She got out, went inside, and was met by a doorman, a male version of a bulldog. She said, “I’m here to see Duncan.”
He nodded and pointed across the sports-book room to a hall.
She passed the sports bar, where all the patrons watched a couple dozen screens of sporting events, none paying any attention to her. She continued, going down the hallway, then into a room where she was greeted by a dapper, goateed man of around fifty or so. She wondered if this was Duncan.
“I hate basketball,” the man said, looking at the sports screens on the wall in the small room. “I think half the games are fixed, yet I’m always betting on them. Boxing is worse, but I can’t help myself. What’s your favorite sport?”
“I don’t think…I’m not sure I have one,” she said. “Football, maybe.”
They were joined by a young Latino man. Both looked into her bag, then she was asked to stand still while the older man took a wand of some kind and went over her, head to foot, and then the other guy frisked her. If there was anything sexual about it—and his hands were all over her body—she didn’t sense it. He’d be a good airport screener, she thought.
The younger guy took her cell phone. “It’ll be returned,” he said and left.
She wondered if even having the cell phone was a mistake, deciding it was.
The older guy pointed to a door at the end of a short hall. “Duncan is waiting for you.”
She followed the hallway and went inside yet another room. There were a couple of empty booths, a few empty tables, and half a dozen big screens on the far wall showing sporting events. A man sat alone at a booth.
She went over, and he motioned for her to sit. She slid into the booth.
He said, “Sorry for all the procedure. You’re from San Diego?”
“Yes.”
“You’re here for training?”
“Yes.”
Now he looked at her. He had a lot going for him in the eyes. Maybe thirty-five or so. He was middle sized, lean, like most guys who came out of Special Ops.
Jess’s friends, many of them Seals or Special Forces, were mostly middleweights. That was apparently the physical size that had the right combination of dexterity and endurance.
Duncan studied her, then said, “Be specific. That way, I might have an idea what you want.” He smiled. But behind that smile was a hard level of seriousness. She figured this guy had been in harm’s way, in bad places, and knew the dark alleys of the world. He reminded her of Jess.
Be specific. Be Viera Ferran, she demanded of herself. “I want a very bad man dead. He’s my ex-husband. He killed my fiancé. He’s going to kill me. That’s as specific as I can be.”
She watched as Duncan sipped from a glass of water. He looked at the sports screens and she followed his gaze. Basketball. Golf. Tennis.
When he turned back to her, he said, “I’d say that’s pretty specific.” He nodded, almost smiled. “This isn’t what we normally do, you understand. But a friend in San Diego asked if I’d talk to you about your problem. But, since this is not protocol, I need to trust you absolutely and completely. If you have any doubts—”
“I don’t.”
“Good. Well, then, we don’t have a lot to discuss. Welcome aboard.”
“Thanks,” she said, not sure what aboard was really going to mean.
He played with his water glass, glanced up at the screens, shook his head at something he didn’t like in one of the sports, maybe, then said, “I have to know a lot about you, and the threat. There are various ways to deal with threats. I take it this individual bothering you isn’t the kind that can be talked to?”
“No.”
“He’s a former detective. A decorated detective.”
“Yes.”
“Runs a big security firm?”
“Yes.”
There was a long silence. He looked off at the sports screens again, then turned back to her. “You ready for whatever we throw at you?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll push you beyond anything you’ve ever experienced. Not because I’m particularly sadistic, but because when I train somebody, they get the best training I can give them. It’s not easy. I don’t know if you can handle it. But if you can, you’ll be able to solve whatever problems you want to solve. That I can guarantee you.”
“That’s all I want,” she said
“Somebody will contact you,” Duncan said. “You won’t go back to your motel. Your driver will take you to a new place. You’ll be moving around. Somebody will follow you at all times.”
“My phone—”
“You can pick that up on your way out. Don’t turn it on. You’ll be given another phone with it. The one I’ll use. Anybody approaches you for any reason, if they don’t tell you Duncan sent them, if they don’t identify themselves as Duncan One, or Duncan Two, you don’t like them. Get away, get out, protect yourself. Each contact, starting with Duncan One, will be progressive. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. Get out of here. Be professional, be strong, and we’ll get along. Don’t ever complain. Or whine. Or quit. Once you go into the program, you fight through it. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“You like pizza?”
“I do.”
“There’s a great pizzeria just opened. Best damn Chicago-style pizza in town.”
He handed her a small automatic. “You don’t like somebody, shoot them.”
An hour later, she lay in bed in the dark in a motel outside of Vegas on the road that led to Tonopah, wondering if she could really do this.
She liked this Duncan. Felt like he was exactly what she needed because he wasn’t going to take care of her problems. He was going to train her to do that. She didn’t know what was next, but she felt she would be as ready for this as she could be, for whatever was expected of her.
She heard the crunch of tires as a car pulled up outside. She rolled off the bed and went to the window, the small gun in her hand.
5
A man exited the car and headed for her door. He gut tightened for a moment. But then she saw that he was carrying a flat box and the travel bag they’d given her. She smiled. Pizza!
“Who is it?” she said before the man could even knock.
“Duncan One. I have your things. And some food.”
She opened to the door. It was the Latino man from the club who’d frisked her. He gave her belongings to her, and a boxed pizza that was still warm. She thanked him, and he nodded and left.
She watched out the side of the window curtain until his car disappeared, then ate the thin-crust cheese pizza with enthusiasm. Duncan was right—it was delicious.
At midnight came another knock. A woman this time, announcing herself as Duncan Two.
“A car will pick you up in forty minutes. These are for you.”
Duncan Two laid a small case on the bed and opened it. Two more guns: one small revolver with a very small holster, the other a large gun with clips and a silencer.
“Are you experienced with handguns?” the woman asked.
“Not really,” Viera said. “I went to the range maybe twice, but I only ever fired a couple times.”
The woman looked at her with a dismissive nod. “You’ll become an expert very soon.”
Duncan Two picked up the bigger gun. “This is a Glock nineteen. Nine millimeter. The silencer is a Gentech. It’s your first training weapon. I don’t actually like it that much myself. Too big a profile. But it’s a good place to start your training, to see what you can handle.”
“What do you like?” Viera asked.
Duncan Two smiled. It was hard to tell what the smile was. Maybe a little sarcastic, maybe a little bit happy to have been asked. She was very hard to read.
“You’ll get many choices. I like various weapons. One is the FNP forty-five tactical with an Osprey silencer and laser, but don’t worry about it now. You’ll shoot many weapons and choose what you’re most comfortable with when the course
is completed.”
She smiled at Duncan Two but decided the best course of action was not to ask any more questions that might sound stupid.
As she was leaving, Duncan Two said, “He’s going above and beyond for you. Do him justice.”
“I’ll try.”
“Get some sleep. You’ll be heading out to the training site at about four in the morning. Bring everything. You won’t be coming back here.”
***
There wasn’t a lot of sleep to be had.
When she checked the clock, she saw that her pickup was right on time.
She got in the back of a blacked-out van with no view. Even the front was covered. Two men were in the back with duffle bags. Nobody spoke.
When they reached the destination an hour later and got out, the sun was coming up over the mountains behind them. They were in a desert canyon in the middle, as far as she could tell, of nothing.
The camp had a cluster of cement buildings that looked empty and whose walls were decorated with plenty of bullet holes. On the far side, well staggered, were some small pup tents. In a field was an obstacle course with walls, hand bars, and free weights. A fortified trailer turned out to be where guns and ammo were kept, she learned later. Another was the food wagon. Above the counter where they would pick up their food was a sign: THEY ARE ALWAYS HUNTING YOU.
Training began within minutes of their arrival. There were six, counting her, going through the training. She, the lone female.
Their belongings were dumped out and checked while they did calisthenics. Then it was to the shooting range, followed by sneaking around the buildings trying not to be seen or caught, getting yelled at constantly. Non-stop. And lectures. Lots of lectures and videos of urban action. Every station had water bottles, so she did her best to stay hydrated.
She didn’t see Duncan for three days. Three of the most intense days of her life.
The camp sat in the tight folds of the desert mountains, back in a canyon protected by a heavily armed checkpoint, with, she soon realized, small drones patrolling over the surrounding mountains every so often.
She was given one of the small pups tent to live in. A large tent had tables and benches where they consumed simple, basic meals. And there were two portable outhouses. They had showers of sorts. Water coming out of a huge container. No privacy existed, so she washed with her clothes on.
The mornings started before sunup and never really stopped until a period for lunch and rest. They were discouraged from talking to other students. They were labeled Trainee Blue, Red, Green, Orange, Yellow, White. She was Red.
No one really had time to talk or associate. Beyond that, it was all about shooting, tracking, learning. And it was more intense than anything she could have imagined. Every type of firearm had to be mastered, broken down, fired, cleaned. Every kind of scope was handled while learning the methods of using them. They studied the math of trajectory, wind velocity, altitude effect. There was no time to even think.
They wore concealed weapons, and used them—learning how to attach silencers quickly, reload, hit moving targets and sitting targets, inside and outside. One lesson was about how to approach a car to kill an occupant. They also perfected how to approach the target who was on a motorcycle, even a bicycle. It was exhausting and at times made her a little sick. Definitely all work and no play. At every opportunity, she sought shade. The afternoons were brutal, and it wasn’t even the harshness of summer yet in this ultimate boot camp.
Then, in the physical combat tactics—her being smallish, one hundred ten pounds, and the only female—she learned tactics to compensate. It was all about disabling quickly. Vital spots were always the objective. Eyes, neck, groin, kneecaps.
“If you find yourself in a real drawn-out fight, you’re always in big trouble.”
At night, they would sit on a hillside and different instructors would lecture them on topics like discovering a target’s habits, how to pick the time and place for the job. So many things were involved with such a simple act. They were given DVDs to watch on players in their tents before going to sleep. They ate well at night. Lots of carbs. She got over being clean. Being rested. Ruminating. No time.
But it was the classes on post-hit escape that were the most intense. It became evident that killing somebody was the easy part of the whole program. It was getting away with it that took over the training. That’s when Duncan finally made his appearance, to oversee this phase of the training. He showed her no preference, other than to tell her she had surprised them all.
“You have a bit of the warrior hiding inside that small frame of yours. We’ll bring it out. Don’t fight that. If you let it flower, you’ll become the exact opposite of your former self, which, I understand, is your goal.”
“It is,” she said.
6
The training went from the camp to a new location in Henderson, on the outskirts of Vegas, where she had to learn the proper methods of surveillance, fixing trackers to vehicles, movement, and evade and escape techniques. Then they travelled to Albuquerque. Each trainee was given a manila envelope with a picture and a mission. She located and tagged her target in about two hours.
Then she found herself on an Amtrak to Chicago. She was given another envelope and another person—this time, a woman—to follow and determine where the hit should be made. From the train to a cab, to stalking the target in a small village on the outskirts of the city, it was crazy intensity. Grueling. Learning how to see without being seen. Learning the rhythms of the target’s life.
Then they concentrated on developing the “kill skill,” as Duncan put it. He explained he was in and out on a job. He chose several students to operate in the next exercise. In this case, after the target had left to go running at the same time in the morning three days in a row, Viera chose to ride a bicycle and do the hit.
It was a fake hit, of course, but it went well. The woman, part of the program, never saw what was coming until Viera nailed her with a paintball hit.
She felt good about the operation. Her progress. And Duncan seemed pleased, as well…until he showed her surveillance footage they’d taken of her. Twice, he’d gotten within kill range and she never knew he was there.
Duncan said, “You aren’t always where you need to be mentally. Where your focus has to be, it isn’t yet there. I’ve been watching you all week. Remember—paranoia is your friend, your best friend, and biggest survival tool.”
“I failed?”
“No. You did good work. You just have to learn double focus—stay focused on who you’re after without ever forgetting who might be after you.”
Duncan was a great teacher. She was comfortable with him. On one occasion, she said to him, “You ever attempt to get up on me like that again, I’ll kill you.”
He smiled.
She figured she was getting a passing grade.
***
Back again at the Vegas camp, they graduated in a short ceremony and then returned to the city. They would probably never see one another again, so it was good that there had been little interaction.
It became second nature to her that this complex and complicated business was really something she liked a lot. The tracking, avoiding, designing an encounter, leaving no actionable trace.
It was clear to her she’d had the very best—the fastest, most concentrated weeks of intense training available, she believed—normally offered only to very embedded government and military agents and a new breed of Dark-World security types. She was thrilled to have been accepted into this elite fraternity.
And she really connected in ways she could only dream of. She was a little surprised at just how well she’d tolerated, endured, and mastered the lessons. It seemed almost miraculous. It was like she had turned 180 degrees. Became her opposite. As Duncan had predicted. For the first time in her life she felt strong, capable, and unafraid.
They are always hunting you.
Duncan took all of them back to Vegas. The others slinked off i
nto the dark, and he asked her to wait a few minutes. She knew all of this training was expensive, but that was never mentioned, so she finally decided to ask on her last night. She waited, and when Duncan emerged into the parking area behind the hotel, he had shrimp cocktails in large tulip glasses with a side of cocktail sauce.
“They aren’t ninety-nine cents anymore. That changed about five years ago. But the shrimp got bigger.”
They got into his car to talk. “How much are they now?” she asked.
“Two ninety-nine. But still worth it.”
They ate quietly for a moment. The shrimp was very good.
As though reading her mind, Duncan said, “You may be asked to do things as a means of payment. Don’t worry about it. You have your problem to deal with. Good luck. When that’s done, we’ll talk. You did well. One of the fastest, most determined students I’ve ever had. There were doubters all along about you being a civilian with no background, and nothing much to build on, yet you came in at the top of the class. You’re ready.”
She was stunned by the compliment. She’d gotten to like him, especially as a trainer, and part of her hoped to meet him again in the near future.
They finished their shrimp in silence, and then she got out and stood on a sidewalk. He followed, standing next to her. Across the parking lot was the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, and it was almost midnight. Her new life would begin in minutes.
“Okay, California girl, do the job you’re now qualified to do. It’s been a pleasure.”
It was over. Now she needed to focus on her target, three hundred miles away. Duncan had taken her under his wing and given her all that his expert preparation had to offer. He’d told her several times that all the training in the world was not going to prepare her for the psychology of the moment.
“I’m confident you can do what you need to do, have to do. Be a ghost. Trap your target. But then the reality of it will be there when you have the target in front of you and you have to pull that trigger. No training can make that decision for you.”
The Murder Option Page 2