Crash Course by Derek Fee (freenovel24 .TXT) 📗

The boat sped across the last two miles and Morweena closed the throttle as they rounded the buoy. “Not bad,” she shouted as the whine from the engines died away. “Are you sure this is your first time at the wheel of a powerboat?”

“Let’s go again,” Kane said, glancing at his throttleman. The adrenaline was pulsing in his veins. All he wanted was to feel the speed.

“You must be crazy.” She eased back the throttle once more and two thousand horsepower exploded into life.

Chapter Fourteen

The place that Kane had found to do his exercises was located behind one of the portacabins in the corner of the boatyard. The nine hundred square feet of perfectly cut green lawn was probably somebody’s idea of an oasis in the sea of metallic and wooden junk that littered the area occupied by the boatyard. Over the years the exercises had become like a religion to him. The one constant in a sea of change. The habit had begun in basic training where according to his instructors the practice was a matter of life or death. Unlike the other recruits, he had quickly realised the mental qualities associated with the martial arts taught by his instructors. The movements were not only intended to improve his ability to defend himself but to induce a state of inner calm which facilitated bouts of excessive exertion. The heightened awareness created by the mental exercises had saved his life more than once. After his wife’s death, the doctors had suggested that he continue the regimen he had set himself. They believed in the old axiom ‘mens sana in corpore sano’. But he doubted they could guess the place where his mind was. He moved slowly through the exercise routine and at the same time cleared his mind of the mental detritus of the day.

He had been on an incredible high after the two hours spent racing. Only a retreat into himself would succeed in bringing him down quickly.

After ten years of practice, the schedule always remained the same. A five-mile run followed by a thirty-minute exercise roster which would have left even the fittest of men gasping for breath. When the warming-up was completed, he began the series of rhythmic exercises. Breathing deeply and moving slowly at first, he began with the simplest series of exercises before progressing to the more advanced. As he proceeded, his mind became totally concentrated. The outside world ceased to exist and his body became one with his spirit as the movements flowed. Gradually, he increased in speed until his hands and feet were a blur of tanned flesh against the soft green carpet beneath him. When he finished, he sat cross-legged on the grass, closed his eyes and began breathing deeply. He stayed in this state of intense mediation for fully ten minutes before slowly opening his eyes. A noise behind him caused him to jump quickly to his feet.

“Very impressive.” Morweena stood leaning against the corner of the portacabin. “I wouldn’t want to meet you in a dark alley.” She watched him move to the edge of the grass and pick up his tee shirt, the sweat glistening on his naked torso highlighting the ridges of muscles of his stomach.

“Do you make a habit of creeping up on people?” He pulled his tee shirt over his wet torso.

“I was watching from the first floor of the office and I couldn’t resist a closer look. What was that? Kung fu?”

“Kung fu, tai chi…” He turned to face her. She had changed into a white silk blouse and a short white skirt which showed off her long, tanned legs.

“Some karate, ju-jitsu, kick-boxing.” He walked towards the main office and she fell into beside him.

“You’re very expert. How did you get into martial arts?”

“A young boy moving from Yorkshire to London. A rough East End school where a strange accent wasn’t appreciated. The school bully decided he would beat my head in every day for a year. In order to make it out alive, I learned to box and then beat the shit out of the bastard.” Half truth, half lie. The events were true enough but the strange accent had been Northern Irish and nobody at his school liked ‘Paddy’. He had learned to take care of himself because his survival depended on it. “After that everybody wanted to be my friend.” Except that he didn’t want or need a friend after he had established his credentials. “The karate and the kung fu came when I joined the army.”

“It’s a solitary pursuit.”

He didn’t reply.

“I mean they’re not team sports,” she continued. “The English way is to have young boys thrashing around in the mud after an oval ball because that builds character. You’ve been a loner since you were a young boy.”

“If you say so.” He was getting annoyed at her attempts to psychoanalyse him. Or maybe he was a little bothered by the fact that she was so close to the mark. He didn’t usually get this type of analysis when he was undercover. Most of the villains he dealt with had incidents in their past that they didn’t care to discuss. Abusive and fucked-up childhoods are something that most inarticulate criminals don’t share with their fraternity members. This operation was like no other that he had been on. He was dealing with ordinary, honest individuals who were getting on with their lives without knowing that they were pawns in someone else’s game.

“Look, I need to ask you a question.”

He stopped and faced her. “Another one.”

“That was your first time in a powerboat, right?”

“Yes.” She had showered and he could smell her freshness beneath a hint of perfume.

“Weren’t you scared? Even a little bit.”

“Not particularly,” he said matter-of-factly. He pulled his mind back to the job at hand. “Years of training. You know the army. They want automatons – don’t scare easily, react automatically, stay cool, get the job done. Tick follows tock follows tick. The lessons of a lifetime.”

Her