SECRET RADIO blog

"Good morning!" the young divinity student, the entire left side of his face swollen and bruised, looked up cheerily from the hospital bed. In spite of his obvious effort at light heartedness, he was woozy from painkillers. But he smiled as he surveyed the tall Dr. Rolande. "Are you the latest intern? Going to stop that ringing in my head?"

"I would if I could," Rolande assured him. "I think I would advise no more fistfights, for a start." He sat in a hard backed chair next to the bed. "Do you mind if I chat with you, Mr. Dunn?"

"Stephen, please. Not a bit! I'm going stir crazy!" Dunn exclaimed. He had clear blue eyes and short, curly hair. He looked expectantly at Rolande, apparently thinking the scientist to be some sort of counselor for the hospital.

"I heard you rescued a young woman from a gang of thugs," Rolande said.

"Yes. People say I was brave, but I went into action before the old mind clicked into gear!"

"You didn't plan to resist?"

"No! Just the sight of him---his eyes, I mean. I was glad to stay on the floor like he'd told us to. But when he scooped up this poor woman, got that leather strap 'round her throat, I was on my feet."

"You were afraid of him?" Rolande asked.

"I had been," Dunn told him. "But I mean, he had no need to take her. We were all obeying him. I knew he would abuse her." He paused and suddenly his eyelids fluttered. He regained himself. "What was I saying? Oh, that was all. That's all there was to it."

"The papers say you are an excellent boxer."

"Once upon a time. Still like to do bag work. This fellow nearly put me away a couple of times. He used his feet, and that was worse than his fists. And he even used that strap thing on me." He paused, and then, after a moment, his pause turned into a light doze.

"Stephen?" Rolande asked.

He came back. "Um, and whipped me with it as we fought. Had some type of spur on the end of it. Raked me some decent stripes down this side." He forced himself to lift a hand and gesture at his side, under the covers. "Ripped my ear open." He pointed to his bandaged ear.

"But you didn't go down?" Rolande asked.

The young divinity student paused again, but he seemed to wake up more, and then he said, "No, I didn't. Thought I would a couple times, but I never did. That's this week's sermon: The Lord is my light and my salvation." He nodded, satisfied, and immediately dropped back into his doze.

"Stephen, how did you knock him out?" Rolande asked, raising his voice slightly.

Stephen Dunn stirred. "Oh you're not the deacon board!" he exclaimed. "I don't know how I knocked him out. I kept getting as many licks in as I could. Until at last I realized he was laid out at my feet. It was all quite hazy by then. You see, that's how I'll bring in that the Lord is our light. The light of the world. That's right, isn't it?"

Rolande was far too good-natured of an atheist to be annoyed by Dunn's confusion between his sermon and the fight at the bank. "It's just amazing that you could keep fighting against such odds," he said loudly, to bring the young man back.

Eyes closed, Stephen Dunn smiled and said, "I couldn't see straight. I felt like I was looking down a long tunnel with a bloody haze over it."

He tried to wake himself up. He forced his eyes open and turned his glance to Rolande. "Ever been in a real fight?"

"Oh, I've been in many fights," Rolande said. "I was a judo champion in college--probably before you were born. I've always been pretty keen on any form of pugilism."

"One of the grad students from Duke read about it. He insists these same fellows were in his bar about six months ago. Scared the daylights out of him."

Rolande was surprised. "You and your friends patronize bars?"

"No, no!" Dunn laughed. He struggled to sit up. Rolande stood and helped him. Shifting position seemed to wake him up. "Sorry. No. This fellow is doing grad work in chemistry, not divinity. He's got a black belt in something or other and he works on the side as a bouncer. I think they're called door managers or something like that. Anyway, he's always been pretty fearless, but this gang had him scared speechless."

"Oh?"

Dunn nodded slightly. A new wave of drowsiness suddenly slowed him down again. But he stayed coherent. "They came into the bar and tried to pick fights, but the patrons were terrified of them. That's what he said. Same thing I noted. A deadness in the eyes. A mastery. Not what you'd think. The bartender even had some pretty tough ex-police in there, but everyone backed down. And the bouncers were too terrified to call the police."

Rolande rubbed his chin in thought. "Sounds like these men were honing their skills in the pubs and bars before they started robbing banks."

"Like they could control the room," he said. "Faces of death." But the young man's eyes were closing again in a light doze. He slumped down on the pillows. Rolande took advantage of the moment to take Dunn's pulses and get a look at the injuries he had sustained.

The chart listed broken ribs and minor internal bleeding from the beating. Severe damage to the left knee. The hands were encased in bandages. The left eye had suffered permanent damage, and there was a hairline fracture in the skull. The paper had mentioned the young divinity student's incredible quickness and boxing skill. No doubt his ability to duck and keep moving had saved his nose and jaw from being broken. But he had been punched, kicked, and whipped with a spur. He was in far worse shape than his opponent. And yet Dunn had put the other fellow down. Trying to comprehend the will and the strength that inhabited such a slender and bookish young man, Rolande looked down on Dunn, for once uncomprehending.

Rolande's cell phone beeped. He pulled it out. "What now?"

* * * *

"Now watch this," the young woman said as Carrie followed her across the concrete floor to one of the two heavy bags that had been suspended from the crossbeams above. This heavy bag sagged at the bottom and did not have much swing to it when Anne tapped it to check the distance. With a slight shock, Carrie realized that the bag---instead of being filled with tightly bound wadding or even sand---had been loaded with a single sheet of either concrete or stone. It probably weighed over a hundred pounds, and the corner edges in the canvas showed that there was very little cushion under the cover.

"The human foot, fired off in a straight trajectory from the hip, can strike a hard object with no mishap," Anne told her, setting up in a high, relaxed stance. "The tensile strength of the muscle and bone of the foot can withstand the blow or even break up the target at its impact point, provided that alignment is correct and that the foot strikes solidly on the heel or ball of the foot."

Carrie was about to protest, but the slim foot shot out before she could object. She had time to marvel at the high lift of the foot, all the way up to the curve of the backside in a single motion, and then it shot straight out as though without effort and hit the bag with a practiced whump that was followed by a sound of sand running down the inside of the bag. The covered rectangle collapsed on itself as it cracked across the middle, the top half sliding down inside the bag. Anne came to rest, upright, still relaxed, in her stance.

"You were so relaxed," Carrie said. "It's like you were hardly trying. But you broke it."

"Yes, it's speed, Carrie," Anne told her. "We get so much tensile strength in our muscles and bones, and no more. So with diligent training a fighter can improve muscular power, but it's all lost without speed. I did tense up, but only at the moment of impact. The sudden tensing of all the delivery muscles right in the last instant transfers all the energy into the target. But speed is really the key factor. And to have speed you must stay relaxed. And to stay relaxed you must lose fear. And to lose fear, you must be dead."

"There's somebody I'd like you to meet," Carrie said suddenly. "Would you like to meet a friend of mine? He and I work together. I think he would be interested in your training." And then she added hopefully, "He was a judo champion once. He's always been keen on martial arts."

The young woman's face became quiet and thoughtful. She tapped her chin with one finger. "An appointment," she said. She paused for a very long moment. "I usually don't make appointments. Marking time interferes with being dead."

"Perhaps he could come here," Carrie said. "Without really fixing a time."

"Oh, I don't know about that." Her voice was gentle, but she clearly did not want her domain invaded. "You see, I don't teach many pupils any more. I prefer to train. I might teach a woman if she needed to protect herself. But there is no need for a dead person to converse with anybody about martial arts. For conversation's sake, I mean. Conversation belongs to the living."

"Well, I hope you would make an exception, Miss Thomson," Carrie said. "He would be quite keen to meet you." She glanced around at the bare room. Surely this girl was impoverished. "We would pay you very well for your time."

Anne's face became even more thoughtful. At last she walked over to one wall, where the rolled up sleeping bag, with strips of torn fabric hanging from it, had been hung.

"I need a new sleeping bag," she said. "The conditions of this one are starting to interfere with my training. You could bring me a new sleeping bag." She looked at Carrie. "I think you can get one second hand at the Salvation Army store in Durham for about $25."

Carrie was about to protest with a better offer, but just then one of the gleaming cars from the staff fleet abruptly pulled up and Benton, the lab assistant got out.

"Dr. Drake. I'm afraid it's urgent," he called. "Director sent me."

She knew that signal. She had to go. "Back to the lab? Or shall I follow you?" she called to him. She fished in her purse for her keys.

"Urgent call from the police-the client," he said hurriedly.

Then he looked flustered. A flash of realization crossed the face of Anne Thomson, but her features quickly smoothed out. She said nothing, but surely she knew that Carrie had not come merely to understand martial arts.

But Carrie brazened it out. "I'd like to come back," she said. But a new suspicion nudged at her. That skeletal body--like a dead person still living. Could this gentle young woman belong to a cult that killed people?

But the young martial arts master was once again her deliberate self. Her eyes, expressionless but not threatening, scanned Carrie. "I'm usually here. But---" She hesitated and then made up her mind. "I could probably go with you to meet your friend. I'll allow an appointment if that is your way. Tomorrow at ten. I would like a sleeping bag in return."

"Certainly. Thank you." And Carrie hurried away. She swung open her car door and then stopped as she realized that Anne Thomson had followed her and was standing in front of the car.

Carrie looked up.

"It's amazing that you study the dead and have never considered death," Anne said. "You should. Death is the ultimate destination, the final winner of every fight."