He shook his head, chuckling. “Only one of many things I think about when it comes to you.”
Chloe held her breath, wondering what he was implying, if anything. “Oh, look,” she said, covering up the moment of silence while they continued to stare at each other. “Here are my other bullets all scattered on the ground. Well, not all of them, but a few.” She bent to pick them up. “I probably overshot on several, so who knows where the rest are. Somewhere out there.”
She pointed beyond the bales of hay to a row of targets another hundred yards beyond them. And then another fifty yards beyond that.
Glancing behind her, she spotted Jenna watching them, one hand on her hip. Then her friend pointed at her wrist to indicate the lateness of the time.
“I think it’s lunch time,” Liam said softly. “You hungry, Agent Romano?”
“Starving. Aren’t Italians always hungry?” she asked, referencing their Italian surnames.
“I think you’re a big tease.”
“I believe the accusation is mutual, Special Agent.”
“You don’t have to call me that all the time.”
“Special Agent? Hm. But it fits the moment.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the groups of NATs walking toward the main building to lunch. “Well, hopefully there’s a moment here or there when I can be just Liam.”
“You can call me ‘Just Chloe’ then, too.”
A deep laugh burst out of his chest. “I do believe you’re going to keep me on my toes, Miss Romano.”
“Oooh, I got a ‘Miss Romano’,” Chloe teased. “You’re getting closer.”
Chapter 8
The next few weeks were spent working harder than any of Chloe’s semesters at college—maybe all of college combined.
Every day consisted of hours of classes, studying late every night, taking tests that kicked her in the brain—especially the tests having to do with law and the courtroom— learning how to preserve evidence, learning about arrests, and learning rules about what to do and what not to do in dozens of various scenarios.
Then there was training in computer hacking, surveillance, interviewing a suspect, as well as the art of tough interrogation with an uncooperative witness. Tracking suspects, figuring out clues to various crimes and murders and drug related crime from actual past crimes, including how drug cartels and gangs worked.
Chloe also spent hours at the gun range where her marksmanship on all kinds of weapons improved dramatically.
It was all fascinating, and she loved it.
Then there was daily running, weight lifting, and martial arts in the gym—with boxing gloves and mats where she tried to take down the biggest NAT guys who were ex-military. The men were friendly enough, but their build, height, and muscle denseness was intimidating—until she learned a few tricks that helped her remain on her feet.
Thankfully, she was more experienced in fighting maneuvers than most of the other women. And it helped that she had earned her black belt in high school, although that had been close to ten years ago. But she had taken a self-defense course during college and knew some specialized moves that members of her NAT class didn’t know, so she often got a chance to best them.
She and Jenna were pretty equally matched, it all depended on who was more ingenious and who was faster during a particular round.
Every night she fell asleep listening to Jenna’s soft voice talking to her fiancé, Frank, before going to sleep. Chloe took to wearing ear plugs to drown out the whispers and giggles.
Frank and Jenna planned to marry three months after graduation in late August. It would be an early December wedding with snowflakes and garland and deep red colors for decorations at the reception.
They were both eager for their two months break to go off of Quantico campus and shop for a wedding dress, although Jenna had been doing dress research on her laptop while talking to Frank. She knew what she wanted and where to purchase it in the DC area. It was only a matter of getting time to do it.
During their upcoming halfway point break, Chloe was also looking forward to eating at a restaurant, instead of institutional food. On the weekends, she and Jenna talked about where they would go to eat first. A real steak and seafood restaurant was top of the list—followed by the biggest, sloppiest, juiciest hamburgers.
“Listen up, NATs,” Agent Wells said in a loud voice one Monday afternoon right after lunch. “Agents Fedorko and Esposito and I all agree that you’re ready to try your first tactical maneuvers in full riot gear, as if you were SWAT.”
There were murmurs and small gasps of excitement at the chance to be real FBI agents, even if it was just a simulation drill.
Agent Fedorko lifted his hand for silence. “We’ll be watching each of you on closed circuit TV and analyzing what you do. Not only for grading, but also for further teaching. We’ll be watching for weaknesses, strengths, and areas of improvement.
Liam moved to the podium. “Remember you are a team. You are not a lone FBI agent. You work together; you talk to each other with headsets. Discuss together your strategies, which must be in agreement, unless the situation warrants making decisions on your own.”
“NATs,” Agent Wells said with a small smile. “You get to go to Hogan’s Alley today.”
Small cheers went up around the room.
“If you haven’t read up on what to expect at Hogan’s Alley already—and if you haven’t then I’m not sure why you’re here or how you got into the NAT program,” she paused while she lifted her eyebrows. “But you’ll be wearing full tactical gear—black leather clothes, helmets, walkie-talkie headsets—and carrying rifles with SIM’s—in other words, paint guns. Shoot to kill the suspect if the situation warrants it. Shoot to protect your fellow agents or an innocent citizen.”
Fedorko took over when Agent Wells stepped aside for him to continue. “Hogan’s Alley is a mock-up of a town. This is not a fake western town with false store fronts. These are fully functioning buildings. Grocery store, post office, shops, cafés, drugstore, et cetera.”
Agent Esposito gave a clap with his hands. “Head to your lockers where your gear will be waiting for you. A shuttle bus will take you out to Hogan’s Alley on the far side of the Quantico complex. Dismissed.”
The NATs chatted enthusiastically as they quickly headed to their lockers downstairs to stow their normal slacks and blue polo shirts and climbed into black protective clothing. Once their helmets and headpieces were in place they received an assigned rifle.
Thirty minutes later, they were pouring out of the shuttle bus; their superior officers leading them to the entrance of Hogan’s Alley.
Welcome to Hogan’s Alley City Limits
Caution: Law Enforcement Training Exercise in Progress
Display of Weapons Firing of Blank Ammunition and Arrests May Occur
If Challenged Please Follow Instructions
“Looks so real, doesn’t it?” Jenna murmured.
“It looks great,” Chloe agreed, her eyes roving over the various store fronts that looked as if she’d just stumbled into a quaint but modern small town. She checked her gun. “Do we get unlimited ammo for this exercise?”
“For all intents and purposes,” Agent Esposito said, handing out their ammo where they could load their guns and then clip extra to their belts. “But of course, only what you can physically carry, so no wild shooting, Agent Romano.”
“I’ll try not to go crazy,” she shot back.
He gave her a wink and a sly grin, and everyone laughed. “This is also going to be an exercise in working through adrenaline rushes. Something you haven’t experienced before—the nerves, the fear, the call of duty. You will have no idea what to expect and need to be prepared for anything.”
“But we know it’s all pretend though,” Lindsey said.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Agent Wells said briefly.
“What does that mean?” Marla asked, sidling up to Chloe and Jenna. “Want to be on a team together?”
<
br /> “Sure, but are we being put into assigned groups?”
“Go ahead and pick your own groups if you’d like,” Agent Esposito called out, overhearing the conversation. “Just remember that when you get assigned to your field offices, you don’t get to pick who you work with. You have to trust each other and trust that your fellow agents are just as well trained as you are.”
‘That makes the nerves notch up a level,” Jenna said with a small laugh. “We might trust ourselves, but working with new agents could take some getting used to.”
“Exactly,” Agent Fedorko said with a nod. “Trust and team work do take time. You will continue to train for the rest of your careers. And if you move field offices, it’s like starting all over again with a new set of coworkers. But that’s part of the FBI life. Working together successfully and striving for perfection in every assignment or interview or arrest. FBI Agents can’t make mistakes.”
“Maybe we want some of those military guys on our team,” Marla murmured.
“Doesn’t matter to me,” Chloe said. “Pick your men, girls.”
The NATs shuffled into groups of ten. They were each taken to a different location in Hogan’s Alley where they received a set of instructions on the situation.
Agent Esposito took only two minutes to convey what they were doing. “There’s been a robbery at the bank, and the gunman has taken the bank’s vice president hostage. You need to breach the backdoor, move stealthily through the building, figure out where the gunman is and where the hostage is—or if they’re in the same location. We want the hostage alive as well as the gunman if possible because he’s got information that the FBI needs.”
“Move out,” Agent Wells shouted to her group, taking them down Main Street to the hotel where a known terrorist had just checked in. Another group headed to the grocery store where a fight between two vicious gangs had broken out.
“For a small town, there sure are a lot of criminals,” Chloe said facetiously.
She heard Liam chuckle behind her. “It’s the Wild West. See you all in an hour or two.”
“An hour or two?” Jenna echoed. “It won’t take us that long, will it?”
“Depends on how good you are. These people will put up a fight.”
“But they’re just actors, right?” Lindsey asked.
“They’re very good actors,” Liam said, folding his arms across his chest as he watched them huddle to confer with one another. “They get paid bonuses if they outsmart you rookies.”
Before heading to her group, Chloe gave Liam a look, widening her eyes. “Rookies indeed,” she said.
He just laughed and returned to the van where they had closed circuit televisions to watch them play out their live-action scenario.
“Okay, troops,” Chloe said, putting her helmet shield down. “Let’s hunker down in the corner of the building and put together a game plan.”
They were evenly divided, five men and five women. The other female besides Chloe, Jenna, Marla, and Lindsey was a gal named Avery.
A guy named Wade, with impossibly wide shoulders, began taking charge. “I say we storm the place, three per floor, and find the dude. Take him out, rescue the hostage, and go home and get pizza.”
Everybody laughed. “If only,” another man named Christian put in. “That will get us all killed.”
“I don’t want any paint balls splattering my brand new shiny outfit,” Lindsey said, posing like a model for a second, before they all headed toward the bank building.
Before they even reached the walls, shots came out of an upstairs window. Chloe ducked—just as Marla got hit. A burst of red bloomed on her chest.
“Dang, a direct hit,” Jenna cursed, throwing herself toward the wall to avoid another potential shot. “What floor did that come from?”
Chloe followed her, flattening herself to the brick wall. Adrenaline hit her in the gut just like they’d been warned back in the classroom.
“I don’t know,” she said, cursing her stupidity for not paying enough attention. They all should have been watching the windows better. “Second or third floors, not street level.”
Marla fell to the sidewalk pavement, stunned. “That hurt!” she yelled. “What the heck! We didn’t even get into position yet.”
“Is this radio working?” Wade said, barking into his headset.
“It’s working, quit yelling,” Christian told him.
“Man down, man down,” Chloe shouted over them, annoyed that they were arguing instead of taking the enactment seriously. “Remember our protocol, you idiots. Treat this as the real deal, or we’ll all be dead. I’m calling for emergency services.”
After radioing for an ambulance for Marla, everyone was finally flat against the brick all of the bank. A breeze rustled the trees on the quiet street just as another shot fired though the same window and red splashed against the bank’s walkway.
“That was close,” Lindsey said, her face turning suddenly white. “What if this was real. Marla would be dead.”
“That’s the point,” Chloe snapped, goosebumps breaking out along her skin.
Jenna spoke up. “We need to go in fast and fan out.” She began dividing them into groups, pointing with her finger. Three on the ground floor, three on second, three on third. They were down one now, unfortunately.
“Should we go back and get Marla to safety?” Lindsey asked.
Chloe shook her head. “I say we don’t. Not when there’s a sniper upstairs. He could take us all out in five minutes flat. It’s too risky. And are we even sure there’s only one suspect?”
“Good point,” another NAT named Ralph said. “We don’t have that much information. Only that a robbery has occurred and a hostage taken. He could have an accomplice.”
“I agree,” Christian said. “We have to assume worst-case scenario.”
“First group go,” Chloe said, speaking into her headset. “Quiet as we enter, if you know what the word stealth means.” Then she asked, “Wouldn’t we normally have an architectural layout of a building we’re clearing? I’d never go in blind.”
Her earpiece crackled softly. “Good point, Agent Romano,” Agent Wells’ female voice came through. “Optimally, you would get a layout of the building you were entering, but often there isn’t time to locate one if lives are in danger. But your command center—out here in the van—would help guide you using the security cameras of the bank. We’ll help direct you.”
“At least that’s something.”
“Slow and easy,” Agent Esposito said in Chloe’s ear. “You can do this, even when you feel blind and ill at ease.”
The soothing timbre of his deep male voice spread like sweet molasses through Chloe’s mind and heart. He was confident in her abilities, even if she was a newbie and still so ignorant.
Whatever was between them—this crazy unspoken attraction and longing—didn’t matter at the moment. Hogan’s Alley was a place she could prove to herself that she could be a good FBI Agent one day.
“Agent Wells and I agree that we’re putting Chloe in charge of the second-floor team,” Liam’s voice came again. “Go!”
Liam believed in her. He had her back. That’s all Chloe needed to know.
Chloe spit out directions to the other two NATs. “We’ll clear the entrance first. I’m going in first to the inner wall. Once I call clear, Lindsey and Jenna, you come in and go to the far wall and take up at any doors that lead to the interior of the bank. Then we take the stairs up and see where it leads one step at a time.”
Jenna and Lindsey nodded, and three seconds later, they were inside.
The concrete stairwell was shadowy, barely any light filtering from a single upper story window above them. The place was silent. The other team had already gone up to the third floor, and the first-floor team was entering right after them.
Chloe waved an arm that all was clear while they took the stairs up, rifles in an upward position, her infrared goggles turned on to spot any heat signatures. “Cold so
far,” she whispered into her headset.
Silently, they ran up the stairs, not making any sound. At the door to the second floor, they paused.
“Ready?” Chloe mouthed to her teammates. They nodded and breached the door, clearing the first room they entered. Which was a hallway, actually. Restrooms and a lunchroom were shrouded in darkness on either side, gray light filtering through from the cloudy afternoon.
Moving quickly again, they took the corner at the end of the hallway which opened up into an open office space of individual cubicles, where computers and filing cabinets and desks lay in silence.
Whimpering sounds came from the cubicles to their left. Pointing their weapons toward the sound, Chloe barked out, “Who’s there! Come out with your hands up!”
“It’s just us—bank employees,” came a jumble of voices, some men, some women. One of them was weeping.
“Hands up and come out slowly,” she ordered again. “It could be the criminal we’re looking for pretending to be an employee,” she added to all the teams in the building.
She held her rifle on top of the cubicle wall where two men and two women slowly rose from the floor, their hands raised in the air, while Jenna and Lindsey scanned the area watching for suspicious activity.
One by one Chloe quickly matched the employees’ IDs with their faces and relayed the information to the rest of the team upstairs and downstairs as well as their communication team outside in the van.
“Do you know where the hostage has been taken?” she asked the huddled group of terrified employees. The women were shaking, and one was crying. Chloe had to keep reminding herself that they were actors. Dang, they were good.
“Third floor has been swept. All clear,” she heard Christian say in her ear. “Must be on the second floor. He’s all yours, Agent Romano.”
“Get your ugly selves down here in case things go south,” she ordered. “I’ll take all backup. As we’ve been trained, agents,” she said to Christian and Wade. She couldn’t remember what the other guy’s name was at the moment. Her brain seemed scrambled, thoughts flying in every direction.
The FBI Bride: Prequel to The Undercover Bridesmaid (An Undercover Bridesmaid Romance) Page 6
