Toward the end of my run, I rounded the last bend in the road just before the cabin when a car suddenly pulled out in front of me. Despite the fact that I was moving at a fast pace, the world and everything in it immediately slowed down, which allowed me to assimilate more data in a shorter period of time. In the blink of an eye, I felt more than saw the car. I could feel it moving in relationship to me, and the world around me. As a result, I was able to turn my body to avoid hitting the car — or having the car hit me.
Many people may experience a close call once in their lives and later say it was like ‘seeing my life flash before my eyes.’ I had learned how to do this intentionally, through repetitive training in martial arts. I wasn’t sure if this was something I had a knack for or if it really was just a result of intensive training. Maybe a little of both. What I knew for sure was that it required discipline and focus, all acquired through long hours of drills and exercises. The most difficult thing to learn in years of training wasn’t kicking or punching, doing pushups on my knuckles, or standing in stances so long I verged on unconsciousness, but to see a fist coming at my face and not blink, not flinch, and not bail out and jump out of the way. I’d learned to ‘see the fist’ and move in concert with it, so I could evade it by a hair’s breadth. I learned not to fear the fist, but how to see the fist all the way past my face. A person could take a lot of punches to the stomach or other parts of the body and not go down. But even one strike to the face would hurt, draw blood, rearrange cartilage, and break bones. Few people trained in a style of martial arts where they didn’t pull their punches. But I had. With time and a lot of failures along the way, I’d gotten better and better at it until it appeared that the fist was slowing down. In reality, I was just moving quicker, on multiple levels.
So when the car appeared suddenly in front of me, I slowed it down in my mind’s eye and immediately altered my path by turning to one side and allowing the car to pass, narrowly missing me, much as I would with a punch coming for my face. I did not turn away, but looked around to evaluate the situation, to see if there was anything I was missing — or needed to do next.
The car pulled past me and stopped. Pete jumped out from the driver’s seat with a big grin on his face. “Hey boss! Out for a little run, eh?”
I looked at him and relaxed. Testing each other was almost a game between us. It was always good-natured, though realistic, and frequently ended in bruises.
I walked up to him and shook his hand. What we shared was a bond that most men don’t experience. A bond between brothers, unspoken and unbreakable.
“Still learning how to drive, I see?” I said as I walked the rest of the way toward the cabin.
“You’re too easy a target for me,” Pete countered.
While the banter was a good distraction at times, right now I wasn’t in the mood to continue with it. I had things on my mind; things that didn’t settle well. I didn’t know what was going on, and I didn’t like that.
“I assume the team is holed up somewhere?”
“Yeah. I have them over in Mendocino. I figured it was far enough away from here that nobody would be looking for us there.”
“Good,” I said. “I have to go brief the site VP on the drill yesterday. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I’ll meet you back here and we can talk about what’s going on. I’ve got the comm gear out that I brought with me, but I assume you brought more. Break it out and get it set up. We may need to check with Washington later.”
“Copy that,” Pete acknowledged.
CHAPTER 14
Twenty-nine minutes later, I had on some Docker’s, a short-sleeved shirt, and some nondescript but comfortable shoes. I preferred to blend in and look as if I was a local going to breakfast at a nice restaurant. In my line of work, blending in had its advantages. In some ways, it wasn’t hard to do. You could say I looked average — average height, weight, and complexion. On the flip side, because of my occupation, I obviously worked out and kept in shape. I wasn’t a big guy by Special Forces standards. I was 6’ tall but slight of build, much to my chagrin. Years ago, I wanted to bulk up and tried to on occasion, but it never seemed to last. Some of the guys I worked with look like they could be linebackers in the NFL. But I’d learned to stand straight and tall and had virtually no body fat. Except for my posture, some people told me I looked like a surfer, with my sandy brown hair, which was neither short nor long. No fresh haircut look; just one that I could run my hand through as easily as a brush. I frequently went a day or two without shaving, so I had that casual GQ look — at least that’s what my team liked to give me shit about.
But if anything gave me away, I’m told it was my eyes. It wasn’t just that they were dark brown, but people said it was that they looked at you in a meaningful way. Hell, I just take it all in, being aware of what’s going on around me. But most people tend to look away from time to time when they’re talking with me. For whatever reason, and it isn’t completely intentional, I don’t. My friends told me it was as if I could see into them and who they were, and they didn’t like that. I was able to hold someone’s gaze without blinking — or so it would seem. It often caused them a moment’s hesitation when I spoke to them, which gave me a distinct advantage in some situations. Others said it made them nervous, as if I had the look of some kind of animal who was poised to strike. All I knew was that I came by it naturally and chose not to give it too much thought.
Being February, it was still a bit chilly outside, so I put on a lightweight North Face polar fleece jacket. I didn’t like to be cold. I much preferred heat to the cold, and I’d spent enough time in each to know the difference. In Ranger training in the mountains of North Georgia, it got down to below freezing at night. The cadre took pity on us — if you could call it that, because those guys don’t pity anyone or anything — and allowed each of us one piece of ‘snivel gear’ to wear. It could be a hat, gloves, a light jacket, or whatever we chose, but just one piece. The cold actually killed a couple of guys a few years earlier, so the cadre decided to let us pukes wear one thing to help keep us a bit warmer. Lord knows they wouldn’t want to spoil us. Ranger training was intense and was generally known as a suck fest. It was a challenge, to be sure. But if you are going to be an elite warrior, challenges like getting through the Ranger course, hone your skills. So when asked who wanted to go, my hand was the first one up.
I had one other citation I earned a while back. It too was something I could wear on my uniform, which required everyone to salute me. It’s the reason I was no longer in Special Forces. Unlike earning what’s called the Triple Canopy — so named for the Green Beret, Ranger, and Airborne tabs I wore on my left shoulder, one on top of the other — I hadn’t set out to earn this one. But shit happens. It cost me on the inside and contributed to why I don’t sleep well anymore and like to drink beer every chance I get. I generally don’t like to think about it too much, and I don’t talk about it at all. That’s okay too, because how I earned it was classified and not to be repeated. That was fine with me. It wasn’t something I liked talking about anyway. Those things never are.