Kill Game

by Francine Pascal

  “Will he do it?” Will said. He sounded worried, more worried than Catherine would have expected. All traces of his southern brashness were gone. “Will he throw her out?”

  “I don’t think so,” Kim said. “I wasn’t getting that feeling.”

  Catherine and Will nodded. Kim’s “feelings” were amazingly accurate—they had learned that much already.

  “You could be wrong, though,” Catherine said, turning and facing him. “I mean, you don’t know for sure.”

  “Something’s going on between them,” Kim said quietly. He rubbed his eyes, exhaling with obvious fatigue and stress. “Malloy and Gaia. Some kind of battle or test. I don’t understand it.”

  Will and Catherine looked at each other.

  “Would you weigh the odds in Gaia’s favor?” Will asked.

  But Kim just turned his eyes down to the floor.

  FAILURE OF NERVE

  If Gaia were capable of being frightened, this would have been an appropriate moment.

  Neither she nor Special Agent Malloy had moved since the others had filed out. Gaia had stayed staring straight ahead as she heard the door close and the receding footsteps of her partners. She strained to hear if they were saying anything, but of course she couldn’t—those three would wait until they were out of earshot.

  The office was quiet except for the hum of the airconditioning. The sky was gray out the window—it was the beginning of an overcast day. Gaia wanted to move—she wanted to adjust her pants where they were itching her; she wanted to rub her eyes; she wanted to nurse the bump on the back of her head, which was no longer aching but was now itching relentlessly.

  Malloy pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked back at her, drumming his fingers on the table.

  Go ahead, Gaia wanted to say. If you’re going to throw me out, then do it. Put me on a plane back to California or somewhere else. She could go to Ohio and get her brother off that farm and then find a place of her own somewhere. She could even imagine her own small house, her own kitchen, her own hangover remedy.

  “Once again my day is long,” Malloy began. He was gazing sadly at Gaia. “I don’t want to waste a lot of time on back-and-forth with you. I’m sure you know what I’m thinking.”

  “Yes.”

  Malloy squinted at her quizzically. “Since you know what I’m thinking, let me ask you this. What would you do if you were in my shoes? If you were the one seated behind this desk”—he tapped the thick police file in front of him—“and you’d just received this?”

  Gaia stared back at him.

  “I would expel the trainee.”

  Malloy raised his eyebrows. “Why?”

  Gaia had given what she thought was a truthful answer. There was no room for games here. As soon as she’d spoken, she knew she believed it. There was no escaping the logic. And if Malloy did something else, it wouldn’t be due to any argument she could win or point she could make. She had to face reality.

  “You’ve expelled three trainees since we started. One for not being fast enough on the obstacle course. Two yesterday because they couldn’t handle the game. They were nauseated by the pictures, so you kicked them out.”

  “Go on.”

  “So you have to expel me, if only to be fair. Those trainees didn’t get a second chance, so why should I?”

  Malloy was nodding, looking down at his desk. “That’s reasonable. But it shows how little you understand, Gaia. See, frankly, that’s why someone like you is not in my shoes. Because this job demands a certain kind of thinking.”

  Gaia stared back at him. She had no idea where he was going with this.

  “Mark Perkins came in last on the obstacle course, so I threw him out,” Malloy went on. “But you understand, Gaia—he was trying as hard as he could. He’s just not very strong. His muscles are slack; he’s an ex-smoker; he’s not very coordinated. I took a chance on him because he’s a mathematical prodigy. He can compute crime statistics in his head faster than you or I could type them into a calculator. He’d be an incredible asset to any task force if he learned how to move. If he trains his body hard for two years or more he’s welcome to return.

  “Squeamishness, on the other hand—that’s something you can’t change. Did you know that 40 percent of medical students quit in the first year? It’s the surgery training. They simply can’t deal with it. It doesn’t matter how much they want to be doctors. They just see the blood and come unglued. There’s nothing to be done about it—it can be quite heartbreaking. Chen and Vasquez discovered this yesterday about themselves in the Hogan’s Alley morgue.

  “But you”—Malloy leaned forward and gazed directly at Gaia—“are a different situation entirely. We both know that there’s nothing in this program you can’t do. You’re strong enough; you’re smart enough; you’re obviously brave and disciplined enough. You’ve already had experiences that most agents don’t go through until they’ve been in the field for years. All this I know because Agent Bishop made it quite clear to me when we met in California three weeks ago.

  “With you, I’m dealing with a failure of nerve, a failure of willpower.”

  Gaia stared back at him. The wound on her head was forgotten. She was listening to every word the man said. She had never imagined that Special Agent Brian Malloy would or could talk like this.

  “See, those three others are trapped; they can’t change. Maybe I’ll see Perkins in two years if he remakes himself completely, but right now there’s nothing he can do. Those other two are goners. They’ll have to find other lines of work; they have no choice. But you—Gaia, you’re a different story entirely. Because for you Quantico isn’t a physical test or a mental test at all. It’s a test of character.

  “And that’s why you don’t get thrown out this time,” Malloy concluded. He was closing the dossiers in front of him on the desk and putting them away. “That’s why you get another chance. One more chance.” He raised an index finger. “And if you had my job, you’d see the logic. Because you can change. Maybe you didn’t understand this before, but you have a chance to understand it now. Either Jenny Bishop is right about you or she’s wrong. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “Either you’re going to grow up,” Malloy said, “or you’re not. I don’t know. But let’s get one thing straight: you’ve disappointed me severely, and you let me and Agent Bishop down. And I’m holding you responsible, unlike Perkins and the others, because you had the choice—you didn’t have to do what you did. So, if you make one more mistake, just one, you are out the door for good. You will have proven that you don’t understand, that you don’t care, and that you won’t grow up. Then Perkins will have more of a chance than you. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” Gaia straightened her posture, looking back at Malloy. His eyes, for the first time, reminded her of some of the CIA personnel she’d met through her father.

  “Dismissed,” Malloy said.

  “Yes, sir,” Gaia said clearly. And then, deliberately, she added, “Thank you, sir.”

  Malloy understood. He seemed to pick up that she was saying more than just the routine thank-you that FBI subordinates said without thinking.

  Malloy nodded.

  Gaia turned and left the office. It took her a few steps to get to the door, and the whole time it was like her head was spinning. Nobody had ever spoken to her the way Malloy just had. She found herself thinking through every word of what he’d said over and over as she pushed her way through the glass doors and out into the humid, overcast sunlight in the courtyard.

  Catherine, Kim, and Will were waiting just outside the administration building doors, leaning on the building’s granite wall. The moment they saw her, they sprang forward, hurrying over, all talking at once.

  “What happened?” Catherine asked.

  “What did he do?” Will wanted to know. “What was the verdict?”

  Gaia looked back and forth at them, as if she were seeing them for the first time.

  They ca
re about me, she realized suddenly. It was the simplest thought in the world—one that, she imagined, people thought every day without even noticing. But for Gaia it was a revelation. They’re not just co-trainees or partners. They’re friends. This isn’t about the game. They genuinely care what happens to me.

  “Come on, you’re killing us,” Catherine said impatiently, tugging on Gaia’s T-shirt. “Are you out or in?”

  “I’m in,” Gaia told them. “I’m still in.”

  Will grinned at her. Catherine leaped to hug her spontaneously—it was awkward, neither of them knowing how to handle it, and she pulled back quickly.

  “So what did he say?” Will wanted to know. “Did he tan your hide but good?”

  Gaia shook her head. She was looking at her watch. “We don’t have time to talk about this. The game unfreezes in ninety minutes; we have to get ready.”

  “Right,” Kim said.

  “We’ll take showers and regroup in fifteen; we can go over our notes and refresh our memories of the facts we know. At o-nine hundred we want to be across the road, ready to run to that crime scene the moment the bell goes off. Right?”

  “Right,” Catherine said. Will was nodding.

  “Good.” Gaia nodded back at her teammates. “Then let’s win this game.”

  CLEVER ANSWER

  Five minutes later Gaia and Catherine were re-entering their dorm room and Gaia was looking at the unmade bed that she’d been sleeping in, seemingly, just a few moments before. It’s probably still warm, she thought dismally. God, I’d love to climb back in there….

  “You want to take the first shower?” Catherine said. “You look like you need it.”

  “Sure—thanks,” Gaia said gratefully. When she glanced over, she saw something funny in her roommate’s face. “What?”

  “Nothing,” Catherine said, embarrassed. “It’s just the way you looked before. When you were psyching us all up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Catherine looked at the floor. “You have this great ‘take charge’ thing you do—it’s never condescending or anything. It reminds me of my mother.”

  “Really?” Gaia was taken aback. “It does?”

  Nobody’s ever said that before, Gaia thought. She remembered how Catherine had hugged her spontaneously just now. Did I really distrust Catherine? Did I really? Or am I just not used to making friends?

  “Yeah, my mom had this ‘rally the troops’ voice she would use,” Catherine said shyly. She had grabbed Gaia’s bath towel, and she tossed it at her face. Gaia caught it. “Come on, hurry up. I thought New Yorkers did things fast.”

  “Okay,” Gaia said, picking up her toiletry bag. She couldn’t think of a clever answer fast enough, so she just hurried out of the room.

  Teammates and colleagues, Gaia thought. I still can’t get used to it.

  Kim

  When Agent Bishop recruited me, she told me the FBI would be a chance to study behavior.

  And Jennifer Bishop is clearly no fool. She was clearly playing to what she thought my priorities are.

  It was obvious what she really meant. Not just criminal behavior—that’s where my academic interests are the same as the FBI’s—but team behavior.

  I think of it as music. As a little kid, when Dad was still forcing me to study classical music, I learned about harmony—about how notes sound good together. Melody happens over time, but harmony happens all at once—the instruments and voices all sing different notes at the same moment, creating something magical.

  And the same magic exists between people. It’s a different kind of music, and most people can’t hear it. But I can. It’s in the faces and voices, the way people interrupt each other, all talking at once. Every person’s reacting to every other person, and if you can hear that music, it’s almost like you can read minds.

  The FBI knows what I’m good at. They want me working for them for that reason—they always need good profilers, and I could be one of the best.

  But they knew enough to realize that they had to make it enticing to me—to give me a good reason to turn away from what would probably have been a lucrative, plush career as a high-priced shrink of some kind.

  But an empty one. I mean, I didn’t give up the guitar in order to sit in some office all day.

  If you join us, Bishop told me, sipping coffee in a Colorado Starbucks, you’ll quickly become an expert in team behavior. You’ll see how small crime-fighting forces work. You’ll have an opportunity to study authority structures from the inside. After a few weeks you’ll know enough to give a dozen lectures on the subject.

  The idea did fascinate me. And I have to admit, so far she’s been right.

  The case—the serial killer hunt in the game we’re playing—is absolutely first rate. I’ve studied things like this in the readings I’ve done: examinations of criminal behavior or pathology, of crime patterns. And you couldn’t ask for a more perfectly drawn presentation of the craft. As far as I can tell, Agent Bishop has created a flawless simulation of the real thing.

  SAVED, the blood on the wall said. I keep coming back to that. What could it possibly mean? How are people “saved”? The cross suggests a straight Christian reading, in which salvation is the opposite of damnation.

  I’ll have to think about that. I suspect that might be the key to this case.

  And in the meantime I’m getting another opportunity altogether. I’m observing my teammates. Team behavior is a new field of study, and I’m getting more interested in it with each passing hour.

  Catherine’s waiting for her chance to shine. That’s clear. She’s a very confident young woman—so confident that she doesn’t ever brag or show off at all. NI bet there’s something she’s really good at—and we’re going to find out very soon.

  Will Taylor is an interesting case study. I get the sense that everything’s come easy to him. He’s probably spent his whole life in an environment that provided him with almost no competition. So he had to make his own competition—set higher and higher goals for himself and then knock them down.

  And now he’s met his match. It’s clearly confusing him since he’s obviously attracted to Gaia and challenged by her at the same time. It’s probably the first time in his life that’s happened.

  And Gaia—with Gaia, I draw a blank. The girl’s a mystery to me.

  There’s something deeply unusual about her psychological makeup. And it makes it nearly impossible to read her. Clearly she’s got a complex, tragic past. It’s probably a grand story, like a long, passionate opera—the kind of experience that’s more satisfying to study or read about than to actually live through.

  Gaia Moore’s wounded somehow. I have no doubt at all about that. She’s torn, and she’s trying to make herself complete. She’s been doing it all alone, too—all by herself. And that’s probably the hardest thing in life. But people who can do it, who can make themselves whole by force of will, become very strong indeed.

  I’m pulling for Gaia. Whatever mysteries are in her past, I hope she can overcome them. Not just for her, but for all of us. And if we ever make it through Quantico—if we become “real” FBI—I imagine that Gaia will really shine.

  But first things first. Now we’ve got to solve this puzzle Agent Bishop’s created for us.

  Which means that I have to figure out what SAVED means. They’re counting on me to solve that. No, we’re all counting on each other to solve all of it.

  I hope we can do it.

  a catastrophe had been

  created

  STABBING CUTS

  The four of them stood in a line on the asphalt road that bordered Hogan’s Alley, wearing their guns and badges. They had showered and cleaned up and were dressed in the simple, quasi-business attire that befitted FBI trainees. They all had sunglasses on; the overcast sky was brightening, and through its haze the hot Virginia sky was shining down above the canopy of trees.

  Will glanced at the others, looking at his watch. Just a few more seconds until ga
me time. He checked again that Catherine had her note from the day before, when “Sheriff Landy” had called with the location of the second murder.

  “Everybody ready?” Gaia asked.

  She was talking like a leader now, Will noticed. It was a subtle change, but it had started when she’d had that private conversation with Malloy two hours ago. Will was dying to know what the boss had said to her. Not out of any personal curiosity, he quickly told himself, but out of professional interest in the workings of the FBI.

  So who’s in charge here, anyway? Will wondered. Was it Gaia? Was it himself? He didn’t know. His behavior—acting like he was running the show—was really just routine, he was realizing. He took over situations because it was easier, and generally people wanted him to—they need a clear, direct voice to tell them what to do.

  And now Gaia was talking like a leader. Will wasn’t sure what he thought about that. Does there have to be a leader? he asked himself. It was a genuinely new thought. He wasn’t sure what the answer was.

  Fifty yards away, down the asphalt road, Will could see another group of four trainees. Another team. He couldn’t see their faces—they were too far away. It was three women and one man. They cast long, sharp shadows on the asphalt as they stood there, waiting, just like Will and his team. More competition, he thought.

  The bell went off.

  It was very loud, just like the day before. Will and the others jumped, even though they were ready for it.

  “Let’s go,” Catherine said, launching ahead. She had her notebook open; she was leading them between the Hogan’s Alley flanking buildings toward the town square.

  “Where are we headed?” Kim asked, hurrying to catch up. His leather cross-draw shoulder holster flapped against his shirt as he ran.

  “Hogan’s Alley Retirement Home,” Catherine said. She pointed. “This way. Can you hear the sirens?”

  They could. As they rounded the corner of the town’s redbrick bank, they could see something that looked like flashes of lightning—the strobelike rhythm of police car flashers.