MacArthur's Freehold

Chapter 12

Chapter 12 -- TNBYIJXUEXROTSIMBVG

They were back at the range the next day, not for shooting but for unarmed combat. Or at least, combat without firearms. Both of the instructors was a former special forces types, and they taught a blend of martial arts and general purpose brawling. Since few if any of the other participants were near them in skill and experience, it was mostly a matter of teaching as much as possible how to survive when forced into a fight, or escape if possible.

Although Carter had had an exposure to hand-to-hand combat as part of his police training and had practiced with some colleagues who were practitioners of various martial arts, he found got a few bumps and bruises despite the efforts of the instructors to take it easy on their students.

There were some exercises involving armed attackers, with dummy knives and handguns or course. A couple of automobiles had been placed on the field to all for exercises it dealing with combat in and around vehicles. He found it interesting that in some the scenarios the students played the part of the aggressor, to the degree that they practiced resisting arrest and even assaulting the 'cops' with knives or guns. Most of it was at close quarters, and he noticed that in exercises in which the objective was to use a knife or small handgun while the target was close enough to touch.

"Your best chance is when you're this close" said Mike, a forty-something man who from his condition might have been an active duty Ranger. Carter later found out that he was only recently retired, and he turned out to be a rather pleasant type given that he had just spent the past couple of hours practicing killing people.

"Remember this" he told them, after one demonstration. "When the time comes, the only important thing is survival. By the time you have to use what we're learning here it will be too late to allow a police uniform to cause you to hesitate, or that is being worn by a woman - guys, that can be hard to overcome. You might by then have accepted that the law is the enemy, but using lethal force against a woman can still cause you to hesitate. Don't."

He grinned.

"I don't expect you ladies to have such inhibitions. But deliberately killing, or ever injuring, another human being is not something any normal person wants to have to do. But in this situation, your survival depends on it. And given the kind of treatment that dissenters have received recently, and I'm talking about completely non-violent protesters - some of them are still in jail. Once they have the cuffs on you, your chances are not good.

"After lunch we'll go through all this again, to help you make it reflexive. Thinking is what you do before the necessity for action arrives."

It appeared that most of them had been to these sessions before, probably several times in some cases. Jessica had told him she came several times a year, and besides the learning experience it allowed the members of the various freeholds to meet and share experiences. Each day she found someone new to introduce him to at lunch or dinner, and by the third day he knew quite a few of them. Among them were a couple of ex-cops, one from Texas and one from Arizona. Both had been sheriff's deputies and so they had different experiences, but he learned that being a lawman in the wide open spaces could be as dangerous as in the big city, particularly in the southwest. He was aware of the drug and weapons traffic, along with the numerous criminal types that came in among the other illegals, but these guys had had to deal with it regularly. Both had eventually quit in disgust at having nothing done to secure the border.

Back at their cabin that evening, Carter took a shower and put on a fresh pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and went out into the common area. Jessica was there in her pajamas, watching television.