When the stranger opened the exit hatch, humidity enveloped Raoul. Sweat moistened his face and threatened to make his clothes stick to his skin as they stepped from the plane. The air weighed on him.
Where the hell was he?
There was too much else to think about. Three men waited for the stranger and him to climb down. They wore thick-soled camping shoes, pants with numerous pockets, loose shirts hanging out, and baseball caps over what their short sideburns suggested was closely cropped hair. One was Anglo. One was Black. One was Hispanic. The latter made Raoul feel less isolated. It took him a moment before he noticed that, although he thought of them as men, two seemed younger than his twenty-three years, but something about the way they carried themselves made clear they were definitely men.
"Everything's on schedule?" the stranger asked.
"Yes, Mr. Bowie," the black man said.
At last, a name for the stranger.
"This is Mr. Ramirez," Bowie said, indicating Raoul.
Despite his uneasiness, Raoul felt proud to have been introduced in that formal manner. Mister. No one had ever called him that before.
"He's smart," Bowie said.
No one had ever spoken about Raoul in that way, either.
"He'll be an excellent contribution to our group." Bowie turned to him. "Won't you, Mr. Ramirez?"
Yes." Then an amazing thing happened. Raoul didn't think about the next thing he said. He just did it. "Yes, sir."
"See?" Bowie told the three men. "An excellent contributor. Get him squared away. Clothes, equipment, something to eat. Show him where he'll be bunking. Mr. Ramirez, as you can tell from these representatives of our group, this is not a white-bread operation. If you have any problem relating to various races, you'll need to get over it in a hurry. We follow the one true god here, and that is Discipline."
Sudden gunshots made Raoul flinch. In an instant, he tucked down his head, bent his knees, and raised his hands to defend himself.
"Quick reactions," the Anglo said.
The shots came from behind the building.
"He shows promise," the Hispanic agreed.
The shots persisted: a steady rattle. His stomach on fire, Raoul stared past the plane toward the rear of the building. He had no idea how thick its corrugated metal was, and the only thing that kept him from diving to the concrete floor was that no one else in the group seemed alarmed.
"It's a night-training exercise," Bowie told him. "You'll be involved in them soon enough."
Out there, something exploded. Again, no one else reacted.
"And when you're not training," Bowie said, "you'll learn to sleep despite the noise. Sleep is the operator's friends. Fatigue is among the legion of his enemies. Always sleep and eat whenever you get the chance, although you won't have much time for rest here. Do you like video games, Raoul?"
"Uh, video games?" The seemingly weird question made Raoul frown as he glanced nervously again in the direction of the shots.
"Video games, sir ."
"Sir. I used to. In the joint, there weren't any."
"Well, that's different now. Here, when you're not in classes or watching movies, you can play video games as much as you want. The latest versions.
Soldier of Fortune.
Chapter 4.
"Don't you think you should try to sleep?" Jamie asked Cavanaugh from the shadowy doorway to the bedroom.
Duncan, who'd sometimes worked twenty-hour days, had put his living quarters next to his office. That Duncan's personal and professional life had been so severely joined made Cavanaugh wonder how his own life and Jamie's would change now that he'd assumed control of the corporation.
He sat at Duncan's desk, a thick computer printout spread before him.
"I doubt I could sleep." Eyes sore with fatigue, he ran his finger down the list that Kim had prepared: his former assignments.
It depressed him to realize the number and extent of the protective details he'd worked on. Politicians, corporate executives, movie celebrities, sports stars, real-estate barons, on and on. There'd been hundreds, but only a few had seemed special apart from the money, power, or fame they had. The work had been what he'd cared about. As Duncan had insisted, "Unless they're obvious moral monsters, it isn't our place to make judgments about our clients. The only thing that's important is, they're somebody's prey, and predators are always the enemy."
"That list will look fresher in the morning," Jamie said.
"But in the meantime, what if somebody dies because I didn't do my job? I have to believe, somewhere in these past assignments there's a clue about why the hit team tried to kill us and why those other agents were killed. Or maybe the attack was revenge because of an assassination or kidnapping I prevented. I don't know where else to look."
"You can't do your job if you can't think straight."
"I've gone without sleep a lot longer than this."
"I hear it makes a person psychotic."
Cavanaugh had to grin. "You say the sweetest things."
"I'm serious." Jamie massaged his shoulders. "The list will look fresher in the morning."
Cavanaugh thought about it and sighed. "All these assignments. When this is over--"
"Making me think about the future so I don't worry about the present?"
"I'm projecting myself into the future so I don't worry about the present. When this is over." Cavanaugh set down the pages. "You're right. Let's get some sleep."
He put his arm around her and guided her toward the bedroom.
The phone rang.
He paused.
It rang again.
He turned.
"Don't answer it," Jamie said.
He stared at the desk. Not Duncan's desk. Not any longer. Now it's my desk.
"Whatever it's about can wait until morning," Jamie told him.
"No," Cavanaugh decided.