Laynie Portland, Spy Rising—The Prequel

by Vikki Kestell

  “Tell me about sports.”

  “Volleyball. Softball. Gymnastics—well, gymnastics until I turned thirteen, anyway. I grew like five inches in junior high. By the time I was a high school sophomore, I was too tall to be a gymnast. I loved the sport, but after I grew and my center of gravity shifted, I couldn’t compete at the same level as my peers.”

  “How good were you before you grew too tall?”

  Laynie laughed. “Pretty darned good—but after I topped five foot seven, I about tore my head off on the uneven bars. I switched to track, swim team, and cheering in high school.”

  “Okay. Now talk to me about church.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Oh, what kind of church it was and how involved you were.”

  “It’s a Bible-teaching Christian church. We attended worship every Sunday. Sammie and I went to Sunday school, summer camp, and vacation Bible school, and youth group on Friday evenings through high school.”

  “So, it was a fundamentalist church as opposed, say, to a liberal theology church concerned more with social welfare than rigid standards?”

  “Not exactly. Although our church taught a literal interpretation of the Bible, we were also community oriented, and we participated in outreach programs. Our family helped local charities, such as homeless shelters and food pantries, and Sammie and I went on mission trips to Mexico.”

  Dr. Silverman watched Laynie’s response to her next question. “And how do your present values line up with what you describe as ‘a literal interpretation of the Bible’?”

  Laynie recognized a trap when she heard one. The gynecologist’s words fresh in her mind coupled with her own lack of commitment to her parents’ faith guided her reply.

  “I am my own person, Dr. Silverman. I’m flexible and adaptive. I make choices based on what is best and expedient at the time.” Like I’m doing right now.

  Dr. Silverman smiled her approval and jotted a note. While Laynie watched her write, that old, familiar whisper popped up.

  Very good, Laynie. No sense shackling yourself to fanciful, unrealistic tenets and antiquated values.

  Chapter 3

  SUNDAY MORNING, THE candidates’ exams flipped into a new phase. They ate breakfast early and, while the morning was still cool, Trammel gathered them together and drove them down the driveway. When they reached the fork in the drive, he veered right and conveyed the candidates through and beyond the trees that had blocked the view to what Laynie figured was the “real” campus.

  She was right.

  A two-story building that looked like a hotel surrounded by a parking lot occupied the first area on the left; on the right were many other and varied buildings and more parking spaces. Their vehicle passed the buildings and motored up the road until Laynie saw two obstacle courses, also on the left. One course appeared long and complex; the other was, at first glance, shorter and simpler.

  Their vehicle pulled over to the courses, and Trammel ordered the candidates out. When Laynie got out, she looked farther down the road. Several hundred yards in the distance, off the road to the right, she made out a shooting range with positions for twelve or more shooters at a time. She counted two dozen or so individuals beneath the long roof that shaded the shooters’ positions. A red flag waved from the flagpole on the corner of the lot. She heard the same distinctive popping sounds she’d heard on her arrival, but louder, because they were closer.

  Farther to the left of the range, set far back from the road, was a very different structure. It looked like a big, rambling, single-story house but the structure was open to the sky. Instead of a roof, metal steps on the exterior led up to observation scaffolding that followed the outline of the building.

  “Cool.”

  She hadn’t spoken aloud to anyone in particular, but Black nodded his agreement.

  “Shoot house. To practice breaching and clearing a building.”

  Black was tall and muscular with a square, superhero’s chin and amber eyes. A jock. Laynie should know—she’d cheered for squads of them in high school.

  He motioned with his blocklike, Dudley Do-Right chin. “And look there.”

  Laynie squinted. Beyond the range and shoot house, where the road looked like it ended but actually made an abrupt left-hand turn, set far back from the road, she saw . . . a city street? With a drug store and a bank and apartments? And more behind that?

  “What is that?”

  “Not sure. It looks like some kind of an urban mock-up. Maybe for realistic tactical or tradecraft training?”

  Red mouthed, “’Bout to get real, huh?”

  It was the first exchange among the three of them since they’d arrived.

  Laynie glanced at Red, wondering how her short, lithe body would perform on the obstacle course. The woman had glossy ebony hair cut in a bob; her pixie face and winking hazel eyes full of mirth and good humor put Laynie in mind of a leprechaun.

  Trammel joined a man dressed in fatigues waiting by the simpler and shorter obstacle course and called the candidates over.

  Trammel pointed at the man in fatigues. “This is Gunnery Sergeant Mays—just Gunny to you. He will put you through this course multiple times. I will observe.”

  Laynie shot another look at the course. Should be entertaining.

  “You may notice personnel and trainees while on this side of the campus. You are to ignore them and keep your eyes on the tasks at hand. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Laynie, Black, and Red replied.

  For the next hour, Gunny ran them through the simple obstacle course one after another, again and again, recording their individual times. Then he pushed them. “Faster. Beat your own time by ten seconds your next two times through.”

  Laynie felt herself snap into a trance-like state. She had run the course three times and had retained each phase of the course: how many tires her long stride required her to step through, how many and how high the hurdles, the length of the crawl under metal girders, the number of steps across the beam over a pond of mud, how many monkey rings, and so on—up, over, across cargo nets, walls, and a swaying suspension bridge with no rails, also over mud.

  Without planning to, she mentally drew a poster for each obstacle and pinned the posters in sequence. When Gunny blew the whistle, she bounded through the first obstacle, discarding the imagined poster for the next one. She poured on speed, pushing herself faster while maintaining the rhythm she needed to navigate each problem she’d already solved in her head.

  When she finished the course, Gunny snapped his watch. “Eighteen seconds under your last run, Green. I think you can do better.”

  “Daaaang,” Red muttered.

  At the end of that hour, Gunny moved them to the second field. “This course will test team problem-solving abilities and skills. To win at this course, you must operate as a unit and finish as a unit. If one of you falls behind, you all fall behind. This is an exercise in physical agility that also reveals underlying group and leadership dynamics.”

  As Laynie turned to study what she could see of the course’s layout, two lines of men and women jogged by. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed not one remarkable thing about them—which may have been the point. They were dressed in generic running shorts and an eclectic variety of t-shirts; neither their hair nor clothing identified them as a unit. They were “normal.” Ordinary. Inconspicuous. Only their faces, set in the same determined lines, told Laynie they were Marstead trainees.

  I’ll be one of you soon, Laynie promised them.

  “Eyes front!” Gunny hollered. “You have one minute to strategize.”

  Laynie returned her attention to the formidable course. It began with a series of objects the team had to carry or maneuver over and under multiple barriers. Then they faced a high, wooden wall. Beyond that she spied a complicated ropes course that ran up into the trees.

  She looked at Black and Red. “We ready for this?”

  Black asked, “How about we take a quick tea
m inventory? What are our strengths and limitations?”

  He was looking at Red.

  Red put her hands on her hips. “Sure, I’m shortest and probably weakest. Like, I can’t heft that log over there and you probably can.”

  Laynie nodded. “Yeah, but you didn’t get here on your good looks, right? What are your strengths?”

  Red liked the question and grinned. “I’m agile as a monkey.” She sniffed at Black. “Bet I can climb a rope faster than either of you.”

  Black shrugged. “All right. So, how do we want to do this?”

  Laynie again studied what they could see of the course. “What if we agree that each obstacle or set of objectives needs a different approach? That means we shouldn’t lock in on any particular strategy but adapt as needed. Carrying that first log? How about I lead; Red in the middle; you, Black on the end. But when we have to pull and push those big sandbags through the maze under those girders? The one of us who has the best pulling power should go first.”

  “Guess that’s me,” Black said.

  “And we’ll push. Now, on the ropes course, Red may have the advan—”

  Gunny blew the whistle, ending their planning session.

  They lined up and, when Gunny blasted the whistle again, they hustled, Laynie and Black shouldering most of the weight of a heavy, cumbersome log over a four-inch-wide beam that zigged and zagged. When they dropped the log at the next obstacle, Black scooted, feet first, on his stomach, under the girders and grabbed hold of the mammoth sandbag they had to convey through the maze. Laynie and Red dove onto their bellies and pushed while Black pulled until they reached the other side.

  Ahead of them loomed the wall.

  Fifteen feet, Laynie estimated.

  “How do we get you two up and over?” Black asked.

  “Stand back, while I make a stirrup.”

  “You don’t need to lift me; I’m pretty sure I can sprint toward it, jump, and catch the edge.”

  “It’s not for you. I’m going to throw Red; then you’re going to throw me.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Laynie stood with her back to the wall and her fingers intertwined. “Red, take a run?”

  “You bet.”

  While Red strode back, Laynie called, “Black, watch us; you’ll need to do the same for me.”

  Red was coming, as fast as she could run, the intense, measured stride of a gymnast. When she put her foot into Laynie’s hands, Laynie launched her up, canted toward the wall. Red was ready; she flew like an arrow into the air, reached for the top of the wall, caught it, and hauled herself up with ease.

  “Now me, Black.”

  Seconds later, Laynie was atop, then she and Red dropped to the ground on the other side. Black quickly followed.

  “You okay, Green?”

  “Scraped my elbow going over, but I’m fine.”

  “You’re kind of dripping,” Red pointed out.

  Laynie swiped the blood off her arm and flung it aside. “Let’s go.”

  They donned harnesses for the ropes course: a vertical cargo net climb up to the first platform (clip on to the safety cable); three short spans of hanging rings, rings that each of them had to swing/return to the person behind once they’d reached the swaying boards between the spans, until everyone reached the second platform (clip off, then clip on to the next safety cable).

  Next came a fifteen-foot rope ladder up to the third platform (clip off, clip on); then a long, one-inch beam to the fourth platform with vertical hanging guide ropes that had to be swung to the person behind as they progressed (clip off, clip on); followed by a downward-sloping single-rope walk with other ropes as “bannisters” descending to the fifth platform (clip off, clip on).

  A twenty-foot knotted-rope climb took them to the sixth platform (clip off, clip on); a suspension bridge of swaying wooden planks led to the seventh platform (clip off, clip on); a climb across and up a series of thin walls, hanging vertically, made from heavy-duty plastic with differing-sized holes for hand and foot purchases. The hanging walls took them to the eighth platform (clip off, clip on) and to a beam overhead that stretched across to the next platform—a beam with dowels protruding from its sides as handholds for them to swing across to the ninth platform (clip off, clip on).

  The second-to-last obstacle was the most difficult challenge they’d encountered. They faced a two-story climbing wall to reach the tenth platform. The wall sported a wild diversity of handholds and footholds including rungs, “rock outcroppings,” bars, and the odd mechanized purchase protruding from the wall.

  A staff member clipped them to safety cables above, but he also joined the team’s harnesses together, side by side, which required them to climb three abreast. That was the complication: The handholds and footholds were spaced apart in such a way that Laynie, Black, and Red had to climb up and over each other, staggering their progress, confounding their problem-solving skills. All that plus the discovery they made that, when someone stepped on a mechanized foothold, the mechanized handhold above it withdrew into the wall—a particularly unnerving experience for the individual clinging to the handhold as it retracted.

  The point was, if one person fell, he or she would likely pull the other two off the wall.

  “Well, crud.” This from Black.

  “So much fun,” was Laynie’s contribution.

  After struggling upward about six feet, the three of them were tiring.

  “We’re never going to make it all the way up,” Red whispered.

  In her heart, Laynie agreed. “We need a different strategy, a different methodology. What if . . . what if we try this? Black, you and I huddle up and share every move. You step, I step. You grab, I grab?”

  “What am I? Chopped liver?” Red exclaimed.

  “No, you’re the monkey, remember? You’re going to ride on our backs.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.” This came from Black, but Red was equally doubtful.

  “She weighs, what? A buck ten? If we loosen the waistbands of our harnesses and she puts a toe inside each waistband, standing between us, we’ll share her weight, and she’ll keep us tethered together.”

  Black sized her up. “The waistband, right? Cause if you put your foot inside my leg strap, I’ll be singing soprano long before we get to the top.”

  Red flicked an eyebrow. “I might pay real money to hear that.”

  The three of them snickered.

  Red then devised an improvement to Laynie’s idea. “What if I put my toe in the carabiner loop hanging from the waistbands of your harnesses?”

  Black shot a hand into the air. “That. I vote for that.”

  Red climbed onto Laynie and Black’s bent thighs, and balanced there while she wedged the toe of her shoe into their carabiner loops.

  “My feet are gonna tell me what-for tonight,” she moaned.

  “Just keep your weight leaned into the wall and use your hands to keep us anchored to the wall. We should move quickly once we’re configured.”

  And they did. With Black and Laynie choosing their footholds and handholds together and advancing by sometimes standing on each other’s feet, they made it to the top in another five minutes.

  “That was brilliant,” Red admitted. “Now let’s get this done. I’m beat—and parched.”

  Black zip-lined to the ground and grabbed the rope pulley that returned the zipping apparatus to the top for the next person. Laynie came down next; she and Black together pulled the mechanism up for Red.

  They ran toward Gunny, toward the course completion point. As they dragged themselves across the finish line, Gunny snapped his watch, looked at it, and shouted, “Again!”

  Red gaped. “Are you kidding?”

  “This time with feeling,” Black muttered, starting a reluctant jog toward the log lift.

  “Come on!” Laynie shouted, passing him.

  They ran the course a second time, improving their team approaches and overall time. By then, the morning had turned to noon. The heav
y humidity made their exercise miserable and exhausting.

  They sprawled on the grass, sweating, aching, lungs heaving.

  “Hydrate!” Gunny roared.

  Laynie was almost too tired to eat when they returned to the lodge. She forced herself to chew and swallow half a sandwich. The rest of the lunch period, she nursed a bottle of water, five blisters, and her scraped elbow and forearm.

  At the end of the meal, Trammel stood up. “The next two hours will be spent in what we call the Game Room. You’ll participate in a timed round where you attempt to solve ten different puzzles and logic problems within the time allotted. For the final exam of the day, we’ll evaluate your language skills and aptitude. Bonus? The Game Room is air-conditioned.”

  He cleared his throat. “I wanted to make one observation before we get back to work. We run this candidacy exam every other weekend, six months out of the year, usually with four candidates. On Pandora’s Wall, we run two teams of two, each team tethered together, but it’s not uncommon for one candidate to scrub out before then.

  “When that happens, we tether the three candidates together, like we did with you. Nine-out-of-ten three-person teams do not complete the ropes course their first time through. They get stuck on Pandora’s Wall. Your solution was one of the most ingenious I’ve seen, and it displayed great teamwork and trust.”

  The three of them nodded at his accolade. Black glanced at Laynie and started to say something, but the toe of Laynie’s shoe connected his shin—hard—before he got his mouth open. He glared at her for an instant, then pursed his lips and nodded.

  Message received: No one person should receive credit for a team’s success.

  The Game Room was air-conditioned—a relief after their workout in the morning’s heat and humidity.

  “Heavenly,” Red breathed.

  Three proctors greeted them, and each proctor took a candidate under their supervision. Trammel explained the process.