I sized him up. He was about my size, which was good. In combat, the length of an opponent’s arms and legs can be critical. Unfortunately, he was probably ten or fifteen years younger than I was. You hate to admit it, but over thirty your body doesn’t work as well as you’d like and is more subject to injury. In purely physical terms, he was probably my match. So I’d have to use some finesse. Cunning was a technique not well appreciated by the young.
My opponent was whipcord thin with angry eyes, a younger version of his master. It’s funny how we all tend to become copies of our teachers. I know guys in New York who have developed Japanese accents. I’m not sure how I’ve come to resemble my own
sensei
. I’m taller and thinner and stamped with the genetic markers of County Mayo. But sometimes in the mirror, I catch a glimpse of the same flat mask Yamashita wears—the expression that seems so neutral but hides the fact that you’re watching everything, analyzing angles and distances, and, in fact, seeing the universe as a series of fluid scenarios of attack and defense.
I wonder, sometimes, what it is I have become.
But too much thought is a danger. The masters say that it makes the mind “stick”; it creates gaps in your defense. There is a time for thought and reflection, and the practiced feel of a wooden weapon in my hand let me know that this was not the time or the place.
After a brief ritual salutation, Marangan’s student came at me. He was using two sticks, wielding them in a series of complex patterns that made it difficult to judge potential angles of attack. I engaged my opponent cautiously, then backed out of range again and again as I assessed his skills.
Most times in the Japanese arts, you’re going up against a single weapon. They have a preference in Japan for the commitment this engenders. But, of course, it also tends to create a flaw in your training. After all, the old samurai carried a long and a short sword. What if an opponent used them both?
There are varieties of double-handed weapon systems in the Japanese arts. Miyamoto Musashi was famous for his
nito
style, using long and short blades simultaneously. And you occasionally run up against people in a
kendo dojo
who use it today. As a matter of fact, Yamashita would sometimes insist that I watch these people and train with them. Not to adopt their style—“the road to perfection is steep enough carrying one weapon, I think, Professor”—but to learn how to combat it.
And what had I learned? Basically that if you’ve got one weapon and the other person has two, you’re in for a rough ride. And the only way to beat them is to use an attack that is so precise, well timed, and focused that it cuts through the cloud of uncertainty that the opponent has created. And that’s not even it. You have to feel the opponent’s pattern in your gut and then when it happens—if it happens—your response snaps out like an electric spark, almost independent of your control.
You just have to hope you don’t get pounded to death while you’re waiting for the spark.
The rattan sticks came at me, one baton threatening a head strike and begging for response, while the other baton waited, cocked, to exploit the opening. He launched himself in a flurry of attacks, and I couldn’t just parry them—if you committed to one defense, then the other side would whir in at you. I had to parry and move and dodge, whirling my staff around and threatening him with its longer reach, jabbing for the throat with all the venom I could generate.
Within maybe thirty seconds, he had clipped me more than a few times on the wrists and shoulders. It stung, but I wasn’t going to let anyone see that. When the batons connected, you could see the lights go on in his eyes. He liked to hit. And he thought he was winning.
So what I tried to do was frustrate him a little. I kept moving and thrusting, keeping him a little farther away than he liked. It was hot in that room, and it was getting hotter. Our weapons clattered, our sneakers squeaked on the floor, and I could hear the blood rushing in my ears.
He was younger than I was, but I thought I could outlast him. It’s a trick you use on the young. They are dangerous because of their energy, but you can slowly bleed them of it while you wait for an opening. And in this case, the
esksrimador
had been selected by his teacher to fight me. It was an honor, and the young man in the sweaty black T-shirt wanted to show that his master had made the right choice. My opponent didn’t want to wear me down. He wanted to
prove
something. It would make him feel the need to attack even when he shouldn’t.
He tried to close the gap and the batons whirred at me. I parried frantically and turned slightly, as if wary of being hit. As he came in range, I snapped a vicious roundhouse kick out, taking him on the side of the left thigh. He faltered slightly, but I backed off.
You could see that I had tagged him pretty good, but it didn’t slow him down much. He came at me again. I feinted with the same technique, and he jerked out of the way. Fast learner. I could see why Marangan had chosen him.
Unfortunately, when he jerked, his torso turned slightly toward me and his right arm came up a bit. My staff whirled around and I cracked him hard on the right side. It’s hard to tell with fit people, since the extra muscle muffles sound, but I’d be surprised if I hadn’t cracked a rib.
I used the staff to trap his right arm and leverage him over. He tried to swing out at me with his other hand, but I continued moving and led him around in a circle. He was good and managed to race his feet along so he could force himself up to fight the momentum I was generating. It’s an almost instinctual response: the need to reassert control. I could feel the muscle tension in his trapped arm. There was some real strength in him, which was good.
As he forced his torso upright, I switched direction and swept up and back. His feet kept going forward and his body went up and out. At one point, for a split second, he was almost horizontal. His feet lifted off the ground; I stretched him out, pushing with the staff against his throat and upper chest. It was one of those moments when all the elements click and you can feel the technique come together in a type of wild beauty.
Then I slammed him down as hard as I could. Small dust motes puffed out from the floorboards and his head made a nasty thudding sound as it hit. I grabbed the sticks from his hands while his eyes were still faintly crossed, and tossed them across the room toward Marangan.
The room came into focus for me then. The Filipino students were standing in a ring around the walls, staring openmouthed. Ueda gave me a slight bow. Art whispered something in Micky’s ear and my brother smirked with satisfaction.
Breath was pumping in and out of me like a bellows. I was sheeted in sweat and I could feel it rolling down the muscles along my spine. I tried to figure out what kind of shape I was in. Nothing was broken. I could taste some blood in my mouth, but that’s not unusual. My arms were going to look like the victims of a bad tattooing in the morning. But, all in all, not too bad. While it’s never fun, I’ve come to accept it. That’s the sort of business I’m in.
Hollywood’s got it all wrong, of course. You don’t engage in a fight with bad guys and emerge unscathed. You feel it for days. And it takes a while to get reconnected to the world around you. You don’t look up, wipe some sweat off your manly brow, and kiss the well-endowed heroine. In the real world, you tend to just stagger over to the nearest wall and try not to retch.
After a minute or so I looked up at Marangan. My breathing had slowed down enough to talk. “Nice,” I said. “Can we talk, now?”
There was a lot of noise—motorcycles revving up outside, stools hitting the floor, shouts and the noise of glass breaking. Micky was yelling, “Get outta the way! Get outta the way!” but Ueda and I were too busy to notice.
I heard the
whoosh
of the pool cue as it swung by my nose. In one of those strange moments of irrelevant clarity, I noticed that some chewing gum was stuck on the rubber tip of the cue’s base: a weapon and a breath freshener. But the man waving it was not really any good. I let the cue groan by, then I swarmed in and gave the guy a smashing elbow-strike that dislocated his jaw. He sat down hard, looking vaguely surprised. I grabbed the pool cue and spun around, but there were no other comers.
Ueda was fighting a man who wielded a wicked looking knife. He swiped and jabbed at Ueda, who stood, arms outstretched, like he welcomed the opportunity to try his luck. The Filipino with the blade wanted Ueda to jump back and lose his balance, but he only moved a fraction in response to the jerks, just out of the reach of the knife. A jab, and Ueda arched to avoid it, but kept his footing. A swipe—his eyes followed the pathway of the knife, his face totally expressionless, flat with the calm that comes from experience. Finally, the Filipino lunged hard and Ueda used a crescent kick to deflect it, slamming the outside of his attacker’s forearm so hard that the knife flew across the room. Ueda’s foot came back crisply into the cocked position, resting lightly against the knee of his supporting leg for a split second. Then he drove it out in a classic side thrust kick that drilled into his opponent’s middle, lifted him off his feet, and threw him across a table. The table, body and all, tipped over. Ueda followed as if he were attached by a wire. His fist drove down twice like something on a piston and that about did it.
Marangan had taken off after someone down a hallway that led to the alley. I heard the door bang open and then bang again almost immediately as Marangan rocketed after his prey. By this time, Micky and Art had waded through the toppled furniture and stood, brandishing the .38 snub-nosed revolvers with the faded bluing that Marangan had given them.
“The next time, will you get out of the fuckin’ way so I can get a clean shot!” my brother demanded.
The master of
eskrima
hadn’t taken long to get a tip. It made you wonder about the police and what they were up to. Our main focus was the kidnappings, but Marangan told us to start with the hit on Mori, explaining that there weren’t too many people in Manila who could pull something like that off, and that the homicide had to be connected in some way to the abductions. You followed the chain of association to lead you to your target.
“Sure,” Art had agreed. “The local cops don’t seem to have a clue. The only guy still poking hard at things was Mori.”
“Makes sense that the kidnappers would take him out,” Micky agreed.
Marangan led us down avenues not contained in the Manila guidebooks. Ueda had a late model SUV. Marangan followed us in a pea-green Dodge Satellite wagon with shot springs. He had two taciturn assistants with him. Our little caravan wound through increasingly run-down streets to a bar where parked motorcycles crowded the front like ticks on a host. There was a flickering streetlight on a tottering pole to one side of the building. The pavement was cracked and poorly maintained, and the bar had the look of a hastily converted warehouse. It had a large window that faced the street, but it was covered in wire mesh with no glass. The door was a thick battered metal slab propped open by a broken cinderblock.
The motorcycles, on the other hand, gleamed with care and polish. Most of them were sleek street bikes, small, powerful vehicles that had aerodynamic fiberglass coverings, like the shells of brightly colored insects. The metal and chrome gleamed, even in the poor light.
“These crotch rockets look familiar?” Art asked.
“A lot like the one Mori’s killer was riding,” Micky answered.
“They are fast and maneuverable,” Ueda told us. “Very popular with the street gangs in city traffic.”
Loud music was playing inside and, even though the bar was filled, the bass thudded right through the packed bodies in the building and into the street. People moved in and out of the bar, clusters of men laughing and talking. They were mostly intent on drinking beer and admiring particular bikes.
We got noticed anyway. You could see some patrons eyeing us nervously as we entered, and it was clear that they knew Marangan. A few men pushed away from the bar to stand and face us.
It didn’t take long for things to happen. Marangan asked a few questions, moving slowly from person to person. Some answered him; others just shook their heads and looked away, feeling an urgent need to gaze into their drinks. As he made his way methodically around the bar, you could feel the tension ratchet up. Finally, one man bolted across the crowded room, threading his way between two pool tables, headed for a rear hallway. Marangan was after him almost immediately, as if he expected the move all along. That was when Ueda and I tried to follow and things got a little complex.
When we finally managed to follow him out to the alley, Marangan was busy with a man who was cowering by a row of oil drums stuffed with trash. The
eskrimador
’s assistants stood at the opening by the front of the alley, discouraging the curious. The alley was unpaved and smelled of moist earth and stale urine. The night had cooled somewhat, but it was still warm and humid and my skin felt greasy. It was hard to see at first, but the unmistakable sound of flesh hitting flesh helped us locate Marangan, that and the ghostly flash of white from his victim’s teeth when the pain hit.
I sensed the movement more than saw it—a faint blur in the grayness—and Marangan snapped another finger bone. The man he had chased out there gasped. Then there was a rapid-fire exchange in Tagalog. Marangan was clearly unpleased and, as we got closer, he grabbed his victim’s hand again.
I lurched forward to stop it, but Art grabbed me by the arm.
“Easy, Connor,” he advised.
I looked from Art to Micky to Ueda, but they said nothing. Nor did they make a move to intervene. It was hard to read the expressions on their faces. Behind me, Marangan’s voice demanded answers and his victim’s squeal ramped up to something a little more desperate. I glanced over. The
eskrimador
was grinding the bones of the broken finger together.
“Jesus!” I protested.
Marangan looked up at me. “Your
sensei
is with the Moros, Burke. Do you know that they see a world split into two houses? The
Dar al-Islam
and the
Dar al-Harb
?” The
eskrimador
looked at our blank faces. “It means the House of Surrender and the House of War. To them, we are infidels to be conquered or killed. There is no room for holding back.”