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I went every day after school and all day on weekends. I learned everything Mr. Morris showed me. I practiced and sparred until I was black and blue – and still I forced myself to keep going.
I became good. Very good. In my first two years, I progressed further and faster than any other student he’d ever had.
I paid my way – if that’s what you can call it – by sweeping up and keeping the dojo clean.
When I turned 16, I got a part-time job at McDonald’s without telling him. I wanted to make enough money so I could start paying for classes.
I remember when I held out the money from my first paycheck – enough for a month’s worth of classes.
He just stared at.
“Where’d this come from?” he finally asked.
I told him about my new job.
“Is that why you haven’t been comin’ to classes as often?”
I confirmed it was.
“The next time you go in to work, quit,” he ordered me. “As far as I’m concerned, your only fuckin’ job from now on is to be the best fuckin’ fighter you can be.”
And that was the end of my short-lived career at McDonald’s.
I progressed even quicker through the ranks. I started teaching beginner’s classes. By the time I turned 18, I was a third-degree black belt.
When I wasn’t doing Krav Maga, I was studying or going to school. I did well enough that I got a scholarship to Aston University, two and a half hours from London.
On the day before I left, I hugged John and told him he was like the father I’d never had.
He held back his tears – the only time in my life I’d seen him come close to crying – and hugged me.
“No matter what you end up doin’ in life, Rachel – give ‘em hell.”
And that’s exactly what I did.
While I was at Aston, there weren’t any Krav Maga dojos, so I took judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes instead.
I had a few relationships with guys at university. Nothing serious, though. I had fun, but I never fell in love. That was good, because I was on an accelerated schedule where I went to classes over the summers, too. Between school and martial arts, I had very little time for relationship drama.
Two weeks before I graduated at the top of my class in Economics, I still hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do with my life. The obvious choice for my degree was a job in government – but frankly, the idea of sitting behind a desk and dealing with bureaucrats bored me to tears.
I was also weighing the possibility of joining the Armed Services. I was in peak physical shape, I loved martial arts, and part of me wondered if the military might be something I’d enjoy.
Then my favorite professor in Economics asked me if I wouldn’t mind meeting an old colleague of his about a job.
“A fellow I know from the bad old days,” he joked.
I was immediately intrigued. Dr. Bradwell was around 60 years old. On several occasions, he had alluded to working for British Intelligence after the fall of the Soviet Union.
What did I have to lose?
So I said yes.
I went to meet the man in Dr. Bradwell’s office. My professor introduced us, then excused himself so we could “speak in private.”
James Farragut was in his 50s, with a crisp grey suit and a military haircut. He never said specifically whom he worked for – just ‘the government.’
“Bradwell says you’re one of the brightest he’s ever taught,” Farragut said.
