Chapter 64
CHAPTER
NORMALLY, NASH WOULD NOT LOOK at himself in the mirror, but he did after another exhausting day of training. And he was impressed with what he saw.
Damn, I’m ripped.
He’d always had a flat belly, but now he also had an eight-pack and his core was strong as iron. The muscles in his arms, back, shoulders, chest, glutes, and legs rippled. He felt taller, looser, infinitely more powerful and physically confident.
He flexed his triceps and his quads, and was pleasantly surprised to see hardened domes of veiny muscle emerge all over.
He could now run on the treadmill nonstop for an hour.
He had done thousands of miles, mostly up mountains, on a stationary bike, until his thighs, hammies, and calves swelled with sinewy brawn.
He had learned dozens of ways to fight, and incapacitate an opponent, from small, precise motions to more complex maneuvers that would be devastating to any combatant.
And he had been taught how to kill with a pen, a finger, a coin, a foot, a fist, an elbow, a knife, a gun, or anything else he could manage to get his hands on.
It was like Nash had learned a difficult foreign language, one that he never knew even existed, like Russian and Chinese marbled together into a comprehensible hash, only with lethal outcomes.
His body was black and blue from the beatings he had taken from Shock and now Byron Jackson, who had revealed himself to be a cagey and skilled close-combat warrior. At first, he had knocked Nash down multiple times with simple leg and arm taps against strategic body parts.
Jackson had lectured, “There are about a dozen spots on the human body where a bit of targeted, concentrated force will take an opponent down. Remember that torque against joints is the key. Muscle man, ninja warrior, dude on the street, we are all built structurally the same. You move a limb in the opposite direction it was designed to go, your man is going down, in pain. And in the seconds after that, he is vulnerable to whatever you want to do to him: knock out or kill.”
Then Jackson had demonstrated methods of seizing control of Nash’s arms, neck, shoulders, legs, loading them up and then driving them in the opposite direction the bones, tendons, and ligaments were designed to go. Nash then trained relentlessly to do the same until even Jackson praised him.
“Now, untrained people always try the wrong thing when someone has them in a neck lock,” Jackson had said. “They struggle trying to pull the dude’s arm forward and off. That’s always a loser because you’re going against his strength and using only your weakness. But this?”
He had Nash encircle his neck from behind with both arms as tightly as he could.
Jackson didn’t struggle trying to pull the arm free, or turn to the left or right.
He merely ducked under the lead arm holding him, torqued that limb against the structural grain, jacked it up Nash’s back to a painful degree, and while Nash was dealing with that and teetering to maintain his balance, Jackson easily kicked his left leg out from under Nash and he went down hard.
“Finish with an elbow strike to the cervical spine, and the dude is toast. Then you move on,” said Jackson.
To another obstacle, thought Nash, echoing Shock’s story about Ty Nash.
He’d then had Nash hold a knife against his throat before again effortlessly ducking under, controlling the limb, and “stabbing” Nash a dozen times with his own knife, while Nash was still holding it!
Despite the relentless training on close-quarter combat, it was really about early observation, Nash had discovered, seeing enough before the confrontation began so that you were never really surprised.
And then using your opponent’s tells, mistakes, bravado, and momentum against him.
Without breaking much of a sweat, or using very little muscle, you could beat men two or three times your size.
His proficiency on the gun range had grown by leaps and bounds. He could break down and then rebuild blindfolded every weapon Shock had in his armory. Nash would never be a world-class sniper, but he didn’t have to be to accomplish what he needed to.
He ate his sixth and final meal of the day and then was free to go to his quarters, where, after a shower, he did what he always did at night: He scoured the internet looking for news of Maggie.
He had hoped that her kidnappers might post another video of her, but nothing ever appeared, and his hope that one would show up had faded to almost nothing.
The alerts were still out on him everywhere. He was considered armed and dangerous after it was determined he had taken his father’s old gun and Army knife. He had shown them to Judith, who obviously had told the police.
He was also a cuckolded husband, and his wife had done it with his boss.
Talk about poor judgment of character on her part.
But what Nash feared was that Rhett would provide a shoulder for his wife to cry on, and that would put Judith in danger of stumbling onto what Rhett was involved in.
Because despite everything, Nash still cared for his wife, and he wanted no harm to come to her.
He rose, went to the doorway where Shock had placed a pull-up bar, and did as many as he could until his strength failed.
You have to get stronger, Nash. As strong as you can. It’s the only shot you have.
Because you have to find her. Please don’t be dead, Maggie. Please God don’t let her be dead.
He did another pull-up and then another, even as the tears trickled down his cheeks.
“Come on, Isaiah, what are you really doing with that man?”
It was a month later. Shock and Jackson were in their bedroom having a nightcap, Shock a bourbon neat, and Jackson a cup of peppermint tea.
Shock sipped his drink before answering. “Exactly what I said.”
Jackson shook his head. “Sure he’s getting some muscle.
He can run faster and longer. He can shoot fine, and in a fight he could hold his own with ninety percent of the dudes out there, maybe ninety-nine percent because most guys don’t know shit about defending themselves or really hurting somebody else.
But the dudes he’ll be going up against, according to you, are in that one percent he can’t overcome. ”
“More like the one-tenth of one percent,” corrected Shock.
“Well, then, back to my question. What are you doing? And he’s one of the most wanted dudes in the country, and if they find him here with us you and me are gonna be spending the rest of our days under the watchful eye of the federal government.
And that is not a good place for any man to be, especially Black men, and old ones at that.
I don’t want that for my golden years. Do you? ”
“I made his daddy a promise.”
“But he ain’t Ty Nash. What do you owe him?”
“Don’t matter what I owe or don’t owe him.
I gave my word to a dyin’ man, the best friend I ever had, and I mean no disrespect to you on that.
But me and Ty went through shit together, well, that’s all I say ’bout that.
And he woulda done the same for me. No lie.
So that’s all there is to it in my book. ”
Jackson sipped his tea and shook his head in frustration. “You worked your ass off building all this up and you’re gonna risk throwing it away over some white dude you don’t even really know and probably don’t even like.”
“I knew him as a boy. I just now got to know him as a man. And what I know is he’s done everythin’ I asked him to do.
He’s gotten the shit kicked outta him, by me and by you.
He coulda quit. Give up. Lord, most days I was hopin’ Walter would quit, and then he go on about his business and I could go on about mine.
But he didn’t. He got back up, wiped off the blood, and got back to work.
Remind me of his daddy, no lie. You got to respect that.
Least I do. And his daughter is dead. I know it, you know it.
And the truth is Walter knows it, but he can’t admit it, not yet. What father could?”
“Everybody loses folks, Isaiah.”
Shock frowned and shook his head. “Uh-uh, not like that they don’t.”
“Okay, you train him up and then he leaves here, goes after these folks, and gets killed. What have you really done for him?”
Shock set his drink down and leaned back against his pillow.
“What I’m givin’ him is a chance, a fightin’ chance.
Dude is an underdog, sure; you think I don’t know that?
You think he don’t know that? But when I’m done with him the man will have a shot.
That’s all you can ask for from this life.
It’s what I asked for. It’s what you asked for. It’s what all folks ask for.”
“Most don’t get it. Especially folks like us.”
“Which means the ones that do get it, they got to go for it. Otherwise you just pissin’ in the faces of all those that ain’t never got a fair shake.”
“You gonna help him after he’s all trained up?” asked Jackson.
“I’m gonna do what I need to do to keep my promise to his daddy. And that’s all I got to say ’bout that.”
Jackson grimaced. “He run into these boys you told me about, he’s gonna die. You can build the dude up but you can’t make him into a killer, Isaiah. He’ll be going up against dudes been doing this their whole life. How can you not see that? You’re leading a lamb to the damn slaughter.”
“You’d be right, ’cept for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Jackson asked sharply.
“I knew that boy’s daddy better’n anybody.
Man had a motor that ain’t never quit. You don’t think the goddamn Vietcong ain’t spent their whole lives learnin’ how to kick the shit outta people?
Kill ’em with their thumbs, not have one ounce of compassion if you in the other uniform?
But Ty Nash survived all that shit I don’t even know how, and he pulled me along for the ride, or else I’m not gonna be here with you.
From small observations he would build big decisions that saved our butts time and again.
Attention to detail, discipline, figurin’ shit out, gettin’ the job done.
That’s stuff Walter’s been doin’ for decades, just while sittin’ in a chair and wearin’ a suit.
But even as a youngster I saw something special in him.
He was thoughtful, observant, hardworking, and he figured shit out.
Now, if Walter has even a little bit ’a Tiberius Nash in him, he may surprise me. And you.”
Jackson shook his head. “I just don’t see it.”
“Well, then come with me and maybe you will see it.”
Shock led a curious Jackson over to the training center. Before they got there they both heard it. Jackson glanced at his companion in surprise, but Shock didn’t look surprised at all.
They stood in the darkened doorway and watched Walter Nash going full bore at the boxing dummy: knife and elbow strikes, knee crushers, head slams. Then he dropped and did push-ups, rose and did pull-ups.
Then he jumped rope. Then he slumped to his knees, breathing harder than anyone probably should. Then he rose and did it all over again.
As Shock and Jackson slowly walked back to their quarters Jackson said, “Maybe that boy does have a shot.”
Shock eyed him. “I ain’t never bettin’ ’gainst nobody got Ty Nash’s blood in him.”