“I’m only sorry I didn’t say something sooner,” he said. “I didn’t like seeing you head into the ring with Moose.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I replied.
“He’s not the one I was worried about.”
“Oh.” Now I was reduced to single syllable words. I had to do better than this, so I added, “Thanks for sticking up for me.”
“No problem.” He grinned again. I wished he wouldn’t do that. “We’re not all bad here. Do you ever do any grappling or wrestling?”
“Sure.”
“Do you want to have a roll?”
My throat constricted and words wouldn’t come out. Did I want to have a roll?
In these surroundings it was a perfectly reasonable question. It was simply how someone asked if you’d like to join them on the mat for a wrestle, but there was nothing normal about any of this. For one thing, my heart was racing and we hadn’t even started yet.
At this rate soon I’d be giggling and fluttering my eyelashes. Well, I was not a flutterer. I’d never fluttered in my life and wasn’t about to start now. I had to fight this every step of the way and knew exactly how to get myself back on track.
“Sure,” I said.
Wrestling and grappling was much more technical than it looked. I’d done my fair share with other girls at the academy as well as men who were much bigger than me, and could hold my own.
Ben lay on his back on the mat and motioned for me to join him. I kneeled between his legs which he wrapped around me in the guard position. This was a common position in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, yet nothing about this was standard.
We were on the ground together and I felt the heat of his body, the rise and fall of his breaths, the strength of his muscles.
I felt a lot more than I was supposed to.
He rolled me over so he was on top. Ben was considerate and didn’t put his full weight on me. He was strong and manly too, much more so than your average teenager.
No, I should never have let him get the upper hand. This was a technical sport. Stay technical. The whole point of this martial art was that a smaller, weaker person could successfully defend against a bigger opponent by using leverage and proper technique.
Leverage. I angled for position, swept him over and got him in an arm bar, a submission hold. He tapped out, the signal for me to release him.
“You’re full of surprises,” he said.
While he was distracted I got him in side control, my body on top of his, my full weight on top of him. As I landed with a thump, the air left his body.
Now it was down to business. We took turns grappling for position, playing off each other, and taking turns practicing holds and submissions.
This was what I was good at. I knew what to do and where I stood. This was my world and I was not some stupid giggling female going weak at the sight of a male.
I was getting a feel for Ben’s strengths and weaknesses. Not that I’d eliminate him with my bare hands. Too many things could go wrong with hand-to-hand combat. For one thing, twisting someone’s neck was harder than it looked. Muscles, tendons, neck bones, all these things provided resistance. And a broken neck didn’t mean instant death. There were way too many variables. I could get badly injured, for one thing.
And it was too close, too intimate. Still, I had to be prepared.
We upped the pace. That was one of the things I liked about grappling and Jiu Jitsu. You were always fighting, jostling for position, and it never stopped. My heart rate increased for all the right reasons. Because of the strength involved, the physical exertion, the need to stay alert.
Ben made a tactical error and I had his back. A big mistake. From here, he could only defend, while I had plenty of opportunities to attack or submit him. I slid one arm beneath his chin, inching my arm around, his body already locked into position with my legs.
There was nowhere for him to go but still he struggled. So did I until the bent V of my arm was under his chin. I secured my hand to my shoulder to hold the choke in place. I’d never give up my position.
This was what I was supposed to do to him eventually. Finish him. Not now, but later. It was why I’d been sent to Altabena.
I’d killed before. My superior officers wouldn’t have sent me on the mission if I hadn’t. It had been so much easier then.
I squeezed my arm tighter. Ben tapped. And I let go.
He rolled away. I sat with my arms resting on my bent knees, my breaths ragged.
You won’t be able to do this.
It’s all wrong.
“You don’t like to lose, do you, Nicola?” Ben looked up at me through the messed-up, dark, wavy hair that fell over his forehead.
“Winning is so much better,” I said.
So why didn’t I feel good? Why wasn’t I celebrating?
His eyes narrowed. “I can’t work you out. Where do you get that competitive streak?”
“M-me?” I placed a hand on my chest. “I’m not competitive. I just like to win all the time.”
Ben leaned back on his hands, staring at me as if I were a moron, a look I was getting used to.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, I can’t help myself. It’s the way I’ve been raised. I like to compete and, more than that, I like to win.”
“So, are your parents highly competitive?” he asked. “Is that where it comes from?”
“Not at all.”
He meant my parents in Altabena. I couldn’t tell him the truth, that the schools in which I’d been raised had extremely high standards, that it was an honor to have made it into military college, that I’d been reared to be the best at what I do.
“No, they’re…” I began. “That’s different…”
“So your competitiveness came out of thin air?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly where it comes from. What about you?”
“I’ve got an older brother,” he said as if that were an explanation.
“And?”
“You know what it’s like with siblings.”
“Not really.”
“So you’re an only child, I didn’t realize.”
I nodded though that wasn’t quite true. I had an older brother in New Nation who I hadn’t seen for years. He worked for the military too, patrolling the Badlands, a highly dangerous job.
We hadn’t grown up together so I barely knew him. Several years ago, I’d thought we might have something in common since we were both at military school and had tried to initiate a friendship, however he’d told me he was too busy.
His answer had niggled at me back then – more than niggled if I was going to be honest. There hadn’t even been anyone I could to talk to about it because the fact I was nothing to him wasn’t something to get upset about, not in New Nation.
Ben said, “My brother and I were always wrestling and getting into scuffles. Josh is away at college now. When we were kids, he was always bigger. I had to learn to hold my own or I’d get flattened.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You didn’t like being downtrodden?”
“You’ve got it wrong. We were kids, mucking around, having a good time.”
The idea was so foreign to me that it made me wonder what that would’ve been like. I nodded.
“There’s another thing I learnt from my brother,” he said. “That it’s better to talk your way out of situations than fight your way out.”
“Not always. Not if you’re dealing with a dangerous opponent. Sometimes attack is the best defense. Sometimes it’s the only way.”
“Not for me.”
“So you’re a martial artist and a pacifist?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“Then why do martial arts at all?”
“It’s about control. Controlling aggression, to be precise. Believe it or not, I used to be an angry young guy.”
Intrigued, I edged closer to Ben. “How angry?”
“I used to get into fights, lash out, make trouble. It’s not something I’m proud of.”
“When I was twelve, Dad got me into martial arts. To teach me discipline. It worked.”
“What made you so mad?” I asked.
He looked away. “Life. Lots of things.”
There was more to this story than he was telling me. Was this a description of a confused young male or the first glimpse into the mind of a future killer? I had a feeling it was the former and that was not what I needed to hear.
“You’re not angry now?” I asked though the answer was obvious.
He turned to me. “No. What about you? What made you get into martial arts?”
“Me?”
Ben grinned, his eyes crinkling up at the corners. “Yes, you.”
“Martial arts makes me who I am,” I said. “It’s part of me.”
I loved everything about it from the cardio-rush to the achievement from improving and the confidence it gave me. I even got perverse pleasure from the pain. Most of all, I loved the sense of power.
Ben didn’t speak right away. He leaned closer, a satisfied gleam in his green eyes as he held my gaze. At that moment, I felt close to him, much closer than I should.
After a while, he said, “I know exactly what you mean.”
And he did. I could see it in his eyes and the set of his mouth. Except we weren’t supposed to be on the same wavelength. We were on different sides even if Ben didn’t know it.
I tucked my legs under myself, ready to leave.
Ben held my gaze as if he didn’t want me to go. “This is a great place for someone like me. I can come here and train and be a different person, someone who’s aggressive. I can be something I’m not.”
But Ben Tanner was going to do something extremely aggressive – fatal, in fact – when he created the killer virus.
I stood to leave. “Time to go.”
Ben jumped to his feet. “I’ll catch you tomorrow.”
On my way to the locker rooms, I walked past the other girls who congratulated me on my performance with Moose. Except I hadn’t meant to put on another show. That wasn’t why I was here and this wasn’t going to plan.
I slumped down on the bench beside my bag. I couldn’t get Ben out of my mind. Hardly surprising since he was my target.
My methods were sound. Gathering information was my initial priority. Meanwhile I was ingratiating myself into Ben’s life because that would give me more opportunities to get close and finish him. If he was a friend, no one would be suspicious of my motives or my presence, least of all Ben.
When the time came, I’d have to decide where to complete the job. Not at school because there’d be too many witnesses. It could be at his house or some secluded location. Still, I didn’t need to stress about where to do it just yet. I had to work out how first and then the location would follow from that.
Yes, I’d have to choose a method to eliminate him. I’d have to focus, like I had before I’d secured the chokehold. Nothing could get in my way.
It was a simple matter of mathematics: the life of one mass murderer versus the lives of billions of innocent people. It shouldn’t be a hard decision. Besides, I had my orders and disobeying was not an option.
Ben and I weren’t both going to win.
We couldn’t.
Chapter Seven
This wasn’t the first time Ben had walked home from school with me. What’s more, these opportunities to get to know him better kept falling in my lap. Fine by me. Every interaction was an opportunity to learn more about him, his routines and movements, his capabilities and weak spots.
“No martial arts training this afternoon?” I asked as we ambled along the path in the mottled shade of the gum trees above.
“I only train twice a week after school,” Ben said. “Plus Saturday mornings. That’s usually a big session.”
I screwed up my face. “Is that all?”
How had he reached such a high level of martial arts with so little training? In New Nation, my whole life revolved around training and improving my skills.
He shrugged. “It’s hard to fit everything in.”
“Really?”
Now I didn’t know what he meant at all. He should’ve had ample time for school, training and study with plenty of spare time thrown in.
“What are you up to this afternoon?” I asked.
Another shrug. “Nothing much. Probably studying.”
“So who else is home when you get there?”
“Dad’s at work. My little sister, Celia, gets home not long after me. She usually goes to a friend’s house on my training afternoons. I don’t like to leave her at home alone too long.”
“What about your mom?”
“She’s not around,” he said quickly. “You’re asking a lot of questions.”
I shrugged, pretended to be nonchalant. “I’m nosy.”
When it was closer to the time, the hours immediately after school presented an excellent opportunity to execute my mission. Ben would be at home, easy to locate, unsuspecting – except if the little sister was around. I couldn’t be that calculating or cold-blooded even though I was supposed to be.
We reached the corner where he usually turned off to go to his place.
“See you tomorrow, Nicola,” Ben said.
“Sure.”
We parted ways and I headed home to dump my school bag and change into jeans and a tee shirt. Mother was sitting at the kitchen table, tapping away at her laptop.
“Good news,” she said. “The Everills have set a date. They’ll be here at the end of next month.”
How could I have forgotten about our old ‘neighbors’? And what the hell was I supposed to do?
I froze in the doorway. “Great.”
Mother looked at me through hooded lids. “There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
“Why do they want to come here anyway?”
“In her email, Lydia said they want to get away from things, not that that should make any difference to you.”
“They could go somewhere further away.”
Like Mom’s parents who lived in the South of France or Dad’s parents who were dead. The further away, the better.
Her brow furrowed, Mother stared at me. “Look, I know they’re both ‘computer geeks’ as you like to say and they can be a little odd. They only email because they don’t like talking over the phone but, honestly Nicola, what is with you?”
I turned and left. “I’ve got to go.”
There was no easy fix for this situation.
It was one step at a time and the first thing I had to do was get back to Ben’s. His house was similar to the others on the street. A neat, two-story clapboard place, the garden was well kept with a blue station wagon parked out front.
As I ambled along, Ben came out of his front door carrying an armful of books. He nudged a small, blond girl wearing a dance costume down the path ahead of him. Celia, I presumed.
“Can you stay to watch the performance at the end?” she asked in her high-pitched voice. “All the parents will be there.”
“Sure,” Ben said.
“I like it when you stay and watch.”
“I’ve got to study as well. Hurry up, Celia.”
Since Ben hadn’t noticed me yet, I stepped closer and called out. Under the circumstances there was no need for me to hide.
He stopped by the car, his face lighting up. “What are you doing here?”
“Going for a walk.” I stepped closer. “You know, keeping up a healthy lifestyle. What about you?”
Celia said loudly, “He’s taking me to dance.”
“You didn’t mention that earlier,” I said to Ben.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
Ben didn’t seem to be in such a hurry now he’d seen me either. He introduced me to his little sister.
“How old are you, Celia?” I asked.
“Seven,” she said.
“You’re big for seven.”
The little girl beamed and Ben said
, “We’re off to the community center. Do you need a lift somewhere?”
I shook my head. “Then I’d miss out on this wonderful walk.”
Celia opened the passenger’s door and slid inside the car. “We have to go now.”
So did I. I felt a pinprick on my hip. My PR device again.
Ben drummed his fingers on the roof of the car as if hesitating. “You can come along if you like.”
“Maybe another time.”
Ben waved it off. “Nah, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
I watched him get into the car. All the parents would be there. And Ben. Why would he be there?
As he drove away, I pretended to continue on my way until Ben’s car was out of sight, then doubled back and headed for his house.
He’d already given me all the requisite information. His mom wasn’t around and his father was at work. At training he’d mentioned an older brother who was away at college. The house was empty. That was all I needed to know.
I walked down a side path and saw an upstairs window that had been left open. Since it was right next to a tree, this couldn’t have been easier. I climbed up the trunk and seconds later, I was in a room with pink walls, framed dance posters and a bed covered in a princess bedspread. Not the right bedroom.
Now I was safely out of view, I peeled the PR device from my hip and checked my messages.
A communications problem has been identified but cannot be rectified. We know you are alive, however your messages are not being transmitted. Continue with your mission as planned.
Yes, my superior officers knew I was alive. Thanks to Geopositrons and advanced GPS technology, they knew exactly where I was. They always knew. Something about that bothered me, though I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what. Or maybe I was still jumpy from the news about my parents’ neighbors visiting.
Still, at least transmissions from New Nation were getting through even if mine weren’t and, as my superiors reminded me, I had a job to do.
Stepping out into the hallway, I found Ben’s room was the next one along. I headed straight for his desk, grabbed his laptop, sat on the bed and gave a voice command for my PR to collate all information on Ben Tanner.
A few minutes later, the device had infiltrated Ben’s computer and I slapped the PR back onto my hip. I went through Ben’s files, emails and internet history, looking for anything that might give some hint of the disaster that was to come. It was extremely disappointing to say the least. I’d even go as far as to say his emails were boring.
Infiltration (Infiltration Book 1) Page 5