Joe Ledger: Unstoppable

GANBATTE BY KEITH R. A. DeCANDIDO

The wind whipped through Lydia Ruiz’s hair as she drove her cherry-red Mercedes-Benz SL550 convertible down US Route 1, the Overseas Highway, through the Florida Keys.

When she booked her trip home with the travel office at the Department of Military Sciences, the woman there was confused as to why she was booking a flight to Miami International Airport rather than Key West International Airport.

“My car’s in long-term parking at MIA,” was the only answer she gave.

But that wasn’t the real reason.

You didn’t just fly into Key West. It was too abrupt a transition, to go from the real world to paradise.

No, it was better to fly into Miami, get into a car, and take the three hours to drive south on US 1. Made it way easier to assimilate.

And right now, Lydia needed paradise. The real world had gotten too unreal since joining the DMS.

As she took the bridge from Long Key to Marathon, she glanced down at the digital display. It was 5:30 PM on a Tuesday, so the dojo was open and Yona Congrejo would be teaching the five o’clock kids class.

When she reached 89th Street, she made a U-turn and pulled into the small shopping center on the northbound side of the Overseas Highway.

But Kaicho Bill’s wasn’t there. Instead, there was a clothing store.

She pulled into a parking space and leaped out of the Mercedes without opening the door.

For about ten seconds, she just stared at the clothing store and thought back to the first time she came to this shopping center.

You look up at the sign that says KAICHO BILL’S MARATHON KARATE, then you look at Yona. “What the fuck am I supposed to be doing here?”

“Watch your mouth, chica.”

Then you smile. “Don’t call me chica, bitch.”

Yona throws up her hands. “Fine, you don’t want to do this, I’ll go tell the Key West cops who left José Alvarez bleeding on Southard last weekend.”

“Motherfucker had it comin’!”

“Funny thing about felony assault — there is no proviso in it for whether or not the person being assaulted had it coming.”

“Well, there fuckin’ should be.”

Yona grabs you by the shoulders. “Look, Lydia, you’ve got two choices — karate or jail. Doesn’t matter to me which it is.”

“If it don’t matter, then why we here?”

“Because I give a fuck.”

You grin, then. “Watch your mouth, chica.”

And Yona grins right back. “Don’t call me chica, bitch. Now you gonna take the trial class?”

“I guess. But do I gotta wear the pajamas?”

“It’s a gi, not pajamas.”

Yona brings you inside. There’s a waiting area up front, and a tiny, wizened Asian guy standing in the middle of the wooden floor just past the waiting area. Eight kids wearing different-colored belts are facing him, performing moves while the Asian guy yells out instructions.

“That’s Kaicho,” Yona tells you.

Kaicho Bill Nakahara sees you and Yona walk in and he says, “Stop!”

He doesn’t say it very loudly, but something in his tone makes you completely freeze.

“Turn,” Kaicho says, indicating Yona with his left hand, “and face Senpai Yona. Bow, osu!”

All eight kids make fists and bend their elbows so those fists are in front of their chests, and they all bow toward Yona and cry out, “Osu!”

The thing that really strikes you is how Kaicho moves. He’s like a coil about to spring. It’s the coolest thing you ever have seen, and right there you decide you need to learn how to be a badass like this guy.

Lydia pulled out her cell phone and immediately called Yona’s cell.

“Holy shit, Lydia, is that you?”

“Watch your mouth, chica,” Lydia said automatically.

“Don’t call me chica, bitch. Where are you?”

“Well, I thought I was at the dojo. What the hell happened?”

“Didn’t you hear?” Yona’s voice caught. “Lydia — Kaicho died last year.”

“What!? How?”

“Heart attack, they said.”

“So the dojo just closed?”

“Yeah.” Yona let out a long breath. “Did you know Kaicho had three kids?”

“Uh, no.”

“Neither did anyone else. I only found out ’cause some lawyer was supervising the people taking all the equipment out to put it up on eBay or something before they broke the lease. Turns out he has a kid in Seattle, a kid in San Francisco, and a kid in D.C., and none of them give a damn about the martial arts, so the dojo’s dead.”

“Carajo. So now what?”

“Now nothing. I joined up with one of Grandmaster Ken’s dojos here in Miami.”

“Hold up.” Lydia shook her head. “You’re in fuckin’ Miami? You swore to me you’d die before you lived there.”

“Well, that’s why I shouldn’t swear. My job moved up here.”

“You ain’t workin’ for Martinez no more?”

“The congresswoman lost her seat in a hotly contested election and is now back in the private sector, so I went to work for Congressman Nieto here in Miami. And I kinda need to get back to work, I was just out for a smoke break.”

“Since when do you smoke?”

“Since I started working for a lunatic. Look, how long you back home for?”

“Just a few days. We just finished an assignment that — well, it was kind of…” Lydia’s voice trailed off.

“Crazy?”

“Nah, chica, it needed to get a helluva lot calmer before it was as good as crazy. I got a few days to decompress, figured we could get together and hoist a tequila or six — maybe I come by the dojo and get in a workout.”

“Well, I’m still game for the tequilas. Look, tonight’s no good, but what about tomorrow at the Schooner Wharf? I’ll leave the office at five, should be there by nine or ten, depending on traffic?”

Grinning, Lydia jumped back into her Mercedes. “You are on.”

She pulled out of the driveway and turned right onto US 1 until she could make a U-turn, then headed back down toward the Keys.

The Seven Mile Bridge stretched out before her as she left Marathon, and as she always did, she found herself lost in the expanse of blue water on both sides of her.

There were no vampires (vampires!), no terrorists, no jihadists, no nuclear bombs, none of what had become the new normal since she joined the DMS.

No, there was just the bridge, the water, and the memories.

You struggle to thrust yourself upward into a push-up position, and each one is agony, your arms simply not up to the task of raising your weight off the floor.

Expecting Kaicho to yell at you or scream at you or call you a failure, you hear him say in a gentle but firm voice, “Keep trying. Keep pushing.”

And you do.

That first class has a total of thirty push-ups in sets of ten at various points in the one-hour class. You successfully do maybe eight.

You feel like a total fuckup. It’s a class for beginners, but the other three adults in the class all seem to at least have an idea what they’re doing. You look like a klutzy fool.

At the end of the class, after you all bow out and clean the floor as a courtesy to the next class, you expect Kaicho to tell you how badly you screwed up this trial class he let you do as a favor to Yona. You expect him to tell you to not bother showing up for the next class.

Instead he says, “Osu, Lydia, are you familiar with the Japanese word ganbatte?”

You barely remember to start your sentence with “Osu, Kaicho,” before continuing: “Only Japanese I know is what you said tonight in class.”

He smiles. “It is what we traditionally say before a student is about to engage in a difficult undertaking.”

“So it means ‘good luck’?”

“In fact, it does not. It means ‘try your best.’ That is all I ask of my students, Lydia, is that they give the maximum effort. It matters less if you succeed. It matters more that you make every effort to succeed, because without the effort, the success will never come.” He bows his head. “Osu, Lydia, you did well. I hope we will see you again on Thursday.”

Yona drives you home to Stock Island, and you think about what Kaicho said, which encourages you, since you sucked pretty hard in that first class.

But you’ll get better.

Yona finally made it to the Schooner Wharf Bar in the Old Town section of Key West at almost 10:30.

“Sorry,” she said breathlessly as she joined Lydia at a table near the bar that also had a good view of the stage, where a band was playing country music. Off the beaten path of the main drag of Duval Street, the Schooner Wharf was right on the water and tended to be calmer than the other bars on the island. That was what had drawn Lydia here in the first place years ago. People went to the bars on Duval to get drunk. People came to the Schooner Wharf to drink.

Lydia had already ordered Yona’s favorite so it was waiting for her when she arrived. For her part, the first thing Lydia noticed was that Yona pretty well reeked of cigarette smoke.

Holding up her strawberry margarita, Yona said, “It’s really good to see you, Lydia.”

“Likewise.” Lydia held up her neat tequila. “To Kaicho.”

“To Kaicho. Osu!”

“Osu!”

They clinked glasses.

After licking a bit of the salt on the rim and sipping her margarita, Yona put the big glass down and pulled out a cigarette.

“So talk to me, chica,” Lydia said while Yona lit up. “I Googled this Grandmaster Ken pendejo. Didn’t think he’d be your kinda teacher.”

“He’s kind of intense.” Yona looked away and stared at her margarita. Puffing on the cigarette, she grabbed the drink. “Four of us went over to his dojo after Kaicho died. I’m up to yellow belt now, so that’s good.”

“Wait, you had to start over?”

Yona nodded, after licking another bit of salt and gulping down more of her drink. “It’s no big deal, that’s what usually happens when you switch dojos.”

Lydia nodded. “So all four of you had to go back to white belt?”

“Me and Ana did. Senpai—Sorry, Master Phil and Master Cliff both got to keep their black belts, though they did have to go through a full black belt promotion.”

Eyes widening, Lydia said, “What the fuck? You and Ana were the best students in that dojo!”

“Phil and Cliff have been at it longer, and Grandmaster Ken’s dojo is more physical, more emphasis on fighting. That was never my strong suit.” For the first time, Yona actually smiled, though she still wouldn’t look directly at Lydia. “It was more yours.”

Lydia snorted.

“So enough about me,” Yona said, even though Lydia had about fifty more questions about Grandmaster Ken, “what are you up to?”

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. And I wish I was kidding. Seriously, the shit I’m into is so classified, I’m not even allowed to know about it, and I’m in the thick of it.”

“Okay.” Yona still wouldn’t look Lydia in the eye, but instead gulped more of her margarita, having already licked off all the salt. “It’s like your SEAL days all over again.”

“Hey, I owe you for that, chica. My life was one big assault-and-battery charge waiting to happen.” Lydia then grinned. “Now I get to beat people up legally.”

“Honestly, I heard some stuff in the office about the DMS. No details, but the congressman talks about you guys like you’re superheroes or something.”

“Yeah, they totally based the Black Widow on my ass,” Lydia said with a laugh. “You said this guy’s a crazy man?”

“Ah, not really. I mean, he’s not as awesome as the congresswoman was. Honestly, Betty Martinez is the one you owe, not me. I just made the introductions.”

“Bullshit. Look, chica, you don’t step in, I’m doin’ time in Dade. You put me in the dojo, and that put my ass on the straight and narrow.”

Making a show of looking at the bar stool, Yona said, “Your ass is anything but narrow.”

Lydia crumpled up a napkin and tossed it at Yona. They both laughed, but something was wrong with Yona’s tone. She was barely even chuckling.

And she still had yet to look Lydia in the eyes. She was also on her third cigarette since walking into the Schooner Wharf.

“What the hell’s going on, Yona? What’s wrong?” She put a hand on Yona’s.

She yanked the hand out from under Lydia’s. “Nothing’s wrong! Look, you haven’t been here. You’ve been off with the SEALs and DMS, you got no idea what it’s been like.”

“Then tell me!” In Spanish, she added, “Get your head out of your ass and talk to me!”

“What?” Yona asked, frowning.

Lydia shook her head. “What, you forgot Spanish in the last six years, too?”

“I only used it with you.”

“You work for a congressman in a state that’s got a huge-ass Latino population.”

“He needs to speak Spanish, I don’t.” Now Yona was staring at the stage.

Fed up, Lydia grabbed Yona’s jaw and turned her head toward her. “Look at me, for fuck’s sake!”

But Yona just flinched, and Lydia realized that she was in pain. “What’s wrong?”

“Sore jaw is all. From sparring. Look, everything’s fine, okay? I’m working my way back to black belt, I’ve got a good job. Everything’s fine. Really! Okay? So let’s cut the maudlin shit and get on to the serious drinking!”

To accentuate the point, she gulped down the rest of her margarita.

One of the perky young female servers that Key West bars seemed to have an endless supply of went by, and Yona flagged her down. “Refill, please?”

“I’m good,” Lydia said when the server flashed her a look. She still had half her tequila left.

By the time a year has gone by, the day you most look forward to driving up to Marathon is on Friday, because that’s the day you do kumite. The sparring class is your favorite, because you don’t have to get the details right. Doesn’t matter if your chamber hand is in the right spot, doesn’t matter if your fist touches your ear the right way before you do a down block, doesn’t matter how you cross your hands at your ear before an inner temple strike, all you have to do is punch and kick the person you’re facing while keeping them from punching and kicking you.

By the time you reach yellow belt, Kaicho is talking about sending you to kumite tournaments.

But Yona — or, rather, Senpai Yona, you have to remember to call her that at least when you’re in the dojo, never mind that she changed your fucking diapers — has something else in mind. She brings it up after you pound the living hell out of Senpai Albert one Friday night. Like Yona, Albert’s a Seminole, but he’s also built like a brick shithouse. He’s another one who gets sent to kumite tournaments.

You get a side kick to his ribs, a front snap kick to his groin (thank Christ he was wearing a cup), and a solid uppercut to his solar plexus that causes him to collapse to his knees, trying and failing to catch his breath.

Kaicho stops the fight after the groin kick with a lecture on how all techniques are to be above the belt. You don’t tell him that Albert’s got a foot on you and it’s really difficult to kick that high, but instead just are determined to make your kicks better.

After class, Kaicho addresses the students, all drenched in sweat after twenty rounds of sparring. “What is of most import,” he says in his quiet yet impossible-to-ignore voice, “is respect. Remember, this is not a street fight. The purpose of kumite is not to learn how to fight on the street. The purpose is to enrich our spirit through honorable combat. In the dojo, we are friends — we are family. We wear safety gear because the object is not to hurt each other.” Then a wry smile and a look at Senpai Albert. “At least not much.”

Everyone chuckles, Albert more than anyone.

The smile drops. “But if you are in a position where you must fight someone outside the dojo, then your first recourse should be to get away. Because if you are forced to fight, then you have already lost.”

“So Albert just talked to me,” Yona tells you in the parking lot after class. “He says he told Kaicho to make sure he pairs up with you at least three times per class.”

“Really? He that hot to get his ass kicked again?”

“He’s that hot to make you a better fighter. You got lucky tonight, but that won’t necessarily happen again — mostly because now he knows not to assume that you’re just some little yellow belt girl who’s just learning how to fight.”

“Yeah, right.” You just think he wants revenge next time. Whatever.

“Listen, what are you doing Monday morning?”

“Sleeping off my late shift at the bar Sunday night, why?”

“I want you to come up to Congresswoman Martinez’s office on Simonton.”

“Uh, okay. Why I wanna talk to some politician for?”

Yona smiles. “Just come to the meeting. Don’t you trust me?”

You have to admit to trusting Yona. In fact, even after a year at the dojo, Yona’s probably the only person you really trust.

Yona was in no shape to drive back to Miami — or anywhere else, for that matter — so they left her car parked on the street near the Schooner Wharf. Lydia double-checked to make sure it wasn’t a residents-only spot — they were everywhere, and not always clearly labeled — and after determining that it was safe to stay parked there, she stumbled back to the bed-and-breakfast she was staying in.

As she poured Yona into one side of the king-size bed, she muttered, “Tha’s s’m good t’quila.”

“Go the fuck to sleep, Yona.”

“Watcher mouth, chica.”

“Don’t call me chica, bitch.”

Yona was snoring a moment later.

Lydia, though, was still kind of wired. She opened her laptop and did some more research on Kenneth Coffey, aka Grandmaster Ken.

The martial arts sites were all pretty much hagiographies of the man.

A few news sources, though, and especially a couple of blogs, had some accusations, though no charges had ever been pressed.

Then she looked at the schedule for his Miami dojo. Tomorrow night was his adult color belt class, which Yona was probably going to be attending. The day after was listed as an “open sparring class.” Clicking on that part of the schedule led to a page that claimed that anyone from any discipline was welcome to join in, as long as they brought their uniform and belt.

Looked like a trip to the storage unit was in order to retrieve her gi and yellow belt.

The next morning, she woke up around eight — which was luxury for her, since she rarely got up later than sunup since she started her SEAL training — but Yona was already gone.

Checking her phone, Lydia found a text from Yona time-stamped at a little after 5:00 AM: Thanks for the crash space. Gotta haul ass to Miami. Really good to see you again. Love you, chica.

Lydia stared at the phone. “I love you, too, bitch.”

“Ms. Ruiz, my aide speaks very highly of you.”

You’re in the Key West office of Congresswoman Bettina “Betty” Martinez, the person who represents the 26th District in Florida, which covers most of south Florida, including all of the Keys. Yona’s off on the side, leaning on the wall, while Martinez is at her desk, looking all prim and proper, like someone’s aunt.

You sit in the leather desk chair, wondering what the fuck you’re doing here.

“Well, ma’am, she’s about the only one who does.”

“Nonsense.” She opens up a folder, and you catch a glimpse of your high school yearbook picture. “Straight A’s all the way through to high school, and a 4.0 for all your classes during the one semester you were at FKCC. Why’d you drop out?”

“I’m gonna go back,” you say defensively, just like you say it every time to Yona, who stopped believing you would ever return to Florida Keys Community College about a year ago. “Look, even community colleges want you to actually pay the tuition. And I got this eating habit I can’t kick, so that’s what all my disposable income from working at three different bars is going to.”

“I also have an email from William Nakahara, who runs one of the most respected martial arts schools in south Florida. He says you have the potential to be his finest student.” She smiles. “I’ve known Kaicho Bill for thirty years, Ms. Ruiz. I’ve heard him speak that highly about maybe six students over those years. Seven, now.”

You blink in amazement at this out-of-left-field praise. Every time you step into the dojo, you expect to be unmasked as a fraud.

“I’m spearheading a new program for the navy, Ms. Ruiz. I’m trying to convince the secretary to approve an all-female SEAL fire team. I’m trying to find the best of the best from police forces and in the military, but I’m also looking for special people in martial arts schools. You have exactly what I’m looking for to fill out the team.”

“Uhm—” You squirm in the guest chair, the leather making strange noises in response. “Ma’am, with all due respect, there’s much better fighters just in our dojo.”

“I’m not looking for better fighters, Ms. Ruiz, I’m looking for smarter fighters. From what my aide tells me, and from what these transcripts tell me, and from what Kaicho tells me, that’s you.”

Lydia sat in one of the folding chairs set up near the front desk at Grandmaster Ken’s Martial Arts School of Miami, one of seventeen branches he had all up and down Florida from as far north as Tallahassee all the way down to a tiny one in Florida City. But the Miami one was his main headquarters — if he hadn’t completely eschewed Japanese terminology, it would be called the honbu—so this was where he taught. The adult color belt class had thirty students. Grandmaster Ken — a burly, broad-shouldered white guy with a shaved head and a goatee — led the class, with three black belts wandering throughout to check on individual students.

Kaicho Bill’s dojo had had lots of Japanese decor. There was the shinzen, the spiritual center, which was a tiny reproduction of a Buddhist altar. There were three flags on the wall, one American, one Japanese, and one Florida state flag. Japanese art decorated the entire place, and there was a wooden placard over the entrance to the dojo floor that had the words nanakorobi yaoki in kanji characters — it was a common saying among martial artists: “seven times fall down, eight times get up.”

Grandmaster Ken had none of that. The only flag he had was the Stars and Stripes, and the only decor was a big shelf full of trophies. The grandmaster himself wore a black gi while all the other students wore white ones.

The students were all in a fighting stance. “I want to see left jab, left jab, right cross, right roundhouse kick, left back kick. I want the back kick to be groin height. Go!”

Together, all the students did those techniques, with varying degrees of quality.

“Stay together! Go!”

Lydia noted that the higher belts — purple, blue, and black — were moving in perfect unison. The lower belts, not so much.

Grandmaster Ken went to several of the students to yell at them for not keeping up. But he seemed to be yelling only at the women. She saw two yellow belt men whose form was awful — they had strength and speed, but they got the sequence wrong several times.

At no point did Grandmaster Ken say a word to either of those two, but the one time that Yona was a second late with the roundhouse kick or another woman with an orange belt kicked too high or too low on the back kick, or a third threw only one jab, he was all over her.

After the fighting drill, he called out techniques and pointed at a student to perform that technique.

To a male purple belt: “Right side-high kick. No, that’s a regular side kick, side-high is to the side, and don’t bend your knee.”

To a female blue belt: “Hook block. Wrong! That’s a forearm block! Ten push-ups!”

After class, a sweaty Yona went straight to the changing room. Lydia noticed that they didn’t clean the floor for the next class.

Yona immediately went outside, with Lydia following, and lit up a cigarette. “Good workout,” she said weakly.

“That was some bullshit. For the whole year I was in Kaicho’s dojo, you know what word I never heard? ‘Wrong.’ Carajo, even my instructors at SQT weren’t this hard-assed! This asshole is always telling people what they do wrong. Kaicho tells people how to do it right.”

“Yeah, well, that was Kaicho. This is Grandmaster Ke—”

One of the black belts who’d been helping teach came out, still in his gi. “Hey, Yona. Grandmaster wants you to pick up his kid tomorrow at three.”

“No problem, Master Ethan.” Yona wouldn’t make eye contact with this guy, either.

“Good. And we’re still on for drinks after fighting tomorrow night, right?”

Before Yona could agree, Lydia stepped forward. “Actually, we got plans tomorrow night.”

Ethan looked down on her as if she were a fly that had gotten into his soup. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Senpai Yona’s friend in from out of town.”

Waving a hand in front of Lydia’s face, Ethan said, “Don’t give me that senpai crap, you’re in America. And she ain’t no senpai or master or nothin’. And if she wants to be one, she’ll go out with me tomorrow night like she said. Grandmaster Ken doesn’t like people who go back on their promises.”

Lydia looked at Yona, who was cowering near the wall of the dojo, taking a drag on her cigarette, and trying very hard to shrink herself into a ball.

Then Lydia turned back to Ethan. “She didn’t know I was coming into town — it was a surprise. And tell you what. I’m a yellow belt in karate”—she avoided saying what discipline—“and I’m a decent fighter. I was thinking about coming to the open fighting tomorrow night.”

“It’s for real fighters, little girl, not decent ones.”

“So you’re scared to bet me?”

Ethan rolled his eyes. “Yeah, ’cause I’m twelve.”

“You ain’t that old. What I’m sayin’ is, you get one solid punch or kick on me tomorrow night, then you can have drinks with Yona. If you don’t, I take her out and we toast what a pendejo you are.”

At the epithet, Ethan started to move toward her, arms raised, fists clenched.

Then Yona stepped forward. “It’s okay, Master Ethan, it’s fine, my friend’s just a little jet-lagged from her trip.”

Ethan backed off, and then stared right at Yona. “I’ll see you tomorrow night, right after I kick your ass,” he added with a look right at Lydia.

He walked back into the dojo, and Lydia immediately turned on Yona. “Why’d you stop him?”

At the same time, Yona cried out, “What the fuck were you doing?”

“He was being an asshole, Yona. They’re all assholes, far as I can tell. And I’m gonna enjoy kicking his ass fifty ways from Sunday tomorrow night.”

For the first time since she arrived in Florida, Yona looked right at Lydia. Her eyes were wild, and intense, and scared. “Please, Lydia, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t come tomorrow night!” Yona grabbed Lydia’s arms at the shoulder in a grip that was not nearly as firm as Lydia would have expected it to be. “Just — just go back to D.C. and forget about this, all right?”

Shaking her head, Lydia asked, “What did they do to you, chica?”

Yona looked away again. “Nothing. Look, just go.”

“I don’t get it. You were my mentor, chica. The dojo, the SEALs, DMS — I don’t do none of that without you. Shit, the first all-female fire team is ’cause of you. I know it was Martinez who took all the credit, but that was your project.”

“And where the fuck did it get me?” Yona turned angrily back at Lydia. “Martinez lost to some Republican asshole, she went back to her law firm, and I was unemployed. Your little SEAL team fell right off the damn radar after Betty left office. Dorian got her leg blown off, you and Luci both quit, Helene transferred, and Dayana got promoted. And the SEALs don’t do publicity unless they’re killing bin Laden, so nobody really gave much of a shit anyhow. And then Kaicho died, and I couldn’t even call you to tell you, and…”

Yona trailed off, the tears welling up in her eyes, and then she broke, her taller form collapsing against Lydia’s chest. Lydia held her up, wrapping her arms around her, feeling Yona’s body convulse with sobs.

“It’s okay,” Lydia whispered, letting her cry it out and hoping that, once the sobs subsided, she’d finally explain what the hell was happening.

When Yona stood upright, her cheeks were red and streaked with tears, her eyes puffy. “You don’t know, Lydia, you just—”

“Then tell me.”

“Not here. C’mon.”

Lydia got into her Mercedes and followed Yona’s Chevy Malibu to a bar a mile away.

Once they were seated in a corner table, tequilas in front of them, Yona finally spoke.

“I tried to fight back, y’know? Tried to get Ken to — to treat me and Ana the same as he treated Cliff and Phil. He — he kept saying they were tougher competitors, and he needed to see fire in our bellies. Not discipline, not self-improvement, but fucking fire. We tried, we really did, we did everything he said, but it just — it never got any better. And then — and then there was the Christmas party.” Yona lit up a cigarette. “We — we were all drinking. A lot. I–I went to the bathroom, and Ethan…” She took a long drag on the cigarette.

Lydia prompted: “He followed you in?”

She nodded, looking grateful that she didn’t have to actually say those words. “He — he told me that if I knew what was — what was good for me, I would stop giving Ken such a — such a hard time. And then — then he yanked up my skirt, and—”

Again, she broke. Sobs racked her again, and Lydia got up and sat next to her at the table instead of across, wrapping her arms around her mentor. “It’s okay.”

She wiped tears from her cheek with her palm-heel. “No, no, it’s not, it’s not okay, I couldn’t tell anyone what happened, Ethan is Ken’s total right hand, and they worship him! He gets you trophies, he makes you stronger, he’s a winner.”

“If you’re a guy.”

“Yeah.” She dragged on her cigarette, and that seemed to stop the sobs. “That — that wasn’t the — the end of it. After the party, Ken asked me and the other women to — to help clean up. Except he didn’t want help, he wanted us to do it all while the guys stood around and — and drank more. And then Ken — he pulled — he — God, he pulled down his fucking pants! Said if we did a good job, he’d let us blow him.”

“‘Let’ you?” Lydia stood up. “C’mon. We’re going back to that dojo so I can kill him.”

“Lydia—”

“C’mon. I’m a federal agent now, I can kill the cabrón and just make up a reason.”

“Lydia, stop! Sit down, please!”

Reluctantly, Lydia did so, grabbing her tequila and slamming two-thirds of it with one gulp.

“Please don’t do anything crazy. You — you don’t understand the following Ken has.”

Recalling her dive-bombing around the World Wide Web for stuff on the so-called grandmaster, Lydia said, “Yeah, I do. I just don’t give a shit.”

“Well, I have to. Fine, you go beat him up or shoot him or whatever. Then what? Even if you get your military buddies to cover it up, I’m still stuck here. Ethan and the other black belts will come after me.”

“Then fight them.”

“I can’t. Not all of them.”

Lydia stared at the woman who had been the source of her strength for her entire tumultuous adolescence. “Fuck, Yona, you — This can’t be fucking happening! When Mami died and Papi disappeared, you were there. You got me into the dojo, you got me out of trouble, you got me in the damn SEALs! You can’t be broken like this, you just—”

Yona put a hand on Lydia’s and looked into her eyes again. “Just go back to your life, okay?”

“And just leave you behind? Fuck that shit, chica. Kaicho may have been the teacher at the dojo, but you? You were my real sensei. At the very least, I want a piece of those assholes tomorrow night.”

“No, don’t, you’ll only make it worse. Remember what Kaicho always said? Once you get into a fight, you’ve already lost. Well, I tried fighting, and I lost.”

“Bullshit. There’s a way to win. Put his ass away.”

“And how do I do that?”

“How the fuck do you think? Fill out a police report. Then get your boss to go on TV and tell the nation how one of his staffers was molested by two black belts.”

“I–I can’t. They’ll crucify me, tell everyone that I was mad because I didn’t get a black belt and made up the accusation. They’ve done this before, Lydia.”

“So what? If nobody says anything, he’ll keep doing it.”

“He’ll keep doing it anyhow.” Yona looked away. “Just leave it alone, okay?”

“I can’t. Because you didn’t leave me alone when I beat the shit out of José Alvarez. You gave me another chance. Now it’s my turn for you. Tomorrow night, when he’s busy running the fighting class? Go to MPD HQ and fill out a complaint.”

Yona was shaking her head. “I can’t fight him.”

“Alone, no. But you’ve got a congressman for a boss, you’ve got me, and you’ve got the Miami Police Department, if you actually give them something to work with. Maybe it won’t work, but if you don’t make the effort, you won’t get the success.”

For several seconds, Yona just stared at Lydia.

Altogether, there are twenty-seven women in Martinez’s pilot program. The congresswoman is a realist: she knows that between 80 and 90 percent of the people who sign up for the grueling one-and-a-half-year SEAL training wash out. That’s why she’s only angling for a single fire team, which is usually four or five sailors. Eight fire teams in a squad, four squads in a troop, three troops in a team. She thinks this is realistic.

You think it’s nuts, and you don’t think you’ve got a chance.

But you also remember what Kaicho Bill said that first day at the dojo in Marathon: Without the effort, the success will never come.

So you make the effort.

A year and a half later, you’ve passed SQT, along with four others: Helene Lagdamen, Dorian Michaeli, Dayana Copeland, and Luci Ousmanova. The congresswoman has her fire team.

Grandmaster Ken had looked dubiously upon Lydia when she arrived at the dojo and gone straight to the changing room. Upon seeing the symbol of Kaicho Bill’s dojo on her gi, he was even more dismissive. “This is a fight class, not a ballet class like what that old man taught.”

“You know what else he taught? Respect.”

“Respect is earned, little girl.”

“Call me ‘little girl’ again, and I guarantee you won’t earn mine.”

There were an even number of students, so Ken didn’t participate in the fighting, though he did put on protective gear anyhow.

At first, he paired her up with low-level fighters, white belts and lower belts who were new to sparring. They were all long on enthusiasm and short on technique, and Lydia worked with them, encouraged them to throw combinations and keep their hands up.

By the halfway point, one of the purple belts was limping and needed to stop fighting. At that point, Master Ken started joining the fights.

She overheard several people talking about what a strong, smart fighter this Lydia woman was.

So finally, Ken teamed her with Ethan.

“Your turn to go the fuck down, cunt.”

Lydia somehow managed not to laugh in his face.

She spent most of three minutes of fighting on the defensive. Ethan was fast and strong, but had no discipline, and telegraphed every move. Lydia saw every long punch, every awkwardly set-up kick, and every unimaginative combination coming a mile off.

Ethan grew more and more frustrated, because his techniques got sloppier. He also tried shin kicks and knee kicks and groin kicks, as well as punches to her head.

Nothing landed.

Ten seconds before the buzzer would signal the end of the round, Lydia finally went on the offensive.

Two seconds before the buzzer went off, Ethan was on the floor clutching his belly and trying very hard to breathe.

Ken went to check Ethan out, but after a quick glance, he bore down on Lydia. “Lucky shot.”

“He was lucky he didn’t try to duck. I was going for his solar plexus, and if he ducked, my kick would’ve cracked a rib.”

Snorting derisively, Ken said, “You’re fighting me next.”

Lydia just smiled.

Ken was a much better fighter than Ethan. His punches were shorter and sharper, his kicks faster, his combinations more imaginative. Lydia struggled to keep pace, popping a few jabs and moving around quickly.

Then she went on the offensive.

First was the right hook punch toward his head, which he easily blocked, then she followed with a left uppercut to his solar plexus and a joint kick to his right shin.

Grandmaster Ken fell to the floor, sweat pouring from his face, teeth gritted in an obvious attempt to not scream in pain.

“She cheated!”

“How’d she do that?”

“That wasn’t a fair fight, she must’ve done something.”

“Stupid twat!”

Lydia turned to the men gathering around Ken with concern and said, “That’s Chief Petty Officer Twat to you. It’s the rank the navy gave me when I joined the SEALs.”

“Fuck you, bitch, you ain’t no SEAL.”

Several of the fighters then started to move toward her.

She caught her breath, trying very hard to psych herself up. The fight with Ken was brutal, and even though these guys individually were no match for her, if they all ganged up on her, particularly as tired as she was…

But then the door to the dojo opened and six police officers walked in.

“Everybody hold still, don’t move!” one shouted, holding up a piece of paper. “I’ve got a warrant for the arrest of Kenneth Coffey and Ethan Shaw.”

When you pass SQT, there are four congratulatory emails waiting for you. One is from your former bunkmate, Taylor Benson, who washed out of SEAL training. One is from Kaicho Bill. One is from the congresswoman.

But the one that matters is the one from Yona. It just reads, I always knew you could do it, chica.

Yona came into the Schooner Wharf, where Lydia was waiting with a tequila and a strawberry margarita. To Lydia’s relief, Yona did not reek of cigarette smoke, though she did light up when she sat at the bar.

“How you doing, chica?” Lydia asked.

“I had to change my cell number and get a new email address because of all the death threats. I can’t even look at the Internet right now. Congressman Nieto has hired security for me.”

“I saw his press conference.” Lydia smiled. “Told you that would work.”

“It’s a nightmare. It’s a fucking nightmare.” She licked the salt and then gulped down a quarter of her margarita. “But I feel better than I’ve felt since Kaicho died. It’s gonna suck, but it sucked before and nothing was getting done. Now, at least, people know just what kind of man Ken is. And maybe more women will come forward.”

“I hope so.” Lydia sipped her tequila. “I gotta get back to D.C. I got a call from my boss this afternoon, and they’re sending a private jet to come get me at the airport.”

“Fancy.” Yona dragged on her cigarette, then put it out unfinished. “Thank you, Lydia.”

“Just doing the same thing some fucking crazy lady did for me once upon a time.”

“Watch your language, chica.”

“Don’t call me chica, bitch.” She raised a glass. “To Kaicho.”

“Osu.”

They clinked their glasses and drank.

Keith R. A. DeCandido is a second-degree black belt in karate (he both teaches and trains) and has spent an inordinate amount of time in Key West, so this story comes from the heart. Other tales of his taking place in the Keys include “We Seceded Where Others Failed” in Altered States of the Union, the Mack Bolan, Executioner novel Deep Recon, “Raymond’s Room” in Doctor Who: Missing Pieces, and a series of stories featuring Cassie Zukav, weirdness magnet, in the anthologies Apocalypse 13, Bad-Ass Faeries: It’s Elemental, A Baker’s Dozen of Magic, Out of Tune, Tales from the House Band, vols. 1 and 2, and TV Gods: Summer Programming, the online zines Buzzy Mag and Story of the Month Club, and the collections Ragnarok and Roll: Tales of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet and Without a License: The Fantastic Worlds of Keith R. A. DeCandido. Other recent work includes the Marvel Tales of Asgard trilogy, featuring Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three; Stargate SG-1: Kali’s Wrath; Heroes Reborn: Save the Cheerleader, Destroy the World; A Furnace Sealed; Mermaid Precinct; three novellas in his Super City Cops series; and stories in Aliens: Bug Hunt, Baker Street Irregulars, Limbus Inc. Book III, Nights of the Living Dead, V-Wars: Night Terrors, The X-Files: Trust No One, and others. Find out less at his cheerfully retro website, www.DeCandido.net.

EDITORS’ NOTE: This story is a crossover between the Joe Ledger series and James R. Tuck’s Deacon Chalk: Occult Bounty Hunter series. In the Deacon Chalk series the titular character, Deacon Chalk, hunts monsters of all sorts in the South with the help of his adopted family, a crew of misfits, and monsters themselves.