10
Tradecraft
Late afternoon the next day, we switched to hand-to-hand combat. Grapple holds. Mixed martial arts. Knife fighting.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Philippe said. “Don’t pull any punches.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I’m a bit handy.”
“Throw everything at me.”
“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I hit him with the kind of moves that put those four Manchester morons in hospital and some of JPAC’s finest in the morgue. Philippe took me down each time on a crash mat that had seen a mile of judo throws. He made it look easy, too, making me more and more angry with myself. Especially when he fought me with one hand behind his back.
The following day was mission tactics and dummy raids. We practised moving and splatting targets placed around the outside of the cabin with pa
