The veteran turned a few degrees to the left, enough to give him a direct view of what was happening without providing an excuse for Peter who had backed a step away.
Doug flung the P-38 toward the darkness. The fencing, thirty yards away, rattled angrily when the pistol struck it. “Oh, ‘I just made a mistake’?” shouted the blond American as he hit the woman again with his open hand. The blow had a solid, meaty sound to it, and this time Gisela collapsed as her legs splayed. The black gloves which Doug was wearing probably had pockets of lead shot sewn into the palm and knuckles, giving his hand the inertia of a blackjack.
“Did you expect to get away with that shit?” he screamed to the woman who toppled onto her face, away from the wall, when her hips struck the ground.
Facing the wall squarely so that nothing in his stance would spark anger, Kelly said, “Look, Mr. Blakeley, maybe we all oughta sit down with Elaine and see about – ”
Doug hit him, and the question of whether the blow was backhand or with clenched fist was beyond the veteran’s calculation. The blond American wasn’t just big – he had real muscle under that fine tailoring, and he put plenty of it into the blow.
The roar to which Kelly awakened was real, not his blood; Peter was shouting something in anger to his employer. Kelly knelt on the gravel, his palms and forehead against the painted steel wall. All his senses were covered by a screen that trembled through white and red, attenuating the sights and sounds of the world. His skin was hot, sticky hot, with the exception of his left cheek and jaw where something cold had gnawed all the flesh away.
Kelly had blacked out for only a fraction of a second, but for moments longer he had no idea of where he was or what was happening. “Don’t point that thing at me!” Doug shouted over Kelly’s head. “You hold him like I tell you!”
“I – ” Kelly found as he tried to look up at Doug that his neck hurt and his tongue was thick and fiery. A hand gripped his left shoulder from behind, grabbed a handful of fabric and lifted. Doug punched him in the ribs.
Kelly’s breath sprayed out with blood from the tongue and cheek, cut against his teeth by the previous blow. The veteran sagged back, his knees brushing the ground, but Peter’s strength was enough to hold him.
“Higher,” ordered Doug, breathing heavily himself.
Kelly didn’t think his ribs had cracked that time, but his whole chest felt as if it were swelling, bursting. He knew where he was now, being beaten by a hotshot American who had finally found a way to assert his authority – while a Third World thug waited to blow holes in him if he didn’t sit and take it.
Stand and take it. Peter dragged Kelly fully upright and Doug punched him again.
He aimed at the veteran’s face, but the lead-burdened fist moved slowly enough that Kelly was able to duck so that Doug hit the point of his forehead instead of the nose. Even though the blond man was wearing a sap glove, the result was more likely to break knuckles than to do Kelly serious injury.
The veteran blinked against the jumbled dazzle of light caused by his brain bouncing within the bone. He went limp again, at least partly by volition, and his weight forced Peter back a step.
The Beretta was short for an automatic weapon but still, at seventeen inches, much longer than an ordinary handgun. In order to point the weapon at Kelly without letting the muzzle touch him, Peter had to hold the veteran out at arm’s length with his left hand. The gunman was strong, but Kelly’s solid weight was an impossible load under those conditions.
“Get Tomashek!” Peter growled in English.
“Big, bad man who thinks he can shoot my people,” Doug said as he panted. He had been trying to keep his Beretta muzzle-up as he swung at Kelly with his right hand alone, but the eight-pound submachinegun pulled itself down toward the gravel as the blond man tried to catch his breath.