Posted by Ric delCampo on December 06, 2002 at 22:31:47:
The Action of the Tiger
by Ric delCampo
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
as modest stillness and humility;
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger:
...
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war!
Henry V
Raquel Winters was getting her four year old daughter a drink of water in the day
care’s kitchen when she first heard the commotion.
“Stay here, baby,” she said, and hurried to the door to see what was the matter.
She opened it just a crack and peered into the main room.
Guns!
The first thing she saw were guns! Six armed women had rushed into the daycare
and were brutally rounding up workers, parents and the children. They shouted
obscenities at the terrified hostages and threatened them with their weapons.
Raquel immediately began assessing the situation. Six armed women, she
mentally tagged them Tango One through Tango Six. The leader, Tango One, was a tall,
dark-skinned Arabic woman. Tango Two was a blue-eyed blonde. Tango Three and Four
were shorter Hispanics. Five was Black woman, and Tango Six was a short, slender Arab.
Three of them were armed with semi-automatic pistols, the other three with submachine
guns. All six weapons were equipped with long silencers.
The women were dressed in extremely slutty fashion. Extremely short skirts, low
cut blouses or crop-top T-shirts, and six-inch stiletto high-heel shoes.
The terrorists were shouting mainly in English; but Tango Six was screaming
something to her leader in Arabic. It had been years since Raquel had lived in Kuwait, but
she understood enough.
“Let me kill the Jews,” the young, doe-eyed terrorist was screaming. She appeared
to be only about twenty years old, with smooth, dusky skin, and an innocent baby face.
She had long silky black hair. She wore a black mini-skirt and a white silk blouse,
unbuttoned to below her firm, round breasts. A black, lacy bra was visible beneath the
white silk. She was quite enthusiastic and emphatic in her insistence, “I want to kill the
Jews!”
“Patience!” Tango One responded, also in Arabic. “We need to get them under
control first; then separate the Jews. Then you may kill them. We will kill the others
when our demands have been met.”
Tango One switched to English. “Quiet! Do as we say and no one will be
injured!”
Raquel rushed back to the sink and placed the water cup into the sink. She knelt
down to face her child. “Ashleigh, Baby! We’re going to play grown-up hide-and-seek.
Do you remember the rules?”
“Yes, mommy.”
Raquel opened the cabinet door under the sink and ushered her baby inside.
“Don’t make a sound and don’t open the door until mommy or daddy gives the code
word. Do you remember the code word?”
“Yes, mommy. Curahee.”
“That’s right, baby.” Raquel shut the cabinet, then rushed to the outside door. She
had just flung it open when the door to the kitchen burst open. In ran Tango Three, a short
Hispanic woman armed with a semi-auto pistol. Tango Three had burnt-out brown eyes
like those of an old whore. But her nut-brown skin was smooth and creamy and she had
the high cheek bones of a fashion model. She had long, auburn hair.
She was dressed in a black, crop-top T-shirt which read “SATAN RULES” in
bold red letters stretched tightly across her plump breasts. Her waist was slender.
“Don’ move or I shoot you, beetch!” Tango Three spat out.
Raquel froze in place. She began to weep uncontrollably, and her whole body
shook with fear. “Please! Don’t hurt me,” she pleaded tearfully. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“Come ‘ere!” Tango Three demanded.
Raquel was frozen in place.
“Come here or I shoot you ass!”
Raquel slowly moved toward the terrorist.
It wasn’t fast enough. Tango Six took a few steps toward Raquel. “I said move
you ass!”
Raquel moved like frozen molasses, all the while pleading for her life between
uncontrollable sobs of fear.
Tango Six walked right up to Raquel and shoved the muzzle of the silencer into
Raquel’s back.
“Move you skinny white ass!”
Raquel stepped to the right and back in one blurring movement. The muzzle was
no longer in her back, but extended just beyond her body. The terrorist would have to step
back to shoot her.
But Raquel didn’t give her time. Her left arm hooked underneath the tango’s right
arm and pinned it to her body. At the same instant Raquel stepped back with her right
foot and slammed the point of her right elbow into the terrorist’s temple.
Without a pause, Raquel stepped with her right foot in between the terrorist’s legs,
while back-handing her in the floating ribs with her left fist. Simultaneously, her right
hand, which was pressing down on the pistol, slid across the top of the weapon. She
flicked the slide release and slid the slide right off the top of the weapon. Continuing with
the same forward momentum, she pivoted in place and slammed the slide right into the
right eye of the tango. The tango was already gasping and bending at the waist from the
blow to her lower abdomen and her descending face collided with the slide in Raquel’s
right fist.
Raquel’s right knee was pressing against the tango’s right knee, to block against a
kick. She followed through with her right hand, released the slide, it tumbled to the floor,
and hooked her hand around the tango’s neck. She pivoted back to the right, slammed
her left hand into the tango’s right side again, jerked the terrorist’s head down, just as her
right knee came up to violently slam into the tango’s nose.
Tango Three went down for the count.
Raquel picked up the automatic. It was a cheap knock-off of a Barretta 9mm. It
looked to be poorly maintained and cleaned. She re-assembled it, chambered a round.
Her next action bothered her only a bit. She couldn’t leave the tango behind for
fear she would wake up and cause additional complications. She also had to make sure
the weapon was reliable.
Raquel fired a single round into the back of Tango Three’s head. There was a puff
of red mist and Tango Three stopped breathing.
Raquel hurried back to the sink. There was a butcher’s block set of knives and she
wanted additional weapons.
“Where’s Terry?!” The blonde terrorist had burst into the kitchen. She stared in
utter surprise at the dead tango laying in an ever expanding pool of her own blood.
Tango Two was a tall Aryan-looking woman, dressed in a white T-shirt, knotted
at the waist, and a leather mini-skirt. She was armed with a submachine gun.
Raquel spun around and hurled the largest butcher knife at the tango.
The nine inch blade buried it self in the stunned woman’s chest, right between her
38Ds. It split her sternum, sliced her black heart in two, severed her spine, and pinned the
woman to the wall behind her. Her bright blue eyes stared uncomprehending at the
wooden handle protruding from her blouse. Her bright red blood gushed from her sliced
up heart and trickled down her belly.
Tango Two dropped her weapon. Her fingers had no strength. Her toes trembled,
but she could walk, she couldn’t move. Her arms weakly flapped up and down, as if she
were trying to fly away. “UUU,” she gurgled and red blood trickled from her mouth.
“Stay put, Baby,” Raquel whispered to her child.
She rushed over to retrieve the fallen weapon.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Both the weapon and the silencer worked perfectly as Raquel
punched three rounds into the blonde tango’s trembling body. She hung like a pinned
butterfly, her blood pooling at her feet.
Raquel stepped out into the main room.
Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Raquel tagged Tango Four three taps, allowing the recoil to
slightly lift the barrel with each shot.
Round one punched a hole in Tango Four’s white blouse, then punched a hole in
Tango Four’s chocolate brown skin, and tore out her heart. Round two ripped through her
throat and smashed her spine. Round three smacked her right between her big brown eyes
and snapped her head back. Her black hair went flailing.
Blood gushed from her open mouth.
She dropped into a bloody heap.
“Drop the weapon, or I shoot the kid!”
Tango Five had her arm wrapped around a little girl’s neck and was brutally
pressing the muzzle of her weapon into the child’s temple. Tango Five was a six foot,
athletic, black woman, dressed in a torn white T-shirt, with the phrase “American Slut”
across her pointy tits.
Ignoring the screaming and weeping of the other hostages, Raquel lifted her left
hand high in the air and at the same time released the hand grip of the submachine gun.
She gently lowered the weapon, using one finger through the trigger guard, to the floor
and slid it to the tango.
Tango Five looked down for an instant at the weapon at her feet and at that
moment the muzzle of her weapon moved away from the little hostage. With one flick of
her wrist Raquel freed the paring knife she had held against her inner wrist by her
watchband. Another quick flick and the little knife buried itself in Tango Five’s throat.
The tango dropped her gun as both hands flew to her wounded throat. She gagged
on her own blood.
Raquel rushed forward and kicked her in her belly. As she reactively bent at the
waist, Raquel kicked her in the throat, driving the knife in deeper.
Tango Five fell to the floor, her lithe body giving spasmodic jerks.
“Quick! The door!” Raquel said in a hushed, but urgent voice to the day care
workers still in the room. “Get the kids out! Now! Fire drill!”
The workers and children had practiced a fire drill many times. Now they did it
automatically.
“Where’s the other two?” Raquel asked the calmest of the workers.
“I-i-in the play room. They took Mrs. Mendelsohn and some of the children.”
Raquel picked up the submachine gun and checked it out. She cleared the bolt.
She kicked in the door and blazed away at her first target of opportunity: Tango
One.
Half a dozen bullets stitched a bloody path across Tango One’s breasts. The
terrorist’s body jerked and spasmed with each heavy impacted and she dropped like
broken crash test dummy.
Tango Six was aiming at several children she had lined up along the wall.
“If you want to kill Jews,” Raquel shouted, “you’re going to have to kill me! I’m
the only Jew here!” She repeated herself in Arabic.
“Fuck you, Jew whore!” The little terrorist screamed. She spun around to aim at
Raquel.
“Fire! Fire! Children! Drop!” Raquel shouted. As they had practiced in their fire
drill, the children dropped to the floor-- where the air was more breathable. If there was a
fire.
Both women fired at the same time. The terrorist was a lousy shot and all her
rounds went high.
Raquel didn’t missed. Bright red splotches blossomed on the girl’s silky white
blouse. Six rounds slammed into her breasts, ripped apart her heart and shattered her
spine. She was knocked off her feet and fell backward into the floor.
“Get the kids out of here, quick!” Raquel ordered.
Old, white-haired Mrs. Mendelsohn bent over the dying terrorist. She tried to
comfort the poor girl, but couldn’t comprehend why the dark-haired girl pulled her
bloody hand back in revulsion. Her whole body convulsed and then she lay still. Her once
perfect white blouse was shredded and soaked in blood.
Raquel cleared the submachine guns and removed the bolts.
Mrs. Mendelsohn approached her. She was in shock.
“I thought you were a Mormon.”
“And I’ll be one again tomorrow,” Raquel said calmly, “ But if you don’t mind,
today I am a Jew.”
“I don’t understand.”
But Mrs. Mendelsohn was in no shape to understand. Raquel lead her out and
handed her off to another parent.
Then she raced into the kitchen.
“CURAHEE! Baby!”
“Curahee! Mommy!” And Ashleigh burst out from beneath the sink. Raquel
scooped her up and hugged her and carried her out into the sunlight.
A few moments later she pulled out her cell phone. She had a call to make.
“Hello, Daddy!”
***
The Lieutenant, like all junior officers, was getting impatient. But Master
Sergeant Tim Garrison waited until his daughter was finished before hanging up.
“What was that all about, sergeant?”
“It was my daughter, Raquel; her husband’s with the 101st Airborne at Fort Bragg.
All she said was that she and Ashleigh, my granddaughter, were all right, that they loved
me very much. Then she said, “Thank you, Daddy!” and she hung up.”
“Well, I’m sure she’ll explain later. Let’s go, the kids are waiting.”
The Lt. led the way into the gym where about thirty kids in white gees were lined
in four rows. In the front row were little four, five, and six year olds, with white belts.
The second row, older kids with yellow and orange belts, the third row, purple, blue, and
green belts. The forth row was four teenagers with brown belts.
The Sergeant wore a black gee with a black belt, with one wide and four narrow
red stripes on each tip.
The Lt. spoke. “I would like to introduce you to tonight’s guest instructor: Master
Sergeant Tim Garrison. The Master Sergeant is a thirty year veteran of the United States
Army, with twenty-four years in the special forces. He has also been a drill instructor, a
small arms instructor, and a hand-to-hand combat instructor. But most important tonight,
Master Sergeant Garrison holds a ninth degree black belt in American Kempo Karate. As
you may know, the highest rank possible in Kempo is tenth degree black belt; and only
one person may hold that rank at a time. Three time Master Sergeant Garrison has
declined the rank of tenth degree black belt.
“Class, Master Sergeant Garrison.” The Lt. stepped aside.
Sergeant Garrison stepped up and gave the Kempo salute.
“Class, salute!”
***
And, as Paul Harvey says, now you know the rest of the story.
The End.