Authors: Russell Blake
She shook her head. “No.”
“You will. Once we’re done with hand-to-hand, I’ll show you the basics. It’s a self-sufficiency discipline that’ll enable you to scale buildings, trees, anything, using just your body. It will also build strength. How many push-ups can you do?”
“In one go? Maybe…seventy-five?” she said. “I mainly focus on abs…”
“We’ll get you to three hundred within a few weeks.”
She looked at him doubtfully.
He returned her skepticism with a frown. “We can start now. With your first hundred. Don’t worry. I’ll do them right next to you. I can do three hundred while I’m napping. But you’re a girl, so your upper body strength won’t be the same. Which we’ll offset with other skills. But even so, I need you to be twice as strong as the average man as your starting point. Do the first thirty normally, then put your hands together like this for the next thirty,” he demonstrated, thumbs next to each other. “Spread them out wider than your shoulders for the last forty, like this.” Gurion showed her how wide.
They both lowered themselves to the ground, and Gurion counted off the push-ups as he did them with Maya, his voice evidencing no strain even as they passed the sixty, seventy, and eighty marks. By the time they made it to a hundred, Maya’s arms were burning and aching, but she wouldn’t collapse and give Gurion the pleasure of seeing her squirm. They stood, her limbs trembling from the strain, sweat beaded on her face as she breathed rapidly. Gurion looked like he’d just had a massage and bath, no evidence of any exertion visible.
“We’ll do that again tomorrow. The following week, we’ll do it twice each day. If you make it to week number three, we’ll do it three times. It develops different muscle groups than sit-ups or pull-ups, as does the rubber ball. Now, assuming you can still use your arms, I’ll show you some strikes that you never learned in basic training.” He paused, thinking. “Your dossier says you were a gymnast?”
Maya nodded. “Since I was eight. But obviously, I stopped after…when I was incarcerated.”
“That’ll come in handy for parkour. At least there’s a small ray of hope.”
By the time her four hours with Gurion were over, Maya felt like she’d been dropped off a building onto broken glass, and her top was soaked through. Rarely had every muscle in her body hurt, but this was one of those times. Gurion’s last words to her after showing her some introductory concepts of parkour were more ominous than anything else he could have said: “You’re going to be in some pain tomorrow, but don’t worry. It’ll get worse the day after.”
Zivah returned and led her back to the complex and into an underground firing range, where a tall man with a hawklike profile was assembling a pistol with dexterous fingers.
Catching his attention, Zivah introduced them. “This is Teo. He’s one of our foremost experts with weapons. You’ll spend two hours with him, break for lunch, and then another two. Teo, meet Maya. Gurion’s just used her as a punching bag for the first session.”
Teo nodded. “Let’s see how good a shot you are right now. We’ll use that as your baseline. In order for me to sign off on you, you’ve got to be nothing short of miraculous by the time we’re done. I failed the last twelve candidates. I like failing them. I look for excuses to fail them. You’re no different.” He held up a 9mm Jericho like the one she had used at the mosque. “How familiar are you with this weapon?”
“Very. I killed a few terrorists with one a couple of days ago.”
“Let’s see whether you got lucky or not. We’ll start at fifty meters.”
“What? That’s the limit of this gun’s accuracy.”
“That’s what they say. I’m here to show you how to narrow the odds at that range and farther, right out of the gate.” He peered at the gun. “How much do you know about suppressors?”
“Suppressors. Silencers, right? Um, they silence the gunshot.”
“Correct. But they don’t quiet them that much unless you use subsonic ammo. Do you know why?”
“Less blast?”
“That, and because the crack a shot makes is due to the bullet breaking the sound barrier – 350 meters per second. It creates a mini sonic boom. If you use custom subsonic loads paired with a heavy bullet, it quiets the gun down substantially. I’ll show you later.”
Maya spent the remainder of the morning firing a variety of handguns, with and without suppression. Teo scored her efforts, which he studied with a look of disgust before putting his clipboard down.
“You’re going to have to really work at this. You’re not bad, but to pass, you need to be incredible,” he warned.
“I’ll get better with practice.”
“You better hope so. That’s usually the one that gets them every time, in case you’re wondering. Handguns. Most never develop into exceptional shooters, and anything less won’t cut it. Your adversaries will always be good or very good. Survival usually comes down to being that much better.”
After a short lunch break they moved to rifles. Maya’s scores were at the upper end of the range this time. Teo kept his reaction subdued, but she could sense he was impressed. She’d always done well in basic training, so it didn’t surprise her, but it was the first time that day that she felt like she’d done anything but fail.
Zivah led her into one of the outbuildings and introduced her to her third instructor – a female with long auburn hair and an easy smile. “Maya, this is Nava. She’ll be teaching you tradecraft. Which is everything from surveillance techniques to lock-picking to evading detection.”
“I also specialize in silent killing, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Nava said with the first trace of friendliness Maya had seen out of any of the staff.
Zivah took her leave, and Nava sat across from Maya, apparently at ease, with none of the overt hostility of the other instructors. Maya wasn’t sure whether that was a positive or not, her nerves by now fine-tuned to expect threats wherever she looked. Nava explained some of the basics of covert surveillance tactics, her pleasant voice a relief after Zivah’s harsh bray. By the time they had finished their four-hour stint, Maya had a working knowledge of dead drops and techniques that would enable her to follow a novice without being detected.
“The problem with professionals is they know what to look for, and even the most skilled surveillance will offer clues it’s underway,” Nava explained. “That’s why you’ll find that it’s generally a bad idea to try to use these techniques on intelligence operatives. If they’re in the field, they’ll always be ultra-paranoid and taking constant precautions. Which is your final lesson for today. Your cynicism and paranoia are your greatest survival tools. I’ll teach you how to regulate them, how to harness them so you can use them in a productive fashion. You need to modify your natural alarms so they have a hair trigger.”
“Sounds like you’re always in a low-level state of panic,” Maya said.
“Yes and no. A better way of putting it would be to say that to be successful at this, you need to remove yourself from the equation, staying alert and paying attention to the signals without letting them spook you. That requires you to be both desensitized and hypersensitive. I know that sounds paradoxical, but it isn’t in practice. You want your senses tuned, but you want to evaluate the data they’re providing you dispassionately. Clinically. That would work better if you were a sociopath, but hey, we can’t have everything.”
“So I need to learn to turn everything off, in terms of emotional triggers.”
Nava nodded. “Exactly. To become what I call a limited sociopath, in the sense that you can be calm and collected under circumstances that would have a normal person panicked. That removal of the self from the stream of incoming information enables you to make lightning evaluations without your judgment being clouded by emotion. It takes a special kind of person, which, fortunately, your evaluation shows you are. Highly analytical. The sort of thing you’d expect to see in an engineer or a physicist. You have that, Maya. We just need to teach you how to shut down the emotional part of your brain when necessary.”
“Can that really be taught? I mean, I’d think you’re either born with it or not.”
“You’re born with aptitude. We’ve developed techniques that will help you develop to your full potential. A lot of it is contextualizing events correctly. I’ll give you an example. You were involved in a gunfight recently, right?” Nava asked, knowing the answer.
Maya nodded.
“Did you kill anyone?”
“I think so. Actually, I hope so. I didn’t stand over their corpses, but I know I hit at least four or five of them. Maybe more.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“Feel? Other than wishing I could have plugged the one who shot my friend Sarah?”
“Yes. Any nightmares? Regrets?”
“I don’t feel bad, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Why not? You took life.”
Maya eyed her like she was crazy. “Because they’re terrorists. They’re trying to kill innocent people. They’re butchers and criminals. And they were trying to shoot me.”
“Right. So there’s the context. They were cold-blooded killers, and you were defending yourself. But let me ask this: would you have shot them if they hadn’t been trying to shoot you?”
Maya looked uncertain. “I don’t know. I think so.”
“Let me rephrase it. If you were ordered to shoot them because they were conspiring to kill innocent people, would you have a problem doing it?”
Maya shook her head. “Absolutely none at all.”
“Even if they were unarmed?”
“Sure. They’re murderous scum.”
“Right. So now a tougher one. What if you were ordered to kill someone but you weren’t told why?”
“By the Mossad? I’d assume they needed killing.”
“You’re sure?”
“Shouldn’t I be? I don’t have any moral ambiguity. If the Mossad has a reason to execute someone, that’s good enough for me. We’re the good guys.”
Nava was silent for a moment. “Yes, we are. But sometimes situations get complicated. Most often we don’t know why we’re being ordered to do something. An effective operative doesn’t second-guess the command structure. An operative has to perform, without question, and have no remorse. Not everyone can do that.”
Maya looked squarely at Nava, her gaze unflinching. “Not everyone’s going to ace this program, either. But I am.”
Nava cleared her throat and stood as Zivah entered to escort Maya to dinner. She handed Maya a thick binder to study and smiled, to Maya’s eye, with just a hint of sadness.
“I believe you.”
Chapter 19
Pulau Numbing, Indonesia
Nahir al Farooq reclined on the divan in his villa’s great room, the polished Italian marble underfoot rivaling the flooring of a French summer palace. The air in the massive home was cool and temperature controlled; the air-conditioning removed the undesirable cloying humidity of the monsoon season. Nahir had hired an engineering team from Switzerland to design his island compound’s power plant: a combination of wind, solar, thermal, and diesel powered generators that ensured he never had to suffer even a moment of discomfort. Even after seven years living on the island, he felt the money had been well spent.
Nahir called out to the kitchen as he read a report on his tablet.
“More coffee. And be quick about it.”
His voice was surprisingly deep, a rich baritone that was out of place given the speaker: a short, well-fed man with an expensive tan and shrewd brown eyes. He shifted as he waited for the steward to bring him a refill, his Robert Jordan shirt and Armani slacks a sharp contrast to the more relaxed white linen attire of his staff, as were his navy blue hand-made Italian calfskin moccasins. A heavy gold chain featuring an ancient Roman coin pendant adorned his neck, and his wrist boasted a gleaming platinum Rolex President with a black pearlescent dial.
“Nahir, are you down here?” a female voice called out from the artfully curved staircase that led to the upstairs suites.
Nahir sighed and nodded. “Yes, my dear. What can I do for you?”
A stunning young brunette he’d flown in from Madrid, along with three of her frisky friends, descended the stairs, each high-heeled foot carefully placed, her white silk kimono barely concealing her deeply tanned charms. Freshly twenty, Bella was his guest for three weeks of debauchery – or until he tired of her, whichever came first. She approached, preceded by the delightful scent of coconut, youth, and sun-kissed skin, a petulant moue on her flawless face.
“Have you seen Samson?” she asked, obviously concerned. Samson was her Yorkshire terrier, more a fashion item as far as Nahir could tell than a companion. She stood in front of him, legs slightly apart, her million-dollar thighs an invitation that was well worth the five thousand a day he was paying for the pleasure of her company.
“Samson? No. Can’t say as I have. Why?” Nahir asked, his tone appropriately concerned.
“I haven’t seen him this morning.”
“Well, he is a dog. He’s probably exploring the grounds.”
The steward appeared with the coffee, taking care not to spill as he poured the rich dark roast into his master’s cup.
Nahir’s nose twitched at the aroma. “Do you want to join me? It’s delicious.”
She shook her head. “No, thank you. I’m going to look around for Samson. He’s just a little boy. He has no concept of danger.”
“Ah, to be young again,” Nahir said with a chuckle.
He watched Bella glide back to the stairs, her buttocks moving like precision-machined pistons, and took a sip of his coffee. Nahir had created a tolerable existence for himself here in the armpit of the world since being effectively exiled by his family from their oil-rich kingdom in the Middle East. He’d always been somewhat of a black sheep, but when he’d been connected with a series of public embarrassments during his university years in London, he’d been deemed too controversial to come back home. Since then he’d floated around from country to country for a few years before settling into his preferred trade: arms dealer for despots and similar undesirables.
He’d ultimately settled on a remote island at the ass end of Indonesia as his home base because it was defendable, virtually unknown outside of the region, and he was essentially a law unto himself. When Nahir had been blackballed by his parents, he’d been cut off with next to nothing, a measly five million dollars. After squandering half on his aberrational appetites, however, he’d knuckled down and gotten serious about building a fortune – family be damned.