The Naked Edge

That was close to what happened now. Raoul gaped, knees bent, arms thrust uselessly upward, as Bowie seemed to cross the no-longer-vast distance in hardly any time at all. Using his shoulder, he rammed into Raoul with such power that Raoul's lungs emptied. His feet left the ground. His body arched backward. His head made a sickening crunching sound when he landed.

At that moment, Bowie could have used a curving downward motion to slice Raoul's throat. Instead, he yanked the gun from Raoul's hand and spun toward his gaping pals, ready with the knife and the pistol.

"Want to make a bet?" Bowie asked.

"Jesus, man, don't shoot me," the kid with the knife begged.

"Farthest thing from my mind." Bowie put the gun under his belt. "Raoul, are you watching this? I want to make sure you see it."

"Uh," Raoul murmured. "What?"

"Damn it, are you watching this?"

"Uh, yeah, uh."

Bowie folded his knife and clipped it onto a pants pocket.

"You," Bowie told the kid with the knife. "I asked you if you want to make a bet."

"Bet?"

"That the three of you can't take me."

The three kids kept gaping.

Bowie again assumed his absolutely non-threatening position, folding his left arm across his chest, raising his right palm and pressing it against the side of his face. "Come on, for God's sake, do something!"

The kid with the knife took his chance. As he lunged with the knife, Bowie whipped his right hand down and deflected the knife. At the same time, he turned his left hand so that his palm was outward and slapped the kid as hard as he could, the blow so powerful and covering so large a portion of the kid's face that his eyes rolled up.

In the same motion, Bowie spun so that the edge of one of his thick-soled shoes caught the side of the second kid's leg, hitting a nerve that temporarily disabled the leg and sent the kid screaming onto the dirt. Meanwhile, the kid with the knife sagged to his knees. Bowie thrust his right palm upward under the kid's chin, holding back just enough force that he didn't break the kid's neck when he struck. He kicked the third kid in the testicles, and when that kid pitched his head reflexively forward, Bowie jabbed a palm to his exposed chin also. Both dropped, unconscious.

That left the one whose leg was paralyzed, the pain so intense that he could barely make himself fumble for something in a pants pocket. As the kid pulled out a shitty, short-barreled .22 revolver, Bowie kicked him in the chin, taking care that he only broke the jaw and didn't kill him.

Raoul lay on the ground, struggling to catch his breath, blinking in disbelief.

"And what did you think of that?" Bowie asked.

"Uh."

"How'd you like a job?"

"Uh."

"How'd you like to learn to do that? Be an operator. Win friends and cause a world of pain."

"Job? What kind of--"

"Working for me." Bowie pulled a money clip from his pocket. The steel clip, handcrafted by him, had a knife so skillfully concealed along the side that he never had trouble taking it through security checkpoints. "Two thousand dollars as a sign-up fee."

"Two thousand?"

"You get room and board, free clothing and equipment."

"Two thousand?"

"The sign-up fee. Then you get three thousand a month. You never got that much robbing liquor stores."

"What do I need to do?"

"Prove you can learn. And then . . ."

"Yes?"

"Do what you're told."

Chapter 17.

"A slap?" William asked, as if Cavanaugh were joking.

Cavanaugh felt subtle pressure in his stomach as the Gulfstream G-200 soared away from the airport in Casper, Wyoming. Jackson Hole's airport could have handled the jet, but there was too great a chance that the attack team would watch that airport. Better to use the helicopter to fly 240 miles east to Casper, where the Gulfstream had been instructed to land and wait for them. GLOBAL PROTECTIVE SERVICES was stenciled across the side. Club chairs, a conference table, living-room-style sitting for up to ten passengers, a spacious galley, a sophisticated entertainment system, a transcontinental fuel range, quiet engines, one hundred percent filtered air, plenty of natural light.

"You think a slap sounds like a sissy kind of thing?" Cavanaugh asked.

"Well, certainly," William said.

Jamie came from the bathroom, where she'd put on a white blouse, blue blazer, and gray slacks, clothes that William had instructed the pilots to bring. Turquoise earrings brought out the deep green in her eyes. She'd undone her ponytail, her brunette hair hanging to her shoulders.

"It's actually very serious," she told William.

"Fairbairn wanted his close-quarters combat techniques to be simple," Cavanaugh said. "Easily taught. Easily remembered. When condensed to essentials, there are only a few moves. But just as important, Fairbairn's system ensures that the person making those moves doesn't get injured in the process."

Mrs. Patterson stopped admiring the Gulfstream's appointments and listened.

"A punch, for example." Jamie made a fist and pretended to hit the wall. "I'm going to hurt that person, no question about it. But I'm probably also going to hurt my hand. At the least, my fist will swell and throb and become useless if I try to keep punching. At the worst, I'll break bones, incapacitating me with pain and shock. I don't care how tough you are--you can't will yourself not to experience shock."

Cavanaugh added, "So Fairbairn asked himself, 'What are the parts of the body that can administer force with little risk of injury?'"

"Since we're talking about slaps, I assume one of them is the palm of a hand," William said.

"Yes, but when we say a slap, we're not talking about anything dainty," Cavanaugh told him. "We're talking about a slap that's as hard and fast as you can make it. The full force of your body. Your palm covers a lot of area, almost the entire side of someone's face. If you don't knock the opponent out, you'll daze him enough so that when you slap the opposite side of his face, he'll go down."

"What are the other parts of the body that Fairbairn decided were the best to use?" William asked.

"The feet, if you wear thick-soled shoes. You can stomp down hard and break somebody's toes. Fairbairn recommended a variation in which you stomp the side of your shoe all the way down your opponent's shin before you hit the toes."

"Ouch," William said.

"The knee," Jamie said.