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  “You held your own against a guy in the top ten, but he had no idea what to expect from you,” Richfield continued. “Now everyone in the agency has seen your weaknesses. They’ll be lining up to challenge you if I don’t move you far enough down. You don’t need that kind of distraction while you’re still in training.”

  “Thank you,” Daniel said instantaneously following Richfield’s explanation. It sounded as though he were shooing the boss away, but there was some genuine intent behind it.

  Richfield gave a slight head bob, understanding Daniel’s frustration, and turned to walk out of the room. Blank stoop upright and took a step back out of the doorway to let Richfield pass, then took a couple steps back into the room and looked over at Daniel.

  “I don’t care what anybody says Danny Boy,” he said. “I’m damn proud of you. I know you’re better than thirty-ninth, and I know you’re gonna be top dog around here very soon.”

  Daniel put on a fake smile and nodded, showing appreciation that he still had the support of his biggest fan.

  He let out an exalted breath and in a phony, perky tone said, “I guess it’s time to finish my training.”

  Chapter 17

  Daniel spent most of Sunday in his room, recovering from the fight. Most people would have needed a lot more than a day to heal, but Daniel didn’t have the luxury of delaying the rest of his training. He would be ready to go to the following morning.

  The complex was more quiet than usual. After the excitement of the last two weekends, most agents who were not out on assignment were taking the opportunity to spend some time at home. Even Charlie had decided to get out of the building and look for a new place to live. For the first time Daniel was envious of the other agents’ ability to come and go as they chose. This week more than ever, he would have loved to have been able to go home to his apartment, or maybe to see his family in Indiana, but he still had four weeks of training yet to complete. With each day he was becoming more and more anxious to finish.

  In the days after the fight few agents spoke to Daniel. They silently made their way past him in the locker room, glancing only long enough to recognize who he was, and then moving past as if they hadn’t noticed him.

  His new ranking had been revealed to the rest of the agency just an hour after the fight was over. The truth was, the fall from grace had not hurt nearly as much as the rest of the agency seemed to think it had. Sure, he would have preferred knocking Jitters out and maintaining his spot as one of the top ten agents, but he was still very green, and he felt no shame being near the bottom. He knew that he was still the most physically capable agent in the complex, and so did Richfield. In fact, he suspected that most of the other agents still believed as much.

  All except for Jitters of course. He had taken to gloating whenever the opportunity presented itself, though he got little response from the other agents. Daniel suspected it only served to frustrate Jitters even more that the other agents showed no more respect for him than they had before the fight. There was little glory in beating a man in his very first fight, and even less in gloating about it.

  Daniel cared little about what Manny Costello had to say about the situation. His time would come, and very soon. Daniel had learned a lot in his fight with Jitters, and he would only learn more as time went on. It would not be long until he found himself unbeatable, and then maybe – just maybe – Jitters might be compelled to keep his giant trap shut.

  And so Daniel continued with his training. Although inside he felt the urge to rush through it and finally be green-lighted into the field, he remained focus, taking his time with Elise more seriously than ever.

  Elise seemed to respond to his of determination. She took no pity on Daniel as she could see that he took none on himself. She continued to work him hard in his combat training sessions, regardless of the pain it may have caused him.

  Daniel fought through the pain, deciding to tough his way through it instead of masking it. The pain reminded him of how much better he still needed to become. Besides, Horchoff had suggested Daniel mask the pain as little as possible, as it warned him of which areas of his body he needed to favor in order for them to properly heal.

  Horchoff had also made the decision to cancel his third week of pain management training, determining that Daniel had already mastered this skill to its fullest extent. Against the doctor’s recommendation to use the extra time to recover, Daniel instead asked Elise for a second sparring session each day. To his delight, Elise was more than willing to oblige.

  There was little more for her to teach Daniel in the way of technique, therefore the final week consisted almost entirely of sparring matches, with Elise finding opportunities to point out Daniel’s mistakes whenever he would make them – which was often – and instruct him on how to be more effective with his attacks.

  In all of his last ten sparring sessions in those last five days, Daniel was unable to win a single fight against Elise, but he was never willing to hit her with his full potential. There were many times when he was able to make solid enough contact that he was certain would have knocked the fierce, muscular woman unconscious had he pumped up – and he suspected that she may also have believed as much. Every time he was able to make solid contact to the head of Elise, she seemed to get angry, and as if flipping a switch she would start throwing an array of complicated moves that Daniel could not dream to keep up with, each time resulting in Daniel flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

  No matter how potent, his impressive spirit would never be enough to match her years of experience. Only his ability to defy the laws of human biology would enable him to take the Scandinavian Amazon down, but he felt this unnecessary.

  He had nothing to prove – one of the perks of losing the fight to Jitters. He no longer felt the pressure to prove himself above the vast majority of the agency. All he needed to do now was focus on fine-tuning his skills. He had become a pseudo-master of his abilities, and he knew that they would always be there for him, but to use them now would only serve as a crutch. Jitters had proven to him that relying on his abilities alone would not be enough for him to survive at Elite. He needed the skills to match.

  Their final bout on Friday afternoon was somewhat of an emotional one, though neither of them was willing to admit it. Though there had been few words spoken between the two in the past week, there had been a great deal of bonding. Daniel’s willingness to fight through the pain of his injuries and work harder than ever before gained him a lot of respect in Elise’s eyes, and Elise’s willingness to push Daniel harder than before had done a lot to help him through the frustration of being embarrassed by Jitters in the challenge ring.

  Fighting relied a great deal on emotion, and they had released quite a bit on each other in the past three weeks. It was almost like sex, Daniel thought, though not as sacred in reputation.

  As Daniel got one last shot in on Elise, kneeing her in the ribs, she once again switched into hurricane mode, leaving Daniel in ruins as she pinned him to the mat, claiming her victory.

  She helped Daniel to his feet before sharing a long embrace. As he wrapped his arms under hers, palming her upper back and resting his chin on the back of her shoulder, he suddenly found himself fighting back tears. Though he had not been broken, the past week had been tough on Daniel, and Elise had offered him a way to vent his frustrations. Not through words, but through the art of combat.

  The two finished their hug and with a simple “See you later,” and Daniel made his way back to the locker room. Richfield had told him earlier that while he would need to continue working on his hand-to-hand skills in the remaining weeks of his training, it would no longer be with Elise. She had other responsibilities to other agents, and Daniel would need to find other agents to hone his skills with. It was no longer a matter of learning, but simply a matter of practice. Daniel knew all he needed to know, he just had to work to make it second nature.

  Muscle memory was something that needed to be developed – there w
as no commanding it through neural impulses. The point of muscle memory was that it had to be instinctual. While Daniel could program a given position into his brain, physical movements had to be learned. There were no shortcuts when it came to proper technique.

  Although he may not have mastered Krav Maga enough to take down an expert like Elise, to any schmuck out on the street he was now dangerous. She had taught him a lot, and he had come a long way in just three weeks.

  Accelerated course indeed.

  Handling a weapon would be similar, in that it would require practice and experience to master. He would be beginning weapons training on Monday – one of the final stages of his training. With every day he was moving closer to becoming a certified agent of Elite Personal Security Force, and with every day commissioning seemed more like an inevitability than an accomplishment.

  Charlie, Shifty, and Norma had all made a point to come back to the agency on Friday night to give Daniel his first “night out” since before the fight. He had been happier than he thought he would be to see them, and after a few drinks things were beginning to seem somewhat back to normal.

  Normal. Daniel pondered the word. This had somehow all become normal to him. Two months ago, this place – these people – were completely foreign to him, and now this was all normal. These were his friends now, and this was his home. Well, it was his home for now. But even after he moved out it would still be his place of work – his second home, and these people would still be his friends.

  His life had taken a drastic turn, and he felt no regrets.

  He was under strict orders to spend the weekend resting and finishing his recovery. Though much of his body had healed itself in the last week, such as the now slightly crooked bridge of his nose, there were still many areas that were still tender. He did as he was told and only engaged in a very lite workout on Saturday afternoon. He spent the rest of his weekend watching movies and reading comic books in his room.

  Shifty had an impressive collection of comics, which he was storing in his bunk because his wife didn’t want them in the house anymore, and he let Daniel borrow them. Daniel felt slightly embarrassed reading comic books in the lounge, but to his surprise people either didn’t care or showed a genuine interest in what he was reading. It turned out a lot of real-life superheroes also found an interest in their fictional counterparts.

  Daniel woke up Monday morning feeling well rested and excited to start the final three weeks of his training. He had experienced the same excitement at the beginning of each of his three-week segments, as each one offered a new endeavor, and a new skill for him to learn.

  The first three segments had transformed him immensely, and his transformation was now almost complete. All he had left to learn was how to shoot and the nuances of being out on assignment, which meant he was on his way back to the classroom. Only this time instead of having to deal with Horchoff’s eccentric teaching style, Richfield himself would be teaching the class. Daniel was very interested to take a peak into the mind of an ex-CIA agent, and learn how to defend the rich and powerful against the world’s deadliest assassins.

  Daniel laughed as he brushed his teeth in the mirror. How many “deadliest” assassins could the world really hold? It seemed like something out of fiction.

  Daniel walked into the classroom two minutes before the scheduled nine o’clock start time, and to his surprise Richfield was the only one currently occupying the room. He didn’t know why, but he had for some reason expected Mr. Blank and possibly Dr. Horchoff to be in the room with him. It made Daniel a little uneasy to be all alone in a room with someone of Charles Richfield’s reputation.

  Richfield was sitting behind a desk at the head of the room, browsing the day’s newspaper, his reading glasses resting on the tip of his nose. To the uneducated observer he appeared a harmless man in his late fifties. He wore a faded, off-white button-up shirt, the top two buttons undone to reveal a worn, white t-shirt underneath.

  Daniel walked over to the table nearest to the desk, and took a seat facing Richfield. Without looking down from the paper, Richfield spoke.

  “Anything off about the room?” he asked.

  Daniel took a look around the room. It was the same one in which he had his class with Horchoff during his first three weeks of training when he first learned how to use his abilities. There was one striking difference that he had picked up on when he first entered the room.

  “The desk,” Daniel said, answering Richfield’s question. “It was a table before.”

  “Very good,” Richfield responded. “Now what does that mean?”

  Daniel sat confused for a moment before remembering why he was there. This was a lesson in how to recognize a threat when on assignment. As an Elite agent, it would be his responsibility to identify threats and neutralize them in the interest of defending the client.

  “It’s a potential threat?” Daniel asked rather than answered.

  Richfield lowered his paper and stared into Daniel’s eyes through the glasses on the end of his nose. Suddenly Daniel felt his arms start to tingle as they rested on the table in front of him. He tried to move them, but found he couldn’t. He was paralyzed. Suddenly the tingling turned to a stinging sensation that shot through his entire body.

  He let out a scream of agony, preparing to alter his pain receptors when suddenly the sensation disappeared. He lifted his forearms off the table and began rubbing them, a slight tingling sensation still lingering.

  Richfield put down his paper and stood up from the desk. He walked up to the table and reached underneath, pulling from under it a small, black box – a small antenna sticking out from the top and a red light blinking on one side.

  “A remote electrical charge,” Richfield explained. “This particular one doesn’t create enough voltage to be harmful, but it makes its point.”

  Richfield turned around and tossed the box onto the desk before climbing onto its surface and taking a seat.

  “Now imagine that was an explosive,” he said, looking at Daniel.

  Daniel nodded, pretending to understand.

  “The client is dead,” Richfield elaborated. “You can’t be distracted by every little detail. Just because something is different, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a threat. Sometimes it’s just different.”

  Daniel received the message, but didn’t appreciate Richfield’s little prank.

  “But it is a potential threat,” Daniel countered.

  “Everything is a potential threat,” Richfield shot right back. “Which is why I can only teach you so much in a classroom. I can lecture and you can take notes, but until you’re actually out in the field you can’t know the true art of identifying a threat. That requires instincts, and instincts are determined by two factors – nature and experience. A person must be born with great instincts, but the only way to truly understand those instincts is through experience.”

  Daniel once again nodded, this time genuinely following Richfield’s logic.

  “Let’s hope you were born with them,” he added ominously.

  Just when Daniel had become completely secure in his future as an Elite agent, Richfield had given him a new reason to doubt himself. What if he didn’t have the instincts needed for this job?

  There was only one way to find out.

  “Now the best we can do to prepare ourselves for the future, is to look at the past,” Richfield noted, shifting gears with his lecture. “Assassination – or murder in general – has become a lot like the movie industry. It seems like so much has been done before that it becomes harder and harder to come up with new stuff, so most people go back to what’s already been done, with their own creative twist. That is why it’s important for us to be aware of what’s been done before, so that we can be ready for what’s coming.”

  “Like Ocean’s Eleven,” Daniel chimed in, thinking about all of the different names of cons and maneuvers of misdirection the guys in the film had made reference to.

  Richfield smirked as if he
had understood Daniel’s reference.

  “Kind of, yeah,” he replied.

  “This morning we are going to look at what we at the CIA used to call ‘Dante’s Delivery.’ Now this occurred in Paris…”

  Richfield leaned forward on the desk, his hands hanging between his legs as he rested his forearms on his thighs. He looked down at the floor as if visualizing the story he was about to tell. Daniel leaned forward on the now de-electrofied table, excited to hear the rest of the story. He believed he was going to like this class.

  “The CIA had been tasked to protect the U.S. ambassador to France, whose life had recently been threatened by the French mafia. An Agent Thompson had escorted the ambassador to the CIA safe house where he, along with his junior partner Agent Hines, werr assigned to protect the ambassador.”

  Richfield paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts before continuing on with the story.

  “Dante Monouís was the French mob’s best and most feared hitman, and the natural choice to be hired to take out the ambassador. Thompson knew this and was therefore especially edgy knowing that he was up against a true pro.

  “Well several hours after arriving at the safe house there’s a knock at the door. Hines goes to answer the door to find a postman on the stoop, delivering a package. Thompson comes out of the kitchen where he had been having dinner with the ambassador to find his partner signing for a package.

  “Well Thompson finds this all very peculiar,” Richfield explained, now looking up at Daniel while continuing his story. His hands had become more active as they began to gesture along with his retelling.

  Daniel sat, enamored by the suspenseful nature of the story and anxious to hear what happened to the ambassador and the two CIA agents next.

  Richfield continued, “There is no reason any package should be delivered to the CIA safe house, and the postman was wearing the wrong color uniform which didn’t seem to fit him right.

  “So Thompson immediately pulls his sidearm on the postman and barks an order at Hines to put the package down and to step away. Thompson walks over to the postman and arrests him, while he has Hines move the package away from the house. He then brings the postman into the house and sits him down on the sofa, ordering Hines to watch the mysterious mail worker while he goes into the kitchen to call it in.