair of flexi-cuffs, he first secured Zhao’s left arm to the railing, and then his right, which made a sickening grating sound as Fisher manipulated it. Zhao set his jaw and said through gritted teeth, “Go to hell.”

“Maybe someday,” Fisher replied, “but not today.”

He leaned out over the railing and looked forward. Ahead he could see the locomotive was almost at the top of the grade. Fisher knelt down, reached between the platform joint, and grabbed the release lever. He jerked it upward. There was a steel clank-clank.

“What are you doing?” Zhao said.

Fisher didn’t answer. He stepped to the other side of the platform and knelt down. He grabbed the second release lever.

“Tell me what you’re doing!” Zhao screamed.

“To tell you the truth,” said Fisher, “I don’t know what they call it in China.” He felt the locomotive lose momentum ever so slightly as it topped the grade, then lurch forward as it started down the opposite slope. “But in this country, it’s called checkmate.”

He pulled the lever.

EPILOGUE

KIEV, UKRAINE—SIX WEEKS LATER

FISHERstopped before the seven-foot-tall figure. Above a hawkish nose and long bushy beard, his narrowed eyes gazed implacably over what Fisher imagined were the barren Russian steppes. In his left hand the giant carried a ruby-encrusted war club, twice as big around as a baseball bat and topped by a spiked steel globe the size of a miniature soccer ball.

Beside the wax figure a plaque displayed a lengthy description in Cyrillic, but in English at the bottom, it simply said, “18th Century Slavic Warrior.” Behind him was a mural depicting a village in flames with women and children fleeing before horse-mounted soldiers.

Another day in the life of your typical eighteenth-century Slavic Warrior,Fisher thought.

The Kiev Museum of Wax Figures was a far cry from Madame Tussaud’s of London. There were no figures of Prince William or Brad Pitt or Richard Nixon, but plenty of Ukrainian and Russian historical figures, most of which the owners had classified as either a “Slavic Warrior” or a “Saint.” Whatever their avocation or history, Fisher had yet to see a smile, either from a wax figure or a patron—most of whom looked like locals. Apprently, the museum did not cater to many tourists.

For all that, though, he was enjoying the downtime. It had been hard won.