Chapter 10

Flashback – Masha, Tanya and Louise – The evening

We went to the garage and I was slightly surprised at how full it was. Tanya said, “Masha, we would all like to thank you for taking the time tonight to teach us Krav Maga.”

I replied, “Tanya, after dealing with the police in this city, it has been a dream of mine to teach women self-defense.” Several of the women murmured when I commented about the police so I assumed I had the appropriate group of women.

Louise interrupted, “Masha, are we going to work on how to fall correctly tonight?”

I smiled at her and said, “No, not tonight. I thought I would work on something more practical and useful. Tonight we will learn how to defeat an attacker who comes up behind you and chokes you. This is a common tactic that men use to attack women.”

We first need to divide the group into partners. Tanya takes charge and orders, “Everyone count off.” I smile because she reminds me of a drill Sgt. in the military.

Louise asked, “Masha, can I be your partner?”

I replied, “Of course you may.”

I begin the lesson, “The first thing you need to realize is that it’s almost impossible to kill someone by choking them from behind. The action is more about controlling a person than anything else.”

A woman raised her hand and revealed, “My ex-husband did this to me and slammed me into a wall.”

I replied, “We will work on a technique tonight for when someone wants to slam you into a wall.”

I looked at Louise and ordered, “Louise, choke me from behind.”

Louise came up behind me, put both her hands around my neck and squeezed. I continued, “If you notice I can still talk even with Louise doing this. When this happens your first response will be fear but you must never become fearful. The man doing this wants to make you afraid but what you need to do is control the situation.

Louise’s hands were still around my neck. I took a step forward, bent slightly, twisted to the right and brought my right arm around. My action broke her hold around my neck so I slid my right arm down her arm and into her neck. I then switched feet and began to apply kicks and other counter-measures to Louise. I continued, “The whole idea behind Krav Maga is to actively counter attack your opponent.”

Tanya remarked, “Remember how Masha did that with the police when they attacked us. If it hadn’t been for Masha many of us would have been injured.”

I said, “Let me show you the steps again.” I again went through the steps, repeating each one as I did it, then I said, “It is your turn to try it while I observe.”

I walked around the room and assisted the women as they attempted the move. Most did well but others were having some problems which I helped to correct.

Louise asked, “Masha, can I try it?”

I began to choke Louise then she followed the steps perfectly.

The woman from earlier asked, “What if they slam you into the wall?”

I replied, “I will bet it hurt your face when your ex-husband did that.”

She grimaced and answered, “It sure did - he broke my nose.”

I said, “The technique is similar but the main thing you have to do is protect your face.”

I ordered, “Louise, begin to choke me and move toward the wall.”

Louise complied but when we got to the wall, I put my right arm against the wall, turned my head to the right and said, “This is how you protect your face.” I continued with all the other moves exactly the same as before and remarked, “It is important that you just step forward with one foot since you do not want to get both feet against the wall.”

The women tried it and I caught one of them turning the wrong way and quickly corrected her.

Then I ‘attacked’ Louise and she performed excellently.

I said, “That’s the lesson for tonight. I would advise all of you to practice this many times at home until the action becomes comfortable.”

Tanya and the other women thanked me and Louise asked, “So it’s time for yoga?”

I replied, “Of course,” and we completed about thirty minutes of yoga exercises. I was correct when I predicted the women who used the training mats had problems with some of the moves.

After the women left, Tanya approached me and said, “We should find a store front for you to do this in.”

I asked, “Don’t I need licenses to do this?”

Tanya smiled and said, “Yes, and as your lawyer I can make sure all that’s taken care of.”

Tanya said one more thing, “By the way, I didn’t want to mention it when the other women were here, but things are going great with John Rowan. Soon he should be in no position to ever bother you again.”

Louise smiled and said, “Too bad. I wanted Masha to kick his ass.”

Flashback – Jack and Ben – Raining hellfire on the Taliban

The artillery stopped, Banzai looked through his scope and declared, “Well, that should take care of all those fuckers!”

I replied, “Hell, you destroyed the whole area.”

Banzai said, “That was the plan. We should have done this ages ago since the bastards were holed up there and were going to keep attacking us. Now they have no place to hide. It’s just a shame that we couldn’t have rescued all the children.”

I tried to make Banzai feel better, “Well, you rescued as many as you could.”

Banzai countered, “Dammit to hell Jack! Others died because we didn’t have the resources here to save them. It’s a good thing I already signed my reenlistment papers, otherwise I might have considered leaving here and joining the CIA in hopes of becoming more effective.”

I knew Banzai was upset, but I didn’t realize how upset he was. I came up with what I thought was an excellent distraction, “Banzai, why don’t you help with a mission that I need to tackle?”