Read Online Binder - 02 by David Vinjamuri - Free Book Online Page A

stop himself, I drove my forearm and shoulder into his back. He hit the motel room door flat on and I heard the hinges break and the frame splinter an instant before the door gave way. He fell with it, landing flat on his face in the middle of the motel room. There was a high-pitched scream and an angry baritone voice from within. I turned to deal with the other three men.
    I flicked open the 16” Leverloc extendable baton I’d been gripping as I stepped forward and juked left toward the fastest of the three men. He was thin and chalk white, but he jabbed at me like a flyweight boxer; I could see that he was setting me up for a roundhouse with his other, chain-wrapped fist. I ducked back from the jab. Then as his ironclad punch powered forward, I brought up the knife-edge of my hand in a circular motion and bobbed to the side. The blow whispered past my ear. I grabbed his extended arm at the wrist with my blocking hand and pulled him off balance. Then I brought the baton in my other hand down hard on the side of his elbow.
    As I felt the joint wrench, I turned again, wrapping my arm around the back of his neck as he staggered forward. I spun him around full circle like a matador with a bull, just in time to meet the tip of the baseball bat a bald man was swinging hard at me. It smacked the thin guy solidly on the top of his skull and I heard a crunch of bone as his skull fractured. He dropped flat to the ground when I released him.
    I leapt forward before the bald man could take another swing with the bat. I swept my forearm straight up, catching him under the chin and pulled him backwards off his feet. I wrapped my arm around his neck, pressing hard on his carotid arteries. With my free hand, I raised the Leverloc to parry a blow from the last man standing, who wore an Army surplus jacket and a brown hunter’s cap with the earflaps pulled down. He swung again hard with the pipe, bringing it down like a hammer. I blocked the blow with the Leverloc raised horizontally and kicked his shin with the reinforced toe of my boot. He swore.
    I felt the bald man go limp in my grasp as he lost consciousness and I dropped him. The guy in front of me thrust his pipe forward like a sword, and I parried with the baton. Then I lunged forward, driving the tip of the baton into the soft spot two inches below his Adam’s apple. He started to choke and dropped the pipe, his hands moving instinctively to his throat. I sprang forward and to his side as I dropped to one knee. With my arm extended straight out beside me, I drove the side of my balled fist into his solar plexus. He crumpled to the ground.
    I heard a heavy step behind me and rolled as a big black boot swung through the space where I’d been kneeling a second before. The big guy had extracted himself from my neighbor’s motel room. He turned and tried to kick me again while I was still on my knees. I caught his boot with my hands and twisted, then spun to kick the other foot out from underneath him. He fell flat on his back and I made it to my feet while he was still struggling to get up. Stepping in behind him, I drove three fingers into a spot just below his armpit. The human nervous system works like an electrical circuit, and you can short it with training.
    Only it didn’t work. He twisted around as he stood and grabbed me by the throat instead. The big man pulled me toward him with a surprising amount of strength. The guy’s mouth opened and I realized in a terrifying moment that he was going to bite me. His breath was foul and his pupils were dilated enormously. I tried to ignore the fact that I couldn’t breathe and managed to get an arm in front of me, pressing it under his jaw before he could tear into my face. Then I kneed him hard in the groin. He didn’t flinch. He clawed at my face with dirty, ragged fingernails, so I dropped the baton and slipped my hand from his grasp. Without warning, I pulled back the arm I had under his jaw and brought my forehead down on