"Clancy, Tom - Net Force 02 - Hidden Agendas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Clancy Tom)

"Okay, you try," she said.
"You gonna punch left or right?" he asked.
"Doesn't matter," she said.
"If you control the center like you're supposed to,
it'll work either way."
"In theory," he said.
She smiled at him.
"In theory."
He nodded, then tried to relax and assume a
neutral stance.
That was supposed to be part of it too, Toni had
said. It ought to work from whichever position you happened
to be in if an attacker jumped you; otherwise--
what was the point? You wouldn't have time to bow and get
into your ready stance if the street thug decided to eat
your lunch. It wasn't real likely a
guy in an alley coming at you with a knife was going
to allow you to run home to take off your shoes and put
on your gi while he stood there waiting, maybe
cleaning his nails with his blade. If a move
wasn't practical, the Indonesian fighters
didn't much like to pass it along. This wasn't a do,
a spiritual "way." It was the distilled essence of
anything-goes street fighting. It was not an art of
flashy, fancy moves, but an art of war. In
silat, you didn't merely defeat an enemy, you
destroyed him, and you used whatever you had at hand to do
it: fists, feet, elbows, knives, clubs,
guns-- Toni leaped at him.
You were supposed to block first, then step, and this
defense was supposed to be a move to the outside of the
attacker.
Instead, Michaels, rattled, blocked and
stepped to the inside of Toni's leading foot. In
theory, as she'd said, it didn't matter, since
anything that worked was the point.
His right thigh slid between Toni's legs and
pressed against her pubis. His concentration on
protecting himself just kind of... evaporated. He'd
blocked the punch, but now he just stood there. He
didn't follow up. He was very much aware
of the warmth of her crotch astraddle his thigh, even through
two sets of sweatpants.
Damn!
"Alex?"
"Sorry, I drew a blank."
Quickly, Michaels stepped back. He'd
nearly been killed by that assassin a couple of
months ago; if it hadn't been for Toni, the
killer would have gotten him, and it had seemed a good