Wilkes made a big show of waving Top onto the padded training area, even to the point of giving a small comical bow like a ringleader at a dog circus. He never stopped grinning. When he stepped onto the mat, he looked Top in the eye and tapped the 88 tattoo. The eighth letter of the alphabet was H, and 88 was shorthand for Heil Hitler. There was a burning cross on the sergeant’s stomach.

Top did not take up a stance or even bring his guard up. His only concession to the level of threat was to shift his weight subtly to the balls of his feet. He waited for the brute of a sergeant to make his play.

When it happened, it all happened fast.

Wilkes faked left and then stepped in very fast with an overhand right that was a rock breaker, a bone crusher, a lethal blow. His whole body went into the punch—good stance, the right kind of pivot to torque energy into his monstrous shoulders so that the punch was a blurred whipping loop of gristle and bone. A younger, faster man would have had trouble slipping or evading that punch, and it was very obvious this was Sergeant Wilkes’s deal closer, the blow he used when he wanted to prove a point to everyone within visual range. The kind of punch that would be talked about among the Fixers for years.

Top did not evade, did not duck, bob, or weave.

He stepped right into the attack, shifting only a little to the right as he brought his elbow up into the path of the muscular arm, the flats of his curled fingers pressed against his skull. And he used his step to drive a single punch into the narrow gap between one eight and the other. Every ounce of Top’s two hundred pounds, forty years of karate, and career as a tier-one special operator went into it. This was his deal closer. A tighter, smarter, less obvious punch that channeled all his muscle, mass, and momentum into an impact point no larger than a dime.

The sergeant’s entire body folded around the punch. The blow knocked spit from his mouth, drove all the air from his lungs, took all the rigidity from his muscles, turned his legs to overcooked pasta, and sat him down hard on his ass in front of everyone. His eyes bulged, and his face turned an eggplant purple as he tried to suck in even a spoonful of air.