by Ray Daniel
tightened his grip on her wrists, pulling them a bit higher. Yael wanted to wince. She moaned instead, and the man behind her released her throat. He ran his hand down her torso and then behind her. She heard him unzip his pants and felt him against her.
He said, “That’s better” and then placed his arm across her chest, covering her breasts. The grip on her wrists loosened. Yael suspected that he wanted her to fight him. The struggle would be that much more exciting. She also knew that he couldn’t release her wrists without giving up his power, so he’d probably give her enough slack to break free and then recapture her. She waited for that moment.
Hameni sat in his chair, leaning forward. Yael made eye contact with him. He parted his lips, and his tongue played across them unconsciously. Then the man in front of Yael kissed her on the mouth, and she closed her eyes, returning the kiss and shutting Hameni out of the moment. She knew it would frustrate him. Though it wasn’t necessary for her plan, his frustration gave her satisfaction.
With Yael’s breasts covered by the man in back, the man in front explored new territory. He ran has hand down her stomach and between her legs. Yael shifted her weight. She thrust her hips forward as she got her legs under her. Now she could kick.
The man behind her, his brain overwhelmed by stimulation, let his grip slip. Yael didn’t react. She planned for his ability, not his intentions, and he could still immobilize her if he tightened his grip. If she resisted too early, he’d clamp down on her wrists and never release them. He might even dislocate her shoulders.
Instead of resisting, she let out a long, low, animal moan that pushed him over the edge. The hand holding her arms loosened to the point where there was only token pressure. She slipped her right hand loose, and the game was over.
Krav Maga is the martial art of a people who know that a living enemy is a deadly enemy and who would consider it a luxury to have their backs to the wall, because they’re usually surrounded. Krav Maga was born of the fact that genocide is not an abstract concept to Israelis, but is a recent memory and an imminent threat. It has no etiquette, no formalities, and no compassion. Moves that have been outlawed in other martial arts are perfected in Krav Maga. Its only rule is that you must kill your enemies and survive. Yael Navas was an expert.
While the man in front of her was unbuckling her belt, Yael had been mentally practicing the attack that would disable him. Now she executed it. She slipped her right hand from the reverse prayer and flicked it forward towards the man’s face. It was a weak strike. She had no leverage and could not put her weight behind the blow, but she had a sharp thumbnail and he had an eye.
Yael plunged her thumb into the man’s eye. She felt a grape-like pop and her thumb disappeared up to the first knuckle. We are taught that the human eye is a sense organ, connected to the brain through the optic nerve. But, in truth, the eye is a part of the brain that has grown through a small space so that it might gaze upon the world. Eye injuries are brain injuries.
Yael’s sharp thumbnail pierced the cornea, splashed through the aqueous humor and punctured the retina, sending neural shockwaves through the man’s head. He screamed and clawed at his face. He reverted to instinctive animal, stumbling as his brain tried to rewire itself.
Yael had no time to watch his flailing. She had freed her right arm, but the man behind her had tightened his grip on her left. She could not allow him to pop her shoulder, so spun and dropped to relieve the pressure. She had more leverage than he did, and forced his wrist to turn to match her spin. She continued the move until she was face-to-face with the man’s crotch and he was holding her left arm over her head. He was rampant, but she ignored the distraction. She rocketed into a standing position driving her right knee under his open fly. He grunted, released her, and doubled over. Then Yael kicked him in the face, splashing his nose across his chin. He fell and she turned to Hameni.
Hameni still had the gun. He pointed the gun at her from his chair, smiled, and said, “It’s time to stop fighting, Miss Navas.”
Yael looked at the space between her and Hameni. He was sitting 50 feet away, about the distance of a standard firing range. Yael knew how hard it was to hit a human target from that distance. She remembered her first attempts, the slow process of lining up the rear site with the front site, waiting until one’s breath settled, and then pulling the trigger with a smooth easy motion. After months of practice, Yael could quickly raise her pistol to the correct place, two handed, and place bullets into a human target. Then she practiced one handed, still lining up the sites, and after years she could draw the pistol and hit a man. She had never practiced while sitting in a chair.
Hameni was holding the gun one handed, and pointing it generally at Yael. If he hit her, it would be God’s will, and Yael was comfortable that God was on her side. She broke off running to her right. The pistol boomed.
One! Two! Three! Four!
Hameni had fired four shots and had missed his moving target. Yael angled along the warehouse and then saw the man who had formally been in front of her. He had stopped staggering and was standing in place, covering his eye. She ran towards him. He was huge, six foot five at least. Hameni stood and kept shooting as she ran behind the dazed commando.
Five! Six! Thwack! Seven! Thwack! Eight! Thump!
Hameni’s wild shots had hit the man in the leg, the back, and finally the head. Yael raised her hands to shield herself from bits of bone and hair. The corpse dropped straight to the floor as Yael reached the wall of the warehouse and stopped. She was a little more than fifty feet from Hameni, because the angle had changed. Hameni thought he had her trapped in the corner and fired again. Yael dove behind an American Indian totem pole and rolled.
Nine! Ten! Thunk! Eleven! Thunk! Twelve!
Hameni’s aim was getting better. He would have hit Yael, but for the totem pole.
Yael carried a Glock 17 for two reasons. First, it was small and fit comfortably in her hand, and second, the magazine held 17 bullets. With one bullet in the chamber Yael went into danger with 18 shots--an excellent number. Hameni had burned through 12 by firing wildly at her, killing his own man, and damaging his artwork. He only had six bullets left. Still, it took only one.
She kept moving across the warehouse, as Hameni started running towards the center of the warehouse, cutting down the angle and firing. It was a bad move, because firing when running was even more difficult than firing when standing.
Thirteen! Fourteen! Fifteen!
Hameni was down to three bullets, but Yael was trapped. Hameni’s second man, the man who had been behind her, had recovered and had picked up a sculpture to use as a club. It was a bull, and he held it in one hand using the horn as a handle.
Hameni had stopped moving. He was standing in the middle of the room. Yael was caught between Hameni with a gun and his thug with a club. The man with the club ran towards her now, raising the bull and croaking out a strangled cry of rage. Yael turned and ran towards Hameni at an angle. He was startled by the move and fired at her, but Yael had given him another puzzle to solve, that of hitting an obliquely moving target. He fired his last three shots.
Sixteen! Seventeen! Eighteen! Slice!
Sizzling pain tore along Yael’s left side. The last bullet had hit her just below the ribs. It had torn a chunk of grey knit shirt and soft skin off her body, and continued on its way. Yael gasped, stumbled, and stopped running. She forced herself to ignore the wound. If it would kill her, she’d know soon enough.
Yael saw that the Glock’s slide was retracted. The gun was empty. As the man with the club bore down on her, she ran straight at Hameni. He turned and fled until he ran out of warehouse and was cornered by his own artwork. Then he spun and threw the Glock. He finally had good aim. The pistol came straight for her. Yael stopped and let the 22 oz piece of metal and plastic hit her in the chest. It did no damage. Hameni had a weak arm.
The man with the bull
statue was almost upon her. He’d raised the statue and planned to bring it down on her head. The statue was heavy, when he brought it down the blow would be devastating, but right now it was going up. Yael bent and picked up the Glock.
In Yael’s profession, practice was the key to survival. Perfecting your aim with a Glock was obvious, but Yael had taken her skills to the next level. She had practiced reloading for days at a time. She would slot ten magazines into her belt and load them into her gun in seconds, depressing the release button, letting the spent magazine drop, and sliding a new magazine into place all in one smooth motion. Yael could load a Glock ten times in ten seconds. She only had to reload this one once.
Yael depressed the eject button, and as the magazine fell from the gun, She pulled the spare from behind her back and slid it into place. Still, the gun wasn’t loaded. There was no bullet in the chamber.
The man with the bull crashed it down in a sweeping motion as she pulled back on the Glock’s slide. She dodged, but he released the statue, throwing it at her with a smooth motion. The bull’s stone rump hit her in the stomach. The breath whooshed out of her, and she fell into a heap.
The commando took a step forward to finish the job. He aimed a kick at Yael’s head.
