Summer Hire Ch. 12

"So that means you hopefully won't need anything that I'm going to teach you. But if you do, you'll really want to know it. At some point, not now, but at some point in the next few weeks, you'll probably want to do some serious soul searching about whether you'd rather let yourself be raped, tortured, killed — to avoid killing someone else. I know that's pretty blunt, but I think you need to face that decision squarely, before it might ever come up. For some people, killing another person is simply not an option. I really do respect that.

"I will tell you, though, that when things get ugly, most folks get to the place where they'd rather kill than be killed... although not all. So, I don't have to teach you how to seriously hurt or kill somebody. If you want, we can stay with just the control moves."

He gave her a reassuring smile, then continued, "I think it makes more sense, though, to teach you both ways. Then you can decide for yourself which to use, if you ever need to."

Melissa nodded, sobered by the serious turn the lesson had taken.

Mike continued, "In any case, you probably shouldn't decide anything right now. Today, I'm just going to start with some basics. Mostly, we'll work with how to fall down. Then I'll show you a basic wrist lock."

"How to fall down?"

Mike grinned, "Yeah sounds kind of stupid, right? I mean, you trip, fall, and the ground stops you. That's simple enough. The trick is, how to do it so you don't get hurt. Even better, so you come right back up. That way, if somebody shoves you down, you just go with the move, roll away, zip right back up to your feet, and you're running like hell out of there, before the bad guy has any fucking idea what just happened."

Mike smiled broadly and continued, "Running away is almost always a really good option. I've had lots of practice, personally. Only we called it exfiltration, so we didn't sound like wusses. Anyway, being able to run faster than the guy chasing you is another reason for staying in good shape."

"But aren't you some sort of super soldier? I mean, did you ever really run away?"

"Super soldier?" Mike laughed. "We ran away lots. I still do. Whenever my wife wants something else fixed... but no, seriously, in a really small unit, if the bad guys figure out where you are, your best bet is usually to run like hell. If you have to tangle with them, things gets messy and people get hurt. When bullets start flying around, good guys can catch one as easily as a bad guy. The best bet is to break contact fast, and get the hell out of Dodge. Then you've got a chance to circle around and continue the mission.

"So yeah, I've spent a fair amount of time running from trouble. And I highly recommend it. So a lot of what I'll show you is exactly that. How to break contact and buy yourself the time and space to rabbit out of there."

He paused for a moment to see if she had any questions, then asked, "Ready to get started?"

She grimaced, "Okay. I'm still a little sore from this morning's workout."

He nodded, "Then let's warm up with some exercises first. Got to get those muscles warm and loose, so you don't hurt anything."

"Oh fun."