Page 29 of Viral Justice

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t look at a problem and decide you know best, when you don’t have all the information.”

“But—”

“And you sure as hell can’t keep bending or breaking regulations to do it.”

What. The. Fuck.“When have Ieverbroken a regulation?”

He stared at her. “The incident in Germany isn’t going to go away. You disobeyed an order from an officer. The judge advocate general is considering charges.”

“The officer who gave me those orders wasn’t a member of the United States military. Those orders would have compromised the safety of Max and the wounded German officer.”

“Those distinctions may or may not matter in the long run.”

The long run.

What was her long run? She’d been in the military for eight years. She’d graduated from Brown with a degree in Psychology and Cognitive Science, thinking she would concentrate on dealing with cultures and languages in some capacity. It turned out her martial arts training, begun as a child, ended up being even more valuable.

It had started by accident during Basic. An instructor called upon her to demonstrate how to resist a takedown technique, only she did too good a job. She’d put the instructor on his back and when he continued to come at her, she put him down twice more. He asked what training she had, so she told him. Black belt in Brazilian jujitsu, expert in Krav Maga, and some Muay Thai.

He’d asked her if she’d killed anyone.

She’d told him the truth. Yes, but it was in self-defense.

The next day, she’d been told not to participate, only observe the training sessions. Which she was fine to do, until the instructor demonstrated a technique completely wrong. She’d walked forward then, begged the instructor’s indulgence, and demonstrated the technique correctly as an alternative. The instructor proved he wasn’t an idiot by naming another technique and having her demonstrate it. Then she offered slight corrections based on size of attacker and defender.

That evening, the instructor asked her to train him after hours. Four other instructors showed up for training three days later.

Two weeks after that, her father came to see her. Her skills in combat and instruction were more valuable to the army than her university degree.

She’d looked on it as a challenge. Before long she was training the military elite and teaching them that women weren’t weak.

Eight years of combat training.

She’d made enemies during that time. Twice she’d fought off men who thought she needed to be brought down a peg or two through rape. Others had tried to remove her using other means, but her skill and the support of the majority of the men she trained had thwarted their efforts.

What was herlong run?

She’d helped to train some exceptional soldiers. Some of them had the skills and enthusiasm to take over her training role for the Special Forces. They could carry on, should she decide on a different path for her career.

Max’s group was doing important work. Work that would become only more important in the future.

“I agree,” she said to the man who was her commander as well as her father. “IfI were to stay in my training role.”

He sat back, as was his habit, to consider what she said and didn’t say. “Are you thinking of a permanent transfer to Max’s team?”

“They need me. Special Forces doesn’t. There are a half-dozen men just as qualified to teach hand-to-hand combat as I am.”

“Most of them you trained yourself.”

She smiled. “Exactly. I know how good they are.”

Her father pursed his lips like he’d taken a big bite of a lemon. “Max needs you. He can’t shoot and couldn’t fight his way out of a kindergarten class.”

“True.”

The general drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment, then leaned forward and said, “He’s not someone you can fix, Ali.”

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