As Beth and Doug left the dojo, Jamie said, “I’ll see you both on Tuesday night.”
“We’ll be here,” Doug assured her.
Beth and Doug were the first to arrive for the Tuesday night class. There were over thirty students in the class, and the instructors divided the students into three groups: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
Beth and Doug were highly motivated, and they absorbed the material quickly. Jamie taught the beginner group on their first night, and she was impressed with their progress after only one class.
The next night, Beth came to the women-only class, and Jamie and the other instructors demonstrated a number of real-world scenarios to help the women learn specific techniques for handling dangerous situations.
After the class was over and the students had left, Jamie straightened up the dojo and turned off the lights. It was an unseasonably warm night for the early spring, and the humidity hit her the moment she opened the dojo’s front door. As she was locking the door, she heard shouting coming from the parking lot and a car panic alarm going off.
She looked around and saw Beth backing away from a dark-skinned man who clearly had her terrified. Beth shouted for the man to stay away from her, but the man continued to advance, in spite of the panic alarm. Jamie saw the man wielding something in his hand, but she couldn’t tell what it was. That must be Abdul.
Jamie’s pistol was in her gym bag with her phone, but she didn’t want to take the time to retrieve either one. She dropped the bag and ran toward Beth.
As she got closer, she heard the man say that he was going to kill Beth. Jamie didn’t hesitate. She ran at the man, leaped into the air, and struck with both of her feet in the center of his back. He fell forward, landing hard on the parking lot concrete.
Jamie crouched into a ready stance and shouted to Beth, “Get back, and call 911!”
Beth obeyed, turning off the panic alarm and moving around to the other side of her car, putting it between her and her attacker.
The man sputtered incoherently as he reached for the baseball bat that had fallen from his hand when Jamie kicked him. He stood and turned to see who had attacked him. Shock was evident on his face when he saw Jamie standing in front of him.
“Get out of here, bitch!” he shouted. “This doesn’t concern you.”
“Yes, it does,” Jamie growled, standing her ground.
The man stepped forward menacingly, raising the baseball bat as he approached.
Jamie waited for a moment until he got closer, and then she leaped into a spinning kick. Her foot hit the side of his face hard, and he seemed disoriented as he dropped to one knee. He staggered back to his feet and then lunged at Jamie.
Jamie leaped into another spinning kick, but this time her foot connected with the hand holding the baseball bat. She heard the sound of fingers breaking as the baseball bat flew out of his hand and rolled underneath Beth’s car.
Jamie then unleashed a whirlwind of punches and kicks to every inch of his torso. He tried to fight back, but the more he tried, the more relentless Jamie’s attack became. By the time he was lying immobile on the concrete, he had several broken bones and was bleeding in a dozen places.
“And don’t ever call me ‘bitch’ again,” she snarled.
Beth ran over to Jamie. “Are you all right?”
Jamie nodded. “Is that Abdul?”
“Yes.”
“You’re right. He is charming.”
Beth looked wide-eyed at Jamie, and then she began laughing. They were both laughing when they heard sirens approaching. A moment later, police and EMT vehicles pulled into the parking lot.
“I had a feeling you’d be here,” Sergeant Myerson said to Jamie when he got out of his police car. “Let me guess. He attacked one of your students.”
Jamie smiled at Myerson and nodded. Chris Myerson was a bald, moon-faced veteran police officer who helped head up the department’s community policing programs. She and the sergeant had met two years earlier when she taught combat martial arts to the local police department.
Jamie and Beth told Myerson what happened as the EMTs checked Abdul’s injuries. He had several broken fingers, a broken arm, broken ribs, a broken nose, and a concussion, as well as several cuts and bruises.
“What’s going to happen to him?” Beth asked after Myerson recovered the bat from underneath her car.
“He’s being taken to the hospital right now,” Myerson said as the EMTs put Abdul on a stretcher and loaded him into the back of their vehicle. “Given the extent of his injuries, I imagine he’ll be there for a few weeks. Then he’s going to jail.”
“Good.” Jamie looked pleased. “Anything else you need from us?”
Myerson shook his head. “No, I’ve got what I need. I’m sure you’ll be contacted by detectives and the DA at some point, but for now you’re free to go.”
As Myerson walked to his car, he turned back and said, “You know, Jamie, one of these days someone just might get the better of you. And I don’t want to be the one who has to respond to that call.”
Jamie grinned. “You have a good night, too, Sergeant.”
Myerson shook his head, got into his car, and drove off to follow the EMT vehicle to the hospital.
Jamie turned to Beth. “Are you good?”
“For now,” Beth answered. “But Abdul has friends. I’m worried about what they’ll do when they find out what happened to him.”
Thirty minutes later, Jamie pulled in to her garage, dropped her gym bag on the floor next to the garage door, came into the living room where Hunter was watching TV, and plopped down on the couch. She knew she needed to eat something, but she was too tired to deal with it yet.
“How was your day, dear?” Hunter asked as he paused his show.
“Oh, just another typical day at the office.”
2
Markus Dittrich, a Knight from the Commandery in Prague, grabbed the lapels of his raincoat and held them tightly to keep out the cold rain as he made his way along the banks of the Dnieper River, which ran through the center of Smolensk, a picturesque city in western Russia.
The Order of the Saltire had no Commanderies in Russia, but members of the Intelligence Committee across Europe had a number of contacts in Russia who provided information from time to time. When Markus received an urgent message from the contact that he knew only as Sergei, he wasted no time getting to their usual meeting spot.
The sun had set an hour earlier, making the long walk through the city difficult – a necessary precaution to ensure that he wasn’t being followed. Russian security didn’t like spies, and even though the Order didn’t represent any one nation’s interests, Marcus’ meeting with Sergei could still be considered an act of espionage.
Markus passed several of the city’s landmarks, including the old city walls, the Eagles monument, which commemorated the defeat of Napoleon’s forces, and the excavations of ancient temples that had been discovered years earlier and were still being unearthed and studied.
Markus entered the Lopatinsky Gardens – called the Central Park of Culture and Rest – and walked through the puddles covering the sidewalks leading toward the Cannon Monument. The monument was an antique muzzle-loading cannon on a metal carriage sitting on top of a white stone pedestal and surrounded with a wrought-iron fence. This is where he’d meet Sergei when they needed to make certain that their conversations weren’t overheard. The lamps along the sidewalk reflected in the rain