I.N.E.T 1

by Brenda Cothern

  From where he sat in the auditorium, he couldn’t see the color of McCall’s eyes, but he doubted any of the recruits who were seated closer could tell him her eye color either.

  They likely weren’t even distracted by her hair flips because her body was distracting enough. The cream colored suit jacket that she wore fit like a glove and the black skirt shifted a good three inches above her knee every time she crossed to the other side of the large screen.

  Legs for those close, hair for those further away, Knight thought. Why the distraction tactics?

  Knight wondered if trying to distract the new recruits was the reason that this agent was in charge of the orientation. What the benefit of distracting them would be, he had no idea. If she wasn’t meant to distract them on purpose, she was still doing one hell of a job without trying or must have seriously pissed someone off to be stuck covering this shit. At the rate she was covering the material, it would take a month to cover it all.

  Knight stifled a yawn and put Agent McCall out of his mind. He looked around the room, again, and took in his fellow recruits. They made him feel old. Out of the fifty-two men and women he counted earlier, only a handful was even close to his age. Close was being generous, too, because Knight would bet he still had a minimum of five years on those few.

  Just for something to do, something to prevent his temper from flaring and to stop him from just leaving, he tried to guess what his fellow recruits’ careers were before INET scooped them up.

  It was obvious that not everyone in the room had a background in undercover work, nor were they recruited for that purpose with INET. Although, a few would be a good fit for white collar trafficking. Accountants or computer geeks, maybe. However, he seriously doubted that all of those who sported the ‘bookish’ look would be training for undercover work.

  INET required all employees to have basic training in self-defense and firearms, according to the information packet he had already read. In fact, every employee was required to carry their sidearm at all times. From the mail clerk to the secretaries, everyone was armed as if INET was concerned a drug cartel would raid them instead of the other way around.

  Aside from assessing his classmates’ attire, he noticed their mannerisms. One girl, who looked straight out of high school, chewed on the end of her pen and another woman tapped her acrylic nailed thumb and forefinger together. Both women would stop occasionally when they realized what they were doing, but would unconsciously start again within a few minutes.

  One of the men, who Knight assumed was hired to work with computers constantly pushed his glasses up his nose as if they didn’t fit correctly. The guy in front of him, two seats to his left, tapped his pen, almost nervously, on the thick stack of orientation papers they had been given.

  There were dozens of other little quirks Knight noticed, but it was the few like himself who just sat relaxed that Knight spent most of his time studying.

  A few seats to his right was a blonde with a pixie-cut bob. Her body language made her seem relaxed, but Knight was pretty sure it was an act. He caught the woman looking at him a few times, but she quickly looked away each time he met her dark green eyes.

  A man further down the row on his other side seemed to be assessing the room just like Knight. The few times their eyes met, they stared at one another just long enough to acknowledge what each other was doing before one of them looked away.

  The one person Knight had yet to see, before orientation or so far during, was his new partner. His new partner who he had stupidly fucked around with on his kitchen floor last Friday.

  Agent Aaron Slade.

  Just thinking of the man brought thoughts of the shitty day he had had last Friday. He had finally lost his shit over the practical jokes and harassment from the cops at his old precinct. Jokes and harassment he later found out he was the target of because they had found out he was gay.

  The Knight Rider pranks had gone too far when they fucked with his truck, his baby, by replacing the flashing lights in his grill with a red light bar. The same type of fucking red light bar that was made famous by K.I.T.T. in the Knight Rider shows. He still had the damn thing in the grill of his truck because his time was taken up by reading the orientation papers and filling out the new employee paperwork.

  Of course, he could have spent time on Friday removing the bitch, but he was too busy being livid and then fucking around with his new partner. The new partner who said he’d be around during his training. Not that Knight expected or needed the agent to hold his hand during this boring as hell orientation. However, he did think he would at least see Slade before he was subjected to this level of hell.

  “We are going to pause here at this time,” McCall smiled at the room and flipped her hair again as she crossed to the other side of the screen. “You will be separated into four groups for your physical, psychological evaluation, drug test, and to be issued your weapon. You will receive your uniforms after your physical. If you are not in the first group to get your physical, please keep your trainee I.D. badge visible at all times.”

  Knight checked his watch. Four and a half hours he had been stuck in this hard as hell chair and they were only on page seventy-three. He stifled a groan at the thought of how many more hours it would take to go through all the paperwork at the rate they were going.

  “You can find your group designation and assignment schedule rotation posted by each of the exits. Please report directly to your first location.”

  Recruits began to stand and make their way to the four exits to read the posted papers. Knight had no reason to rush since only a few people at a time could read the posts. He wasn’t the only recruit to remain seated in order to avoid the rush to find out his assigned group.

  The blonde to his right and the guy a few seats to his left, along with four others scattered around the auditorium, waited for the crowd to thin. The crowd near the closest exit lessened and Knight stood. He excused himself as he passed the blonde and she gave him a shy smile before standing to follow him toward the door.

  She’ll get eaten alive if they put her undercover, Knight thought uncharitably while he stepped up to the posted sheets and found his name under Group C.

  Thank God. He was to report to the shooting range first and be assigned his weapon.

  Knight felt naked being unarmed and had to resist the urge to carry his personal piece, or even one of his knives, when he left his house. Even though Knight desired to be rearmed, he didn’t rush through the halls toward the range. There would be a line there as well, so he took his time.

  Knight had just turned a corner into another hallway and walked a few steps before he felt a presence behind him. It was likely another recruit, one of the few that avoided the horde to leave the auditorium and if it wasn’t, he wasn’t worried. It was another two turns and two hallways before he came to the door of the indoor range. The presence he felt following him remained constant and Knight finally glanced in the direction of the person as he pushed against the door. His gaze met Slade’s and his new partner grinned at him. Knight didn’t return the smile.

  “Thought you would be happier now that you’re at INET,” Slade said as he took in the look on Knight’s face while he approached.

  Knight snorted and pushed the door open the rest of the way. “What’s to be happy about after suffering through four and a half hours of shit that was in the new employee packet? It was a waste of time.”

  Slade followed his new partner through the door. He had hoped that the Knight he had left feeling relaxed on Friday when he left the man’s house would be the same Knight he would encounter today. Apparently that was too much to hope for.

  “Just because you read over the paperwork doesn’t mean you know it. The repetition will help it sink in and stick,” Slade stated the fact.

  “It stuck when I read it the first time. Even if it didn’t, how is having an agent who is more skilled at distraction tactics than teaching supposed to help anything stick?” Knight grumbled and on
ce more pushed his temper and annoyance down. “If I were straight or a lesbian, I wouldn’t have heard a damn word McCall said.”

  Slade chuckled. “You picked up on that, huh?”

  “Any moron should have picked up on that,” Knight retorted.

  “So, I knew you wouldn’t be distracted, but McCall is good at her job which is distracting new recruits.”

  “Why the hell would you want to do that? I know everything she covered was almost word for word out of the new employee paperwork, but still.” Knight frowned.

  “Simple,” Slade began as they walked down the hall toward the end of the line where Knight’s classmates stood to be issued their service weapon. “Recruits’ weaknesses are exposed or other information is gathered by their behavior during McCall’s orientation.”

  “So the whole thing is a behavioral evaluation,” Knight deduced. “You can determine who’s straight or gay or who’d be distracted by a pretty face and a hot body.”

  “You think she’s hot?” Slade asked, instead of confirming or denying Knight’s statement. The look on his partner’s face told Slade that Knight knew he avoided confirming the statement by asking another question.

  Knight grunted by way of reply to Slade’s question. It was such a blatant attempt to avoid addressing Knight’s assumption that he saw no need to reply. Especially, since Slade already knew they played on the same team.

  “So, wasting the time of those who don’t fall for McCall helps train us how?”

  “It’s not wasted time,” Slade glanced at Knight and ignored his new partner’s look of annoyance. “INET can assess recruit weakness’ which is one of the things that help us determine who stays and who goes. It also makes sure all the shit on paper sticks in your head,” Slade repeated.

  “I guess it’s only a waste of my time then,” Knight replied snarkily, and tried to remind himself that it wasn’t Slade’s fault he had to sit through lectures on shit he already knew. Hell, it was shit he could teach because his memory was just that good.

  Slade reached out and grabbed Knight’s arm to make him stop walking. He studied his partner’s face as he spoke.

  “You’re telling me that McCall didn’t say a single thing, not one thing that you may have forgotten after you read through a few hundred pages of paperwork?”

  “No, she didn’t.” Knight smirked. “I have an excellent memory.”

  “McCall covered sixty some odd pages,” Slade reminded Knight. “Nobody can remember everything in just two and a half days.”

  “She covered seventy-three pages, and I can and do,” Knight confidently corrected Slade. “Sitting on my ass to make that shit stick is a waste of my fucking time since I can tell you what any fucking page of that paperwork says.” Knight pulled out of Slade’s grasp and resumed walking toward the end of the line to get his weapon.

  “Okay. If you can tell me anything, then tell me what’s on page three twenty-two,” Slade challenged.

  Knight didn’t break his stride or pause to think as he effortlessly brought the page to the forefront of his mind.

  “The American government requires all INET agents to notify the local office of the Drug Enforcement Agency upon arrival in the region in which they intend to operate. Additionally, any operation in the United States or its territories must be registered as such with Homeland Security within sixty days of said operation being initiated. Said operators…”

  “That’s enough,” Slade interrupted Knight and hid his surprise that Knight was able to quote the parameters for INET to operate in the U.S. However, most American recruits were required to memorize the U.S. regulations first.

  “How about France?” Slade asked just to see if his partner memorized every country INET operated in.

  “The French government requires all INET agents to make themselves known to the embassies of their national origin and obtain a French certificate of operation before commencing in any operation pertaining to narcotics or firearms on French soil. Additionally…”

  “Alright,” Slade cut Knight off again before he could continue. Since the country regulations were listed in alphabetical order, there were at least one hundred pages between American and French regulations. His partner must have memorized them all. How, Slade didn’t know, but apparently he did.

  “What’s on page eight sixty-one?” Slade threw out.

  “Don’t kill your partner,” Knight replied in all seriousness. “No matter how tempted you are.”

  Slade chuckled because there was no page eight sixty-one. The employee manual only had eight hundred and sixty pages. However, since the manual didn’t say not to kill your partner, Slade appreciated Knight’s humor.

  “That page should be added,” Slade grinned and they stopped behind one of Knight’s classmates. “I’ll recommend it to Fish.”

  Knight shot Slade a sideways glance, but didn’t comment. The moment his partner asked him what was on a nonexistent page, he almost told Slade not to fuck with him. He was glad he opted for humor instead because it made Slade smile again.

  The line moved forward a few steps before Slade spoke again. “You got plans for dinner?”

  “Aside from getting settled into that shoe box of a room they assigned to me? No.”

  “Then we should grab a bite to eat,” Slade suggested.

  “Alright.” Having dinner with Slade sounded like a good idea. If they were going to work together then they needed to get to know more about each other. More than just how the other liked to be jerked off.

  “I’ll see you around seven then,” Slade set the time. “I’ll shoot you a text.”

  Slade didn’t wait for him to reply and Knight watched his partner walk back the way they had come.

  “Must be nice to already have an agent in the family,” a mousey woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties said to him over her shoulder. “I’d kill to have my brother already be an agent.”

  Knight just grunted in reply. He didn’t bother to correct the woman’s assumption that he and Slade were related. It was a mistake easily made since they were so similar in appearance. Both of them had jet black hair that was practically cut in the same style. Their eye color was blue, but unless someone looked close, they wouldn’t notice that Slade’s was a darker shade. They also both topped out at 6’4”.

  Not for the first time had Knight realized how physically alike in appearance they were and not for the first time did he contemplate how INET would benefit from that.

  Nine

  Knight was issued his weapon, a .9 mil, which he was required to wear during training. He couldn’t stop himself from constantly adjusting the fucking thing. The gun felt foreign on his left hip.

  Knight missed his shoulder holster because he hadn’t worn his side arm on his hip since he had been a beat cop. In fact, the only other location he was used to feeling his weapon was tucked into his waistband against his lower back and he carried it there more often than his shoulder holster.

  Because of his lack of familiarity at wearing his weapon on his hip, Knight’s reaction times during target practice weren’t what they would have been normally. His precision was off, but only for the first clip he fired. Knight’s accuracy returned to what was normal for him by the time he fired the third round from his second clip.

  However, his draw time was still slower than it would have been had his weapon been in the back of his waistband or in a shoulder holster. Knight tried not to get pissed off at being forced to draw his weapon from his hip as he looked at the red digital numbers displayed above his target that told him his reaction time and precision score.

  Practically every shot he fired hit the smallest circle which indicated a fatal center mass kill. His reaction time to take the shot was slowly improving, but was not much higher than the recruits on either side of him. Of course, this just pissed him off more because the recruit to his left was the mousey woman who thought Slade was his brother and the recruit on his right didn’t even look old enough to drink in a bar.
>
  The ear protection they all wore was modified with an earbud so they could hear the instructor. Agent Conner droned on giving praise to some and pointers to others. Knight tuned the guy out. He didn’t need the agent’s advice on how to fire his weapon, much less, kill a target. He already knew how to do both and had been forced to do the latter in his undercover work with TPD.

  “Trainee Knight,” Agent Conner’s voice mentioning his name forced Knight to tune into what the man was saying.

  Knight didn’t stop firing on his target, but did tilt his head slightly to acknowledge the agent was speaking to him and that he was listening.

  “You are fumbling with your draw from your holster. It should be one smooth motion when you fire your weapon. Making a precise shot with your weapon is important, but if you can’t get it out of your holster smoothly, those few seconds could be the difference between making the kill or being killed.”

  Knight knew every recruit could hear Conner’s criticism and he fought not to tell the guy to fuck off. He knew his reaction time could be better and it would be a helluva lot smoother when his weapon was stowed where he would have preferred. He also knew that when undercover, a firearm wouldn’t be worn on his hip. He tried to remind himself of that fact when he took his next shot and returned his gun to his hip.

  “The firing of a weapon begins the moment your hand touches it, not the moment you take aim,” Conner continued and his tone was so condescending that Knight turned not only his head toward the agent, but half his body as well.

  “Is there a problem Trainee Knight?” Conner raised a questioning brow.

  Knight knew he should say ‘no’ and just keep his trap shut. But knowing and doing were two different things.

  “A hip holster will get me killed,” Knight stated the fact that he knew was true for undercover work.

  “It will if you cannot make the transition from drawing your weapon, taking aim, and firing go smoothly,” Conner replied with a smirk that clearly indicated the man thought he had superior skills than Knight. “Learning this will keep you alive longer than your opponent.”