Chapter 59
CHAPTER
NASH LAY ON HIS BUNK. Every molecule in his body was in pain. And he had never felt such exhaustion. And in three hours’ time it would all start again. He wasn’t even sure how long he’d been doing this. Isolated like this, he’d lost all track of time. Every day was the same.
Work out until he felt like he’d died, with perfect nutritional meals interspersed.
Cram and practice sessions on all subjects necessary to observe and assess foes, and how to find people, hide from people, kill people.
He’d learned how to make improvised explosive devices from fairly ordinary items and set them off in the inner courtyard of the training facility.
He had gotten so good at hitting the black tape X’s with knife strikes that Shock had allowed him a beer one night as a reward.
The first time he’d gotten into the boxing ring with Shock for close-quarter-combat training he had been a little cocky because of Shock’s age and bulk.
That feeling had disappeared the first time Shock had knocked him out of the ring.
And the second and third times had done nothing except reinforce the reality that a very large, but still nearly eighty-year-old man had kicked his ass with ease.
He rubbed his arm where one of Shock’s massive hands had clocked him with a classic blocking maneuver.
The bruise there was so purple and large it was like an eggplant had sprouted on Nash’s limb.
Next, Shock had swept Nash’s leg out from under him, dumping him right on his ass.
Then the big man had knelt down and in a real fight would have killed Nash with an elbow strike to his throat, crushing his windpipe.
Shock had told him, “We don’t have time for me to train you up as a black belt in any particular martial arts, Walter, but what I can do is teach you key moves in each that are fairly straightforward. You learn to do those in your sleep, you can beat pretty much anybody out there.”
Nash subsequently practiced kicks, blocks, arm strikes, and attacking nerve pressure points until he could barely lift his limbs or bend his fingers.
It was not all physical, Shock had said.
“Ninety-nine percent of the folks are oblivious to what’s going on around them.
Got their eyes stuck on their stupid phones.
The one percent that have situational awareness could rob, rape, or kill any of them.
The one-tenth of one percent of those folks could rob, rape, or kill the other ninety-nine and nine-tenths. ”
He had taught Nash in detail how to look for tendencies of his opponents and then use those against them.
“Some folks are dominant leg or arm strike happy. That gives you an openin’. Others like distance between them and whoever they’re goin’ up against. With a weapon in hand, that can be an advantage. The close-in dudes who like to control your hands? They often forget about the legs.”
One day Shock had led him over to a swimming pool that was situated in its own room. The space reeked of chlorine.
“Can you swim?” he’d asked Nash.
“Not all that well, no.”
Shock had pushed him in and Nash had gone under, fully clothed as he was, with weights on his ankles, because he’d been running on the treadmill.
He struggled to the surface, spitting out water. “Are you trying to kill me!” he shouted.
“Not necessarily. But they sure as hell will be only it won’t be by drownin’. You’ll be a fish by the time I’m done with your ass.”
Nash had gone through dozens of close-quarter-battle drill techniques, with Shock being alternately patient and then losing his shit when Nash messed up. And when he did, Shock would lay him out, hard.
“Is that really necessary?” said Nash after struggling to get up one time after being knocked down. “It’s not like you praise me when I get it right.”
“You mess up here, I whack you in the head ’cause I want you to remember it. You mess up out there? You not just whacked around. You dead.”
Nash had considered that to be one of the most compelling explanations he’d ever been given on any subject.
He got to the point where, especially with the mental side of the game, he would reference his experience in the business world.
Summing up an opponent, viewing the lay of the land, deciding which techniques would work best with which opponent.
When he did that, Nash found, he was far more successful than not.
He had still thought of quitting every day, but he hadn’t. And he knew the reason.
He slid the photo from his wallet. In it Maggie was eighteen and the senior prom queen.
Her smile had filled the high school football stadium.
Nash had jumped on a red-eye in order to be there for it.
He’d later had jet lag from hell, but not on that night.
That night had been as magical for him as it had been for Maggie.
And now? I have no idea where she is. I have no idea if she’s still alive. No, I have a pretty good idea that she is… not. And everyone thinks that I…
Nash felt his eyes tear up and he ran his finger along the photo and tried to remember how good that day had felt. He and Judith both so proud, and Maggie so radiant.
He put the photo away and wondered if all of the work he was doing would end up having even a speck of value or make any difference whatsoever.
Shock is making me strong, capable of going into situations and surviving, able to track people down while avoiding being tracked down myself. I can now kill someone in a dozen different ways. I can make an IED out of kitchen products and blow shit and people up.
He paused in these thoughts.
But I’ve never had to kill someone for real. I still have no idea if I can.
He brought the image of Maggie into his mind’s eye and turned it this way and that.
She was worth everything to him. When she’d been born, he had felt this overwhelming sense of wanting to protect his daughter from all harm, all worry.
No parent can do that, Nash understood. But then you taught the child to take care of herself.
You taught her to be strong and independent.
And Maggie had been getting there, she really had been.
Their last conversation had been… wonderful.
He still remembered the feel of her hug, the fatherly pride he had felt in her mature thoughts and supportive words. And, still, this had happened to her.
Because of me.
He so wanted to hold her now. To quiet her fears, to keep her safe. And the only shot he had at that was to push his body well past all points of endurance and pain.
And, more important, to take his mind to places it had never gone before, perhaps never contemplated before. He had told himself that if Maggie was not returned safe he would kill Rhett Temple. He had never felt such hatred before.
But when it comes down to it, can you do it, or is that just cheap talk, Nash?
Can you be a Peanut who kills without even thinking about it?
Leave a human being dead and go on with your life as though nothing important happened?
Can you see your human opponents as mere obstacles like Dad did?
Can you go there, Nash? More critical, do you want to go there?
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he no longer felt tired. He got up and went into the training facility. He turned on the lights and proceeded to work on hitting all the pressure and kill points on the boxing dummy until he could do it with his eyes closed.
Exhausted, he spent another hour doing pull-ups, push-ups, squats, lunges, and core work. He got back to his bed and fell asleep for two hours of rest until he took up the task once more.
Nash was surprised because there was another man waiting with Shock when he showed up to begin his workout two weeks later.
“Walter, this here is Byron Jackson.”
Nash shook Jackson’s hand; the latter’s grip was like steel pincers.
Jackson was around six feet, in his sixties, with deep brown skin, a furrowed brow, and thick, dark eyelashes.
A ruler-straight set of lips rode above a lantern jaw.
Jackson looked like a former NFL player who had never gotten out of shape.
When Nash shot Shock a curious look, Shock said, “Byron is my partner.”
“Your business partner?”
Shock draped a big arm around Jackson’s broad shoulders and said, “No, I don’t got no business partner. Byron is my life partner.”
Nash looked from Jackson to Shock.
“Guess you finally earned the right to know where my nickname come from,” said Shock. “Like your daddy said.”
“When did he find out?” asked Nash.
“Long time ago.”
“And he came up with the name?” When Shock nodded, he asked, “How did he take it?”
“He said, if I could find a man dumb enough to have me, to go for it. See, I was married at seventeen and had my first child right after. Got three more, bang, bang, bang. Then years later, my wife Libby died in a car accident. We still had some of our kids at home at the time. Your daddy had helped me set up my business, like I told you before. He come and helped me with the kids when he could. My folks were back in Mississippi and so were Libby’s.
So it was hard. But we got by. I wasn’t the best father in the world, but I did what I could.
Then, when the last child was grown and gone? ”
He turned and looked at Jackson. “Well, I called your daddy and he come to see me. We talked. Well, mostly I talked and I told him… who I was. Who I really was. And that’s when he hugged me and said, ‘You just give me the biggest shock of my life. But in a good way, so’s from now on I’m gonna call you Shock, in a good way.
’ And that was that.” He hugged Jackson tighter.
“And me and Byron been together a long time now. And it’s been good.
Real good,” he added with a smile. But his smile faded.
“Your daddy’s first wife, Gloria, killed herself. You knew that, right?”
“But I don’t know anything else about it. He was in Vietnam at the time.”
“I was with him in Nam when he got word that she was dead.”
“Do you know any of the details, or why?”
Shock shook his head. “No. Your daddy never shared anythin’ with me ’bout it, really, but the man was in pain.
We grew up with Gloria in Mississippi. She and Ty were tight in high school, but nothing serious.
Then he went home on leave, and came back married.
Surprised me, all right. Then a year later, she was dead. ”
“My God,” said Nash.
Shock patted Jackson on the shoulder. “Now, I asked Byron up here to help with your trainin’. Take it to another level, so to speak. He played college ball, too, former Special Forces. Saw combat in Desert Storm, and the Second Gulf War; man can do it all.”
Jackson appraised Nash. “Isaiah said you’re working hard. You ready to work harder?”
Part of Nash wanted to say no, he wasn’t. He actually wanted to leave and give himself up, hire a good lawyer, and fight it in court. But the image of his daughter’s picture on senior prom night came back to him with the impact of a streak of lightning colliding with a tree.
So he said, “I’ll do whatever I have to do, Byron, to get to where I need to go.”