The Farm's Pigs (3)
Langley, Virginia. CIA Headquarters.
In the office of David Hoffman, Acting Deputy Director of Operations.
Knock-knock.
At the sound of the knock, Campbell, the SAC chief, opened the door and stepped inside.
He lifted the manila envelope in his hand and said, “This is the interim evaluation report from Camp Peary.”
Hoffman, with the phone pinned between his shoulder and ear, held out a hand.
Then he muttered something about hanging up to the person on the other end, lowered the receiver, and set it down.
“Lee?”
“Yes.”
As Hoffman tore open the envelope, he motioned for Campbell to sit. Inside were two reports. One was from Wallace, the instructor in charge of the regular CTS course. The other was from McKinnon, the dedicated SAC instructor.
“Hmm.”
Hoffman adjusted his glasses and began reading down the numbers.
SDR detection rate, 100 percent. Marksmanship evaluation, 91.7 percent, third in the class. Physical assessment, top 10 percent.
At the bottom, the instructor’s remarks were written in a single line.
[The trainee’s growth indicators across all evaluation items are atypical. Continued observation and reevaluation are recommended until the end of Phase Two.]
Hoffman picked up the paper cup beside him, then set it back down without taking a sip.
He opened the other report and unfolded it. McKinnon’s.
This one was much shorter and simpler.
To put it kindly, it contained only the essential points. To be blunt, it was lazy.
Still, that was understandable. McKinnon was notorious even within SAC—a complete asshole, though a very capable one.
Hand-to-hand combat curriculum — skipped.
Combat-shooting adaptation speed — deviates from existing data model.
Shooting proficiency curve — abnormal.
Hoffman’s eyes moved past the curt lines to the very end of the report.
McKinnon had attached a brief opinion.
[Recommend joining the January class. The current curriculum can’t keep up with this trainee’s learning speed.]
“Ha.”
A low laugh escaped him.
Hoffman took off his glasses and set them on the desk, pressing a finger to the corner of his eye.
“So the next episode in one of my favorite series is out. Looks like our ninja friend is flying around Camp Peary too. Strong SDR scores, strong shooting scores... and he blew right through the hand-to-hand curriculum.”
Campbell gave a short answer. “McKinnon isn’t the type to give a sloppy evaluation. He probably sparred with him personally.”
“Figures. If he fought him himself and still said the whole thing was blown away... then our SAC hothead must’ve gotten his bell rung.”
With a snort, Hoffman picked up McKinnon’s report again.
He tapped the last line with a finger and muttered, “The current curriculum can’t keep up with the trainee’s learning speed. Well, well. I didn’t know McKinnon had that kind of vocabulary.”
Then he asked Campbell, “So, what do you think?”
“If two people on the ground reached the same conclusion, it’s probably right. Let’s move on to the next step.”
Hoffman nodded and closed both reports.
Then he pushed his chair back and turned toward the window.
“Good. Let’s do that, then.”
He paused briefly before adding, “Looks like Lee’s training might end sooner than we thought.”
“Even better. If he joins up quickly, we’ll have more options to consider.”
Campbell muttered it with a rare note of brightness before getting to his feet.
After he left, Hoffman was alone in the office, idly rolling the paper cup between his hands.
He took a sip at last.
And immediately grimaced. The coffee in this office was, as always, awful.
***
At the far northern edge of Camp Peary.
If you went past the firing range and deeper into the woods, a small building appeared.
A mock structure assembled from plywood and ballistic blocks.
Inside, mannequins shaped like armed enemies were mixed in with civilian mannequins.
It was a kill house used for training, a stand-in for combat inside a building.
Click.
At the entrance, I racked the slide on my Glock and chambered a round.
The slide caught the cartridge, snapped forward, and gave a short kick of recoil under my hand.
By now, the feel of this Glock was familiar.
“Hoo...”
Before entering, I let out a long breath and gathered my internal energy.
I could feel the force rising slowly from my dantian, spreading through my body.
Entering.
After a brief radio call, I pressed myself against the frame beside the door.
Perhaps because my senses were sharpened to an extreme degree, everything beyond the doorway read to me with perfect clarity.
The direction of air leaking from the vents. The path of the breeze as it struck the walls and bent away.
The mannequins weren’t alive, so there was no presence to feel from them, but the space beyond was there for me to read.
The overall structure. The flow of air. Where the walls stood and where the gaps opened.
That’s enough.
I pushed the door open.
As I stepped inside, an armed mannequin came into view in the left corner.
And by the time I registered it, my muzzle was already trained on it.
Tang! Tang!
Double tap.
The two rounds I fired in a single breath punched cleanly into the mannequin.
There’s one more.
I turned my head quickly.
There was another mannequin in the center of the room. A civilian mannequin, hands raised.
I lowered my muzzle and moved on to the next door.
Second door.
As I crossed the hall, the structure beyond it was already clear in my mind.
I could feel something hidden behind the wall.
Clack.
I opened the door at once.
Snapping right, I pushed in with my muzzle leading.
Two rounds into the chest of the enemy mannequin hidden behind the wall.
At the same time, I swept the inside of the room.
Another civilian mannequin stood in the corner.
“Clear.”
Third door.
This time the hallway bent in an L-shape.
I pressed myself against the corner and peeked out. A door stood at the far end of the hall.
Shhh—
Using internal energy in my toes to silence my steps, I closed the distance to the door in a flash.
This time there was one on the left side of the wall, close by. The instant I opened the door, I twisted left.
Bang!
One round each into the mannequin directly in front of me, head and torso.
At that distance, if it had been a real person, we would have heard each other’s breathing.
This crazy bastard.
It had to be McKinnon’s setup. No doubt about it.
I could feel that twisted urge of his, the one that wanted nothing more than to catch me off guard any way he could.
“Clear.”
Fourth door.
This room was different from the others. The space beyond the doorway felt much larger.
Thud!
Once I entered, the first thing I saw was a mannequin against the left wall.
It held a black pistol model in its right hand, the muzzle pointed at the door.
Before my foot even touched the floor, I put a round into its torso.
As I swung my muzzle to the right, something appeared behind a table straight ahead.
My finger froze on the trigger. It was posed with both hands raised over its head.
Civilian.
And beyond that, another mannequin was pressed in beside it.
It held a firearm with both hands, half-hidden by the wall so that only its shoulder and arm showed.
The civilian mannequin was caught on the same firing line.
If I shot as I was, the stray round would punch into the civilian.
I shifted my body a half-step to the right. The angle opened up.
Bang!
Two rounds went into the chest exposed above the shoulder.
That cleared the fourth room as well.
“Hoo.”
Last room.
When I stood at the door, I could feel one on the left and another deeper on the right.
The moment I went in, I put rounds into the mannequin on the left that I’d already identified.
Bang-bang!
Two shots hit the chest.
I swung my muzzle to the right at once.
Sure enough, only the shoulder of a mannequin showed from behind the wall.
I was about to squeeze the trigger when the slide locked open.
The magazine was empty.
...Damn it.
I’d been so focused I hadn’t counted my rounds.
I couldn’t even remember how many shots I’d fired.
McKinnon’s definitely going to rip into me for this.
For a brief moment, after a split-second hesitation, my left hand slid down toward the holster at my thigh.
The feel of metal leaving the sheath. The weight of the tactical knife in my fingers for an instant.
And then, in a motion like a whip crack, I sent the knife flying from my fingertips.
Thwack!
The blade sank cleanly into the mannequin’s head.
The handle trembled for a long time afterward. The force was enough to carry a shudder through the wall.
“Hoo...”
I let out one breath and stepped out of the kill house.
The hot August air hit me like a wave. Sweat was already running down the back of my neck.
McKinnon was leaning against the outer wall of the building with his arms folded.
And of course, he looked anything but satisfied.
Sure enough.
“Your movement was shit.”
He pulled out a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, and spoke.
“Being bold and being reckless are two different things. You charge in like you know exactly what’s behind the wall, but if you move like that in the field, they’ll put a hole in your head first. This isn’t some goddamn FPS game, rookie.”
I said nothing.
He wasn’t wrong.
I couldn’t explain that I really had been reading the room from the inside.
“Hoo, and another thing.”
McKinnon exhaled smoke and went on.
“Your ammo management was a mess too. You were still fiddling with the trigger in the last room with an empty magazine, weren’t you? Hell, why not do a little weapons maintenance in front of the enemy while you’re at it? Roast a marshmallow if you’ve got the time.”
As expected, I’d gotten an earful.
Honestly, I had no comeback. He was right about the ammo management being my mistake.
He paused for a moment.
Then he turned toward the kill house and looked into the last room.
His gaze settled on the tactical knife stuck in the last mannequin’s head.
“And that...”
He took another drag and let the smoke drift out.
“That was good. Not by the rules, but good. Better to throw a knife than stand there like an idiot with an empty magazine and die. Who the hell keeps following the rules in real combat? Right?”
After that, McKinnon kept going with his feedback.
My entry angle into the first room was too narrow. I’d stayed exposed in the hallway in the second room a second too long. My muzzle transitions were decent, but my eye movement lagged by a beat...
Every sentence came with profanity, but the content itself was accurate and useful.
“Last thing.”
McKinnon ground out the cigarette under his shoe and looked at me.
“Looks like the basics are solid enough, so let’s move on to the next step. Starting next week, afternoon training will be with the trainees from Building A. They’re the class that came in about half a year ahead of yours. Keep that in mind.”
He tossed out the next schedule just like that, grabbed his gear, and left.
He didn’t offer any other explanation or guidance, but it was enough.
The next step, huh.
***
After lunch, I walked toward Building A.
It had already been six weeks since I’d entered Camp Peary.
Starting today, just as McKinnon had said, I’d be training in the afternoons with the January class.
I reached the outdoor tactical training ground I’d been told about in advance.
I could see the Building A trainees who had already arrived and were checking their gear.
Hmm.
The atmosphere was definitely different from our class.
They’d apparently been grinding away here for half a year already, and there was a kind of fatigue and ease in them that showed it.
Tap.
The moment I set foot on the training ground, eyes turned toward me.
An unfamiliar Asian trainee had just walked in, so the attention shifted naturally in my direction.
The instructor in charge spotted me and came over as if he’d been waiting.
“Attention. Starting today, Lee will be joining the afternoon training. Help him get settled quickly.”
That was the full extent of my introduction.
I simply gave a light nod and said nothing.
“You’re Lee, right? Welcome aboard.”
A trainee who’d been given the order by the instructor approached me.
I was in the middle of getting directions from him on where to store my gear and how today’s drill was laid out when—
Thud.
Someone passed by and shoulder-checked me.
In a training yard this wide, who would accidentally bump shoulders like that?
Obviously, anybody could tell it had been deliberate.
“Hey. You.”
I stopped and looked over. A black man was glaring at me.
He looked well over six feet tall, with broad, squared shoulders. A very large build.
His hair was cut short. Marine Corps tattoos covered both forearms.
“Watch where you’re going.”
His tone was threatening, a clear warning.
I could feel plain hostility in the way he looked at me.
“I don’t know what kind of punk you are, showing up in the middle like this, but...”
The Hispanic man standing beside him stepped in closer.
He had bronze skin and tattoos up both arms, towering at around six-foot-three with a massive, muscular frame.
He tapped my shoulder and said in a low voice, “We’re almost done with training, and all that’s left is the damn evaluation. So don’t go causing trouble or dragging us into your bullshit and just keep your head down until you disappear. You understand me?”
The two of them walked past side by side.
I stood there and watched their backs.
Wherever you go, there’s always one of those bastards.
Maybe that was the law of asshole conservation.
For some reason, in any crowd, you could always count on a few of them turning up.
The trainee who’d been guiding me muttered beside me with an awkward look on his face, “Don’t mind them. They’re famous around here for being complete assholes too.”
I gave a light nod and started walking again.
According to the schedule I’d been given, there were team-based tactical drills and close-quarters combat training planned as well.
If I got the chance, it might not be a bad idea to make those two guys a little more agreeable.
A few good hits usually set people straight.
I knew that simple, eternal truth very well.