Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 11

  I followed orders, but I cried the whole time.

  DAY 135

  I flew an ultralight today. Very cool. And much simpler than the Huey.

  DAY 145

  I miss people. Men, mostly.

  I find myself thinking of Cory. Not sexually, though for all of his psychotic tendencies, the sex was good. I’m thinking about him because I’m such a different person than the little girl he took advantage of. If I met him again, I’d kill him.

  Or maybe I’d fuck him first. I’m that horny.

  DAY 146

  The Instructor acknowledged something I’ve known all along: that he’s been reading my journal. He said that a healthy sex drive is natural in both men and women, and he offered, in that flat, emotionless way of his, to have sex with me.

  Like he was asking if I wanted a cup of coffee.

  I almost agreed to it.

  DAY 150

  I was forced to watch a snuff video.

  It was in Arabic. A fat, one-eyed man was interrogating a bound Pakistani. He tortured him with electricity, a knife, and finally a blowtorch, all the while asking him inane, unanswerable questions.

  It lasted for three hours. I wasn’t allowed to turn away.

  I threw up twice.

  Afterward, The Instructor brought me to a part of the compound I hadn’t been to before. The brig.

  Sitting in the cell was the one-eyed torturer.

  I was ordered to shoot him.

  I did it, quicker than it took me to shoot the cow.

  DAY 151

  After the day’s training, terrible thoughts swirling in my head, I told The Instructor I wanted to take him up on his offer.

  We didn’t kiss. The sex was passionless, perfunctory. But the orgasms brought me back from the brink of insanity I felt I’d been heading toward.

  The Instructor didn’t ejaculate. When I tried to make him come, he dismissed me.

  DAY 152

  No talk about the sex. Business as usual.

  I vow I’ll never sleep with the cold, heartless bastard ever again.

  DAY 175

  This was the worst day of training, and maybe the worst day of my life.

  For the past week, I’ve been taught to resist interrogation. It started off harmless enough, with verbal sparring. Techniques to avoid giving away anything with body language. Psychological tests, stress tests, biofeedback while being questioned.

  I was given a number. Six. I was ordered not to reveal that number if asked, no matter what.

  Then I was forcibly abducted from my room while I slept—something I almost escaped from by resisting until The Instructor told me to stand down. I was stripped naked and thrown into a brightly lit, barren cell. It was cold, and a loud, piercing tone was played at random intervals. It hurt my ears and made it impossible to sleep. I had a bucket for the bathroom. No food or water.

  I wasn’t sure how long they kept me there. I stayed sane by reminding myself this was training. But after what could have been ten hours, could have been fifty, they pulled me out and strapped me to a table.

  It’s called waterboarding

  Bullshit. It’s torture.

  They asked me my number. I didn’t reply. So they put a cloth over my face and poured water on it.

  They kept pouring until I couldn’t hold my breath anymore. Until I had to breathe in the water.

  Suddenly I was in the car with Cory again, and the water was over my head, and I was choking, dying. The sense of panic, of helplessness, of pure fear, was enough to drive me mad.

  I lasted less than three minutes, then I gave up the number.

  But they didn’t stop.

  I wasn’t sure how long it went on. They hit me in the stomach while it was happening, to make me gasp for air. I passed out too many times to count, drowning, possibly even dying once or twice only to be brought back so they could do it again. Finally I didn’t wake up.

  The next time I opened my eyes I was back in my bed. My stomach still aches. My throat and lungs feel like they’ve been scrubbed with steel wool.

  The Instructor came in to check on me an hour ago. He brought hot tea, some cookies.

  I told him to get the fuck out or I’d kill him.

  I meant it.

  DAY 177

  I understand why it was done to me. At some point, I may be required to interrogate someone. I needed to know what it was like.

  But the waterboarding changed me. I’m harder now. Less sympathetic.

  I’m also through with doing everything I’m told to do, unless I agree with it. If they ever try to grab me in my sleep again, I’ll fight to the death before I let them take me.

  DAY 203

  I finally understand what I’m being trained for.

  Instead of the usual 25 km run, I was given a file.

  It includes a dossier of a man named Dalton Wick. He’s white, forty-six years old, single, a day trader. He lives in Peru, Illinois, in a gated community with a state-of-the-art burglar alarm.

  It also includes over a dozen pictures of Wick engaged in sexual relations with a crying, hysterical five-year-old boy.

  I’m ordered to kill Wick by tomorrow night. Whatever equipment I need will be provided for me.

  I’ve spent all day thinking about it.

  Planning it.

  DAY 205

  Everything went off without a hitch. I drove to Peru, bypassed his alarm, broke into his home, and shot him with a suppressed pistol while he slept.

  When I got back to the compound, I thought I was OK. But during the debriefing, I began to cry, and the next thing I knew I was on top of The Instructor, tugging off his belt, pressing my lips to his.

  This time I rode him so hard he had no choice but to come.

  DAY 345

  Long time between journal entries.

  I’m an assassin now. I’ve killed four people. All of them deserved it—murderers, molesters, torturers, psychopaths. I was told I could refuse taking jobs if I wanted to. One case I passed up was a pimp named Deevon. He was an asshole who got his whores hooked on smack and regularly beat them when they didn’t obey. A true piece of human garbage, but I didn’t think he was worthy of death. So I turned it down.

  The next day the morning paper was handed to me, with an article about Deevon being shot and killed.

  Apparently, I wasn’t the only killer Project Hydra had trained.

  I’m close to leaving this place, which I never thought of as home, but I feel I might miss. I’ll be assigned a handler, given a new identity, and a new life as an undercover black ops hitter.

  I have to cut off all ties with the past. That’s fine, since I don’t have a family. But I refuse to give up Kaufmann. The Instructor says I’m allowed to keep him as a friend, as long as I never reveal what I do or who I am.

  I’m told I’m the second-best student that Project Hydra has ever had.

  My code name is Chandler.

  I haven’t slept with The Instructor again. And if I never see him again, I’m OK with that.

  “It was an honor training you,” The Instructor said. “It’s doubtful we’ll ever cross paths. If we do, it might very well mean I’ve been compromised. Don’t hesitate to kill me if you have to. I won’t hesitate to do the same.”

  I dug through my duffel and readied another syringe of amobarbital with trembling fingers. I wasn’t nervous, exactly, but along with hearing the sound of The Instructor’s voice and its accompanying memories came another upswing of adrenaline, and after so many of these swings in the past hours, my system was struggling to cope.

  I found a woman’s jacket in Victor’s closet, pulled it on, and concealed the syringe in the right sleeve. Noticing Victor’s wallet on the dresser, I stuffed it into my pocket, along with his keys. My gun slipped neatly into the back waistband of my jeans. I checked on Kaufmann, still sleeping, and then walked down the hall and passed through the living room without sparing Victor a glance.

  I paused at the door, listening to check if t
he hall outside was clear. Victor called to me, “Going somewhere?”

  “Out.”

  I wanted to tell him more, but I knew the urge was selfish on my part. I had no idea what The Instructor had in mind. If something went wrong, the less Victor knew about me and where I’d gone, the better off he’d be.

  But despite my better judgment, I turned and looked at Victor over my shoulder.

  He sat on the edge of the couch, pants pulled up over his hips but fly gaping open, hand still cuffed to the radiator. But while some men might be annoyed that I’d left them naked and without use of the two hands necessary to zip and button, Victor appeared slightly amused. He gave me a questioning lift of the brows that was more than a little sexy. “You’ll be back?”

  I probably shouldn’t have felt so pleased that he cared, but I managed to keep the smile off my lips. “Yeah, I’ll be back.”

  I turned to the door, checked the peephole, and listened for movement outside. Sensing nothing, I slipped out to face my past.

  I took the stairs to the street level then kept on going. The Instructor had said he was parked out front, but I wasn’t about to take the direct route. I doubted anything I did would truly surprise him, but at least I wouldn’t be obviously predictable.

  I emerged in the belowground parking garage. It reeked of oil, stale exhaust, and damp concrete. The space was small, with room for just a handful of cars. I moved at a fast clip, senses tuned for movement, detecting none.

  Striding up the short ramp, I emerged from a side door into an alley. The air outside was brisk, cool, and wind kicked a Starbucks cup across the sidewalk in front of me. I moved to the corner of the building and peered down the intersecting street that passed in front of the building.

  It was easy to pick out the car, a black sedan that practically screamed government issue. I noted the silhouette of a man in the driver’s seat. Both of his hands clutched the wheel, showing me he wasn’t holding a weapon. A good sign.

  The distance to the vehicle wasn’t far, but I wouldn’t be able to cross the gap unseen. As soon as I stepped out from behind the corner of the building, I would be vulnerable.

  What could The Instructor possibly want? I didn’t know how he’d found me, but it didn’t surprise me he had. It also wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been the one to call the police to my apartment in an effort to take me in.

  Then again, he might also have been the one to call the assassins.

  I could walk away. Disappear. But that would be the same as putting a bullet into Kaufmann and Victor myself. And if I did run, not only would I have to run the rest of my life, but I’d never know what the hell was going on.

  I watched the street, the cars, the doorways, the rhythm of pedestrian traffic. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I did a quick circle around the block, looking for the backup unit, the second team, or anything else that indicated The Instructor wasn’t acting alone. Everything appeared to be clear.

  I was about to take a chance with a direct approach when the sound of a truck downshifting caught my attention. A semi hauling produce slowed and sidled up to the curb a couple of car lengths behind The Instructor’s.

  The opportunity I was waiting for.

  I darted across the sidewalk and stepped into the truck’s shadow. Circling the vehicle, I walked between the parking lane and traffic. I pulled my gun as I reached the sedan.

  I stopped behind the driver’s door and slipped into the backseat. The Instructor leveled his eyes at me in the rearview mirror, as if he wasn’t surprised. “Hello, Chandler.”

  I held my gun to the back of his neck, alongside the headrest. “Slowly take the key out of the ignition, and drop it at your feet.”

  He followed orders.

  “Keep both hands on the wheel. If you take them off for any reason, I shoot.”

  Again, The Instructor complied. His face had grown harder, the wrinkles deeper. But his expression, or rather his non- expression, was exactly as I’d remembered. I wondered, fleetingly, how many more he’d trained since me. Also, shameful as it was, I wondered if he’d slept with any of them.

  I pushed the unbidden memories back, then gave him a little prod with the barrel of my gun. Afternoon sun slanted through the back window. He squinted into the glare.

  “Project Hydra,” he said, “began in 1982. An unusual group of septuplets were born to a mother who died during childbirth. These sisters were truly unique, because they shared a trait that had never been seen before. They all shared the same fingerprints.”

  Sisters.

  My gun hand twitched, and my stomach lurched.

  Oh, Jesus…those women I killed…

  “The Cold War was at its height,” he went on. “Espionage was essential to our nation’s security, and the advantage of seven identical covert operatives in infiltration, undercover, intelligence gathering, and assassination scenarios was obvious. These sisters, if properly trained, could be used against foreign powers in a myriad of ways, causing massive confusion and loss of morale in our enemies. So, naturally, the government stepped in.”

  I knew The Instructor was talking about me. But I couldn’t let this be about me. I had to treat this like any other op and keep my emotions at bay. Because if I let myself dwell, even for a second, on the fact that I’d killed three of my—

  I jerked my thoughts away and focused on his words.

  “A special branch of the National Security Agency was created expressly to oversee the upbringing of the sisters. They were put into separate, specially chosen homes with military families who knew the importance of the children they were raising.”

  I was grateful for the dry, almost textbook nature of his narrative. Listening to his recitation, I could almost pretend it was one of those boring history lessons I had ignored in school.

  I could almost pretend that it had nothing to do with me.

  But it was impossible to distance myself from this. My parents? The couple who raised me, the loving mother and father who died in a car crash shortly before my tenth birthday, they weren’t my real parents? They were chosen for me by the government?

  “And were my foster families chosen, too?” I said, my hand tightening on my weapon. After my parents died, I was bounced around from one uncaring home to another and wound up the sole child of a sixty-five-year-old retired businessman who confused love with discipline. I could count the number of hugs he’d given me on one hand. The number of beatings—too many to remember. “And the bastard who adopted me? Was his abuse part of my training?”

  “Of course we regret the abuse, Chandler. When the Cold War ended and Clinton took office, many of those in charge of Project Hydra were repurposed. You, and your sisters, were no longer considered a priority, funding was cut, mistakes were made. William Rector, the man who cared for you—”

  “Cared isn’t the term I’d use.”

  “—was former NSA. We only found out about his treatment of you after your arrest.”

  I thought back to Cory. How sexy and dangerous and exciting he was. But the biggest attraction for me might have been that deep down, I knew Cory was a psycho. Which was the best way to strike back at my straitlaced, unloving, surrogate father. The best way to say fuck you to a bad parent is to sleep with a criminal.

  “If it matters at all,” The Instructor said, “some of the others had a worse time than you did. Rector wasn’t the best choice. But in his own way, he set you on the path to what you have become.”

  “A killer,” I stated flatly.

  “One of the best in the world. It wasn’t accidental all seven of you wound up working for your country. As all of you grew, you were groomed by your families, teachers, and college recruiters, for military service. That’s how you came to me.”

  “Tell me about my…” I felt the word stick in my throat. “Sisters.”

  The Instructor had no way of knowing what my life had been like after my parents died, going to live with Rector. I wasn’t allowed to ever have friends over, in the
chance they might mess up his precious house. And I wasn’t allowed to visit anyone because he kept me a virtual prisoner, doing chores, studying constantly, making me take extra classes on top of regular schoolwork.

  My one dream, my only wish, was to have a sister, to be able to share some of those lonely, miserable times with someone else, someone like me.

  To find out now that I had six of them, and that three were already dead by my hand…

  “You were all given code names,” The Instructor said. “Chandler, Hammett, Fleming, Ludlam, Follett, Clancy, Forsyth.”

  “Those are all writers.”

  “Spy novelists. Reagan was a fan. Of these, you dispatched Follett in your elevator, Ludlam at the health club, and Forsyth on the street not far from here.”

  He didn’t have to remind me. I could still feel Ludlam go limp after I rammed her head into the sink, still hear the pop as I snapped Forsyth’s spine. I pushed thoughts of my three dead sisters away and focused on the rest. “So besides me, there are three still alive?”

  “Two. Fleming died during a mission overseas several years ago. The remaining Hydra members are Clancy and Hammett. Hammett is the reason your cover was blown. She’s the one who orchestrated this effort to eliminate you.”

  My throat grew tight, my skin hot. When I’d learned the hit women were my sisters, I’d assumed they were following orders. I understood that. I could rationalize that. But to discover the orders were given by one of them? That I had no idea how to process. “Why?” I whispered.

  “Because your sister is a psychopath and the most dangerous person I’ve met in thirty-eight years with the military.”

  “Your ability to survive is based on how well you react,” The Instructor said. “But your ability to thrive is based on how well you can act first. You cannot fully trust anyone, ever. So what road shall you walk? The one paved for you? Or the one you pave yourself?”

  Hammett stares at the blips on the screen, then presses the button to make her computer tablet sleep. She’s tired, but at the same time, exhilarated.

  It took almost a year of planning to get to this point. And though she took every variable and contingency into account, the death toll is higher than expected.