She stayed in bed, not sleeping of course. But she simply couldn’t look into his eyes and say goodbye. He fought every urge and avoided kissing her. He didn’t linger beside her. He found the strength to pull away and get back to his mission. He couldn't see the assignment in the same light he had back at Harvey Point. Spending time with her, sifting through the debris Seibel had strewn along the path, he had filtered out the unnecessary. The first two culprits presented by Seibel were minor players. They were wannabes. They have killed and will kill others, but they simply weren’t worth the effort Seibel was putting forth. The third bomber, Anwar, or whatever he called himself. He was the target.
Lance pulled himself back into his head in Manila. He looked at his watch even though he didn’t need to. He knew Fuchs had been inside the martial arts studio for 11 minutes. Before stepping out into the street, Lance scanned both ends of the boulevard. He looked up at windows, into parked and passing cars. He found no patterns and even better, no obvious broken patterns. It was nearing dusk. The light in the clouded sky was fading; the humidity beyond oppressive. He stepped out and walked across the street toward the studio.
This location was not on the list of four contacts in Manila Seibel had given Lance to visit. Fuchs being here at the very time Lance showed up was either serious coincidence or no coincidence at all. With Seibel in any way associated with the equation, it was likely the latter.
He stepped into the establishment and into a small reception area. No one was there to greet him. After absorbing the sounds and smells, he stepped forward into the training room. Once inside, he saw five people. Four were kneeling, one stood. The gentleman standing was the man Lance came to see. He had met him three years earlier at Harvey Point. Lance only heard the instructor’s name once. It was Bakunawa. During three weeks of martial arts training, with emphasis on Filipino eskrima and Chinese kuntao, Lance had learned dozens of methods to subdue and kill others. The instructor had been very quiet in his methods, choosing to show rather than tell. Lance appreciated that.
Standing in the doorway, Lance could see Bakunawa was showing his students the proper defense method for a knife thrust, how to seize the weapon and return the knife to its owner blade first. Lance could also see that Fuchs was one of the students kneeling in front of the instructor. When their eyes met, there was no recognition, no dilation or constriction of pupils, nothing. Another student turned to Lance and the instructor saw the distraction and looked toward to him.
Bakunawa, which means dragon or sea serpent, simply motioned to a few hanging uniforms on the wall and turned back to his pupils. Lance walked over and grabbed the first white uniform with an accompanying white belt and walked through a curtain to a locker room. He decided to put his clothes into the tattered backpack and brought it with him back to the training room. He tossed the pack under a bench and walked over to kneel with the others.
He was plum worn out from nearly three days of travel and a full day of wandering the teeming streets of Manila, the world’s most jam-packed city. But none of that weighed on him as he fell upon his knees. He found freedom, exhilaration and structure in his endless hours of martial arts training at Harvey Point, in Brazil, in Japan and other locales. To tell the truth, and he didn’t often, martial arts training was the closest thing to religion he had found. Probably due to the “centering” that takes place during preparation.
He centered himself and let Bakunawa’s lesson wash over him. He didn’t need to look at the other students to know they were all advanced. He could sense it. There were no distracted eyes. No scratching or throat-clearing. This late evening class was meant for experts. Coincidence? Who knows? Lance didn’t care at the moment. He cleared his mind and focused on the lesson.
After 20 minutes of simple demonstrations of five moves, the instructor invited each student to stand and defend themselves from a knife attack. Each did fine. Fuchs was the best. Lance was okay, nothing special. Bakunawa paired them up. The instructor chose to work with Lance. There was the slightest hint of a grin on his lips as they bowed before sparring. Lance had gotten the best of the master on the last day of his training at the Point.
Eskrima is a Filipino martial arts method that features sticks or blades. The specialty brings together hand-to-hand with joint destruction techniques. It is a brutal form of combat that can be taught to the masses in a short time, giving farmers and fishermen defensive skills to fight an invasion. Kuntao is a southern Chinese school of martial arts that combines strikes, throws and hand-to-hand combat.
Lance stood and bowed to the instructor, then assumed a defensive position. Bakunawa raised a thin rattan stick in his right hand and began stepping left to circle Lance. The instructor adjusted his stance and balance, and lowered his center of gravity another half inch. Lance fought off the urge to go out of body to look down on the two of them. The instructor was lightning fast with a thrusting, chopping motion that sliced the air on its way toward Lance’s neck. He saw three options and chose the second. He rose up from a crouch while raising his left hand to intercept the attack and block it. Bakunawa knew Lance’s options much better than the student. While his right hand was being blocked away from Lance’s neck, he continued his forward momentum and spun his left elbow around to meet Lance in the chest, neck or chin. It was an aggressive move.
Lance saw the continuation of his old instructor’s motion and thought it out of character. It was too early for him to turn his head away from Lance. Options again. Absorb the elbow blow. Continue to move up and to the left away from the elbow. Third was best. Apply maximum pressure to his right foot and explode forward with a palm blow into center mass while the master’s head was turned away.
The action took six tenths of a second. When his palm met Bakunawa’s back, it knocked the master out of centrifugal alignment, causing him to fall to the left as his body and gravity worked to complete the spin he had started. Instead of watching the fall and admire his initial moves, Lance dropped a knee onto the falling man’s back which allowed him to reach down with both hands and grasp the bald man’s head and chin to wrench the neck, snapping vertebrae, nerves and ligaments. This final action lasted another eight tenths of a second, if Lance had completed the move, of course. He didn’t break the neck. Instead he stood up and stepped back to again take his knees while the instructor got to his feet.
The other two pairs had barely begun their sparring and stopped to watch as Bakunawa stood and then took his knees about four feet in front of Lance. The look on his face had not changed since Lance had walked in.
“You have continued your training Preacher.”
“Yes master. I am pleased you remember my name.” Lance kept all emotion out of his voice.
“Of course I do. It was not so long ago that I taught you and you taught me.”
“What could I possibly teach you?” Lance was humble.
The instructor finally broke the slightest smile. “You taught me what I’m sure you have taught others. Always be ready to die. Always be prepared to take a life.”
“I can’t teach you about life and death. You have it backwards.” Lance bowed.
“Ah, but you can. You teach through your actions. There is no hesitation in you. You live and die each moment. You just showed me again, here. You’re reaction was utterly unique, unexpected and deadly. One has to be at peace when they are with you, because at any moment you may explode.”
Their conversation was quiet, but the others could overhear some of Bakunawa’s words. Lance kept his eyes on the instructor. He knew what was next.
Bakunawa stood and turned to the others. “I know what you are thinking. You wonder how a young stranger can walk in and best me in no time at all. How can this happen?” He took two paces toward the others and turned back to Lance. “Your next question is not for me. It is for him. Ask.” He gestured to Lance.
The first to speak was a short, stout man, thick neck and barrel chest in a 5-foot 2-inch frame. “Master Bakunawa, may I work with this
stranger?”
The instructor kept his eyes on Lance. “Your question is for him, not me.”
The stout man adjusted his posture to address Lance. “May I spar with you next?”
Lance had not broken eye contact with Bakunawa. “This is your school master. I would not assume to exercise with others without your permission.”
Bakunawa laughed. “You have my permission.” He moved to the side. Fuchs kneeled down a few feet from the instructor to watch. His demeanor calm, almost bored.
The stout man, who appeared more Asian than island, moved to face Lance. After rising and bowing. The two men adjusted their stances to defensive postures. The man held a stick in his right hand as Bakunawa had a few moments earlier. He took less than a second to initiate his first move. It was a fast, compact action to match the compact man. But the thing is, he waited almost a second.
Lance had his first move mapped out before this new sparring partner walked over. With reflexes far superior to most humans, Lance once again exploded at his opponent, delivering an elbow. Instead of spinning, he bulled forward before his opponent could execute his knife thrust. With extreme force, Preacher planted his elbow in the man’s upper chest near his left clavicle. Everyone in the room heard the muffled snap.
Lance stepped behind the man as he recovered from the blow. The guy spun to launch an attack with his still working right arm. Lance was ready for this move. In fact, he had just seen it in his mind from 15 feet in the air looking down on the two men. Lance didn’t know this gentleman and didn’t want him to incur excessive hospital bills, so he completed his planned move – a dropping, spinning kick that swept the guy’s feet out from under him and sent him flailing onto his back. Lance was on him in the next half second in a position to grip his throat, rip away cartilage and crush the trachea. This short battle was over.
Lance kneeled to allow the wounded man to get to his feet and move to the side. The stout man had too much pride to leave for the hospital now. There wasn’t much they could do for him but set the bone and put his arm in a sling.
In succession, Lance accepted challenges from the others. He took a pretty serious kick to the side from the next and then a fist to his still bruised right temple from the third gentleman. But they both suffered more severe and, if the battle were real, mortal wounds. Finally it came time to face off with Fuchs.
Lance had intentionally kept the other sparring sessions short because he knew Fuchs would likely drag out their two-step. After all, Fuchs knew Lance, had sparred with him numerous times at Harvey Point, whipping him on several occasions. Fuchs had stayed on his knees, relaxed and watching the proceedings as Lance took out the instructor and the other three students. He showed no emotion as he stood and walked to the center of the room and dropped to his knees about 10 feet in front of Lance.
The two of them looked at each other for over a minute. No rush, no need to hurry into this. In their previous meetings, Fuchs had always been able to counter pretty much every move Lance attempted. Lance had speed on his side, but Fuchs was always in position and prepared. It forced Lance to be extra creative in his attacks, which in turn, left his defenses open, vulnerable.
Lance had gone out of body one time last year to watch the fighting below and thought he had figured it out. It was Fuchs’ feet. They moved in tiny fractions of inches. Lance watched how Fuchs’ feet glided across the floor. His feet were often hidden inside boots so one couldn’t see the miniscule movements as his toes and heels adjusted to his center of gravity. It was poetry of sorts, and Lance saw the beauty in the motion.
It was just one more thing Lance had come to respect about his quiet compatriot. He couldn’t ever get much out of Fuchs. Hell, he still didn’t know where the guy was from. He was either German and screwed up, or American and too damn smart. Lance didn’t really care, as long as Fuchs was on his side when bullets started flying. He nearly smiled thinking about how things had lined up to bring them both to this room approximately 8,500 miles from their adopted home in the marshlands of North Carolina. But he didn’t smile. It would have been wasted on Fuchs anyway.
They stood, bowed and assumed their positions about eight feet apart. They didn’t move for another half minute. The stout gent with a broken collarbone winced and moved his shoulder. He wanted them to get the show on the road so he could get on his way to the hospital. Lance took a step to the left and then exploded at Fuchs with a flying kick. It was just for show. The older man stepped back and to the right to avoid the blow. But he was not quick enough for the next move. Lance threw a spinning back fist before his feet even touched the floor. The blow caught Fuchs smack dab in the gut. He brought up his left arm to block Lance’s next blow. Problem was, it wasn’t a blow. It was a roll that gathered Fuchs’ left leg and flung him to the ground.
Fuchs brought around an elbow that caught Lance in the center of this back. It stung like hell, but Lance had a lock on Fuchs’ ankle that allowed him to wrench it mercilessly if he saw fit. But he didn’t want an injured senior operative backing him up. Lance gave it a little twist and then rolled to the side and back to his feet. Fuchs was right after him, throwing a left lead punch and then elbow that hit Lance in the left shoulder as he ducked down and locked his right arm behind Fuchs’ left leg. He raised his mentor up and brought his hand up to Fuchs’ throat to throw him violently to the floor. The move should have frozen him for a moment, but Fuchs was already rolling onto his side and swinging his right elbow to connect with Lance’s right knee. It was a debatable tactic and that told Lance it was not the actual move.
Preacher jumped to his right, which forced Fuchs to change the direction of his swinging elbow as he rose off the floor. From this new vantage point, Preacher could see what he needed – Fuchs’ feet. They were up on the balls with toes splayed out. He was preparing to explode off the floor. Preacher didn’t need to go out of body. He retraced the series of movements that brought them to this point to see the pattern. He knew what was coming and watched Fuchs’ toes for the cue.
It came, and Preacher knew right away he had misjudged. Fuchs rose off the floor like an alligator shooting up out of the water to snatch a bird or zebra. Lance stepped back and bent into it, but the force exerted by Fuchs was too much. Preacher was bowled over and in the next moment he was on the floor with Fuchs on top of him. His only chance now was Einstein’s theory. He needed Fuchs' body to stay in motion, so he continued the roll created by Fuchs crashing into him. Fuchs felt it and tried to stop, but Einstein won and Fuchs couldn’t stop the momentum from propelling him into another roll with Preacher gripping his uniform.
With Fuchs again on his back, Preacher made three moves before the older operative could react. He put a knee in Fuchs' groin, a forearm to his neck and delivered a short, powerful and painful punch with his right palm to Fuchs’ left ribcage. The blow created the half-second of hesitation Preacher needed to complete the kill. He stood, stomped Fuchs' left knee, kicked the exposed neckline and swung a right elbow in a trajectory to crush all cartilage in Fuchs’ nose, rendering him incapacitated for at least six minutes.
These last moves were not actually performed. He acted them out, pulling up on each. As he stood up and reached a hand down to pull Fuchs from the floor, the other men watching huffed with disapproval. They felt cheated. Each had been hurt by Preacher’s ferociousness, and were not pleased that he did not deliver full blows to this other stranger.
Lance didn’t need to see their faces to know they were pissed. One of the men got to his feet and took a step toward Lance before Bakunawa spoke up. “Very good, students, I believe each of you have demonstrated excellent skills. You have honored me and my school today with your work and dedication.” Lance and Fuchs kneeled at the periphery. “I want to thank our young student here for demonstrating excellent technique. He is very skilled, and has improved immensely.” Bakunawa bowed to Lance and then joined them all in kneeling.
The gent who had stood to protest returned to his knees. The group
observed silence for several minutes with no eye contact. Lance used the opportunity to finish piecing together the lyrics to a punk rock classic from The Clash. The song had been playing in his head since he walked into the studio.
Chapter 20
“He figured it was just time.” Fuchs spoke between spooning mouthfuls of steaming miso soup into his mouth. They had walked several blocks to a café and were enjoying the soup before their noodles came.
“So was the studio your idea or his?” Lance finished slurping his soup.
“Mine. I knew you’d avoid your assigned contacts for awhile.” Fuchs answered.
“So how many days had you been going there to wait for me?"
“Four. It was like a vacation, spending all that time training,” Fuchs smiled at Lance for the next part. “For all the good it did me. You son of a bitch, you figured out my moves before I started them.”
“Only some of them.” Lance had no intention of telling him the secret was in his feet. “I got lucky and you know it.”
“No, you just keep every little thing chronicled in that computer brain of yours and pull it out when you need it. That, and you still want to kill everyone.” Fuchs pushed the empty soup bowl to the side.
“Not everyone.” Lance picked up his bowl to get the last drops.
Fuchs leaned back. “Should I ask where you’ve been the past 10 days?”
“You can ask, but I don’t think you’ll get an answer.”
“There are a number of theories, you can imagine.” The smile was back on Fuchs’ face.
“I can imagine. I’m sure he’s a little ticked. But he sent me out with a fairly loose timeline.”
Fuchs leaned on his elbows to get close. “He can’t help himself when it comes to you. You know that. He doesn’t appreciate being in the dark.”
The Perfect Weapon Page 12
