Kill Game

by Francine Pascal

  “Air smells nice, don’t it?” Will said amiably, climbing out of the car behind her.

  Stop reading my mind—I don’t like it one bit.

  SCREAMING IN TERROR

  “I’ll have the sirloin,” Gaia told the waitress. She was a short, middle-aged woman with thick glasses and a plaid vest. Her plastic name tag had a Montano’s logo, and it identified her as “Margie.” She had introduced herself, too, so there was really no way anyone could avoid catching her name. Then she had brought them all water in yellow-tinted glasses and a plastic basket of bread sticks and cellophane-wrapped crackers.

  “Yes, ma’am; sirloin steak,” Margie agreed, scribbling on her notepad. Gaia could see that her hair was dyed. “How would you like that done?”

  “Rare,” Gaia said.

  “Baked potato? Fries? Garden salad? House chowder?”

  “Salad and potato,” Gaia said. She made herself smile at Margie. You never did that in New York—she’d developed the habit in Palo Alto.

  The steak house was actually fairly large once you got inside. Gaia, Kim, Catherine, Will, and the other trainee—Bradley, Gaia remembered—were at a table near the front, with a red-and-white-checkered cheesecloth cover and heavily laminated wooden chairs. About half the tables were full, with families, single diners who were obviously townies, and a couple of other trainees. Quiet, bland Muzak played in the background. Margie seemed to be the only staff, except for two teenage busboys in red vests with barely visible mustaches Gaia had seen when she and her group came in. It was going to take a long time to get their food—it was obvious.

  Catherine, apparently realizing this, was munching on bread sticks. “You’ve got a big appetite,” she told Gaia.

  “I do indeed,” Gaia said. “Where are you from, Kim?”

  “Boulder, Colorado,” Kim said. “My mom teaches at the university. We moved there when I was a kid—I was born in Chicago.”

  “And what’s your story?” Catherine went on, brushing crumbs from her lips. “What are you interested in?”

  “Playing jazz piano,” Kim told them. “But sociology, mostly. More recently, criminal psychology. All the ‘ologies’ having to do with the mind. I kind of have a knack for it.”

  “That’s what you focused on in college?” Will asked politely.

  “Besides boys, yeah.”

  Will, predictably, needed a clarification. “You’re homosexual?”

  “Yeah, but you can just say ‘gay,’” Kim told him, smiling. “Unless you like sounding like a hick.”

  “Touché,” Will said, smiling back. Gaia was forced to admit to herself that there wasn’t an ounce of bigotry in Will’s question. He was just blunt. “Wait, you’re the one I heard about, right?” He was pointing at Kim. “Some of the guys were talking on my floor. You’re the prodigy—the one who got those advanced shrink degrees before you turned twenty?”

  Kim looked embarrassed. “Well—yeah,” he said shyly.

  “You play piano?” Catherine asked Kim. She was still munching bread sticks.

  “Yeah,” Kim said. “For years, actually. My parents forced me to take classical lessons—the cliché of the Asian musical genius. No, thank you. I rebelled by switching to jazz.”

  Something was bothering Gaia—some kind of nameless feeling about the room they were in. She couldn’t place it, exactly, but something seemed wrong. Glancing past her companions, Gaia looked at the faces of the other diners, trying to see if their expressions were somehow part of what was bothering her. But they all looked normal. She could see one little girl in a pretty yellow dress, eating her mint ice cream dessert with perfect table manners. Her legs didn’t reach the floor. She was a picture of perfection—yet to Gaia’s eyes, there was something wrong with her.

  “My boyfriend plays clarinet,” Catherine was telling Kim, speaking with her mouth full. “Like, jazz clarinet. I go hear him at this place whenever he does it.”

  “Jazz clarinet-cool,” Kim said, impressed.

  “We’re all freaks,” Catherine said easily. “Why play boring music?”

  “Asian musical genius.” Will was marveling at Kim—smiling too much, Gaia thought; probably to show off those teeth he was so proud of. “Why does nobody talk about the cliché of the white southern genius?”

  “Because there ain’t no such thing?” Gaia said sweetly. “That could be it.”

  “You’re not very modest.” Catherine was laughing at Will, who widened his eyes, all wounded.

  “What do you mean?” Will pointed at Kim. “Dr. Lau here calls himself a ‘genius’ and nobody bats an eye. That’s not fair—you’re all pickin’ on me.”

  We’re all freaks, Gaia repeated to herself. She was watching Kim’s hands on the table, his fingers drumming on the paper place mat that showed the recipes for cocktails.

  Gaia remembered that very clearly in the minutes and hours to come because it was at that moment, that exact second she was contemplating her unusual dining companions and watching Kim’s fingers drum on the table, that she heard that sound, crashing through the air like thunder, almost seeming to make the air split apart with its deafening boom and crash.

  I’m dreaming, she thought crazily. I’m having a flashback or something.

  But in that frozen instant it was clear to Gaia that everyone in the room had jumped. Her ears were ringing—there was nothing imaginary about it.

  A gunshot.

  “Nobody move!” a hoarse male voice screamed. “Nobody move or this bitch is dead!”

  A woman screamed. Looking over, Gaia saw that it was Margie, the waitress. She had screamed in the act of falling to the floor.

  At a table near the kitchen—a larger, round table, flanked by six wooden chairs—a young man in a black business suit and a ski mask was holding a revolver in the air and clutching a young girl to his waist. As if in a dream, Gaia realized that it was the perfect little girl she’d seen earlier—the one in the yellow dress. She had dropped her ice cream spoon to clatter on the floor, scattering green drops of mint ice cream everywhere.

  The girl was screaming in terror. The man had her clamped against himself. The gun was bellowing smoke—it had been just a few seconds since he’d fired it upward. Gaia could see the hole in the plastic foam ceiling that the bullet had made. The rest of the table’s diners were screaming, too, and cowering away from the man with the gun.

  Where did he come from? Gaia thought. She noticed that her fellow trainees hadn’t screamed or panicked—like her, they were all looking coolly over, assessing the situation. All except for Will.

  At first Gaia thought Will had vanished. Then she saw him—on the floor. Will had dropped to the floor and was crawling toward the exit and out of the room.

  What the hell?

  After all his posturing and bragging, Mr. Farm Boy had no backbone at all. Gaia couldn’t say she was surprised. Even the “bravest” person could fold in the face of real danger.

  But not me, Gaia thought. She was already calculating the distances as the man with the ski mask lowered his arm and pressed the gun against the screaming girl’s ear.

  “Nobody move or this bitch is dead!” the gunman repeated. “Now, nice and slow—everyone put their watches, wallets, and jewelry on the tables in front of them.”

  Gaia fixed her eyes on the man’s head, testing the strength of her chair with her right hand. But she had missed her chance to throw the chair. With his arm in the air, the gunman had been a perfect target, but now it was impossible. There was too much of a risk that he would accidentally pull the trigger. She had to get the gun off the girl—and there was only one way to do it.

  “I’m not going to tell you again,” the gunman screamed more urgently. The girl in the yellow dress wailed.

  Gaia didn’t give herself time to think. Absolutely no time had passed; everyone else was still frozen in their chairs, startled, looking like statues with their mouths open. Gaia catapulted herself forward, charging straight at the gun, just missing Kim’s sho
ulder as she landed in a fighting stance on the carpet between the restaurant’s tables. Predictably, the gunman took the gun off the girl and pointed it at Gaia, giving her the expected second and a half to drop and roll and dodge the bullet he fired into the floor where she’d been crouched and then giving her another half second (while the recoil knocked his shooting hand backward) to leap back up and aim a kick at his head.

  “Gaia!”

  Catherine’s voice, behind her.

  Without thinking, Gaia ducked her head to one side.

  Blam! This gunshot was so loud, Gaia thought for a moment that she might have permanent hearing damage. The bullet had come from right behind her—it must have whipped right past her ear from behind, although she hadn’t felt the wind (as had happened to her one or two times in the past). She could see a fresh bullet hole in the wood paneling in front of her.

  Second gunman, she thought furiously. There’s a second gunman, and I missed him. Stupid, stupid—

  Gaia ducked her upper body forward and jabbed her right leg straight back without looking and felt the heavy smack as her shoe connected with flesh.

  It was all happening fast—and Gaia was glad that her muscles, still aching from the morning’s exertions, weren’t failing her—but that sound continued to freak her out, that horrible graveyard sound of the firing gun that went right through her every time she heard it, sending her back to that place and time in New York she never wanted to think about again.

  She was on top of the asshole in seconds, pinning him to the carpeted floor. Behind her the other gunman—the one she had never even seen—was slowly rising off the floor. Gaia had to stretch and kick him again, trying for his gun hand and managing to catch his wrist so that the gun thumped to the floor.

  Why is no one helping? Gaia thought in frustration. Two gunmen …

  But she knew the answer to that. It had been years since she’d done this, but she was used to that frustration. They’re scared, she reminded herself. They can’t move yet because they’re scared. Give Catherine credit for warning me about the would-be head shot.

  The crowd was still yelling. Right then the first gunman managed somehow to pull his right wrist out of Gaia’s grip, where she had his arm pinned to the floor—and Gaia heard the unmistakable clicking sound of an automatic’s hammer being pulled back. She felt a cold steel pressure on her left cheek—and knew it was the barrel of his gun.

  “Good-bye, bitch,” the gunman said.

  Great, Gaia thought distantly. I’ve finally found something I want to do, and now I’m going to die.

  It was ironic.

  Gaia ducked her head in defeat—and then suddenly slammed it forward and upward, deflecting the automatic just as it went off. Another bullet sailed past her head—again with no wind—and then Gaia had regained her leverage and knocked the gun away. Karate chopping the man’s shoulder, Gaia pulled herself upward onto her knees and then grabbed him by the shirtfront. “You son of a bitch”, she shouted, staring at the black-masked face. “Putting a gun to that little girl’s head …” Gaia had to keep herself from beating the man senseless. But just then a bell rang.

  The bell was very loud—it penetrated all the other sounds in the restaurant. Suddenly all the patrons stopped screaming. It was like a switch being flipped—one moment the room was full of panicking diners; the next it was as calm and quiet as a corporate ballroom. With a loud series of clicks a row of harsh, bright ceiling lights came on. The Muzak stopped playing.

  What the hell?

  “All right, show’s over,” a familiar female voice yelled out from the kitchen door. Gaia knew the voice instantly: Special Agent Jennifer Bishop.

  “You can get off me, miss,” the man under Gaia said calmly. “The exercise is concluded.”

  Exercise—?

  Looking up, Gaia saw that Bishop and Agent Malloy were striding into the room from the restaurant’s kitchen. Bewildered, she rose to her feet—the second “gunman” actually helped her stand up.

  “Nice kick,” the man behind her said, pulling off his ski mask. He was nursing his wrist. “I’ll be feeling this for a couple of days.”

  All the restaurant patrons suddenly became extremely calm and collected, regaining their feet and brushing themselves off.

  All of them were looking at Gaia.

  And Gaia had a familiar feeling—again something she hadn’t felt in years, but it was so vivid that it was like it had never gone away in all the time she’d spent studiously avoiding combat.

  They know, she thought helplessly. They saw me do that, and now they know—they know I don’t get scared.

  But Gaia corrected herself, looking at their faces. All she saw was dispassionate admiration, not shock. They didn’t have that look of seeing something bizarre or even impossible.

  They’re FBI personnel, Gaia reminded herself. Nothing fazes them. I’m just a woman who’s trained to fight, that’s all. They see it every day. It doesn’t make me fearless.

  My secret’s safe.

  “Well done, Atkinson,” Agent Malloy was saying to the first gunman. He wore the same perfectly pressed charcoal gray suit as always, Gaia noticed. “And you too, Miss Trent.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the little girl in the yellow dress said. It was hard to believe she’d been screaming a few seconds before. She looked as poised and precocious as a child actress—which, Gaia realized, was probably what she was.

  That was what I noticed, Gaia realized. When I thought she looked strange before.

  “Hey—you all right?” Catherine said. She had come over and was squeezing Gaia’s shoulder sympathetically.

  “What? Yeah,” Gaia said, pointing at the wall. “Thanks for saving my fake life.”

  They both looked over, seeing the smoking hole from the gunshot that had “missed” Gaia’s head. Had the actor fired blanks? Probably, Gaia thought, noticing an artificiality to the “bullet hole.” She was amazed at how thorough the simulation had been.

  “You’re pretty levelheaded,” Catherine commented. “You didn’t know it was fake, did you? When the bullet just missed you.”

  “What? No,” Gaia insisted. “Are you kidding? I nearly had a heart attack when the gun went off.”

  I’m doing it, she thought. Faking fear.

  “Trainees, may I have your attention, please?” Agent Bishop said. It wasn’t necessary—Kim, Catherine, Gaia, and the others were staring keenly at her. It was obvious that none of them knew what to make of what had just happened.

  “Congratulations on the successful completion of your first exercise,” Bishop went on. “Now you know why the dining hall was closed and locked today. A scene nearly identical to this has taken place in each restaurant in town in the last twenty minutes. The purpose of the exercise was twofold: to test your acumen in a time-sensitive crime-fighting situation … and to introduce you to a basic fact of your lives as FBI trainees. You must keep your wits about you at all times—because you will never be able to predict when we will be observing and testing you. On the Quantico base or here in town—it makes no difference at all. No situation is offlimits. We need to know how each of you will react to hostile, dangerous situations. Can you think on your feet or not?”

  All the “restaurant patrons” were patiently listening. They’re all actors, Gaia realized. This whole scene is a fraud—everything that’s happened since we walked in here was part of a test.

  “At any moment,” Bishop said, striding back and forth, directing her attention to the trainees in the room, “anywhere on our campus or here in town, day or night, no matter what else is happening, you can be plunged into a training exercise. Don’t try to figure out the rules of these games because the rules are constantly changing. The only way to succeed is to maintain at all times the disciplined behavior of an FBI agent.”

  “You all did well,” Agent Malloy said in his rough voice. “By which I mean nobody panicked or lost their cool. But there’s one trainee who did a superlative job. It isn’t often that s
omeone ‘wins’ the first exercise. But in this case we have a clear winner.”

  Kim and Catherine were gazing at Gaia, and Gaia was getting ready to speak—she was trying to figure out the most appropriate way of responding as Malloy singled her out. Should she say, “It was nothing, really,” or just, “Thank you, sir,” or, “I was just reacting naturally—”

  “Will Taylor,” Agent Bishop announced, “deserves your admiration and respect for a truly remarkable bit of deductive thinking.”

  What?

  Gaia was completely confused. She followed Agent Bishop’s smiling gaze … and saw Will walking into the room, pushing the two mustachioed busboys ahead of him. The busboys were smiling. They each had their hands tied behind their backs. Looking down, Gaia saw that Will had bound their wrists with torn tablecloths.

  “Him?” Catherine blurted. “I’m sorry, but we’re confused, ma’am.”

  “Do you want to explain, Taylor?” Malloy said.

  “Yes, sir.” Will seemed to be trying not to look too smug—but his answer made clear that there was nothing he wanted more than to explain his own brilliance. Despite her annoyance Gaia wanted to hear, too. She was still baffled.

  “There are five empty tables,” Will said quietly. He didn’t have to speak loudly—he had the whole room’s attention. Everyone looked around. Will was right: five abandoned restaurant tables, covered in dirty dishes and discarded napkins. “The whole time nobody cleared those tables—see the leftover plates, half-full glasses, spilled food? But in the twenty minutes we were here, nobody touched those tables at all.”

  That’s true, Gaia realized ruefully. And I completely missed it.

  “But there were two busboys,” Will went on. He was removing the “busboys”’ makeshift handcuffs as he spoke. “And I couldn’t figure out where they had gone. Why weren’t they doing their jobs? What were they doing instead? So when the masked man here pulled out his gun, I realized it had to be a diversion. Why rob the restaurant patrons when the real money is in the safe? It only made sense that the real action was happening somewhere else. And sure enough”—Will clapped the two “busboys” on their shoulders—“I found these two in the office, cracking the restaurant’s safe. Full of cash, by the way. So that was the score.”