implausible, I’d be thinking she actually doesn’t know any of that. Because you haven’t told her yet.”
“She’s supposed to give that impression, Luther. Sheknows as much as I do,” Westley says, standing up to leave.
“Give her an A-plus, then,” I say to his back. He raises his right hand in a sort of wave, not looking back.
There’s an acceleration, an unmistakable quickening. I can feel it, see it, though no one else remarks on it or gives any sign they notice. The routines are changing, becoming more intense.
The package-protection drills move out of the factory, go live-action. In a huge, deserted mall parking lot before a dozen dawns, we do simulated car ambushes, with the vehicles moving thirty miles per hour or more, fish-tailing with tires squealing when the trap’s sprung. Then, on maybe a dozen noons, we do a sort of mime of snatch attempts in front of a big downtown hotel, in full view of hundreds of passersby; almost no civilians seem to notice something odd is happening, the action’s so fast and subtle. I lose track of the mornings we spend at an airstrip in rural Virginia, where we’re hit by bad guys spraying loud AK blanks, my guys returning fire with MP5s. I’m given a SIG 220 but I never pull the trigger. Just throw Nadya into the rear seat of a big Merc, quickly lob a smoke grenade into the firefight before I jump in, and drop another out the car window as I bark at the driver to put the pedal to the floor and keep it there until we run out of tarmac.
It’s getting interesting.
The Nadya sessions are, too. We practice business-type negotiations, deal persuasions, rising tempers and threat levels, deal-gone-bad hostility, back-away diversion talk. She introduces me to current Russian military verbal slang code, too. Eunkyong presses hard on basic conversation way beyond standard experienced touriststuff. Close to what Nadya’s doing, though naturally I’m not expected to get anywhere near fluent, just understand the basic flow and respond halfway appropriately. Plus a couple of sessions that approximate a police interrogation, the objective being for me to understand the drift of questions but answer as if I understand nothing.
And she raises the violence level in the dojo, rachets it up day by day until the day I’m in the zone so deeply I don’t even realize I’m about to snap her neck until she screams at me to stop. When I get clear, I see her sitting slumped, rubbing her neck.
“God, I’m so sorry,” I say. “You’re okay? Sure you’re okay?”
She looks at me, fear palpable in her eyes. But she says, “Don’t apologize. I was supposed to get you there. Job well done, yeah?”
Through this stage, things begin appearing in my room, small surprises always placed there when I’m somewhere else. Shortly after Allison’s photo shoot, I come sweating from a session with Eunkyong to find a passport and driver’s license—Canadian, my face but in the name of Prentice, Terence—on my desk. Also a few valid credit cards, with varying expiration dates, naturally. I leaf through the passport. There are current multiple-entry visas for Japan, Korea, China, Russia amid some entry and exit stamps from Seattle, Vancouver, Taipei, Hong Kong, Manila, and other places, dating back as far as three years. Everybody in the spook house is calling me Terry, except for the real Terry. He looks annoyed the few times he hears me addressed with his name.
Other things show up at random: the new underwear and socks, laundered. A first-class suitcase, new shavinggear, assorted toiletries, hair brush, nail clippers, a dop kit to carry all that stuff in. A Tag Heuer chronometer with a crocodile strap. Also, one day, some electronics I see no need for, unless they have sub rosa functions not yet revealed to me: a pager, like every kid crack dealer wears, an Olympus micro digital memo recorder, a battery-powered coded car-key holder with no key attached.
Finally, after the last
“She’s supposed to give that impression, Luther. Sheknows as much as I do,” Westley says, standing up to leave.
“Give her an A-plus, then,” I say to his back. He raises his right hand in a sort of wave, not looking back.
There’s an acceleration, an unmistakable quickening. I can feel it, see it, though no one else remarks on it or gives any sign they notice. The routines are changing, becoming more intense.
The package-protection drills move out of the factory, go live-action. In a huge, deserted mall parking lot before a dozen dawns, we do simulated car ambushes, with the vehicles moving thirty miles per hour or more, fish-tailing with tires squealing when the trap’s sprung. Then, on maybe a dozen noons, we do a sort of mime of snatch attempts in front of a big downtown hotel, in full view of hundreds of passersby; almost no civilians seem to notice something odd is happening, the action’s so fast and subtle. I lose track of the mornings we spend at an airstrip in rural Virginia, where we’re hit by bad guys spraying loud AK blanks, my guys returning fire with MP5s. I’m given a SIG 220 but I never pull the trigger. Just throw Nadya into the rear seat of a big Merc, quickly lob a smoke grenade into the firefight before I jump in, and drop another out the car window as I bark at the driver to put the pedal to the floor and keep it there until we run out of tarmac.
It’s getting interesting.
The Nadya sessions are, too. We practice business-type negotiations, deal persuasions, rising tempers and threat levels, deal-gone-bad hostility, back-away diversion talk. She introduces me to current Russian military verbal slang code, too. Eunkyong presses hard on basic conversation way beyond standard experienced touriststuff. Close to what Nadya’s doing, though naturally I’m not expected to get anywhere near fluent, just understand the basic flow and respond halfway appropriately. Plus a couple of sessions that approximate a police interrogation, the objective being for me to understand the drift of questions but answer as if I understand nothing.
And she raises the violence level in the dojo, rachets it up day by day until the day I’m in the zone so deeply I don’t even realize I’m about to snap her neck until she screams at me to stop. When I get clear, I see her sitting slumped, rubbing her neck.
“God, I’m so sorry,” I say. “You’re okay? Sure you’re okay?”
She looks at me, fear palpable in her eyes. But she says, “Don’t apologize. I was supposed to get you there. Job well done, yeah?”
Through this stage, things begin appearing in my room, small surprises always placed there when I’m somewhere else. Shortly after Allison’s photo shoot, I come sweating from a session with Eunkyong to find a passport and driver’s license—Canadian, my face but in the name of Prentice, Terence—on my desk. Also a few valid credit cards, with varying expiration dates, naturally. I leaf through the passport. There are current multiple-entry visas for Japan, Korea, China, Russia amid some entry and exit stamps from Seattle, Vancouver, Taipei, Hong Kong, Manila, and other places, dating back as far as three years. Everybody in the spook house is calling me Terry, except for the real Terry. He looks annoyed the few times he hears me addressed with his name.
Other things show up at random: the new underwear and socks, laundered. A first-class suitcase, new shavinggear, assorted toiletries, hair brush, nail clippers, a dop kit to carry all that stuff in. A Tag Heuer chronometer with a crocodile strap. Also, one day, some electronics I see no need for, unless they have sub rosa functions not yet revealed to me: a pager, like every kid crack dealer wears, an Olympus micro digital memo recorder, a battery-powered coded car-key holder with no key attached.
Finally, after the last
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