by David Archer
“Nothing specific,” she said. “We'll be going over some rules and regulations that are in place, and getting your new identity all set up. A lot of it's already been done, but there are some simple things we need to go over.”
Noah nodded. “It occurs to me that I haven't actually thanked you,” he said. “Your intervention has saved my life, and I do appreciate it.”
She grinned at him. “Well, considering the alternative, I'm sure you do,” she said. “The thing you gotta remember, though, is that you earned the opportunity. You demonstrated some incredible abilities, and those are abilities that we need in this organization. It simply made sense for me to do everything I could to recruit you.”
“Then here's hoping I prove to be worth all your effort.”
Allison smiled. “There's something special about you, Noah,” she said. “Doctor Parker says he wishes we could figure out a way to boil you down to your essence, so that we could just inject it into people. Luckily for you, he hasn't found a way to do that, so we can't produce dozens of you. You get to stay unique, and everyone who's gotten to know you so far is convinced that your uniqueness is going to pay off for us in many ways.”
“Because I don't have feelings?” Noah asked.
“That's certainly part of it,” she said. “The significance of your lack of emotions is that you don't suffer from guilt or remorse, so that you effectively have no conscience.”
“I know,” he replied. “That's why I had to develop a sort of moral programming code, something to let me know when I was overstepping the bounds of propriety. It's my own sense of right and wrong.”
Allison nodded. “Yes, and it seems to be an effective one, because you've gone this long without ending up in trouble. From what I've been able to determine through my own research and Doctor Parker's, most people who suffer from conditions like yours can't even function properly in society. I think your success in doing so probably goes back to the fact that you had an extremely intelligent friend who could help you understand what was happening to you when you were a child.”
“Molly,” Noah said. “If it hadn't been for her, I probably would have lost my mind way back then, or at least found myself lost and confused among all you humans.”
Allison gave him a curious look. “You speak as if you don't consider yourself to be one of us,” she said. “I've heard you say that before, that you don't think of yourself as being a human at all. Is that really how you feel?”
“I suppose it is,” he said. “Humans have emotions, they have feelings, and a lot of their actions and decisions are guided by those feelings. Those are specific attributes of the human animal, and some other animals as well, but I don't have them. That leaves me thinking that I'm a lot more like a robot than a person. Wouldn't you agree?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” she said, “and that's specifically why you're so valuable to us. You have the ability to act without having to agonize over a decision. You can evaluate a situation and decide, almost instantly, based on that evaluation, the best action to take. This makes you the best possible candidate for one of our operatives, because you won't ever second-guess yourself. That's gotten more of our people killed than anything else.”
Noah looked at her. “You're right about that,” he said. “I don't need to think something through over and over, I just need to know the circumstances that I'm dealing with. That lets me make a decision, and I can live with any decision I've made.”
Allison paused as the waitress brought their plates, then picked up her glass of orange juice and took a drink before continuing. “You know, I read your file. There are some interesting things in it.”
Noah nodded, and grinned. “I'm sure there are,” he said, “especially for someone reading it from your perspective. I'm going to guess that you're referring to the incident that happened outside Kandahar, am I right?”
Allison cocked her head to the right, and smiled. “When you were ordered to guard the road and make sure no one drove up it, you didn't hesitate to open fire on a carload of civilians who tried to force their way around you. When your men tried to file reports accusing you of murder in that case, you just stood on the fact that you were following the orders you were given. However, in the matter with Lieutenant Gibson, when you could have used the same defense to look the other way, you chose to stand up for what you believed was right. What was the difference?”
“The difference was simple, to me,” he said. “When my unit was assigned to guard the Kandahar Road, we were specifically given orders to prevent any vehicular traffic passing a certain point. If that meant that we had to open fire, then we were in fact ordered to do so, even if it meant firing on local civilians. In the other situation, we were supposed to be on patrol looking for possible terrorist encampments. Our orders did not include engaging or killing any civilians, under any circumstances, and certainly did not include clearly criminal actions like rape. By engaging in the activities that I reported, Lieutenant Gibson not only committed rape and murder, but he also violated the spirit of the orders he had been given. His actions could not be condoned, and required me to make a full report.”
“I'm curious, Noah,” Allison said. “You stand pretty firmly on orders, and what they mean. What if Lieutenant Gibson had simply ordered you to participate? Would you have obeyed?”
Noah shook his head. “No, Ma'am, I would not have. You see, to me, orders from a superior help me to establish what I need to be doing. However, I'm still fully aware that the people giving those orders are humans, and humans are often guided more by emotion than I am. If I'm given an order that clearly violates a superseding order or the prevailing moral code, then I am going to resort to my own understanding of right versus wrong. That's what happened in this case; the situation was so far outside what I perceived as right that I was forced to take action.”
Allison smiled at him, and reached across to pat his hand. “And that's what I'm talking about,” she said. “You just explained the very reason why we need you. Noah, we've lost several teams over the past few years, simply because the team leader hesitated. That's one thing I will never have to worry about, with you, because hesitation is not your weakness. When the time comes to take the shot, I know that you'll take it.”
Noah didn't reply, but simply began eating his breakfast. On that morning, he had opted for a waffle with bacon on the side, and it was every bit as good as he’d expected it to be.
Allison dug into her own breakfast, and the two of them ate in silence. Noah finished first, and waited, sipping on a second cup of coffee until she was done.
“Oh, that was good,” Allison said. “I think I could almost sit here and order another plate, but duty calls. Shall we go?”
Noah followed her out the door, stopping at the register to pay his tab, and then walked with her to her car. He got into the passenger side as she slid behind the wheel, and a moment later they were on the way to Kirtland.
The administrative office turned out to be on the top floor of one of the big office buildings in town, putting them more than ten stories above the street level. The elevator was smooth and fast, and required a special key. It opened directly into the administrative office complex, and Allison led the way to her office.
A secretary looked up and smiled as they walked past, and Allison told her to hold any calls or messages until further notice. She went directly to her desk, pointing at the chair in front of it for Noah, then picked up a large envelope and handed it to him before she went around to take her own chair.
“Go ahead and open it up,” she said, and he did so. Several items slid out of it into his hand. “You'll find a cell phone, a Colorado driver's license, a birth certificate, a Social Security card, a passport and a few different credit cards, all of them in the name of Noah Wolf. I got the idea for your new last name from that comment you made the other day, about feeling like a wolf in man's clothing, hope you don't mind. Oh, and you're a year older, now, with a different birthday. Instead of
being born in Illinois, you were originally born in California, but your parents moved to Iowa when you were only a year old. You grew up there, living in a small town, and you were taught at home. Your mother didn't trust public schools, and your father left decisions about your education to her. Your parents died when you were twenty, in an auto accident. You have no siblings, no other living relatives.”
Noah studied the documents in his hand, and then looked up at Allison. “Doesn't sound all that different,” he said.
“It actually doesn't take a lot of difference,” she replied. “We're not out to make you an entirely different person, just slightly different, so that no one would mistake you for someone that they used to know. Oh, and incidentally, you have an appointment with our cosmetic surgeon next Monday, eight AM. Nothing too serious, a little work on your nose and cheekbones, and as you can see, the photos on those documents already reflect those changes. Amazing what computers can do these days, isn't it? Oh, and incidentally, that cell phone is very special and very expensive, so don't lose it! It doesn't have to use a cell tower; it's capable of going direct to satellite. You could be on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and you could still make a call on that phone.”
“Cool,” Noah said, and then he grinned. “I saw the difference in the photos, and I was going to ask about it,” he said, then held up a key ring. “Okay, scanning through these things, my address is on a rural route out of Kirtland?”
“Yes,” she said. “We usually put our assassins into something relatively private, while others get apartments or houses in town. Yours is a refurbished farmhouse on sixty acres, just off Temple Lake Road.” She stood and walked over to a map that hung on the wall, motioning him to approach. She pointed at a spot on the map, and said, “This is where we are now. If you follow this street out to where it meets Temple Lake Road, then turn right, you'll be headed in the right direction. Your house is actually on County Road 640, right here. Turn right onto the gravel, and it's about half a mile down the road on the left. I'm a little bit on the jealous side, because you actually have about eight hundred feet of lakeshore, with your own dock and a boat and everything.” She went back to her desk and sat, and Noah reclaimed his chair as well. “The house has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a nice kitchen and living room, and a two-car attached garage. You've also got some other buildings, including a barn, a couple of workshops and a mobile home that's actually pretty nice. Doctor Parker chose this place for you, based on some of your history. I gather you like living out in the country?”
Noah put on a light smile, and nodded. “My last foster home,” he said, “I lived with this older couple who raised goats and had this massive garden. I was with them for four years, right up until the old man died, and then their kids decided to put their mother in a nursing home. Since I was already almost 17, they just stuck me in a group home for the rest of my time, but I actually missed living on the farm.”
Allison grinned. “Well, you can raise goats if you want to, but I'd suggest you hire yourself a farmhand. You can probably get someone cheap, if you throw in that mobile home as part of the pay package. As you can see from some of the other documents there, you are a security consultant who works with many different companies around the world to establish physical and digital security for their business operations. As such, you're occasionally called out on a moment's notice and may be gone for weeks at a time. Of course, it also explains how you can afford such a nice place.”
“I think I'll leave farming to the farmers. Fishing, however, I do enjoy.”
“Well, you can do plenty of it from your back yard,” Allison said, “since it overlooks the lake. I'm told our lake has the best fishing in the whole state, but I haven't had time to go and try it, yet. Let me know if it's really that good, and I'll come out sometime and give it a try.” She looked down at her desk. “Okay, now let's move on to other matters. By the way, you'll note that there are a number of keys on the key ring. You're going to need a car, and because you're a young, single, successful guy, Doctor Parker said we needed something expensive and powerful, so he chose a '72 Corvette. The car has been rebuilt from the frame up, and is extremely powerful. He says you can handle it, so don't prove him wrong and kill yourself in it, okay? You also have a pickup truck, but from what I understand, it's an older Ford that just sort of came with the house.”
Noah shook his head. “That old couple I lived with? They had this old Ford truck, it was like a 1969, I think, and it looked like crap, but it would outrun everything around there. They used to let me drive it to school and around town, and I always felt like that truck and I were a lot alike. Neither of us was what we seemed to be, but we were both ready for whatever the world threw at us.”
Allison looked at him for a moment. “Just when I think I'm beginning to understand you, Noah, you throw me a curve ball.” She looked back at her desk, and then back up at his face. She leaned back in her chair. “Noah, after the reports I got on you yesterday, I've decided to accelerate your training. Mr. Jackson says you can keep up with his best, and only need some good workouts to help you build some stamina, and you're already quite proficient in most of what we teach our people here. I'm comfortable that you can handle what we do, and you're probably going to be better at it than anyone else we've ever had.”
Noah looked at her, his face blank. “You're the boss,” he said, and she smiled.
“How do you feel about it?” she asked, but then she started laughing. “Right, I should know better than to ask that, shouldn't I? Even I haven't actually come to grips with your—I don't know what to call it. What I'm actually trying to ask is whether you'd be willing to meet your team, today, since it's a foregone conclusion that you're going to pass and end up in the field.”
Noah blinked. “Are they already here? Here at the facility, I mean?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I hand-picked them from our current crop as soon as I knew we had you locked in. They're the best we've had in each of their specialties, and in my personal opinion, they are the ideal team for you. I think there could be some advantages in having you go through some of your training together.”
Noah got up and walked over to the window, and looked out over the cityscape outside. In the distance, he could see mountains and forests, even though the terrain closer in wasn't quite so rough. There were also storm clouds in the distance, and he wondered if they might be some sort of sign for himself. His grandfather had been a minister, and had tried very hard to instill in Noah the belief that God was always in control.
Well, God, he thought to himself, have you got storms headed for me?
“Let's do it,” Noah said.
TWELVE
“Good,” Allison said. “Come with me.” She rose from her desk and walked out of her office, shushing her secretary who was trying to catch her attention. “Not right now, Jenny,” she said. “I'll be back in a bit, and you can grouch at me then.” She kept on walking to the elevator with Noah on her heels.
She pushed the button for the basement, which was the garage area. “Incidentally, your Corvette is parked here and waiting for you. You can pick it up when we get done today. Right now, we're going to go over to another office, and get you officially assigned to your team and introduced to them. And just so you know, most of our people don't meet their teams for at least three months. That give you an idea of how much confidence we've got in you? Not that we want to add any pressure, of course.”
“No problem,” Noah said. “I still haven't quite figured out what pressure is.”
They got back into her car, and she drove out of the garage and across a large part of the downtown district, parking on the street in front of another office building. She got out of the car and Noah followed her through the front door, and to yet another elevator. This one only went to the fifth floor, and he followed her down the hallway to a door marked Davis and Johnson, Accountants.
“We're here to see Mr. Johnson,” Allison said to the secretary, who look
ed absolutely terrified when she walked in. The woman was heavyset, and Noah wondered for a moment if she was going to have a heart attack as she fumbled with the phone to tell Mr. Johnson that he had a visitor. A moment later, she managed to stammer out that Mr. Johnson would be happy to see them if they would just go through the door to the right. Allison smiled, and Noah wondered why the secretary looked even more frightened.
Allison led the way through the door, and a tall, balding man appeared in the hall ahead, obviously waiting for them. He ushered them into what appeared to be a conference room, with a large table and many chairs.
Allison pointed at Noah. “This is him, Russell,” she said. “Noah Wolf.”
Johnson let his eyebrows go up a bit as he looked Noah over. “Mr. Wolf,” he said. “I have heard so much about you, sir. Some of it, I've got to say, is downright unbelievable.”
Noah looked him in the eye. “Then don't believe it,” he said. “After all, that's your choice.”
Johnson smiled, and looked at Allison. “Okay, so he's every bit as brassy as you said he was. What are we up to, today?”
Allison had seated herself in one of the chairs around the table, and she leaned back and licked her fingers across her stomach. “Russell, I'm going to speed up Noah's training. He doesn't need all this crap—he's ready to go just about anytime. Let's go ahead and set up his team, now. Bring them in so he can meet them.”
For a moment, Noah thought Johnson was going to argue, but he seemed to think better of it before any of the words that were forming behind his forehead could make it out of his mouth. “Certainly,” he said, and then he got up and walked out of the room.
Noah looked at Allison, and his left eyebrow managed to go up half an inch above the right. “He doesn't seem too happy about your plan,” he said.
“Of course not,” Allison said. “He's a bean counter. His job is to make sure that everything we do here pays off. That doesn't just mean monetarily, since we don't actually make any kind of profits, but every expenditure we make has to be justified, and that's his job. If I overrule him and say you're ready to go when his bookkeeping doesn't show that he's gotten his money's worth on your training, then it leaves open the possibility that something could jump up and bite him in the butt. That scares a bean counter, trust me on that.”