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on the side of the head or a shove backward by one of the burly bouncers to get it. Stone and Gunny
studied each other warily, although Stone was playing into it more to give the crowd a decent show than
anything else. When the bell went off, the ref, a balding, slightly overweight man in his forties, wisely
got the hell out of the way and the two huge fighters went for each other.
The boy wasn t a lightweight, but Stone figured he could still take Gunny out with a couple of punches,
especially if he landed one in the face. Gunny would be faster, but everybody in the place knew that
Stone had the real power one look at his arms was an indicator of how much damage he d do if he
connected. But there was still thatif factor; Gunny wasn t going to go the boxing route if he could help it
 he was way too smart for that. Instead, he came in low and light on his feet, ducked under Stone s
tight right hook (the one that surprised almost everyone), dropped hard onto his left hip, and swept
Stone s legs out from under him.
Stone went down with a grunt and he could ve sworn he heard the concrete somewhere beneath the
thick matting actuallycrack. He stayed there for a few moments, actuallywaiting for Gunny to come
after him until the ref hurried up and started to evaluate him. That wasn t an option, but apparently
neither was Breeze coming after him, either the kid was going to wait until he got back to his feet.
Stone rolled to his side and levered himself upward, waving away the referee and eyeing his opponent
with a higher level of respect. Gunny wasn t stupid enough to box with Stone, but he wasn t about to go
to ground with him, either. The kid must ve taken one look at Stone s massive neck and decided nothing
short of King Kong which he wasn t was going to be able to get a choke hold on that.
Stone licked his lips and hunkered down a little more, bending his knees and spreading his fingers wide.
He thought he was ready for the attack, but when it came, the boy took him completely by surprise
when instead of repeating his first takedown, he went after Stone as if Stone was the bowling ball and
he was the pin. Stone found himself on the ground for the second time, and now he was starting to feel
humiliated in addition to being rushed. Kirigi didn t like to wait, and by now his Master had a jet being
primed on the runway at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana. It was even more of a struggle to get
himself upright this time a man who weighed as much as he did didn t fall lightly, and he didn t get
back up that way either.
Gunny still wasn t coming after him, but the guy did look just a shade more pleased with himself about
the situation. That was annoying but not the end of the world; he might have knocked Stone down a
couple of times, but there was going to be a whole lot more on Gunny s to-do list if he still thought he
was going to get the better of Stone.
His next attempt at a takedown proved just that.
His problem was pretty obvious: while he still had a healthy respect for Stone s size and strength, the
two previous takedowns had made him think his opponent was slow and easy prey for putting off
balance. With this thought in mind, the boy decided that to please the crowd, he should get a little
fancier, and a flying scissor kick would be just the ticket for upping the cheering factor.
It wasn t so much overconfidence as a serious miscalculation. Breeze had thought he had enough body
weight behind him to pull it off, but the simple fact was that he didn t Stone outweighed him by
nearly sixty pounds, and by the time Breeze thought he was going to make Stone hit the mat a third
time, Stone was as firmly planted on that mat as a hundred-year-old oak tree. He did go down& but
only because he wanted to. And then he did it a whole lot faster than Gunny Breeze had been counting
on.
Breeze came in with a picture-perfect elbow grab Stone gave it to him then levered his body up
with one leg in front of Stone s thighs and the other behind them. Stone let himself be guided toward the
ground, and he felt the kid s surprise at how easy it was; a split second later Stone also sensed when that
surprise turned to dismay as Stone suddenly increased his downward speed. He landed solidly on
Breeze s right leg and pinned him there, and before the guy could get his left leg bent up to push himself
away, Stone had that one pinned, too. Breeze bent at the waist and brought himself up only to take a
hard backfist that was clearly more of an annoyance punch than anything serious on Stone s part. By
then the ref was standing over them to take a look, and as a result, little surfer boy suddenly went all
frantic.
After all, his title was on the line, and he wasn t going to lose it so easily and certainlynot in the first
round to an oversized ape of an outsider who d gotten in on the fights via a last-minute sign-up ticket.
The ref wasn t going to call him out just because he was trapped, so Breeze, feeling like he was still up
on energy and good at his game, put everything he had into twisting his body and making an escape.
He must not have thought Stone was as heavy as he was, or maybe he just assumed that if he put
enough effort into it, Stone would let go.
Stone didn t.
The kid jerked beneath him and Stone s body vibrated with the effort Breeze put into it it felt like
there was a huge snake beneath him that was trying to squeeze through a hole the size of a bottle cap.
Stone easily held his ground as the boy forced his body around. One second Stone was just lying there
and Breeze was turning his legs underneath Stone s; the next, a noise filled the air, something that
sounded like a piece of porcelain breaking in two.
Then Breeze started screaming.
Stone looked down, but he wasn t surprised at what he saw. The boy definitely had determination, and
sometimes, in cases like these, that stubbornness could cause disastrous results. Breeze had, indeed,
managed to get his body to turn
 but his right foot hadn t turned with it.
The ref rushed over and began gesturing wildly  He s out! He s out!  but it still took Stone a good
six seconds to get his weight off the boy. Maybe he could have gone a little faster all right, he
definitely could have but Stone had gone from being impressed with Breeze to being annoyed at his
foolishness.
Even so, the California kid was lucky. Stone could have killed him at any time during this match as
easily as he blinked.
He watched impassively as the cage door was jerked open and a doctor ran in, followed by the kid s
corner man, then three or four other people. They left Breeze where he was, and it was a while before
the doc slipped him a shot that at least got him to stop that raw screaming. Stone was the winner, of
course, but he shocked the crowd and his corner man by just getting up and walking out never mind
the victory words or the trophy, and they could mail the prize money to his post office box.
Kirigi needed him.
ZIMBABWE, AFRICA
This place was soaked in death.
The unpaved streets if they could be called that were wide and dusty, disused. Even the trash that
pressed up against the sad and sorry-looking buildings bore a coat of African dirt that obliterated its
origin. Too far away from Gwanda itself so small it had little impact on anything to be remembered [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]