Tengu (12 page)
The security people had eyes that were considerably less sparkly. They were not happy, even though they got to pawn me off onto Ashby. Their parting shot was the curt directive that in the future I was to clear any unaccompanied movements around the base with security before setting out.
“Man,” Ashby said. “You’ve been here . . . what? . . . twelve hours? And already you’ve gone off the reservation.”
“It’s a gift,” I admitted.
Ashby grunted. “Hnhh. You had breakfast yet?” I shook my head, no. “OK,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Get changed and we’ll grab something quick.” I headed up the steps to my room feeling that this was the most friendly contact I’d had on the base so far, and that things were looking up. Ashby called out after me. “Hey! You like grits?”
Then again, maybe I was being overly optimistic.
“Colonel Baker says he brought you in to do some analysis on our hand-to-hand,” Ashby said.
“That’s right,” I replied. “He wants to bring someone with a different background in to analyze your system. Says he’s done it before.”
Ashby’s glance was evasive. “Well . . . you know the Colonel . . . he’s always up to something. And he’s got some major juice with Special Operations Command. I never knew that training was one of his areas, though . . . ”
“I got the impression that he uses consultants of one type or another on a regular basis,” I told him.
Ashby waved a hand. “Side effect of the downsizing of the military. We got a lot more civilians picking up peripheral support functions. Combat stuff tends to be kept in-house, though.”
“Things change, I guess.”
“Maybe,” Ashby replied, but he didn’t sound sure. He thought for a minute. “Colonel Baker’s typically not someone focused on training and analysis. He’s more of a ‘problem solver’ kind of guy. More action-oriented, if you know what I mean.”
“Sure,” I said. Somewhere off in the distance, I could hear the report of small arms fire. “He must fit right in here.”
“He’s got an outstanding reputation,” Ashby said in all seriousness. “He’s one squared-away trooper.”
I just nodded. We had arrived at the training site—a nondescript warehouse with some humvees parked out front. Ashby paused before entering. He looked at me. “These soldiers in here are pretty squared away, too, Dr. Burke.”
“I’m sure they are.”
Ashby shook his head as if I wasn’t hearing him. “No. I mean these are all very well-trained people. They know their business. Between them, they’ve done nearly every program the Special Operations Forces have. I’d tread lightly with them. The only reason they’re gonna give you the time of day is because Baker’s asked them to.” His eyes had developed a hard edge. Ashby was an interesting guy.
“Understood.” I looked back at him to let him know I got the point. “Are you going to let me in, or are you just hoping all this Green Beret stuff is going to scare me off?”
Ashby smiled, but it wasn’t a warm one. “I just wanted you to be clear on things before you go in there.”
“I appreciate it,” I told him. He was probably worried that the civilian consultant was going to be mauled. But I had gone into scarier rooms.
I stood in the middle of a circle of soldiers and I could smell the antagonism in the air. They eyed me stonily. I sighed. Teaching people is difficult enough. Teaching them when they don’t want to learn from you is even harder.
They were all sergeants of one type or another. Fit and hard. I knew from the briefing material I had gone over last night that they had all been through a prototype advanced unarmed combat course. They’d done Airborne and Ranger and Special Forces training. Some were just back from a tour in Iraq. Their body language clearly indicated that they didn’t think I had anything to tell them.
Ashby introduced me as Dr. Burke and started to give a quick synopsis of my expertise. It was standard stuff, the Ph.D. and books, the blackbelts I had earned. It was a miracle no one snickered out loud. I waved Ashby off and stood in the circle.
“I’m Connor Burke, “ I said to them. I looked around the circle, taking in their faces, reading their stances and the different body shapes. “I think you’ve all done things I haven’t and have that knowledge I don’t.” You could see they liked that. We all want respect. “But,” I continued, “that cuts both ways. You guys work with a range of weapons. I work with blades and sticks and bare hands. For you, close combat is anything under three hundred meters. In all my fights, you can smell the opponent’s spit. So I can probably teach you some things as well.” But their eyes told me that they were still skeptical.
I thought about my brother Micky and the discussions we’d had over the years. Micky is a pragmatist. He’s suspicious of the exotic. It’s only in the last few years that he’s grudgingly admitted that Yamashita’s training isn’t an exercise in delusion. And I had to have the same sort of conversation with these people around me now, only it all had to be compressed into a few days.
“Look,” I continued, “I don’t break boards or claim I can levitate. I work in an old tradition that has much the same goal as yours.”
“What’s that?” a compact, swarthy soldier asked.
I smiled. “To locate, close with, and destroy the enemy.”
The soldier made a grimace that I think was a smile. “Fuckin’ A,” he said, and heads nodded. But they were still wary.
“The bottom line is that you’re professionals,” I continued. “It’s your responsibility to learn every possible thing that can help you in getting the job done and maybe help you stay alive. I’m here to see what I can contribute to your mission readiness.” The reading last night
had
come in handy. “Okay?” A few heads nodded. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” I told them, and the workout began.
I spent two whole days watching them move. All systems tend to emphasize a finite range of actions and techniques. It’s what creates stylistic patterns. Individual capacity and talent introduces minor quirks and variations as well. So I observed the training to see what areas were emphasized and what additional things they could benefit from.
No style is complete—the range of possible attack/response scenarios is infinite. And this sort of training was only part of what these soldiers were expected to do. They had focused on a general range of techniques and emphasized specific skills in hand to hand work. It made sense, in a way. Yamashita would have said that they were neglecting “basics,” but he’s also someone who believes it takes three years to teach students the correct way to grip the floor with their toes.
Every night I had to produce a written report for submission to Baker, the combination of my analysis of the written syllabus and its application in training. It made for a full day. Every dawn I ran with the training cadre. Then I watched and participated in the drills. Ashby took me to and from the mess hall, picked me up in the morning, and tucked me in at night.
By the end of the week, I was tired of it. The soldiers I watched were still not particularly interested in learning anything from me. It reminded me of the situation I had just had in Yamashita’s
dojo
with the new trainees.
Besides, the Army had a basically sound system. They worked on drills to get the technique right and then did the applications in full gear, to get a sense of what it would be like in a real fight. It was an important point. Just going through the motions with a helmet on was important. All that weight on your head tended to change your balance and the way you moved.
In fact, if there was one thing I thought they needed, it was more drill in full gear. A soldier in the field would probably be wearing body armor that weighed about twenty-five pounds. Plus a field pack and other equipment that could mean he’d be carrying sixty pounds. Throw in gloves and goggles, elbow and knee pads, and what you got was someone who had to move in completely different ways. Balance would be a problem. Nobody was going to do much kicking—it’s hard enough to carry that weight on two legs, never mind one.
I was reminded of one of the more obscure
kata
in judo—
kojiki
no kata
. The moves are odd and stilted, very different from the other forms that
judoka
practice. But that’s because that particular
kata
rehearses movements that would be made in full armor. It’s a holdover from the days when the samurai in armor still stalked the battlefields, and a recognition that the mechanics of fighting can change technique considerably.
During a break, I mentioned that idea to a few of the senior instructors, and for once they nodded. “What else you got?” one asked.
I shrugged. “You’re basically on track with this stuff. Short, hard strikes. If anything, make them shorter. Nothing fancy. Get close in. You can use the weight you’re carrying as a weapon. You do it right, you could probably break someone up just by falling on them.”
They liked that, but had a funny way of showing it. “Man, Burke,” one asked, “they pay you for stuff like that?”
Some of the faces seemed a bit more friendly after a week. Maybe I was just getting used to the atmosphere. Testosterone and aggression make for distinctive social dynamics. But there were still a few faces that were decidedly unfriendly.
One of them spoke up. “You ever fall down and hurt anyone, Burke? Or just yourself?” It was not a rhetorical question. There were some snickers from the group.
I looked at the printed name on the chest of his uniform— Fields—then up into his eyes. They were small and blue and watched me like I was prey. Was it D.H. Lawrence who wrote about the blue-eyed killer? The man with the gun? Here he was.
“What do you wanna know, Fields?” I asked him. My voice was as unfriendly as his. The place was rubbing off on me.
He gestured at me with his chin. “Mr. Expert. What do you know about any of this? You ever been in a firefight? You ever killed anyone?” He snorted in disgust.
“What the fuck kind of question is that?” I snapped out. Like I said, it must be something in the air. I got up real close to Fields, projecting energy as hard as I could. You could see him stiffen. “Grow up, Fields.
You
don’t know what you’re talking about.” I looked around at the group. “The question is not whether I’ve ever killed anyone. I know drunk drivers who’ve managed to pull that off. The question is whether I’ve been in places that scared me shitless and stayed anyway and did what needed to be done.” I knew the answer to that. I was calm and ready when I finished by saying, “That’s the real question.”
I don’t know what would have happened next. Fields was big and dense and did not look particularly happy with my response. His nostrils flared spasmodically as he waited for me to throw the first punch. But I didn’t, even though I would have liked to. The discipline I follow teaches you to do what you should, not what you’d like.
“Stand down!” a voice barked, and punched through the tension. Ashby stood there, glowering. “Fields,” he said dismissively, “as you were.” His voice had a compelling quality to it—what the military calls “command voice.” They say some Zen masters can use a shout to impel trainees into enlightenment, pushing them there by the blending of psychic and aural force. It’s a very similar sort of thing. Yamashita, of course, can paralyze students with his commands. Ashby was nowhere near as good, but he was still pretty impressive.
“Burke,” he ordered, “come with me.” He spun on his heels and I followed him out of the building.
“Am I in trouble, Ashby?” I asked sarcastically as he steamed toward a parked car. He went around to the driver’s side and looked at me across the hood.
“Hunh?” He looked puzzled for a minute. “Oh. No.” Then he smiled slightly. “I told you they were a hard crew, Burke. They push you a little bit?”
“No problem. I pushed back,” I told him.
“Shame I had to stop it. It would have been interesting to see what would have gone down. Fields can be a pain in the ass.”
“So why did you stop it?”
“Colonel Baker sent for you. Your clearance came through.”
“Clearance?”
Ashby grinned at me knowingly, and his eyes had a hard and wild look to them. “Fun is fun. But now your real work begins, Burke.”
The video image had been enhanced and considerably cleaned up. As a result, it made the little details easier to see. Not that you wanted to see the details. We’ve all watched so much Hollywood mayhem that when we see the real thing, it seems almost flat and without drama. But it’s horrible nonetheless: the gasps and muffled thud of meat and bone, the sawing of desperate breathing. The faint spasm and drumming of heels as a man dies and the body comes to a final, terrible stillness that looks different from anything else that I know.
Ashby had brought me onto a different part of the base, an area of well-kept brick buildings and brisk efficiency. Officer country. I got whisked down a hall to a meeting room, where three men in suits were clustered at the end of a long wooden conference table. They all had little ID cards pinned to their jackets. Baker was there, in a uniform shirt with creases that looked like they could hurt if you touched them.
“That’s all, Ashby,” Baker said in dismissal. My escort shot back out the door. “Burke,” he said, and gestured me to a chair.
“Hello, Colonel.” I eyed the others, but Baker didn’t seem inclined to introduce them. The men around the table seemed like they were all cast from the same mold—dark suits and short haircuts—but I figured the silver-haired guy at the head of the table was in charge. They all watched me like I was some sort of lab specimen.
“I’d like you to review a video clip for us, Burke,” the Colonel said. He patted a file folder. “I’ve been reading your nightly reports and reviewing your file in general. I’m hoping you can help us out with something.”
“Us?” I prompted. I looked at the guys in suits. They hadn’t fidgeted or said a word since I came in the door. Finally, the man with silver hair spoke. He had a Midwestern accent of some sort and a very quiet voice.
“Let’s say, we’re your friends from Virginia.” He smiled at me without warmth and his companions did the same. Jokesters from Langley, no doubt.