In The Name of The Father by A. J. Quinnell

crap. That stuff is for ego and exhibitions. I’m going to teach you how to kill or maim a man in half a second. To maim is easy: eyes, throat or testicles. To kill is a bit more complicated but Cavalho tells me you’re fast and well balanced so you’ll learn. Hold out your hands.’
    Mirek raised his arms.
    ‘Spread your fingers.’
    Mirek spread his fingers.
    Slowly Frank touched each of them in turn and counted to ten.
    ‘Those are your ten primary weapons.’ He pointed at Mirek’s feet. ‘Those are your two secondary weapons.’
    ‘What about the outer edges of my hands?’ asked Mirek.
    Frank shook his head in disgust. ‘I told you to forget that karate crap. Look.’ He moved closer and grasped Mirek’s right wrist and extended his arm. He ran a finger down the arm to a point opposite the palm and bent the elbow slightly. ‘The karate chop. In your case the point of impact is about two feet from your shoulder.’ He pulled the arm straight and stiff. ‘Now the tips of your fingers are about nine inches further forward. It’s like boxing. The longer you reach, the better. I’ll tell you a fact, Werner. No black belt karate would have ever laid a finger on Mohammed Ali.’
    He took Mirek over to a long table. On it was a row of small buckets filled with coarse sand. Next to them was a row of springed finger exercisers. Frank pulled a bucket towards him, stiffened the fingers of both hands and plunged them one after the other deep into the sand. He did it rhythmically for about a minute and said, ‘Take one to your room. Do this for half an hour in the mornings and at night.’
    He shook the sand from his hands and pointed at the exercisers. ‘They’re different strengths. Choose one that you can just squeeze closed. Do the same thing with that. Every few days move up to a more powerful spring.’
    He took both of Mirek’s hands in his and studied them. Then he raised his head, looked him in the eyes and said with emphasis, ‘They’re good fingers. Do what I tell you and in a month you’ll have ten good weapons.’
    He dropped the hands and pointed to Mirek’s shoes. ‘On a mission, in fact all the time, wear hard shoes. Preferably with steel inside the toe caps. Buy ordinary shoes a size too large and give them to a cobbler. He’ll put the steel in.’
    They moved on to knives. There was a selection on the table. Hunting knives, flick knives, spring knives, a Bowie knife, ordinary kitchen knives and, next to them, a stubby felt-tipped marker pen. Frank gestured at them with a disdainful sweep of a hand. ‘If you’re in a situation where it’s dangerous to carry a concealed hand gun then it’s equally dangerous to carry an obvious weapon, including these. This, though, is different.’
    He picked up the marker pen, uncapped it and drew a broad blue line on the table top. ‘Innocuous, no?’ Suddenly he turned. Mirek heard a click and jumped back at the sharp pinpoint of pain on his chest. He looked down. There was a splodge of blue ink on his fatigues. Frank laughed and held up the pen. It still had its felt tip but now it was at the end of a thin tube of tapering metal. He up-ended it on the table and pressed. The metal slid back into the casing. He drew another blue line. Once again the marker pen was just that.
    Frank gave Mirek that smile again. ‘Light-weight alloy with a titanium tip. Sharper than a needle.’ He hefted it in his hand. ‘Weighs only a few grammes more than a normal pen.’ He showed Mirek the brand name: ‘Denbi’. ‘You press the “D” . . . so.’ The blade slid out like a snake’s tongue. ‘If I’d wished it you’d be dead now.’ He took his arm and led him over to a plastic dummy of a well-built man. The plastic was transparent. Mirek could see all the organs inside brightly coloured. The dummy was on a stand. Frank turned it slowly, saying, ‘There is not one vital spot in a human body that is more than four inches from the skin. That blade is four