I tried to pull my arms free, tried to kick out with my legs. It was useless. The men who held me were too strong.
The man with the shiv stepped toward me, the sharpened point aimed at my stomach.
I had only one more second-just enough time to realize I was about to die-just enough time for that information to flash red-hot through my brain.
Then the man’s wolflike face filled my vision, blotted out everything else. There was nothing but his grin and his eyes.
But all at once, his eyes flew up, went white, empty. His grin vanished and his mouth dropped open, slack. He staggered back away from me. I saw his legs go wobbly. I saw his knees buckle.
He collapsed onto the grass with a hollow thud. The plastic shiv fell from his limp fingers.
CHAPTER TWO
The Yard KingWhat just happened?
In the terror of the moment, I couldn’t make sense of it. Then I could.
One of the Nazi musclemen-one of the thugs who’d been with me by the free weights-was standing before me where the wolf-faced man had been. His fist was raised, a stone gripped in it. He had stepped up behind the Islamist assassin and clubbed him in the back of the neck.
The next instant, the two men holding me were ripped away, as if they’d been caught up in a tornado or something. Some swastika-tattooed musclemen had grabbed them, too, dragged them off me. As the men fought back, more of the Islamists were running to the scene to join the fight and more of the Nazis too. Another second and hate-filled men were battling other hate-filled men back and forth across the grass. There was the crack of fists on bone. Blood flying through the air. Grunted curses and ugly names. Men down on the ground rolling over and over one another, trying to gouge one another’s eyes or clutch one another’s throats.