Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

3

The bloody cunts in America had bollixed it. One of ’em was even sicked up and crying over there now.

The Welshman, Wadsworth Dwyer, circled with his training partner, his mind far away from what he was doing. But he didn’t need to think in order to grapple. He’d been doing it for too long. He held black belts in judo and Japanese jujitsu-the kind the samurai had invented to use when the battle was to the death and the sword had been lost-and that’s how Waddy Dwyer used it. But that was just the beginning of his schooling. He’d been a striker growing up in the pubs in Merthyr and had learned military hand-to-hand at Hereford, before practicing it in piss-smelling beer holes the world over. He’d studied sambo when he was “working” in Russia just after the wall came down and liked it for its similarities to legitimate grappling. He’d quickly moved in and out of systema specnaz-the mystical and supposedly deadly art they taught to Russian Special Forces-when he’d choked out the teacher with a simple guillotine. He tried Krav Maga when he was on loan to Israeli intelligence, and liked it for its aggressive mind-set, but realized he didn’t need it much after he broke the instructor’s jaw the third day when he’d been feeling mean and homesick. That’s when he knew it was time to get out and come back to Wales.

Wales. He must be some kind of arsehole, because he loved the weather here, cold and rainy most of the time, even in the summer, up on the top of the mountain in the Cambrians where he lived now.

His training partner shot for a single leg takedown, and the Welshman sprawled, leaving a knee behind to clock the boy on the top of his head for his trouble. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been taken down. At five foot seven, fourteen stone, it was like toppling over a fireplug. His training partner got back up a bit slowly after the knee to the head, so Dwyer took his own shot. His was a double, and he wrapped his arms around both his training partner’s thighs and cranked to the side like he was turning a lorry’s steering wheel, dumping the boy on his head onto the hard mats.

Bloody fucking ’ell, he thought as he leaped on top of his training partner and worked a crucifix, catching one of the boy’s arms between his legs and hyperextending it, and doing the same to the other using his hands. I’m gonna have to go to America.

The training partner was stretched out and helpless but didn’t say “tap,” so the Welshman gave him a rap across the mouth, causing blood to run red over the boy’s teeth.

“Fuck’s sake, Waddy!” the training partner said.

Wadsworth Dwyer got up, certain as fuckall he hated leaving his mountaintop.