Verron_Serve and Protect

by Douglas Varnell

  They exited the building in the same miserable downpour and worked their way back. There were only five more targets on the return trip, each taken out by Hunter. They crossed the finish-line just as the clock hit 17 minutes. Hunter felt like they had been at it for an hour. Martinez gave Hunter a big hug and proclaimed, “I’ll partner with this man anytime and anywhere. He was shooting stuff I couldn’t even see. He was like Daredevil, almost like he was firing on instinct.” Hunter couldn’t wait to let Martinez wear some body armor then he too could see targets in zero visibility. Everyone was soaked and miserable as they piled back into the buses to head back to Camp Peary. As much as some of them wanted to celebrate completing the day’s regimen of tests, they didn’t want to do it in front of those who were destined to be thrown out. Over the next few days, there would be more tests on language skills and operative skills, as well as hand-to-hand combat skills. Those who blew it today knew that if they didn’t excel at the rest of the criteria, there would be no chance for them.

  When they unloaded at the cadet residence, one of the women, name Elizabeth Hudson, went in and cleaned out her room. She knew how bad she was at hand-to-hand and her language skill was borderline at best. She had the most advanced computer skills of the bunch and was already employed by the CIA in that capacity. She had always dreamed of being a field agent, but decided that she was better off spending her time and effort doing what she knew she was good at instead of trying to be something she could never be. She had been the lowest in all four events during the day, and was killed on the Urban Assault Course. The lady was smart enough to read the writing on the wall. She walked out the door without even saying goodbye. Hunter wondered if she would consider working for him and Vlad, they needed someone with her set of skills and from what little he had been around her, felt like she would be a good fit.

  Everyone crashed and burned when they got back to Camp Peary. By the time Hunter was showered and clean, he was ready for bed. It was unusual for him to fall asleep without his supper, but he didn’t care. He found one of the ever present cereal bars that King Paul was always saying he was going to make more eatable, but it had always slipped lower and lower on his priority list. As he ate the nasty tasting bar he decided that it would be one of his top priorities when he got back to Verron; no soldier should have to endure such taste in order to get nutrition, it should be classified as cruel and inhuman punishment. He woke early and headed for the kitchen. He was working on his second omelet by the time anyone else had entered the dining room. He had also located the vending machine full of Pepsi products and found a Diet Pepsi. He decided to drink water and a glass of orange juice instead of wasting his money; he figured it was part of the survival and perseverance training to have no Diet Coke.

  While he was finishing his last bite, Jill and Randall Avery sat down with a serious look on their faces. Jill looked around to be sure no one was listening and said, “You probably have no idea, but Oswald is doing his best to make sure you wash out.” Hunter’s eyes and ears gave their undivided attention. Jill continued, “It’s a long story, but to make it as short as possible, he resents Sullivan making him put you in the program. He and DIC Brannon were friends and field agents together back in the day. When it came to this camp, Oswald has always had full control of who got in the program and who failed. Sullivan overruled his objection to allowing you in. He jumped all over bringing you here in the middle of a session so he could set you up for failure by demanding that you perform at the same level as those with six months more training than you. I heard him talking to Agent Brown, the former HRT guy that ran the PT test yesterday and I saw him talking with the range supervisor both here and Harvey Point. He’s got to be pretty upset that you did better than everybody else instead of worse.”

  He is going to hold you to the same standard as us for the next two days of testing as well. Today we will take a three hour written exam on that book we gave you yesterday. (Hunter smiled) Then this afternoon there will be a verbal review and interview before a panel that will intentionally try to trip you up. Oswald wouldn’t have even given you the book. Then tomorrow there will be testing of verbal skills in our three chosen foreign languages and Thursday we do hand–to-hand and an obstacle course. He no doubt figured if he can beat you today and tomorrow, it won’t matter how you did on Thursday, he could justify throwing you out on the basis of you holding back the others and needing to prepare a while longer before trying again. Of course there will not be another chance.” Jill and Randal looked absolutely forlorn over being the bearers of bad news. Hunter didn’t want to sound cocky, but he did want to let them know how much he appreciated their concern; he didn’t want them to be worrying about him. He then spoke in perfect Pashto, “Do you have the book you loaned me? I put it under your door this morning before I went to breakfast.” Randall smiled at his language skill and replied in Russian, “I have it in my pack, why?” Hunter continued in Russian, “Take out the book and turn to page 247.” Jill reached behind her and removed the thick training manual from her backpack. She turned to page 247. Hunter then quoted word for word every word on the page. Both of his friends smiled the most beautiful smiles he had seen since he had arrived. Jill leaned across the table and said, “I sure would like to see the look on Oswald’s face when he finds out you can do this.” Hunter got up from the table to go brush his teeth before they headed out, saying, “I have every intention of seeing to it that I get to see the look on his face. He acted so supportive, like he was my best friend and all the time setting me up to fail. He is in for a big surprise.” He then turned and left Jill and Randall to finish their breakfast.

  They cadets formed-up and marched to the classroom instruction building about a mile up the road from the dorm. Each was then assigned a computer terminal completely partitioned off from the other trainees. No one could see anyone else and the sound deadening material built into the partitions made it almost impossible to hear anyone next to you. The proctor announced that they could begin and 19 men and women began to take the CIA equivalent of a mid-term. Hunter could have had Lucy handle the exam for him but that would be cheating. He did read the same material everyone else had read, the biggest difference was that he had one evening to cover the material where everyone else had six months of weekly classes to discuss and expand on each subject. His first response when he turned on the computer terminal was just how much more advanced Verron technology was than these state-of-the-art units being used by he and the others. They had a maximum of three hours to complete the entire exam, one hour for each section. Hunter was finished in an hour and a half and held his hand up to indicate that he was finished. Oswald was excited to see the arrogant youngster give-up so quickly. Hunter left the building and returned to the dorm to await the return of everyone else. Little by little they began to drift back in. Most looked pretty confident of their performance, but a few wore their doubt all over their face. Every one of them gave Hunter questioning looks when they came back to the dorm to grab a bite of lunch before doing the dreaded verbal exam in front of a four person panel. They knew that those they sat in front of would do everything possible to confuse them.

  The group was once again marched to the education center and ordered to sit quietly in a waiting room while one person at a time was escorted into the office being used by the review committee. Whether it was intentional or not, Hunter was once again set to go last. He had a chance to watch the reactions of the other eighteen people who went before him. Some obviously were very pleased when exiting the room. Others looked confused or distressed. One of the women came out in tears. Major Bentley came out cursing. The waiting room was empty of everyone but Hunter and yet he was forced to wait an additional twenty minutes before anyone came to the door to show him in. Instead of the four, there were now six people sitting around the conference table. He was told to stand at the end of the table closest to the door. The first to speak was Agent Kent Oswald, saying, “I was dead set against someone with your lack of
experience and youthful age being admitted to my program. I will admit that we were very pleased with your performance yesterday. You are definitely in good physical condition and are an excellent marksman. But what you’ve done today has just gotten you eliminated from this program faster than anyone in its history, Prince or no Prince; I will not tolerate anyone cheating on my exam. Men and women have studied for months, dedicating themselves selflessly to their studies and the highest score on this exam by one of them was only 91%. It is quite obvious you cheated when you just got here Sunday night and scored 105%; no one ever gets the bonus questions right at the end, because no one has ever been able to finish the entire exam. It is the unanimous decision of this board to expel you as of this moment from this program.”

  Hunter began to smile and then even chuckled at the absurdity of this power hungry little bureaucrat. He pulled up a chair at the end of the conference table and sat down and leaned forward on the table and said, “Mr. Oswald, you have got to be one of the most narrow-minded and self-absorbed civil servants I have ever met.” Before Oswald or anyone else could respond, he held up his hand and continued, “You can’t stand the fact that DIC Sullivan commanded you to put a complete unknown into your training center. But you see Mr. Sullivan knows more about me than you do. He knows that I am smarter than anyone in this room and could pass anything you threw at me. I didn’t come here to prove my worthiness to you or anyone else, I came here to learn how the CIA does things, and if you, Mr. Oswald, are to be my example, then I am not impressed. Furthermore, that petty little study-guide you wrote for this program is so simple my 15 year-old cousin could pass your exam.” He looked at the other five people at the table and asked, “Are the rest of you trying to throw be out or just Mr. Oswald?”

  They looked at each other, and then at their boss; finally one of them asked, “You are every bit as arrogant as Agent Oswald says you are, sitting there like you know more than anyone else. I’d say you’re a cheat and a liar.” A lady Hunter had never seen before, asked, “How are we to believe that a person who arrived here two nights ago and aced our hardest exam didn’t cheat?” Hunter was beginning to get irritated and was about to tell them to take their little civil servant jobs and stuff it, but he decided to play nice. He leaned back in his chair and told them, “Do any of you have a copy of the wonderful book written by Mr. Oswald?” Three of the six people did in fact have one. Hunter put his hands behind his head and said, “Pick a page; any page. Now ask me what it says.” There were six puzzled faces staring at him and wondering just who this kid thought he was. Oswald grabbed the book away from the man next to him and bellowed, “For Christ sake, don’t make a bigger fool of yourself than you already have.” Hunter sat silently looking at the panel of agents, finally Oswald asked, “Page 531” thinking he would stump Hunter, since there was no print on that page. Hunter asked, “You have a pen and a piece of paper. Since there is nothing but a chart on how to assemble a pipe-bomb on that page, it will be best that I draw it. In fact, I could probably make a few improvements to the diagram if you like.” The lady on the panel handed Hunter a pencil and a pad of paper. He sat there for a moment, then, began to draw. In about five minutes he was finished and pushed his work back across the table, saying, “I will have to admit that I may have a slight deficiency in my artistic skills, but I believe that even you will be able to comprehend what I’ve drawn.”

  A large black man, who had not said a word so far, immediately reached for the drawing and took his time carefully looking it over. He sat in silence a moment and picked-up his cell phone. When he finished, he took a picture of the drawing Hunter had made and texted the drawing to someone. The group sat silently for about ten minutes and the man’s phone rang. All anyone could hear of the conversation on one end, which went like this, “You’re sure? Then it will work like I thought it would? And could be built by almost anyone? Thanks! Yes, I will let the person who drew the drawing know how much you appreciate this being pointed out to you before it is figured out by the wrong people; later George.” He put his phone back in his shirt pocket and turned to the others, shaking his head, “That was George McClain, with the Department of Homeland Security Bomb Squad. He is responsible for threat assessment. He said that the modifications our friend here just made to a simple pipe bomb would increase its destructive power by a factor of four. Making it as powerful as Russian made MON-50 Anti-personnel mine. A really smart kid will soon figure it out. We need to be aware of the threat and the materials that can be used to make it. George is going to add those materials to his watch list.” He turned to Hunter and pushed a book, he had removed from his briefcase while he talked, across the table. It was a book written in German by some analyst doing research on Soviet made dirty bombs. Hunter picked it up and looked at the panel. Mr. Warren, the big black man, was a bomb expert for the CIA. He told Hunter, “Pick a page, any page and then give it back to me.” Hunter read a page in about 30 seconds and pushed it back across the table. Mr. Warren held the book in front of himself and the woman next to him and nodded to Hunter. Hunter quoted the page word for word in perfect German then asked, “Would you like me to translate for anyone who doesn’t speak German?” He then repeated the page in English and Russian.

  One of the other men asked, “I’ve heard of people that could do what you did, but I have never met anyone who could. How long did it take you to read the manual?” Hunter answered respectfully, “About an hour, sir.” Mr. Warren asked, “You can do this with anything you see or read?” Once again he replied, “Yes sir. It doesn’t matter if it’s words or numbers. I can read it and even understand what I read well enough to explain it to someone after I’m finished.” The assistant director, who worked for Agent Oswald, jokingly asked, “You ever been to Vegas; I can probably get a weekend pass for the two of us if you want to go.” Oswald did not appreciate his subordinate trying to make a joke out of the situation. One last question came from the lady, as she informed Hunter, “My name is Agent Ostroff. I will be conducting the language segment of this mid-term tomorrow. You just spoke two languages. I probably should be ashamed to ask, but how many languages do you speak Mr. Hall?” Hunter thought a moment and asked, “Just Earth languages or all together?” Ms. Ostroff smiled, saying, “I should have known; give me both.” Hunter politely replied, “So far I speak 26 Earth languages and 7 languages of the people who are Verron’s allies; so 33. She gave him a sly smile and informed him, “I look forward to learning more tomorrow.” At this point Agent Warren got up from the table overriding Mr. Oswald’s authority, saying, “I believe we are finished with Mr. Oswald’s inquisition. It’s a pleasure to meet someone as exceptional as you Mr. Hall. If you discover any other potential problems we may encounter, please feel free to contact me at any time. I will be certain to give a full report to DIC Sullivan when I return to Langley and be certain he knows what a good decision he made in allowing you to attend our program.” With that comment, Hunter rose from the table and exited the room. He could hear the argument taking place in the room after he left.

  Hunter was smiling when he entered the dormitory to be greeted by a group of questioning faces. Evidently, more than Jill and Randall knew that Oswald had it out for him. The first words out of his mouth were, “I’m starved did you people save me anything?” Martinez came into the room carrying a plate of food and a Diet Coke. Hunter had no idea where he got it, but he was thrilled to see it. As he ate, the others gathered around to hear the details of his review. He finished telling them everything about the time he finished eating. Jill and Randall were smiling. Martinez and Bentley were shaking their heads in wonder, the others were talking among themselves trying to decide if they believed him or not. Finally, the oldest among them, who had been a Professor of languages at the CIA University in Chantilly, Virginia, asked in Mandarin, “Is Chinese one of the languages you speak?” Hunter answered in the same dialect, “Both Mandarin and Cantonese; as well as Russian, French, Polish, German, Ukrainian, Dutch, Spanish, Farsi
, Pashto, Swahili, Italian, Brazilian, Somali, Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Korean … must I name them all?” The man sat down beside Hunter and asked, “How? I’ve been studying all my life and speak maybe a dozen well enough to converse in them.” Hunter knew it was time to give credit to someone besides himself. He quickly informed him, “If you come visit me for a week or two on Verron you will leave with twice as many languages as you speak now. We have some pretty advanced teaching methods not available on Earth. Let me know if you ever decide to take me up on the offer. The man that had avoided Hunter more than the others extended his hand and replied, “Count on it. I’ll be there.”

  Wednesday turned out to be a pretty easy day for Hunter. Ms. Ostroff had a panel of six linguists with her and together they represented over forty languages and all six had one of the vital foreign languages as a native tongue. Ms. Ostroff was originally from East Germany and spoke German and Russian as her native language and Polish and French as secondary languages when she traveled. There was a man from Saudi Arabia, a lady from India, a Hispanic, a Chinese, Japanese and a South African. Hunter spent more time in the evaluation than any before or after him and no one could find a flaw in his grasp of the various dialects. The man from Saudi looked at his friends from other nationalities and commented, “Well, I hate to stereotype, but with that blond hair and blue eyes, he’ll never be an operative where we came from.” Hunter told them in perfect Russian, with a St. Petersburg accent, “I have spent a couple of years travelling in and out of Russia, Germany, Poland, the Ukraine, Check Republic and France. I pass for a native in all of them. (He switched to Nigerian) I did however stand out like a black man at a Klan rally when I infiltrated Boko Haram in Nigeria with my Grandfather.” He shrugged as he smiled. The others laughed, since his Nigerian was as good as his other languages.