Chapter 19: More Employees

Brian had joined the private martial arts class with Sarah and Ashley. After they warmed up, Master Lee addressed them.

“The tournament is the weekend after next. You three women are ready, but Brian needs to improve his control. I want you to practice two on one. Sarah and Ashley are not to be the two today. To start, Sarah and Brian will go against Cindy. Ashley and I will watch and comment afterwards.

Ashley was surprised Master Lee wanted her comments.

The three entered the circle, and Master Lee gave the signal to begin.

Sarah let Brian take the lead and then choose her moves to take advantage of the openings which Brian’s moves created. At first, Cindy had no problem with countering Brian’s attack but wasn’t as successful with Sarah’s. Once, she realized Brian was striking first and Sarah was taking advantage of openings which he created, she adjusted to countering Brian’s attack with moves which placed Brian between her and Sarah. This allowed her to strike at Brian after she countered his move.

After Cindy had repeated this strategy four times, Master Lee called a halt. He nodded to Ashley.

“Cindy adjusted for the way Brian and Sarah were attacking. They didn’t change their attack. Brian should have attacked from the right, not straight on. This would allow Sarah to attack from the left.” Ashley saw Brian was upset since he thought all of the mistakes were his.

“All three of you didn’t change your moves enough. Cindy, you made the one change, but then you didn’t continue to vary your attack. Repeat too many times, and you leave yourself open for a planned attack. This is especially important against two opponents. If they were experienced working together, then they might be able to coordinate an attack to counter yours.” Master Lee added. “Ashley and Brian against Sarah.”

This bout, Sarah started with the moves Cindy had ended with. It worked the first time, but the second time when Brian attacked from the right and Ashley from the left, Sarah was only able to defend. The next exchange was the same.

During the following exchange, Sarah led off, moving rapidly to her left, which forced Brian to turn to his right with Ashley behind him. Sarah didn’t let up on her attacks, forcing Brian to continue to turn and keeping Ashley behind him.

Brian felt a tap, almost a push, on his right shoulder. He moved quickly to his left while keeping engaged with Sarah. Both of them were forced to rotate clockwise. Ashley moved around the right of Brian and attacked Sarah from her left. This forced Sarah back. She tried to move around Brian, but he kept up his attack on her right as Ashley attacked her left. They continued the attack and forced Sarah from the circle.

“Brian needs to keep outside. When Sarah started to move rapidly around him, he didn’t keep up. Being on the inside, he should have been able to turn and move right, keeping her from using him to block Ashley. When Ashley signaled for them to switch sides, he knew to keep Sarah from getting around him. They were able to force Sarah out because she wasn’t aggressive. She just countered their moves.” Cindy paused. “Brian picked up these changes quickly.”

“Yes. Brian and Cindy against Ashley. Brian, remember you have a partner. Ashley, you and Sarah are holding back. I want to see how you might handle two real attackers.”

Ashley just nodded to Master Lee, then re-entered the circle, followed by Cindy and Brian.

Yes, they had been holding back. Brian remembered when he had fought Sarah and Ashley one on one. He glanced at Cindy as Master Lee told them to start.

Ashley feinted at Brian, then reversed towards Cindy. Brian went to block, but there was no attack. He decided to attack while she was turned away and shifted to strike, but Ashley’s move towards Cindy was also a feint. Ashley leaped between them since they had separated to attack from the sides. Ashley twisted in midair; her body going horizontal. Her foot striking towards Brian’s stomach as he tried to change to a block from the strike he had started towards where Ashley was no longer. The strike to his stomach was only a tap. She had pulled the kick. Cindy and Ashley had managed to block each other’s strikes. Ashley continued her twist, having used the force of her kick to Brian’s stomach and her interaction with Cindy to enhance her move. Cindy was turning to face her, but Brian was just realizing Ashley was behind him. Ashley moved to her right, keeping Brian between her and Cindy, as she struck two blows to Brian’s back. The first was a tap to the kidney, and the second was a tap to his neck.

“Halt.” Master Lee called, then he turned to Sarah.

“One-time move. It needs surprise to work and a team which cannot improvise on the fly.”

“Yes, but the important thing is both of you need to learn to hit harder. You have learned to hit but not with force.”

Ashley sighed. “When I hit Yegor’s hand, I didn’t knock the knife loose. Master Lee, what should we do?”

“Who’s Yegor and why did he come at you with a knife?” Master Lee hadn’t heard about all that had occurred in Hawaii.

“He is one of the Russians who tried to kill us in Honolulu. Cindy put three of them in the hospital. Her brother and cousin stopped two, and I stopped another. The others decided, with Cindy’s father and uncle behind them, the police charging towards them, and the Coast Guard capturing their boat, they should surrender.”

“After you talked them into it, Sarah walked right up to them and started talking to them in Russian.” Cindy was smiling.

“That’s one of the attempts on your lives you mentioned.” Brian asked, but he was looking at Cindy.

Master Lee nodded. “You must build up your strength but without losing speed or flexibility. You must practice your hits against padded posts or handheld targets. What you must learn to protect yourself is what Brian needs to unlearn when he is in competition.” He looked at Cindy. “Why did you have an unhappy expression when Sarah mentioned the three you took down?”

“Cindy turned to Master Lee and bowed. “Master, I disabled the first two without major injury. I was distracted with the need to go and help the others when I attacked the third one. I didn’t take into account my jump when I hit the knee of the third man. His knee bent backwards.”

“It’s something which is hard to practice but must be mastered. Let me consider what we need to add to the training for all four of you. I take it Brian will be working with you, so all four of you will need training for actual combat. For now, we will continue to get you ready for the tournament.”

Mark, Len, Ashley, Sarah, Sally, and Sandy sat discussing personnel needs for the new companies. The girls were just listening as they read through descriptions of the different projects MSI was working on. They had written several recommendations on improving the work.

“Dr. Shen Lee asked to be transferred to do full-time research on the ancient items.” Len looked a little worried. “He’s at a conference in Boston this week, but he’ll be back next week and asked to start then. Mark, I’m concerned about losing our best researchers. Dr. Goble should be able to take over Lee’s work until we get a replacement, but some of them are indispensable.”

“We won’t agree to a transfer for Dr. Lee at this time. Len, look for a replacement for him. We may have work for him, but you need to take him off of all defense-related work.” Ashley saw a look of confusion on Len’s face. “He’s a Chinese spy. We are monitoring the Chinese spymaster for California. Dr. Lee was contacted by the spymaster before he went to Boston. He was ordered to find out more about what we are working on. That is the reason we requested a meeting with Captain McRae and Agent Poe this afternoon.”

“You are monitoring the Chinese spymaster for California.” Sandy had heard general comments about what the two girls could do on the internet, but this was beyond anything she expected.

“Yes, we identified him when we were doing a background check. We are going to suggest to Captain McRae and Agent Poe that we request China’s help in tracking the terrorists down. I think they will have a strong interest in finding them once they learn we believe the terrorists encouraged the actions which the North Koreans took.”

“I’ll sit in on the meeting. Len, find a replacement for Dr. Lee. Tell him I want to talk to him about the transfer first thing on Monday when he returns. Compile a list of what he had worked on since he started at MSI. Say I asked for it to review before I interview him. Do it for everyone who wants to transfer. If they think we are thoroughly scrutinizing candidates, it should slow down those asking to transfer.”

“Grandfather, Sarah just hired Leslie and Nancy, Louise Fisher’s daughters. We aren’t making any effort to hide that we are hiring. In fact, we are hoping to encourage people to become interested in what we are doing. We’re hoping to have people come forward with information.”

“We are talking about two different groups. The scientists and engineers have skills, which are needed for the projects we are starting. The people you are hiring have potential, which we are looking for them to develop so they will meet our future special needs. In the meantime, they can help while learning about what we are doing.”