by Craig Hurren
His mind spinning, Alan waited anxiously for the full report and his fears were confirmed. The city’s police force was on full alert and his picture was plastered across the giant screen. He knew he was innocent but couldn’t help thinking his career and his life were finished. The news would remain confined to local stations for now but soon it was bound to get back to his colleagues and bosses in Columbus. His thoughts were now so frantic that he even thought about trying to make an escape but knew that was futile. All he could do was wait anxiously until Jake returned, tell him the news and hope for a way out of this mess.
Alan was not a big drinker but suddenly felt the overwhelming desire to calm his nerves with some strong liquor. He went to the kitchen and checked the cupboards but there was nothing there. In a cupboard were some beautiful hand cut crystal Scotch glasses but there was no sign of something to fill them. He smacked his hand down hard on the counter in frustration and as the pins and needles began to tickle his palm, an idea struck him. He walked back to the remote control and spoke into it.
“Bar.”
Sure enough, a quiet hum emanated from the opposite wall and a solid mahogany bar slowly emerged from its concealment. It held an impressive assortment of single malt Scotch whiskies and other expensive liquors. Alan selected a bottle of twenty five year old Bowmore Single Malt, took it back to the kitchen and poured three fingers into one of the heavy lead crystal glasses then downed it in two gulps. The smooth liquid went down easily but being unaccustomed to whisky, Alan’s face contorted as it hit his esophagus and stomach. The feeling was hot and bracing and he poured again; this time four fingers and drained half of it then started sipping the fine Scotch to appreciate its full flavor and character.
He went back to the sofa, put the bottle on the table in front of him and sat leaning forward with the glass held tightly in both hands; warming its contents and sipping. Soon the glass was empty and quickly refilled with another four fingers. As he sat sipping and watching, the news flash kept replaying over and over on the big screen. Alan’s head began to spin from the shock of the day’s events and the large amount of powerful and unfamiliar whisky. Suddenly, a very uneasy feeling welled up in his stomach forcing him to sprint for the bathroom. The toilet came into view and as if on cue, the churning contents of his belly surged upward to explode out of his mouth in perfect time to land in the bowl from two feet away and continued to flow as his face pushed close to the porcelain. He heaved violently as his body indignantly rejected his mistreatment until the spasms finally subsided, leaving him breathless with tears streaming down his face.
The unbearable stress of the last few hours had finally won the battle and Alan’s body began to shake with anger and frustration. Several minutes later, he finally pulled himself up from the toilet, ready to clean up any mess he’d made but thankfully found his aim had been true and one flush of the toilet was all that was needed. Completely drained, he instinctively stripped then stepped into the shower to try to wash away the day and stood with the water beating down on his neck for a full half hour before washing his hair and body. He turned off the shower, dried himself and found a thick bathrobe to wear then flopped on the bed and fell exhausted into a deep, shock induced sleep.
Chapter 14
Panic gripped Alan as he ran frantically down the cobbled sidewalk. Spotting a bar ahead and with a lead of only fifty yards and closing, he thought he might have a better chance of survival in a crowded saloon than alone on the street with four trained mercenaries but entering the room, his hopes were dashed. He stood breathlessly surveying the scene, which felt like a strange, irrational hallucination. In fact, it felt to Beach as though he was in a rather clichéd ‘B’ grade detective movie. Aside from the well past middle aged barman, there were only four people partaking of the establishment’s wares. Two of those were obviously all day drinkers engaged in an overly animated drunken debate over who would win the Super Bowl next season. The third was a forty something woman with a heavily lined face and sad expression that told of broken dreams and long suffering. Sitting at the far end of the bar drinking a small beer, was a huge bear of a man who looked as though he may have been a boxer, judging by the thickened skin around his brow and eyes. It looked as though he’d also had a broken nose at some point but despite these facial features, was well presented in a designer tank top with a rather large gold chain around his neck. He also seemed, from a distance, to be quite sober.
Based on his summation of the circumstances, Alan felt the obvious place to be was between the unfortunate woman and the boxing bear with ham hock shoulders. He quickly made his way down the length of the bar and the barman said a cheery ‘hello’ then asked, “What’ll it be pal?”
Alan breathlessly returned his greeting as calmly as he could, “Make it a cold beer please, and a round for the house.”
“That’s very generous of you. Drinks on the new guy!” he called out.
A raucous round of thanks came up from the two football fans and the lady managed a sad smile in appreciation. The big man beside him just nodded silently with a sideways glance. Just then the door burst open with the four mercenaries instinctively scanning the room to assess the situation. They saw no threat to their mission so they composed themselves and strolled toward where Jake was seated. The leader extended his arm to clamp a powerful hand on Alan’s shoulder and the detective winced in pain.
“There’s nowhere to hide Beach – if you come with us now, I’ll make it quick and painless.”
In desperation, Alan pulled his police issue Glock from its holster and turned violently to face the aggressors. As he spun around, the leader’s hand snapped from his shoulder to his wrist above the gun and easily twisted the weapon from his grip. The bear watched bemused noticing the detective’s shield on his belt.
“Hardly seems fair does it – four against one?” he croaked from behind his tiny glass of beer.
The leader turned to the huge man and opened his mouth to speak but before he could make a sound, the bear-man thrust his empty paw into the henchman’s face with lightening speed. There was a loud crack as the man’s orbital bone shattered and his partners in crime stood aghast as he slumped to the floor unconscious.
“Darn – now it’s only three against one. That really isn’t fair.” he spoke again before lunging toward the three with speed and agility that belied his size.
Alan watched in awe as the three quickly succumbed to a startling variety of strikes and throws until all four were unconscious on the floor. He turned to look at the big man, who had already returned to his stool and calmly sipped his beer. The other people in the bar just applauded politely as if watching a matinee show. Alan tried to thank the man but before he could speak, the bear reached out his paw to shake and said, “Call me Jake…Jake Riley.”
Just as Alan reached for the big man’s hand, he felt a strange tingling and an ethereal female voice broke through to him
“Mr. Alan, Mr. Alan…Wake up!” she exclaimed anxiously.
His eyes opened a crack to see an attractive woman with Asian features looking down at him with concern.
“You have bad deam! Make big noise! You OK?” she continued.
Alan shook himself from his sleep and quickly grasped where he was but had no idea who this person was or how she knew him.
“Mr. Jake taining in gym. You get up now; sheets all wet – I wash. Make blekfast all leddy faw you.”
Alan looked down and saw he was covered in a lather of sweat. He must have thrown the bathrobe off during the night and the sheets were soaking wet. His shock, the alcohol and the stress of the previous day had obviously taken their toll and his system had flushed it all out while he slept. Despite the vivid, disturbing dream, profuse sweating, and a devastating thirst, he felt strangely refreshed and clear. Seeing no choice but to comply, he quickly got up to shower unaware of his complete nakedness. The pretty young lady smiled widely until Alan suddenly realized his situation and quickly reached for the robe as she wa
tched amused.
“Mr. Alan got nice butt!” she giggled. “Ten minute – blekfast!” and she bustled out of the bedroom.
Despite the compliment, Alan was flustered and embarrassed as he went to shower. A few minutes later, he entered the kitchen in an expensive track suit about three sizes too big and the little Asian lady scoffed loudly when she saw him approach.
“Mr. Alan need to eat if him want glow big body like Mr. Jake.” she laughed.
Indignant, Alan wanted to know who this person was and what she was doing here so he strode off toward the gym almost tripping on his pant legs as he went. Nearing the doorway, he heard a strangely patterned rapid-fire thumping coming from the gym. The beats were so close together they were almost continuous but there was an odd split second staccato break in the rhythm. As he rounded the corner, the source of the loud beating patter became evident. Jake was stationed in front of what appeared to be a piece of car tire mounted at head height on a solid post bolted to the floor. There was a blur of movement above and around his head and shoulders as his arms moved in repetitive patterns directing powerful strikes with pinpoint accuracy onto a tiny spot on the tire. He walked closer and opened his mouth to speak but before he could, Jake said, “Give me thirty seconds Alan.”
He continued the pattern of movements for another thirty seconds and Alan watched in silent amazement as small wisps of smoke began to curl and rise from a spot the size of a quarter on the tire. A few more seconds and Jake stopped then pressed his palm against the smoking spot as if extinguishing a small fire.
“Sorry to ignore you but I needed to finish my set.”
“Set… set of what? What the heck was that you were doing?”
“A ‘Redondo’ - it’s part of the Filipino martial art of ‘Arnis’ or maybe you’ve heard it called, “Escrima’.”
“Oh yeah Escrima - of course…NOT! You seem to have me confused with someone who’s travelled the world studying martial arts – oh wait, you seem to have me confused with you!”
“A bit touchy this morning, are we? Did Tik give you a start?”
“A ‘start’?! An attractive Asian woman I’ve never met before wakes me from a deep sleep, sees me naked and tells me I’ve got ten minutes until ‘blekfast’, and you think I might have had a ‘start’?! You’re the master of understatement.”
“Sounds like a pretty good way to wake up to me. You always complain this much?”
Alan looked long and hard at Jake’s semi smile before replying, “OK, you’re putting me through boot camp, aren’t you.”
“We prefer ‘Basic Training’ but you could say that - yes. It’s time you came to grips with reality. Your inability to deal quickly and effectively with what’s thrown in your face belies your job and life experience and frankly, it’s becoming tedious. You need to be drilled in this skill so we can move forward without you throwing a hissy fit every time new shock comes your way. The U.S. Marine Corps motto, ‘Adapt and Overcome’ is one you should adopt from now on.”
Alan fumed with anger at Jake’s scolding but he quickly controlled his temper as his protector’s words sank in and rang true, until his face visibly relaxed.
“There now; doesn’t that feel better?” Jake smiled warmly.
“I’m sorry.” Alan said genuinely. “You’re right, I haven’t handled things well but in my defense, my job experience is not what you seem to think. I am purely an investigator – and a good one - but my job entails finding perpetrators after the fact, not facing them during the commission of the crime. I’m not accustomed to having my life threatened by mercenaries, nor am I used to witnessing frighteningly violent martial arts displays that result in dead bodies, strange women seeing me naked, and being the subject of a city-wide police manhunt. Surely you can see my point.”
“Very clearly but I also know that you need to deal with this shit and somewhere inside you, lies the heart of a warrior.” Jake reached out to close Alan’s eyes. “Keep them closed. Now let me ask you this: if those three mercenaries were hurting Holly right before your eyes and the odds were completely stacked against you; what would you do? Would you let them hurt her or would you fight to save her no matter what the personal cost?”
Without hesitation, Alan replied, “I’d do everything I could to save her, of course. What’s your point?”
“My point is that you have courage – you just haven’t been trained to properly utilize that courage and you’re not used to dealing with such confrontations. Just like military basic training, the more you are faced with, the stronger you become – unless it’s in your nature to fail but I don’t think it is. You’re no teenager straight out of high school; you have a lot of life experience and we need to show you how to draw on that experience to accelerate your learning curve dramatically. This situation is not going away any time soon and as you said, there is now a police manhunt underway to add to your troubles. Now you can choose one of two paths; the path of the hunted or the path of the hunter. Are you going to run and die on fear and instinct or are you going to take control of your situation and do what needs to be done?”
Jake’s words and control showed wisdom well beyond his years and Alan couldn’t help thinking what kind of a life could make such a relatively young man – a man younger than himself - so worldly wise. He was of course, completely right and Alan made up his mind then and there not to complain, shock, or shrink from danger again until he had done what he had to do.
“You don’t need to speak; I can see by your expression that you have chosen wisely. Now, let’s give you some basic but very effective techniques – just in case of emergency.”
Alan was slightly taken aback by the prospect of Jake’s suggestion but bit his lip and agreed with some forced enthusiasm.
“Don’t expect too much from me though – I haven’t done any kind of training since police academy and that was a long time ago.”
“Don’t worry; I have some simple tricks that will serve you well in a pinch but I’m nearly certain you won’t need to use them. It’s much more important to learn a few effective techniques thoroughly than fill your mind with complicated maneuvers that you won’t be able to execute under pressure. You will need to be patient and focused because despite their simplicity, you will need to repeat them until I’m confident that they have become natural reflex actions for you.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“OK, I’m going to show you each one only once then we’ll have breakfast and I want you to visually contemplate each technique while we eat. We’ll then do some target practice for half an hour and return to see what you remember of the techniques. It’s important for me to see to what degree your mind remembers or distorts your initial impressions of what I show you.”
“Target practice?”
“Yeah; when was the last time you were at the range?”
“We have to re-qualify every year.”
“So you only practice once a year. How does the police department expect their people to maintain weapon proficiency at that rate.”
“I guess they think that’s enough for a detective. I haven’t had to draw my weapon on the job in ten years.”
“Well it certainly showed in the alley yesterday, didn’t it.”
“I guess you’re right.” Alan replied sheepishly. “But where are we going to shoot?”
Jake just smiled and said, “First things first…stand facing me.” He then proceeded to demonstrate four basic but effective techniques in slow motion for the bewildered detective then broke off and said, “OK, let’s not keep Tik waiting - Laotians can have quite a temper.”
“I wondered what her accent was. How did she end up in Jersey City all the way from Laos?” Alan asked, following Jake out of the gym.
“Tik’s entire family was murdered for their land many years ago so her hatred of the regime and her local knowledge made her an excellent company asset. Unfortunately, her cover was blown during a complicated mission that went bad and when I was ordered to abort
the mission and leave her behind, I refused. They couldn’t really argue because I funded her safe extraction myself and went through the proper channels to get her refugee status so they turned a blind eye. She has been my cook and maid ever since.”
Alan grabbed Jake’s shoulder to stop him so they were out of Tik’s earshot and asked, “She doesn’t want to do something more with her life than cooking and cleaning?”
Jake laughed, “You obviously don’t understand Laotian culture Alan. She risked her life every day for a long time to avenge the death of her family but that time in her life is over and she can’t go back, so now she lives to fulfill what she sees as her obligation to serve me for saving her.”
“So she’s like some kind of indentured servant or slave?”
“Do you really think I would treat someone that way? I let her do what she does out of respect for her culture but she lives rent free in a comfortable modern apartment upstairs, I pay her a decent salary and she is a significant beneficiary of my will. She doesn’t know about the will and I prefer it stays that way - if she were to find out, she might think there is more to our relationship than there is - and I’m not the marrying kind.”
Alan watched Jake walk toward the kitchen with even more admiration than he held for him previously. He broke off his thoughts and quickly moved forward to catch up but the bottom of one of his pant legs snagged on the toes of his other foot and he tumbled forward awkwardly. Uproarious laughter sounded from the kitchen as Tik held her flat stomach and covered her mouth with the other hand. Jake turned to see the object of her amusement and just shook his head. Alan regathered himself and slunk to the kitchen to join them.
“Tik, can you please go and buy Alan a track suit and some street clothes that will fit him properly.” Jake said, handing her a billfold.
“Tik make Mr. Alan look sexy or seclet?”
“Secret would be best, please. We don’t want him standing out from the crowd – besides; sexy would take more than clothes.”
