Chapter 3: One Day Latter

“Man’s schemes are always inferior to those made by heaven.”

At the moment Steve Collins was in Professor Compton’s Psy 301 advanced Psychology class along with 20 other advanced students. The class was being held in a large classroom cluttered with desks, and was about counseling patients with personal problems. The topic at the moment was whether to refer to them as patients or clients, and it was an open class discussion. Most of the students were just out of high school a few years and knew each other mostly. After all UAB was a local working college without a lot of campus life, in a large populous urban area. Steve didn’t plan on a career in Psychology or Sociology, but he needed the credits for applying for law school. Right now Criminal Justice was his major, Psychology his minor.

At 26 years old Steve was much older than his fellow students, but they were mostly unaware of that, and Steve didn’t enlighten them. In fact Steve was a former Marine and was attending college on his GI Bill right now. There were plenty of bush wars still going on at the moment, and even at UAB the wars ... maybe I should say “Peace Keeping Missions” ... there were no more wars ... were unpopular, but antiwar protests were always very popular things on campus. Steve himself wasn’t advertising he was a former Marine. In fact Steve fitted in rather well with the Antiwar Protesters, ha, ha. In California he had learned that the easiest way to pick up girls was to join the protest. Make love not war has it’s rewards he discovered early on, ha, ha.

Professor Compton at the moment was lecturing the class, when a wild red headed female busted into the classroom.

“What have you done with Jesse you asshole?” The wild red head screamed at the Professor as she approached him.

“What are you talking about young lady?” The Professor shot back as he backed away from her.

“I know you was her college instructor for Intro to Psych 101. I know you hypnotized her that day in class. You held her back after class that day. You were the last person she saw that day. What did you do with her Professor?” The red head raved as she paced about in the room like a caged tigress looking for something she didn’t appear to find.

“You’ll have to leave my classroom now young lady, campus security has been called.” The Professor told her as he picked up the phone’s receiver and pushed one of the buttons on it.

“Jesse went back after the last class, I followed her, and she never came home ... what did you do with Jesse Professor?” She continued to rave about a missing girl named Jesse until the two campus security guards ... officers came in 20 minutes latter. In their preppy green blazers, and casual tan Docker slacks, they then dragged her away.

“I think on that note I’m going to call it a day class ... please read the next chapter, and I’ll see all you back here on Thursday.” The Professor told the class as he was packing up his briefcase to leave hurriedly.

Hours latter Steve was in the Spinning Wheel enjoying a quite milk shake, and waiting for his meal. Their sign outside, and over the counter inside too, advertised that they had 101 flavors of milk shakes to choose from, so far Steve had tried 30. At the moment he was sampling number 31 coconut, when the wild redhead showed back up again. It wasn’t like he was looking for her, it’s just hard, very hard, not to notice a tall, somewhere over his own 6 foot 1, statuesque ... no make that a tall deeply tanned Amazon goddess with a carrot red full afro. His first unflattering impression of her hairdo was of Bozo the Clown, but upon consideration it did make a statement. Of course he didn’t know what that statement was supposed to be, and had no real interest in finding out so he ignored her.

Soon some other girls from his class showed up and sat with her, he noticed all this from his little corner of the larger dinning room, they were all sitting in. Steve made it a point to chose a seat out of the most commonly used paths, and have a solid wall behind his back. With his back to a wall he could observe everything without being bothered by someone going to the bathroom, or leaving. It was just one of the little habits he had picked up in Da Nang years ago. At the moment they announced his hamburger and fries were ready, and he picked them up, then sat back down.

Sitting back down he observed the collision between two older middle-aged white guys in dark suits and ties behind Red’s chair. Yes, that’s what he had begun to call her in his own mind at least, Red. In the confusion Red was bumped and Steve thought he saw one of the men slip something in Red’s tall milk shake glass. The operative word in the sentence was “thought”, he wasn’t absolutely sure. While he was silently debating with himself weather to ignore it, after all he wasn’t absolutely sure, or get up and barge in and tell her ... them, that somebody might have put something in her milk shake. The whole issue was rendered mote before he made up his mind, ha, ha. Red leaned over her milk shake and pulled a large gulp of the shake up through the straw. It’s hard to mistake the hollowing of both cheeks involved in the process.

Now that the dirty deed was indeed done what were his options Steve found himself debating himself now. As wing man he decided it was his duty to see she got home safe ... well that, and it wasn’t like he had anything else more important to do at the moment. So he settled back to watch and wait. Soon the other girls left and Red slowly went zombie at her table. Steve timed it to be sure, Red hadn’t blinked in over 5 minutes. Yes, he congratulated himself, he was right she had been “Roofied”, rohypnol (flunitrazepam) better known as the Date Rape Drug, of course it could have just been common run-of-the-mill chloral hydrate too, ha, ha.

Whatever it was had left her a zombie that would follow the next person who commanded her Steve figured. While he was patting himself on the back for spotting it, the same two men came back through the doors heading for Red’s table. Did he call 911? Did he try to get her out of here? ... Watching the men move together he recognized an experienced team of man hunters when he saw one. Police, military, one of the many so called three letter Alphabet Agencies, he didn’t know, and there wasn’t time to find out even if he did care.

All he knew for sure at this moment was Red had showed up at his classroom today, accused Professor Compton of abducting her girlfriend, and now a two man hit team had shown up to drug her, and now they were back to collect her. They had Roofied her, and now were about to abduct her. These were not unrelated coincidences, and he needed to do something now he told himself.

“Don’t try this at home children”, Steve mumbled to himself as he got up from his table slowly, and quietly, so as not to attract unwanted attention and angled his attack on the two men from the rear as they were concentrating all their attention on Red. One of the weakest parts of the human body is the knee and ankle joints, and that’s what he took out with his first attack. If Target A was lucky nothing was badly broken, he might just walk with a slight limp for awhile, well maybe, it could happen? Target B was just becoming aware, much too late to do any good really, that they were under attack. Target A was already down and out of the fight, as Target B turned to face their attacker. Steve sucker punched him in the good old Adam’s Apple, known technically as the laryngeal prominence, it’s part of the neck and windpipe. Hit it hard enough and you get tracheal collapse, it swells closed and if somebody doesn’t do an emergency tracheotomy your dead.

The blow is not encouraged, even illegal in some marital art forms. Even in the military it’s discouraged, but it’s one of the most effective ways to silently take out a sentry. TV and the movies seemingly encourage young males to think that long protracted fist fights are normal. Actually fights that last over a minute, actually seconds, will just get you killed, his Marine instructor had always told them. Fights that are long and loud draw unwanted attention and death.