After we were informed about the Green Monster competition Griffin took us over to an outdoor shooting range and we worked within our teams to improve our aim. Jon paired me to work with Victor while he and Amir worked with Oliver. We started with handguns and after about an hour moved to rifles equipped with long-distance scopes.
I quickly identified that Victor did not like being told what to do and adapted my approach to working with him. I decided to play the role of the student and allowed him to teach me while I subtly demonstrated the correct technique. Then as his shot improved, I would slightly elevate my own skill so that he felt accomplished at both shooting and teaching. I was very careful to never out shoot him, knowing that would destroy both his confidence and the progress he was making in communicating with me.
After we had been working with the rifles for about thirty minutes, the hairs on my neck started to rise, telling me that someone was watching me. I subtly shifted my weight and used my peripheral vision until I could see that it was Ford who was staring at me. A spike of adrenaline surged through my system as my body decided if Ford was a threat or not. In my experience, people in positions of authority got addicted to the feeling of being in control and would start to exert their power over others just so they could feel that control more often. Maybe that was why Ford was an instructor for the training program, he liked having power of the new agents. Whatever his motivation, Ford was clearly taking note of my interaction with Victor and my poor performance on the shooting range.
Victor was an alpha male. I had enough past experience with alpha males to know how to handle them to get the end goal I desired. Yes, I might not be showcasing my full skill set with a firearm right now, but if Victor improved our team would do better overall. I paused to consider that just yesterday I had silently condemned Elena for using manipulation like this to get what she wanted. I had wanted to be completely myself here. And pretending to be bad at shooting was not me.
Was it possible that manipulating Victor into working with me and consequently improving his own skill and cultivating the group dynamic was betraying both myself and my new teammate? Did the motivation behind the manipulation factor into this? I took a deep breath and thought interacting within a team was hard work. After a few moments passed, I saw Ford move on to watching another group and I felt my shoulders relax.
We took a break for lunch and then each team was locked into a room where we had to solve clues to get the code to get ourselves out. I had heard of people paying to do this kind of escape room for fun. Guess Whistler had decided to adopt the escape room premise to evaluate our ability to work within our new teams. As was becoming a clear pattern, Jon stepped into the leadership role to organize our efforts to solve the clues. However, Jon was still learning each of our strengths and weaknesses. It became apparent when only Oliver had solved his clue, that the divide and conquer method was not working well for us.
Once we regrouped and looked at each clue as an entire group it didn’t take long for us to put everything together. Oliver and Amir were the best at the logic-based questions while Jon and I contributed more to questions that related to human motivation. Victor lost his patience with the game quickly and did little more than grumble about how childish this was. After my musing about manipulations, I decided to not intervene with Victor and kept my opinions to myself.
When we emerged from their locked room they were met by Ford. He told us we figured out the clues and got out of the room in a good time. However, he advised that all members of the group should contribute to the solution. “When a team completes a security job, very little of it is physically protecting a client. Most of the man hours will go into analyzing the situation, identifying weak spots, and then coming up with solutions. Yes, we require our agents to be physically capable, but we also need people that will work within their team to come up with plans and backup plans for every contingency.” Ford’s attention was mostly focused Victor during that little speech. Then his gaze shifted between Jon and me before he continued, “And we need leaders that know how to include and motivate every member of their team.”
Why had he directed that last comment to me? I was no leader. I would never deserve the trust necessary to truly lead. But Ford had said motivating not manipulating. Maybe if I acted to motivate my teammates then it was morally okay.
Ford then handed Jon a large manilla envelope and told us, “Next Saturday you will be paired up with another team and together you will run a mock security scenario. That is your information package on the dignitary that you have been hired to protect and the venue that the event will be held. While you are tasked with protecting this person the other team has been tasked with assassinating them. A successful mission is accomplished by keeping the dignitary safe for the entire event.” He then handed me another identical envelope. “This information package is on another mock scenario where you are the team assigned to take out the target.”
Amir raised his chin at this statement and asked Ford in a terse tone, “Why are you having us practice at killing people? I thought we were the good guys.” I thought this was a very good question. I was uncomfortable posing as the bad guy and silently worried that I might show too much skill in that area thus giving my past away.
“First,” Ford said in his gruff voice as he held up a pointer finger, “we need to train you how to protect against real threats with real motivations. We have found that the competition offers enough motivation to make the scenarios mimic real security situations you will encounter as an agent.” Ford then held up another finger and continued, “Second, you will learn a lot from switching your thought process from defensive to offensive. By planning an attack, you will also plan ways to protect your mark from similar attacks.” He held Amir’s gaze until Amir gave a slight head nod.
“There are no more planned training exercises today. I would suggest that you go through the packets and start planning your strategies.” With that Ford turned and walked away.
“That man,” Jon mused, “has got the gift of gab.” He shook his head with a small smile on his face and continued, “Let’s go find somewhere to go over these packets.” He then turned and walked after Ford. We followed him until he found a small open conference room. Jon settled into a seat at the head of the table and opened his packet and started to review the material. After a few moments, he summarized what he was reading.
“Okay, so it looks like we have been tasked to protect a foreign dignitary from Honduras named Esli Vasquez. It doesn’t give us much about his background, just his age, height, and weight.”
“That’s all we really need to know right,” I replied, “I mean we don’t need his life story to be able to protect him.”
Oliver swiveled in his chair to look at me. “Yeah, but aren’t you curious? I mean Whistler is the major leagues. What has he gotten himself into that he thinks he needs to hire private security in addition to the security the event will already have in place?”
“Oliver has a point,” Jon stated, “If we know about who he thinks is going to make a move against him then we can better prepare for that outcome. Furthermore, if we understand his motives on why he is attending this event, then we might be more able to predict his movements when he is under our care.”
“If they have set up backstories on these guys I can hack into his personal and work computers to get more information about him,” Oliver stated as if it was no big deal to hack into foreign dignitaries’ computers. I wondered how elaborate Whistler was going to be with the backstories. How close to a real job would these mock scenarios be?
I decided I might as well contribute if we were going down this road. I spoke up and suggested, “We should look into social media and news stories as well. From that information, we might be able to identify any personal threats outside of the political arena.”
I paused for a moment and considered letting the team know about my computer skills. I decided that most millennials these days had basic coding skills so being a minor league hacker wasn’t too far-fetched. I would just have to toe that line carefully. If they knew that my hacking skills could rival Oliver’s, people would start asking questions. “And while Oliver is looking into Esli’s computers I can get us blueprints and building information on the location of the event.”
Oliver raised his eyebrows at me and asked, “Oh really. And how are you going to do that?”
“A girl has to have a couple of secrets,” I stated in a hope to misdirect the question with a little humor.
“Payton,” Oliver said in a quiet voice as he looked me in the eye, “you have more than a couple of secrets.” I didn’t see any reason to deny that. I really didn’t like lying to them, especially Oliver so instead, I mostly didn’t tell them anything. I kept any details about me on the vague side and deflected any personal questions directed my way.
When I didn’t respond to Oliver the silence between us started to turn tense until Jon interjected, “Having the blueprints of the building and knowing what sort of security will already be in place will be a good place to start. Payton, you work on that and let Oliver know if you need any assistance.” He then turned to Amir and Victor and asked, “Would you two be okay working together to start a plan on our offensive project?”
Victor’s face morphed into an eager smile as he took the other unopened envelope out of my hands. Amir looked less happy about the prospect. Jon must have taken notice of Amir’s discomfort as he told him, “I am not asking you to single-handedly plan an assassination. I just want you to go through the packet and start the process.” Amir still looked uneasy about the assignment so, with Ford’s words ringing in my ears, I decided to try a different approach.
“Hey Jon, there is a lot of research to be done on this side of the project. We could use an extra person helping out and Amir can help me identify spots that are vulnerable to a sniper. Why don’t you work with Victor tonight and Amir can work with Oliver and me. Then tomorrow we can regroup once we have more background information.” I was a little worried that Jon would be upset that I had just opposed him, but he looked more relieved than anything. I guessed Amir scared Jon a little and this was such a small issue. Nothing to warrant the start of a grudge between the two men.
Jon looked over to Amir and asked, “Does that work better for you?” Amir nodded sharply in response and moved to take the information package on Esli from Jon. Oliver, Amir, and I circled around to look at the information provided to us. There wasn’t much there. Just the bare bones of the event and the client. It would seem that this was part of the test. Whistler wanted to see how hard they would work to dig up information that may help us reach the end goal of keeping our client safe.
After I had scanned through the packet twice, I took note of the pertinent information on a scrap piece of paper and leaned back in my chair. With all three of us reading the same documents we had moved very close to one another and being in such close proximity to them was making me break out in a nervous sweat. I decided to make my excuses and get the hell out of here.
“Well I can’t do much without my laptop and I left that in my room back at the hotel. I am going to head back there and start working. You two can figure out his personal stuff and I will handle the event building.”
“Sounds good to me,” Oliver replied. “We will see you at dinner.” With that, I quickly retreated from the crowded room and returned to my hotel room to work. Once I got my hotel room door bolted shut, I released a breath I didn’t even know I had been holding. Working with and touching so many people for hours on end had taken a toll on my cool. I had gotten used to my self-imposed solitary over the last eighteen months.
The desire to just walk out of this hotel room and buy an abandoned cabin in the woods and never enter society again flooded my system. I had to physically turn my back to the door to resist the urge to run. To isolate myself so that no one could ever hurt me again. But I had a cosmic debt to repay, and I couldn’t help anyone if I locked myself away. This was my punishment. I was woman enough to take it on with my chin raised high.
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