by Howard Upton
“Look my man, I just took a wrong turn while I was walking around the area. My apologies to you men. If you fellas will just let me go, I’ll get out of your neighborhood,” Roper said as he made a slow turn to check the hands of the each man, his mind focused on relaxing his shoulders and controlling his breathing. He let his thoughts fall to his tanden, that area just two inches below his navel that the Japanese believe houses the human spirit.
Realizing the Latinos were not going to back down, he eyed Fancy Shirt and took a step toward him. Fancy Shirt retreated a half-step and licked his lips, a sure sign of nervousness. The testosterone fest was in full swing.
A couple of blocks away a car passed, its muffler in obvious need of changing. The typical blue sky of southern Mexico beat down on the quintet and no wind offered relief. Roper stepped off the sidewalk and onto the black top road. The footing there would be much better than the sidewalk that had begun crumbling in some spots.
Roper furrowed his brow and slightly tucked his chin, sure to keep right foot forward in a relaxed fighting stance then said, “Well, an old boy back home once told me, ‘if you can’t get along, you gotta get it on.’ Looks like we’re going to dance, fellas, so let’s waltz.”
Tank Top One moved behind him, his pudgy stomach hanging over the top of his jeans. His shuffling steps told Roper he was about five feet behind him, a mile away in fighting distance.
Tank Top Two and Fancy Short Sleeve moved to either side of him. Roper glanced at the three that he could see in his periphery before focusing on Fancy Short Sleeve. He gave him an appreciative nod then offered, “Nice shirt.”
Fancy Short Sleeve obviously grew a little unnerved by his opponent’s obvious calm demeanor. His eyes darted to his three partners, and he saw all three of them with the same dumbstruck look on their faces.
As Roper bought a little more time to slow his breathing, he thought to himself – Chances are very high that the guy behind me won’t attack first. Most people in the rear are the last ones to attack because they are the most scared. Fancy Shirt has too much of his reputation to protect, so he’ll move first. Then one of these guys on the side will decide to take a step; I’m guessing Fancy Short Sleeve won’t be the one to move.
Roper could actually feel his heart rate slow and his breathing normalize. He made a quick half turn so he could glance at Tank Top One to make sure he wasn’t reaching for a weapon. When he made the turn, all four of his assailants jumped as though he had made a sudden move toward each of them at the same time. A smirk turned one side of his mouth up.
Fancy Shirt, as he predicted, lurched for him, just as Roper’s right foot shot out in an inverted arc, the big toe of his shoe striking the femoral nerve of the attacker’s left leg. Fancy Shirt’s leg instantly went numb and gave way. The man fell to ground holding his thigh and wincing in pain.
Fancy Short Sleeve surprised him by moving next. From his left side, Fancy charged as Roper turned his body into him, blending as he was taught in his years of judo training. He let his left hand drift to Fancy’s right shoulder and drift down his opponent’s arm, never breaking continuity with him. Roper’s right hand shot to Fancy’s left lapel while he snapped hips into him. He pulled with his left while he intertwined his right into the lapel and threw him up and straight back down to the street in morote seio nage, one of his favorite judo throws. Fancy’s head bounced twice, and blood oozed beneath it. His eyes rolled up into his skull, and his body involuntarily convulsed, his blue bandana slowly turned red and hung haphazardly from his head.
Meanwhile, Tank Top Two had taken a step toward him but stopped when he saw his buddy’s head hit the street. His right hand shot inside his pocket and he pulled out a flip blade serrated knife. He held the blade loosely in his hand, his thumb resting on the case. The blade made small crescent movements as Tank Top Two positioned his open left hand by his chest in a defensive posture.
Shit, this guy has used a knife before. He’s got some training, the thought slipped through Roper’s mind like water passing over a rock in a stream. The knife is just an extension of his hand, he reminded himself. The first slash came, and Roper moved his hips away from the attack, sliding his left foot, then his right.
Tank Top Two slashed perpendicular from Roper’s neck to his armpit. Again Roper avoided the slash as sweat formed on his brow, and one droplet trickled down his nose. His attacker reversed the slash, whipping the blade toward his neck. Roper eased his head back an inch to avoid the slash but didn’t move his feet.
Across the street a robin chirped in a tree as it watched the battle transpire. A mother walked out of her front door holding her young daughter’s hand. The little girl asked her mother what was happening in the street as her mother’s jaw dropped while the five men continued their Tango of Death. She whisked her daughter back into the house, slamming the door behind her and locking the deadbolt with a loud and reassuring thunk.
Tank Top Two jabbed the knife at Roper’s midsection. He parried the knife wielding hand away from his body. He brought his left hand to the attacker’s wrist and simultaneously grasped it with his right, both hands now holding his attacker’s knife hand at the wrist. His left foot stepped toward the man’s left shoulder then he snapped his hips around straightaway executing a perfect shiho nage, or four corner throw.
Rather than letting go of his assailant, he smashed him to the ground, the impact knocking the air from the man’s lungs. As he gasped for air, he dropped the knife as Roper again reversed his feet while holding the man’s wrist with his own right hand. After his body turned, the man was lying flat on his back with his arm extended. Roper slammed his arm, just behind the elbow, into his knee snapping it. Tank Top Two let out a blood curdling scream as Roper rose to face his next opponent.
Tank Top One looked at him, his eyes full of terror. “Your turn tough guy,” Roper’s surprisingly steady voice said. He saw from the corner of his eye that Fancy Shirt was trying to get up while Tank Top Two rolled around on the ground holding his arm. Fancy Short Sleeve had not moved and probably wouldn’t be making it to a family reunion again...ever.
In the tree, the robin stopped chirping and the street grew deathly quiet except for the combatant’s breathing and agonizing groans. Roper fought to control his heart rate while refocusing his mind on his tanden. Sweat covered his body and dripped down his fingertips to the road below.
The acrid mixture of fear and sweat wafted through the air and slammed into Roper’s nostrils like a hammer on a nail. He had smelled this blend of human emotion and porous adrenaline several times in his life and in the jungles of Africa and deserts of the Middle East. True warriorship is measured in how one controls his fear, commands his senses and confronts an enemy in the face of bodily harm, injury or certain death. It was obvious to him that this person was no warrior.
Zanshin is the Japanese term for extreme or remaining awareness. In the seconds, or moments, a person experiences zanshin all sight and sound is magnified beyond anything they’ve previously known. An individual in this altered state of mind can hear a commuter plane traveling at thirty-eight thousand feet like the aircraft was right next to him. He can hear his opponent’s heartbeat and see heat vapor rising from his skin. A dog barking a mile away might as well be sitting in his lap yapping. Anyone walking behind this person would be sensed, his survival skills enhanced to unexplainable levels. Warriors know this sensation, have felt it, but struggle to explain it. A soldier fresh from the battlefield would be perplexed to put this into words, but rest assured, he would know exactly what it was.
The first time he killed a man with his bare hands he had been twenty-five years old, but was already considered a battle hardened veteran among his peers. The Ugandan had snuck up on him while he was relieving himself. A twig had snapped about six feet behind him, and he immediately turned to face his assassin with all his glory hanging out.
The African swung a large gurkha blade at his head. Ducking as the knife whisked over his head, he qu
ickly closed the distance between himself and the man, trapping his arm and knife against his body while wrapping his left arm around him. Roper jammed a thumb into the man’s left eye two knuckles deep. A wraith-like scream escaped from the man as his eye ruptured and blood poured from the socket.
His attacker writhed in agony as he attempted to escape the hold, but Roper jerked his thumb from the eyeless socket and allowed his thumb and forefinger to find his assailant’s larynx. As fast as his fingers found it, he bore down and pinched just above the Adam’s apple, snapping the cartilage and small bone. The African slumped to the ground, a gurgling sound rolling over his lips, a hand loosely wrapped around the gurkha’s hilt as though it would save him from a certain death.
Roper grabbed his rifle and ran back to his camp and fellow warriors. Unfortunately for him he forgot to put his man unit back in his pants and zip up. Adrenaline has a way of making a man forget minor inconveniences. His buddies pointed and laughed as he ran to the camp, but slowly stopped giving him hell when they noticed the obvious effects of the adrenaline high – shakes and the inability to speak coherently.
Tank Top One stepped forward and took a wild swing at Roper, connecting with his cheek. His head snapped to one side from the impact of the punch. Sensing a change in momentum, Tank Top pounced on the big American and attempted to put him in a headlock.
Roper, seeing the confidence on his face after his punch connected, let the man wrap his arm around his neck before dropping his hips and bear hugging Tank Top one’s waist. He drove his hips into Tank Top’s thigh while lifting him off the ground. As he turned his body, Roper drove his adversary to the ground...hard. The air was purged from Tank Top’s lungs as his body slammed to the deck. Roper landed directly on top of him, driving an elbow into the man’s sternum. He let go of Roper’s head as he tried to refill his lungs with air.
The man took a shallow breath and winced. No sooner had the sound left his mouth when Roper drilled a heavy hand into his eye. The soft flesh of Tank Top’s eye brow split, and blood splattered in a six inch arc across his face and up Roper’s hand. Unconsciousness followed the strike giving Tank Top a brief respite from the pain he would feel after waking.
Roper stood and saw that Tank Top Two was on his feet holding his arm. He started after the injured man who promptly backed up and began begging in broken English.
“No hit! No hit! Por favor, no hit.”
Roper thought to himself, How quickly a man’s will bends and breaks when he’s injured. Snap an arm and you snap his fighting spirit. Roper continued to close the distance hoping he could get the man to give up some information about who had sent him and what their orders were. Or were they simply gang-bangers there to rob him? Was he supposed to be captured or killed? He took another step toward the man then…
A sharp pain exploded between his shoulder blades. He felt electricity attack his whole body as every muscle seized and refused to move. His mouth pulled back in an agonizing grimace as his lungs refused to draw a breath. A tunnel of darkness narrowed his peripheral vision as unconsciousness overtook him. An involuntary tear rolled down a cheek as his eyes glazed. His mind registered that he was about to be cataleptic but couldn’t reason why. Almost as quickly as it began, it stopped. The muscles in his body released and he crumpled to the ground. Across the street, the robin chirped one last time before flying away.
Monterrey, Mexico
July 21, 2013 12:45 P.M.
A daytime soap opera played on Rafael’s television as he lay atop his hotel bed. Despite there being a bathroom only steps from him, he hadn’t showered in days. Each time room service knocked on the door he sent them away. The cartouche rested on his night stand because he had stopped putting it back in his pants pocket about the same time he ceased showering.
His brain told him he needed to urinate, but his body didn’t want to leave the cartouche’s vicinity. The hold it had on him had grown each time he touched it. Now, its call reached to him without touch. The thrumming and vibrations had only gotten stronger and stronger. It was now that he understood, somewhere in the recesses of his mind, that this is how an addict must feel. To part from it was relief and terror, both emotions creating a deeply seeded anxiety.
With a lot of effort he sat up and threw his legs over the bed. His eyes locked on the jewel, but he managed to pry them away after a long moment. The pangs and silent screams from his bladder told him his bed would be soaked in a few more minutes if he didn’t make his way to the toilet.
Feet dragging across the cold tile floor, Rafael found his way to the bathroom. His hand reached for the light switch and flipped it up, electricity immediately bringing the fluorescent light bulbs to life. He turned his head away from the sharp light as it pierced and stung his eyes. Since he hadn’t left the hotel room in a few days, he had not found a need to turn on a light. His only connection with the outside world had been through his television, which he mostly ignored.
He reached for the toilet seat and lifted it. This small act was seemingly all that was left of his humanity. He unzipped his pants and relieved himself. Dark brown urine splashed in the water below, a sure sign that his body was seriously dehydrated. At long last he finished. An immense relief passed through his body, and he shuddered. Stumbling to the mirror, he saw the reflection of a man he didn’t recognize. His gaunt features and emaciated body was reminiscent of pictures he’d seen of Holocaust victims. His tongue flipped across chapped lips then raked against teeth that felt like stubble was growing on them.
“Mierda,” he mumbled to no one in particular. The pull of the cartouche was heavy, but his mind forced him to remove his clothes after turning on the shower. His body itched from its own oils, dead skin cells and general filth. Only survival instincts forced him inside the shower, while the cartouche insisted he return to its side. He stepped into the scalding hot shower, the heat making him jump. The water poured over his head and body, somehow revitalizing him. His stomach told him he needed food, or he would be too weak to do anything.
The shampoo he scrubbed into his hair and scalp felt incredible, and the soap he used on his body felt as though it removed all the filth of the world. For a moment he felt guiltless, clean and absolved of all the sins he had committed. Yet, still, the relic called to him.
His shower finished, he toweled himself dry, put on the last clean pair of underwear he had then brushed the grit from his teeth. Toothpaste usually tasted horrible to him, but today it was glorious. The minty paste removed what felt like tile grout in his mouth.
A little life began to course through his thin body, which was how he felt...thin. Thin not just in the physical sense, but mentally too. Thoughts began to pour back into his mind; he had been almost lifeless since his arrival in Monterrey.
Ora le, I have to break this hold that thing has on me. I don’t understand why it talks to me, but it’s like I know it personally. I’m somehow linked to this thing but can’t explain how or why. It sings to me, and I see images of Oriental people. I don’t understand what is going on. Am I going insane or have I already stepped over that threshold?
He ran his razor over his drawn face that had grown a considerable amount of patchy beard stubble. Since he had run out of shaving cream several days earlier, he was forced to use soap as a lubricant. It wasn’t great, but it kept the razor from chaffing his sunken face. The cold water he used also helped reduce the razor burn he normally got from using hot water.
While he dressed and put on his shoes, he fought the call of the old jewel. His stomach told him he had to step out to eat, but he knew he could not leave the cartouche behind, even though he feared touching it again. The jewel, he knew, would consume him.
He opened the closet door and removed the plastic bag the hotel maid service left behind for guests to place dirty clothes in, tore the perforated edge and carefully raked the jewel into the bag with the ink pen lying on the night stand. He didn’t want to risk touching it with his bare skin again. His hand jammed the bag
into his pocket, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He could feel the cartouche against his leg, but its call was a little more distant, a little more tolerable. Still, his head ached with the mere thought of it.
He tucked his pistol in his waistband and put on his jacket before stepping outside the door. Before the door closed behind him, he made sure the plastic hotel key was in his wallet and his cell phone was safely inside his jacket.
Rafael’s finger touched the down button on the stainless panel on the wall that called the elevator to his floor. A quiet ding told him his chariot awaited, and the door slid open. An older couple riding in the elevator stared at him in disbelief before averting their eyes.
Apparently, I look a little worse than I thought. Damn it. His finger touched the lobby button on the Otis elevator’s panel and they all watched as the door shut. The couple stood silently, then dashed from the elevator when the door opened.
New York City, New York, USA
July 21, 2013 3:57 P.M.
At New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Dugan sat and flipped through his phone’s address book. He had sent orders to another Mexican gang of miscreants he sometimes employed to help with various jobs close to the American border. Concern ate at him while he waited to board the plane for Mexico, concern for the cartouche’s recovery and concern his gang of four would fail in their mission. Incompetence was something that tripped his bullshit-o-meter and he had had a belly full of it the past couple of weeks.
Deep down he had known the operation was fragile and dependent upon many fools. Rafael had proven a worthy go-to-guy and as angry as he had gotten at him two weeks earlier, he felt it would be a shame to have to kill him, in spite of his smart mouth and growing insubordination. His balls had gotten a little too big for his tidy-whities, especially after he had refused to meet Dugan earlier than planned. In fact, his tone had been downright belligerent, emboldened and hostile.
