She finished her cooldown exercises and then jogged over to where the small crowd was gathered. She was surprised to see that they were watching Train von Rensel, who stood like a stubby oak tree, alone in a space about fifteen feet square. He was wearing a martial arts outfit consisting of a white short-sleeved cotton jacket, white cotton trousers, and canvas tennis shoes. He had-a narrow red-and-white cloth wrapped around his forehead and, with both eyes closed, was gripping a thick curved wooden stick shaped to look like a Japanese sword. The stick was about four feet long, three inches thick, and made of what looked like rosewood.
As she came up on the small group of watchers, Train was executing a carefully choreographed set of maneuvers with the wooden sword, moving almost in slow motion, while stamping out a metronomic rhythm with his feet, first one foot, then the other. He resembled one of those sumo fighters in the way he moved, a careful exertion of great physical mass, but without all the fat rolls. With every other stamp, he pronounced a low grunt in whit sounded to Karen like Japanese, while simultaneously executing the next move. Train’s concentration appeared to be complete, and he gave no sign that he had seen Karen or was even aware that people were watching. Finally, he gave a huge shout and whirled around in a complete circle while holding the stick straight, out at waist level with both hands. Even though it was just a stick, everyone watching instinctively moved back a few more feet as the huge man began to execute a swift series of what were obviously fighting moves, vertical and horizontal slashes, each followed by a defensive posture against an imaginary attacker, then another thrust, a jump, a slash, a crouch, a lunge, another defensive position, then a running attack, each move punctuated by an unintelligible cry. He continued this drill for about three minutes, at the end of which his close cropped head and face were pouring with sweat and his chest heaving under the straining jacket.
With a final shout, he jumped into a two-handed position, arms and knees bent, legs spread, the stick held vertically in front of him and his eyes focused directly on it. Then, eyes closing, he began some breathing exercises, after which he extended his arms straight out and lowered the point of the stick. With arms fully extended now, he began a turn, the point of the heavy, thick staff describing . a menacing eye-level cirrle through the crowd. Karen’s shoulders ached in sympathetic pain as he did it, because he was no longer gripping the stick with his fingers, but, rather, holding the butt end extended between his flat palms, which were pressed together, a position that obviously took great strength. At the end of the circle, and with his eyes still closed, he growled and then did something with his hands that made the stick jump, spinning first around one forearm and then the other, like a drum majorette’s baton.
Moving ever faster, Train flicked it around his shoulders, along his forearms, behind his head, the thick staff making a wicked hissing sound in the still air, his massive hands a blur as he spun it, stopped it, balanced it, and then chopped it into a different motion or direction with almost casual flat-handed strikes. This exercise went on for almost sixty seconds, to the utter fascination of the crowd, and then ended abruptly with the stick held once again motionless, vertically in front of him. He raised his right leg and stomped the ground like a pile driver and shouted out a single word. Then he bowed to his imaginary opponent, put the stick down on a rectangular piece of canvas on the ground, and, still ignoring the people watching, reached for his towel as if he had been doing nothing more unusual than a few casual jumping jacks on the lawn.
Karen sensed that the people around her didn’t know whether to applaud or simply to exhale. As people drifted away, Karen pushed her way forward.
“Morning, Counselor,” he said through his towel.
“Didn’t know you worked out so early.”
“Every day,” she said. “And what, pray tell, was all that?”
“Just a stick drill,” he replied. “I use it to unwind after working the weights.”
“That’s some stick. May I see it?”
“‘Help yourself,” he said, reaching down and picking it up. He offered it to her butt-first. She. was surprised to feel how heavy it was. “It’s heavier than it looks,” she said.
“Why the sword shape? I thought kendo used a plain staff?”
He grinned as he began to gather up his gear. “That’s not kendo. Kendo is stick drill. This is just my version of kenjutsu, which is sword drill. Nothing mystical-just exercise. And the stick is shaped like a sword because of this.”
He took the heavy stick back from her hands, held one end, twisted it slightly, and withdrew a glistening full- sized Japanese fighting sword.
She blinked in surprise. A Marine standing nearby exclaimed when he saw the sword.
“Would you hold this, please?” he said, handing it to her. She grasped the handle with both hands. The sword was beautifully balanced, and the steel surface of the blade appeared to be marbled in various colors.
Train fished an oily rag out of his gear bag, took the sword from her hands, and proceeded to wipe down the entire weapon.
“How’d you finish it up with Sherman?” he asked. “He reveal any more about this Galantz problem?”
“We went down to a local restaurant and had dinner. He told me some of his personal background. Look, I’m going to cramp up if we just stand here. And-“
“Right,” he said, understanding. There were too many people around, some still gawking at his unusual athletic getup. H gathered his gear and the sword, then indicated they should walk toward the small tidal channel on the other side of North Parking.
Karen told him about the syringe. That got his attention.
“In your car? In your locked car? And then the patrol car just shows up as you’re standing there?”
“I know,” she said. “It means we were being watched.”
“And tracked. From his house down to the restaurant.
Damn, Karen, this changes everything, I think.”
“You think?”
“Well, technically speaking, Sherman could still be making this all up.
I mean, the logical explanation of how that thing got in your car without a breakin was that somebody with recent access put it there-namely, him. Was there some interval of time during which he could have called in that patrol car? Some time between the end of dinner and going out to the car?”
“No,” she said. Then she hesitated. “Wait. Yes.
He said he was going to use the bathroom. I waited out by the front door. But-“
“But what, Karen? That’s as plausible an explanation as some mysterious stalker.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “Why are you so anxious to pin this stuff on him?” she demanded.
“Why are you so ready to believe everything he says?”
Train retorted. “Just because he’s an admiral?”
“No, damn it!” she said, glaring at him. But then she frowned. “Oh, I don’t know. I just wish you could have heard him tell the story of what happened to his marriage.
I just can’t find any motivation on his part to make all this up, or to do something to Elizabeth Walsh. I’m beginning to think he’s being set up somehow.”
Train didn’t answer, just turned around, steering them back toward the POAC building. He stopped when they were about to go through the door, stepping aside to let people go by.
“I’m going to pull the string on this Galantz guy with some contacts at the FBI. And elsewhere,” he said. “I have a bad feeling about a guy who’s supposedly an MIA but who isn’t missing. That syringe was a nasty touch. I’ll see you up in the office.”
He left before she had time to answer. He seemed either angry or concerned, and she couldn’t tell which.
Train fumed at himself as he tied his tie for the second time in front of the foggy mirror of the locker room. He should not have said that out there, that bit where he asked her why she was so anxious to defend this guy. Besides, he knew the answer. She was Navy, he was an admiral, and a Studly Dudley one at that. Plus, she was not a trained investigator.
He was willing to bet that she was simply failing under this charmer’s spell. As o posed to your charming personality? -P It has nothing to do with that. Not at all. Hahi It didn’t help that she looked positively ravishing in that damp tank top.
But after this syringe business, the SEAL story had some more legs, and he had not been kidding about a bad feeling.
He gathered up his gear bag and the sword case, closed the temporary locker, and headed downstairs.
