DYSFUNCTIONAL GRIEF
No, Gaia thought, her eyes turning down toward the metal table. No, come on. Don’t show me that. That’s not fair.
“Look at the picture, please,” Malloy ordered.
Gaia kept her eyes riveted on the table. She wouldn’t look at the picture. “I know what it is,” she said.
“Gaia, you have to look,” Agent Bishop said softly.
It was exactly what she expected to see, and it hit her like a battering ram.
It’s him.
Jake.
Gaia had done everything she could not to think about him. Which hadn’t gone very well. Of course she thought about him all the time. But seeing an actual photograph of his dead body … lying there bleeding on the floor … it made her truly hate Agent Malloy for that one moment. How could he do this to her? How could he force this picture down her throat?
It was a crime scene photograph, of course—taken by the CIA agents that very night when they’d stormed that uptown apartment. Gaia hadn’t even remembered them taking crime scene photos then, but why would she? She’d been completely oblivious to anything other than Jake’s vacant eyes as he breathed his last few breaths.
Jake …
Gaia still remembered every second—how two jealous, angry brothers had ended up in a horrible face-off and how the bullets had flown like spray from a fountain, punching through Jake’s body just a few seconds before the CIA arrived.
Ms. Moore? Are you all right? one of the nameless, faceless agents had said. It’s over—it’s all over. But she knew she would never be all right again.
Stay with me, Jake, she had ordered desperately, clutching his hand and staring at his fading eyes. Listen to me. Keep your eyes open. You stay with me.
But he was gone.
Now Gaia couldn’t take her eyes off the photograph. She scanned the length of the three-year-old picture again and again, from Jake’s closed, lifeless eyes down to the blood-drenched T-shirt on his chest. And then, as her eyes drifted to the left side of the frame, she realized what she had missed at first glance. It was lying right there, just a few feet from Jake’s body, staring back at her, reflecting the glint of the flashbulb.
The gun. The murder weapon itself—sitting there on the floor right where Gaia had knocked it from the killer’s hands. That one little piece of goddamn steel had done it all. One effortless squeeze of the trigger and Jake’s life had been ripped away. She could hear the shots again, echoing through her head like no time had passed.
Suddenly that awful feeling was invading again. The same feeling she’d gotten on the roof when that FBI agent had drawn her weapon. Gaia’s eyes focused in on that gun and she fell prey to another surprise attack of unbearable nausea. Her chest couldn’t expand to breathe, and her eyes slammed momentarily shut. Her hands clenched into fists, and before she knew it, she had crumpled the side of the photo in her hand and let it fall back down on the table.
Jesus, Gaia, keep it together, she told herself. Shake it off for Christ’s sake. They’re watching every single move you make.
She heard Bishop’s voice across the table, sounding slightly muffled as all the blood rushed to her aching head.
“Gaia, do you need some water …?”
“What?” Gaia snapped. She bit down on her tongue, trying desperately to release the crippling tension in every one of her muscles. “No, I’m fine,” she lied, still not quite able to hear herself.
Agent Bishop ignored Gaia’s response and poured out a quick glass of water, handing it over to Gaia.
“Thank you,” she uttered, trying to unclench her teeth, “but I really am just fine.”
In truth, she was suddenly parched as all hell.
Just drink it and freaking relax, she howled at herself. You are blowing this interview.
She picked up the glass and forced it to her lips. But her hand was still too tense. The glass slipped from her grip and toppled over. The moment lasted no more than two seconds, but it felt like an eternity to Gaia. She could only sit there and watch as the water spilled out across the table, soaking the photo of Jake, turning his skin into wet blotches of black and gray. It continued its course, sprawling out into tiny rivulets and rolling toward Malloy, forcing him to snap up his thick manila folder from the table.
Gaia quickly snatched the glass back up and placed it squarely on the table, but the moment had already happened, and there was nothing she could do to take it back.
The room fell deafeningly quiet as Malloy stared back at Gaia, holding his file up by his shoulders as the water trickled down over the edge of the table in front of him. Gaia stared at him through the painful silence.
“I’m sorry,” Gaia said as nonchalantly as she could. “Do we have a towel? I can—”
“It’s fine, Ms. Moore,” Malloy said coldly. “We’ll get someone in here to clean it up.” He placed the folder on the chair next to him, looked down at his watch, and then turned to Bishop. “All right,” he said. “I think we’re done here. Ms. Moore, thank you for coming in today. We’ll review the information and you’ll receive a letter within—”
“Wait a minute,” Gaia interrupted. “We’re done? How can we be done?” Her eyes drifted over to Bishop with confusion, but Bishop wouldn’t look at her.
“Yes,” Malloy replied, packing his file into a briefcase. “We’re done. I’ve seen everything I need to see.”
“What have you seen?” Gaia shot back. She knew it was inappropriate, but she didn’t care. She had to say something here. She had to speak up and quick because she knew what was happening. It was obvious. Malloy had already made up his mind about her. He might has well have handed her the rejection letter right then and there. “What have you seen?” she repeated, trying her best not to sound as frazzled as she was. “You’ve seen me spill a little water by accident? That’s why we’re done?”
Malloy set his briefcase on the floor and then leaned across the table, pressing his palms down in the puddle as he looked Gaia dead in the eyes. “Let’s not fool ourselves, Ms. Moore,” he said calmly. “If you expect me to believe that moment just now consisted of nothing more than a slippery glass, then you not only insult me, you insult this entire organization.”
“What?” Gaia squawked defensively. “I don’t know what you’re talking ab—”
“And if you truly have no idea what I’m talking about,” he interrupted, “then you require even more psychiatric attention than I thought.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s nothing personal, Ms. Moore, believe me. But it wouldn’t take a trained professional to understand what just happened to you.”
“Nothing happened to me,” Gaia insisted. “I spilled some water.”
“You lost control,” Malloy declared. “I showed you that photo and it produced an involuntary reaction.”
Gaia suddenly fell silent. She didn’t know what to say.
“What is it you think we do here, Ms. Moore?” Malloy pressed. “We build psychological profiles. We listen, we watch, we perceive, and then we draw conclusions. I could tell a hundred different things about you when I handed you that photo. You, apparently, can tell nothing. I can tell that it’s been three years and you still have not recovered from Jake Montone’s death—you have yet to move past it. That kind of dysfunctional grief is unacceptable for our kind of work, Ms. Moore. Do you understand that? We need to move on from grief in three days. Sometimes three minutes in a lifethreatening situation.”
“But I have moved on—”
“Please don’t delude yourself.” Malloy was no longer listening to a thing she said. He spoke each point with clipped efficiency—each word slashing away at Gaia’s ego. “I can also point out to you the exact moment that you lost control because that is what we do here. I can tell you that your eyes drifted from the right side of the photo to the left. From Montone’s body over to the murder weapon. And that is when it happened.”
“When what happened?” Gaia huffed.
“The gun,” Malloy said, standing up straight. “You saw that gun and you were no longer with us, Ms. Moore. You were back there. Watching your boyfriend get shot—hearing him get shot. You showed all the symptoms of a post—traumatic stress reaction. Your eyes glazed over, the memories took hold, your breathing became labored, and you experienced a momentary lapse in motor function. It’s a textbook case.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Gaia insisted.
“Is it?” Malloy replied. “Agent Bishop, you’re an expert profiler—do you think I’m being ridiculous?”
Gaia turned to Bishop, who still wouldn’t look her in the eye. Bishop looked at Malloy for a moment and then, sounding almost defeated, she finally turned to face Gaia.
“No,” she said quietly. “No, it’s not ridiculous. I’m sorry, Gaia, but I don’t think you’re ready. Maybe after a few years of good therapy. After you’ve worked out some of these issues.”
Gaia turned away from them both and focused her eyes on the table. The blood was coursing through her veins so fast now with frustration, confusion, disappointment, desire….
Post-traumatic stress? Wasn’t that like a phobia? Wasn’t that a fear-based reaction? If so, then it was categorically impossible for her to experience. It’s not that Gaia was afraid of guns; she just despised the sight of them with every ounce of her being. And yes, maybe she was so sickened by them now that it was a bit beyond her control. But that couldn’t be a good enough reason to reject her. She couldn’t accept that.
“You can sign out at the front desk,” Malloy said. “They’ll see you out to the lobby.”
They began to head for the door, and quite suddenly, almost in spite of herself, words began to pour from Gaia’s mouth. Words from some part of her heart that she had worked like hell to stomp out over the last three years. The part that contained all her truest feelings and desires. The part that simply couldn’t compromise anymore.
“Just wait a second,” she demanded, looking up at Bishop and Malloy. “Please, just … wait.”
They honored her request and stood at the doorway in silence.
“Look … I need this, okay? I need to do this….”
Malloy glanced at Bishop and then turned back to Gaia. “There are plenty of other applicants who need this, Ms. Moore. I’m sure you need many things—”
“No, you didn’t let me finish,” Gaia snapped. “I need this. And you need me.”
Malloy’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh, is that right?” he asked dubiously.
“Yes, that’s right,” Gaia said, staring at him without blinking. “This organization needs me. You think you know me. You think you know what I’m capable of, but you don’t even know half of it. And I keep trying to deny it—I’ve spent years trying to ignore who I am, but I don’t want to ignore it anymore. I can’t. I’ve wasted so much time trying to dodge my true calling. But this is it. I swear the Fates designed me with a purpose, and that purpose is the FBI. This is what I was born to do. And we have to respect that. I have to respect it, and so do you.”
“Gaia,” Bishop said, “respect has nothing to do with it. We respect your skills; we just don’t think you’re psychologically prepared for—”
“But how will I ever be psychologically prepared?” Gaia stood up from her chair. “Yes, I have some issues. But I need to defeat them here and now. With your help, with your training. And if you don’t give me the opportunity, if you don’t make the right choice, then we all lose. I kiss my destiny goodbye and you lose something much worse than that. You lose the best goddamn agent the FBI has ever seen. Pardon my French.”
The room fell very silent. The drone of the air-conditioning was the only audible noise. Gaia suddenly felt deeply uncomfortable. She felt like she had just made a very big mistake.
Malloy flashed Bishop a harsh glance and then turned back to Gaia.
“I want you to listen to me, Ms. Moore,” he said. “I want you to understand something. The Quantico training course is the most difficult and challenging program of its kind in the world. The twenty-four elite trainees embark upon an intense ten-week program that presents them with a near-constant battery of challenging and difficult testing and training situations designed to tax an individual’s intellectual and physical persistence, fortitude, and stamina to extremes. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Gaia said. What the hell was his point? Was he just trying to rub it in?
“We can only offer the opportunity to a very small, carefully selected group,” he went on. “We have no patience whatsoever for weakness or failure.”
“I know that,” Gaia shot back. “I get it. You’ve made your decision already; you really don’t need to explain it any further.”
“I should hope not,” Malloy said. “Fine. Then we’ll see you on base in two weeks.”
Gaia’s frown suddenly fell from her face, leaving only a rather clueless confusion.
“I'm sorry?” she uttered. “I thought you’d already decided to—”
“I just changed my mind, Ms. Moore,” Malloy said. “Would you like me to change it again?”
Agent Bishop cracked a subtle smile.
“No, sir,” Gaia said as a smile began to creep up on her face. “No, I wouldn’t. Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me yet, Moore,” he said. “You’ve just made me a whole lot of promises. Let’s see if you can keep them. In the meantime, I suppose congratulations are in order.” He stepped forward and shook Gaia’s hand. “Welcome to Quantico, Ms. Moore. Welcome to the FBI.”
someone was pulling
a trigger and a bullet
was being unleashed
OVERLY MUSCLED YOUNG MAN
Left. Right. Right. Left. Balance—breathe—
Gaia’s feet were whispering along the dirt track, scuffing on the sharp tops of the rocks. She wanted to look down—every instinct told her to glance at her feet and check her progress, but that was the wrong move. If she took her eyes off the space directly in front of herself, she’d smack her face right into one of the treacherously placed horizontal wooden beams or spiderwebs of taut ropes across her path.
In the two weeks that followed her meeting with Agents Malloy and Bishop, Gaia had worked hard to prepare herself for this moment.
The first day.
The first chance she had to prove that she was more than just a head case.
The obstacle course was incredibly hard. The terrain changed very fast, and the course turned and twisted so it was impossible to see what was coming next. One moment Gaia was running along level ground through trees—and she could see the other trainees around her. Then the ground would drop away unexpectedly, and she would have to choose one of the widely spaced rope bridges and pull herself across a deep crevasse. The next moment she would whip around a corner and have to run through narrow, sandy channels of rock, trying to keep her balance without being able to see much of anything beyond the passing rock walls and the sky overhead. Then the rock channels would end and she’d be leaping through thick walls of foliage, like she was now, avoiding the obstacles that threatened to slam her to the ground.
Gaia had no idea how long this was supposed to take. She’d never seen this sadistic an obstacle course before. It had all started in a heartbeat. One minute she’d been standing there in line with the other trainees, and the next minute that bullet-headed drill sergeant Conroy was barking out orders and firing off a starter pistol. He hadn’t been one to waste words. “Run the course,” he’d shouted. “Don’t stop, don’t fall. Best time wins.”
Gaia had barely gotten a good look at the two dozen or so other FBI trainees as they’d assembled on the parade grounds on this hot, baking morning—a mere two hours after they’d all arrived at Quantico. There had barely been time to change and run out here. Gaia had only managed to notice a couple of her fellow trainees: Peter Pan Girl and Farm Boy.
They’d all looked pretty tough, lined up in their fatigue pants and their FBI T-shirts. She’d noticed Peter Pan girl then be
cause her haircut reminded Gaia of Agent Bishop. She’d also noticed Farm Boy—a sinewy, overly muscled young man with a reddened tan and a blond crew cut that stuck up from his head like a manicured lawn of sunbleached hair. Farm Boy had a swagger and a wide, easy grin Gaia instantly hated, and she twisted her head away quickly before he could catch her looking at him.
Now, running over the uneven ground, Gaia could barely see the two trainees flanking her. She had crossed the first rope bridge right ahead of the girl with the dark, pixie-cut hair—and Peter Pan Girl was keeping up. And blond crew cut Farm Boy was gaining on her. Gaia could hear his breathing right behind her. The rest of the trainees were far behind.
This was the kind of simple, clear activity that Gaia loved. Nothing to worry about but her speed—nothing to fret over but her agility. A clear blue sky and clean country air. Moving at speed, with the wind blowing her hair and coursing across her body as she ran, with that familiar burn and ache in her muscles, Gaia felt close to nirvana. I like this place already, she thought, wincing at the growing pain in her limbs as she moved, and it’s only the first hour of the first workout.
“Two minutes ten,” Sergeant Conroy’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker.
Gaia felt her legs aching as she sped up even more. She checked her watch. That meant thirty seconds since she’d reached the end of the opening sprint and entered the obstacle course. She rounded a corner in a channel of ten-foot rocks and saw a huge rope wall about ten seconds before slamming into it. She heard her breath catch as she slowed her pace just a fraction so that she’d hit the rope with her right foot raised to catch on the second rung of the rope wall. Going to hurt, she thought pointlessly as her upper body snapped into the taut ropes like a tennis ball hitting a racket. She was righ—the ropes lashed her like sandpaper-covered wires. Don’t feel it. Climb.
Gasping for breath, her arm muscles burning with fatigue as she pulled herself to the top of the giant, sagging rope wall, Gaia could see around herself again. She could see the bright, vast blue dome of the Virginia sky and the last leg of the obstacle course in front of her. She wasted half a second on a glance backward.
Kill Game Page 4
