Another man crept onto the field, apparently trying to drag his fallen comrade back to the sidelines. When he reached the writhing figure, however, instead of attempting to assist him, the new man sprang over him high into the air, launching a flying kick at the man with the blindfold. Again the blinded man countered, this time raising a forearm which caught the attacker's leg and flipped it in the air, dumping him on his head.

At this point, the swordsman, who apparently was not as injured as he had seemed, rolled over and aimed a vicious cut at the defender's legs. The blindfolded man took to the air, leaping over the sword, and drove a heel down into the swordsman's face. The man fell back and lay motionless, bleeding from both nostrils.

Without taking his eyes from the screen, Tidwell raised his voice.

"Hey, Clancy."

His friend sat up on the sofa, scattering folders onto the floor and blinking his eyes in disorientation.

"Yeah, Steve?"

"How do they do that?"

Clancy craned his neck around and peered at the screen. Three men were attacking simultaneously, one with an axe, two with their hands and feet. The blindfolded man parried, blocked, and countered, unruffled by death narrowly missing him at each turn.

"Oh, that's an old martial artist's drill-blindfold workouts. The theory is that if you lost one of your five senses, such as sight, the other four would be heightened to compensate. By working out blindfolded, you heighten the other senses without actually losing one."

"Have you done this drill before?"

Clancy shook his head. He was starting to come into focus again.

"Not personally. I've seen it done a couple of times, but nothing like this. These guys are good, and I mean really good."

"Who is that one, the powerhouse with the blindfold?"

Clancy pawed through his folders.

"Here it is. His name's Aki. I won't read off all the black belts he holds; I can't pronounce half of them. He's one of the originals. One of the founding members of the martial arts cults that formed after that one author tried to get the army to return to the ancient ways, then killed himself when they laughed at him."

Tidwell shook his head.

"How many of the force came out of those cults?"

"About ninety-five percent. It's still incredible to me that the Zaibatsu had the foresight to start sponsoring those groups. That was over twenty years ago."

"Just goes to show what twenty years of training six days a week will do for you. Did you know some of the troops were raised into it by their parents? That they've been training in unarmed and armed combat since they could walk?"

"Yeah, I caught that. Incidentally, did I show you the results from the firing range today?"

"Spare me."

But Clancy was on his feet halfway to his case.

"They were firing Springfields today," he called back over his shoulder. "The old bolt-action jobs. Range at five hundred meters."

Tidwell sighed. These firing range reports were monotonous, but Clancy was a big firearms freak.

"Here we go. These are the worst ten." He waved a stack of photos at Tidwell. On each photo was a man-shaped silhouette target with a small irregularly shaped hole in the center of the chest.

"There isn't a single-shot grouping in there you couldn't cover with a nickel, and these are the worst."

"I assume they're still shooting five-shot groups."

Clancy snorted.

"I don't think Kumo has let them hear of any other kind."

"Firing position?"

"Prone unsupported. Pencil scopes battlefield zeroed at four hundred meters."

Tidwell shook his head.

"I'll tell you, Clancy, man for man I've never seen anything like these guys. It's my studied and considered opinion that any one of them could take both of us one-handed. Even..."-he jerked a thumb at the figures on the screen behind them-"...even blindfolded."

On the screen, a man tried to stand at a distance and stab the blindfolded Aki with a spear, with disastrous results.

Clancy borrowed Tidwell's drink and took a sip.

"And you're still standing by your decision? About extending our entry date to the war by two months?"

"Now look, Clancy..."

"I'm not arguing. Just checking."

"They aren't ready yet. They're still a pack of individuals. A highly trained mob is still a mob."

"What's Kumo's reaction? That's his established entry date you're extending."

"He was only thinking about the new 'superweapons' when he set that date. He's been trained from birth to think of combat as an individual venture."

"Hey, those new weapons are really something, aren't they?"

"Superweapons or not, those men have to learn to function as a team before they'll be ready for the war. They said I would have free rein in choosing men and tactics, and by God, this time I'm not going into battle until they're ready. I don't care if it takes two months or two years."

"But Kumo..."

"Kumo and I work for the same employer and they put me in charge. We'll move when I say we're ready."

Clancy shrugged his shoulders.

"Just asking, Steve. No need to...whoa. Could you back that up?"

He pointed excitedly at the screen. Tidwell obligingly hit the hold button. On the screen, two men were in the process of attacking simultaneously from both sides with swords. Images of Clancy and Tidwell were also on the screen standing on either side of Kumo.

"How far do you want it backed?"

"Back it up to where you interrupt the demonstration."

Tidwell obliged.

The scene began anew. There was an attacker on the screen cautiously circling Aki with a knife. Suddenly Tidwell appeared on the screen, closely followed by Clancy. Until this point they had been standing off-camera, watching the proceedings. Finally Tidwell could contain his feelings-of skepticism no longer and stepped forward, silently holding his hand up to halt the action. He signaled the man with the knife to retire from the field, then turned and beckoned two specific men to approach him. With a series of quick flowing motions, he began to explain what he wanted.

"This is the part I want to see. Damn. You know, you're really good, Steve. You know how long it would take me to explain that using gestures? You'll have to coach me on it sometime. You used to fool around with the old Indian sign language a lot, didn't you? Steve?"

No reply came. Clancy tore his eyes away from the screen and shot a glance at Tidwell. Tidwell was sitting and staring at the screen. Every muscle in his body was suddenly tense-not rigid but poised, as if he was about to fight.

"What is it, Steve? Did you see something?"

Without answering, Tidwell stopped the film, reversed it, then started it again.

Again the knifeman circled. Again the two mercenaries appeared on the screen. Tidwell punched the hold button and the action froze.

He rose from his chair and slowly approached the screen. Then he thoughtfully sipped his drink and stared at a point away from the main action. He stared at Kumo. Kumo, the old sensei who never showed emotion. In the split second frozen by the camera, at the instant the two men stepped past him and interrupted the demonstration, in that fleeting moment as he looked at Tidwell's back, Kunio's face was contorted in an expression of raw, naked hatred.