“He didn’t beat me,” Hurley growled.

“Well … that’s debatable. From what I’ve heard he had you beat and the only way you got out of it was by cheating.”

“Yeah … well, life’s not fair.”

“At this stage, Stan, these guys are like young pups. You know that. When we lay down the rules we can’t break them. It sends the wrong signal.”

Hurley leaned back and stubbornly folded his arms across his chest. “I was suckered into this thing.”

“I’m not sure you were, but for a moment, I’ll go along with you.” Lewis paused briefly and then said, “You’re not supposed to get suckered. You’re supposed to run these dogs until they’re so tired they can barely stand. You’re supposed to watch them go after each other … get a sense of what they’re capable of, and then you’re supposed bring them into that barn and smack them down, just like when you and I went through boot camp. This is delicate work, God dammit, and you know it. There’s a reason why we do things the way we do them, and your ego has no place in the decision process.”

“My ego has nothing to do with this,” Hurley shot back with a sour look on his face. “I just let my guard down. That’s all.”

“No,” Lewis shook his head, “I’m inclined to agree with Irene on this one. You still see her as a little girl, and you don’t give her the credit she deserves. She shows up with this new recruit and because he doesn’t fit into your little box of where these recruits are supposed to come from, you decided to skip steps one, two, and three, kick his ass, and send him packing.” Lewis sat back, took a drink of wine, and then in a calmer voice asked, “Does it mean anything to you that Thomas signed off on this?” Lewis was referring to the deputy director of operations.

Embarrassed, Hurley said, “I didn’t think of that.”

“Do you understand the situation you’ve created?”

Hurley didn’t react at first and then very slowly he began to nod.

Kennedy was feeling better about her position, but she wasn’t entirely sure what they were talking about and asked Lewis, “What do you mean by situation?”

“These things have a way of spinning out of control,” Lewis said. “One recruit has some success putting a shiner on an instructor and all of the sudden the rest of them think that maybe they can take a shot. That these guys are human. Throw in the fact that Stan here had to cheat to avoid losing, and we now have a potentially dangerous situation.”

“How so?” Kennedy asked.

“Do you think it’s in our best interest to train your boy, send him off, and have him decide that when things get tough, the rules don’t really matter?”

Kennedy now saw the point.

“Fuck,” Hurley mumbled to himself. “What do you want me to do?”

“You’re going to get the hell out of here for about five days. I want you to heal up. You let me and the others run these guys down … I’ll get a better sense of this Rapp kid and his full potential.”

“And then?”

“You come back here and you head into the barn with him and you beat him fair and square.”

“And if he can’t beat him?” Kennedy asked.

Lewis and Hurley shared a look. They were in unchartered waters. Lewis finally looked at Kennedy and said, “That would be a nice problem to have.”

CHAPTER 11

THE first night didn’t go so well, at least as far as sleep was concerned. Victor had kept all of them up telling outrageous stories of his sexual conquests, each one more graphic and bizarre than the already twisted story he’d just finished. After an hour or so he ran out of steam and called them all a bunch of faggots for not reciprocating. Victor then proceeded to launch into a symphony of unabated flatulence for a quarter of an hour before eventually falling into a deep, snorting slumber.

Rapp placed his pillow over his head and tried to block out the noise, but it didn’t work. It was in those much-needed, sleepless hours just after midnight that Rapp began to explore the idea of getting rid of Victor. At first he considered getting up and throttling the idiot, right then and there, but knew it would only result in further punishment from the instructors and disdain from his fellow recruits. Still, the thought of spending the next six months with the lout was something that presented a very real problem. A guy like Victor could easily drag someone down with him, and Rapp had an undeniable feeling that the two men were on a collision course. And not one of those collisions that could be avoided if one or both of them changed their behavior. It was inevitable. It was the kind you needed to brace yourself for. Either drop your hips, lower your shoulders, and make the other guy feel more pain than you, or he would do the same to you and you were toast.

There was something undeniably odd about the man. The idea of his participating in a covert op was preposterous. If he could ever walk among the enemy undetected it would be a miracle. Rapp wanted this new vocation with every fiber of his body, although he was smart enough to know that saying he would never quit and actually never quitting were two very different things. He also knew he would be tested in ways he’d never imagined. He’d be pushed to the full extent of his physical and mental abilities, and it was likely that at some point, when he was really in the hurt bag, that pang of doubt would creep into his mind. Could Victor create a climate in which, at his lowest point, he might consider quitting?

Rapp didn’t want to find out. Somewhere in the middle of the night, as he was lying on his back watching bats dart around the rafters of the barn and listening to the snorting Victor, Rapp decided the moron would need to quit, and if he didn’t do it on his own, and do it quickly, Rapp would have to find a way to subtly nudge him in the right direction.

They were up before the sun. Two of the instructors came in and cursed, yanked, kicked, and slapped them out of bed. Luckily for Rapp, he was half awake and heard the door open. His feet were on the floor before the DI could dump him out of his cot. He’d guessed this was how the morning would start, but the yelling was nonetheless unsettling. In between the barking and smacking Rapp tried to make out exactly what it was that he was supposed to do. Somewhere in the middle of it he heard the words, line and PT. He threw on his workout gear and running shoes and was out the door like a shot. The lawn was covered with a thick morning dew and the sun was only a gray veil in the east. They weren’t allowed watches and there were no clocks in the barn, so Rapp guessed that it was somewhere in the vicinity of 5:00 A.M. The air temp had to be in the midseventies and the humidity was pasty. It would be another hot one.

As Rapp came to a stop on the line he was aware that he was the first and only one out the door. He figured to start with, there were certain things where it was smart to be first and others where it wasn’t. Getting out of bed and getting on the line was an area to be first. Hand-to-hand combat and fighting drills he would never hold back on, but the endurance stuff like running and PT he would. He needed to stay healthy and hold some things in reserve. These guys didn’t need to know he could run like the wind.

As he waited for the others, he caught a whiff of coffee and turned to look at the house. There, standing on the porch, was a new face, a blond-haired guy who looked to be in his midthirties. The man was staring intently at Rapp. Rapp returned the stare and even at a distance of several hundred feet noted the blue eyes. The guy was in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. He was leaning against one of the porch columns sipping his coffee and making no effort to conceal his interest in Rapp. There was something different about the guy. Rapp could tell he was in shape, but he was way more relaxed than the other DIs who were marching around and that sadistic little cuss who’d tried to neuter him.