Chapter 19: Preparations. Training Pays Off

Dave’s cellphone sat on the edge of his executive desk at EneRG. He was packing up some of his personal things to take home. He’d then be able to leave the large office to JR for her to run the high-flying and innovative battery business.

Mark Worthington, Dave, and JR had issued a joint press release announcing the change. Wall Street had hiccupped and the stock price had dropped, but then risen as though nothing significant had occurred.

Dave’s picture appeared on the cover of Business Week along with a feature story recapping the past five years of EneRG. The article had been fed a lot of copy by Erin Steckler (Circle member and PR specialist), and thus also highlighted how many of the contributions to the corporation’s growth had come from JR and her cadre of smart people. Her picture appeared liberally throughout the story.

Dave’s future was speculated in the news articles, but he was cast as moving to an entrepreneurial position very close to and very important to Mark Worthington. As they wanted, there was some mystery about the opportunities he’d be working on.

Dave’s cellphone rang.

“Dave here.”

“You know who this is; your friend from Texas.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Our opponents are going to every major hospital with a trauma center within a couple of hundred miles of the southern border. They don’t seem to be finding what they’re looking for, including at where we met.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Perhaps. Be vigilant. This could be a subterfuge on their part. That’s all I can share.”

“Thank you.”

The line went dead. Dave studied the blank face of his phone as it returned to his home screen.

Wednesday evening the Circle Security Committee met in closed session. Dave shared the comments of the brief call, along with the supposition of a feint by the opposition. Dale reported that many of the upgrades to the security systems and software were still being installed. Many of them had to be adapted for custom implementation for the Circle.

Thursday night, Rose and eighteen other students and two faculty members finished up a late meeting of the senior prom committee on which she served. There were seven guys, and twelve girls also on the committee. They walked out one of the side doors to the high school together and the teachers made sure the doors were locked. Everyone was in school attire; Rose had gone Goth that day, so was wearing her combat boots along with a maxi-skirt and a blouse and military-type vest.

Several of the teens and teachers went to their cars, and drove away. Others were picked up by waiting parents, a sibling, or friend. Rose expected Matt to pick her up, so she sat on one of the large rocks at the edge of the parking lot and waited. She’d texted him as the meeting broke up. In five minutes, she was alone.

Rose heard three loud voices coming from the other end of the large parking lot. They were boisterous and Rose thought at least one of them slurred their words, no doubt under the influence of drugs or alcohol. She shrugged, but her ears perked up as the sounds of their voices got closer. She looked around. She pulled out her phone and texted Matt again, ‘Where are you? I’m waiting! )-: Hurry. A little worried here.’

“Lookie what we have here,” one male said as they neared Rose. “We have us a little plaything.” He came in her direction after a slight lurch. “Hey, honey, wanna play with us. We have all sorts of ideas of about how all of us can have some fun.”

Rose figured they were townies out on the prowl for trouble. She could even smell the beer on the guy as he got close to her.

“You wanna say somethin’, cutie? You wanna play with us? I have something to give you,” the second young man said. He grabbed his crotch indicating that he had sexual ideas about her.

“Yeah, we’d all like to have a sex party with you,” the third person brashly said. “We’re pretty good at fucking and we just bet you are, too. We can all have some fun.” He came at her, and tried to reach for the buttons on the front of Rose’s blouse.

Rose said, “Please leave me alone. I don’t want anybody to get hurt.”

“Oh, we won’t hurt you, honey. We wanna love you ... with our big, fat cocks inside your tight little cunt. You’ll just have so much fun with us, you won’t ever wanna leave us. The three of us can keep you happy and satisfied all night long.”

Rose looked at each of their crotches and taunted them, “Well, from here it looks like you’re lucky you have enough to get in your hand so you can jerk off. Get real. I’m used to real men ... men that don’t have to threaten a little girl to have some fun, and men that understand how to really pleasure a woman. You’re not even in the same league, so buzz off and leave me along.”

The first guy said, “Oh, a feisty little cunt, aren’t you? We’ll just have to take what we want.” He also started to approach Rose.

She stood and moved away from the large rock. She’d left her books beside the rock, but wasn’t concerned about those. Where was Matt?

The three men surrounded her. One grabbed her from behind, and wrapped his arms around her body, pinning her arms to her side. The first man reached to unbutton her blouse as the second tried to pull down her long skirt.

The disabling events happened very fast from that point on, some happening nearly simultaneously.

Rose’s foot came up rapidly and kicked the guy intent on removing her skirt in the groin. The thud of the severe contact got over laid with the shriek of pain from the man. Her boots did nothing to soften the impact.

Rose’s hands took hold of the hands attempting to unbutton her blouse, even though her upper arms were restricted. In a fraction of a second, two snapping sounds could be heard about a quarter-of-a-second apart as each of the young man’s wrists fractured. Again, the shriek of the double-shot of pain from the man echoed against the large brick structure of the school. The man fell away from her with his eyes agog at what she’d just done to him.

As the arms around her tightened to maintain their grip on her small body, Rose’s other foot slammed down on the man’s instep, just in front of his right ankle. Unfortunately, he’d been wearing grotty tennis shoes that offered no protection. The crunching sound of shattering bone again filled the scene followed by his scream of pain. His grip on her instantly released and he fell backward, off-balance, hitting his head on the rock near her schoolbooks.

Rose looked around. The first man was writhing on the ground holding his crotch. The second was about twenty feet away examining his forearms, almost fleeing the scene and looking back at her in fear. The third man wasn’t unconscious, but was groaning and worried about both his head and his foot at the same time.

Rose rushed over, picked up her books, and briskly walked along the edge of the access road into the parking lot. Just as she reached the main street, some headlights picked up her tiny form laden with books. Finally, Matt had arrived.

“Matt, where the fuck have you been? I’ve been out here for what seems like forever. I just had a bad experience that sure made me glad we’ve been taking martial arts for two years.”

Erin had put out the announcement in the Circle Newsletter: there were thirty seats available on Mark Worthington’s Boeing 737 as it flew to and from St. Croix, where he had a large villa capable of housing everybody – providing there was some doubling up in the beds, of course.

If more than thirty people expressed a desire for the trip, the names of everyone asking to go would be put in a box and a drawing made at dinner on Friday evening. By Saturday morning, the deadline to submit your name to Erin, she had forty-two names.

Erin carefully typed and printed out each name on a two-inch square piece of paper with the word ‘Winner’ below it. She verified she had all the names, especially since hers was one of them. She folded each name and put them into a glass jar. She brought the jar to dinner that night. As dinner ended, she stood and rapped on the jar to get everyone’s attention.

“It’s time for the drawing to see who will go on Mark’s jet to his Caribbean hideaway. I’ve only seen pictures of this place, and it is spectacular with all sorts of things to do – besides the obvious. I will pick someone to draw the first name who is not one of those who wanted to go. After that, as you claim your winning slip, that person will draw another name. After thirty names, we will draw four more names who will be alternates in case anybody drops out at the last minute. Any questions?”

There were no questions, so Erin asked Steph to come up and draw the first name. She came up, picked a folded piece of paper, opened it, and read out ‘Abby Walsh’.

Abby let out a shout of joy and rushed up. She drew and read out the name, “Nathan Ryder”. The process continued until thirty-four names had been drawn. Erin, Alice, and Dave gathered the winners and alternates around for a couple of minutes and briefly talked about the trip since their names had been picked, too. They agreed on a further planning session the next afternoon at three o’clock.

After that meeting broke up, Dave asked Erin whether she’d like to dance – a euphemism for making love soon after one or two songs. The two strolled over to the dance floor, however, before they got there, Matt and Rose accosted the two of them.

Matt said, “Dad, we really need to talk to you. Aunt Erin can come, too. Maybe she’ll have an idea about what to do.”

“Here?” asked Dave.

“No,” Matt said. “Let’s go into the living room. I don’t think anybody is in there.”

Erin and Dave exchanged glances but neither had any idea of the content they were about to hear. From the tone of the teens’ voices, they could tell that something was wrong.

Once they were seated opposite each other, Matt began, “On Thursday night, I was late picking up Rose after the prom committee meeting broke up. She was waiting outside by the main road. Something bad happened to her before I got there.”

Dave looked concerned and turned to Rose, “Are you all right?”

Rose said, “I’m fine, but...” She looked at Matt.

Matt said, “I’ll tell you the way Rose told me that night. We’ve deliberated about whether to say anything to anybody and decided we needed your help and guidance.”

He paused and then went on, “Rose was sitting outside alone, she thought, along the side of the parking lot where I’d be sure to see her when I pulled into the lot. There’s a big rock there and she got up on it with her books.

“Three guys she thinks were townies were there and saw her. They’d apparently been drinking. They came up to her and started to get ideas about having sex with her. She said that things escalated very fast – from teasing her to grabbing at her in less than a minute. She moved off the rock in that interval, too.

“Anyway, one finally grabbed her and held her as the other two started to try to undress her. All the training that Wan Suh has given us in martial arts came to her mind, and one by one within a minute she eliminated their threat. She then walked out to the main road and I came along about then in the car.”

Dave looked at the pair, “Whoa! Tell me exactly what ‘eliminating the threat’ means?” He looked at Rose.

Rose was very nervous and spoke in a barely audible voice. “I think I broke one guy’s balls with a martial arts’ kick in the groin. He’d started to pull off my skirt, but he turned just the wrong way, from his point of view. I had on my black boots, too. About then, I also broke the wrists of the guy trying to unbutton my blouse by folding his hands back to his elbows the way our instructor had showed us. He didn’t surrender fast enough, so I heard the two snaps. After that, I stomped on the instep of the guy holding me and I’m pretty sure I broke his right foot – his instep.”