Hard Knocks

as his back was turned, or when he’d already started running.

Running for his life.

Who shot you, Kirk? What did you see, or know, or do, that made you an unacceptable threat to them? My feet carried me forwards while my mind reached back, trying to understand the motivation of the men who’d gunned him down.

Target number five was a sneaky one, tucked away at the bottom of a log pile. I was almost at the far end of the range before six came up, a long walk designed to stretch and snap the nerves. This one didn’t drop away after I’d slotted it, but remained upright and quivering, signalling the end of the run.

I lowered the gun, but kept the muzzle pointing straight down the range, aware for the first time of the buzz of tension in my neck and upper arms. I hunched them, hearing my vertebrae click and pop as they settled.

Rebanks came up on my right with a peculiar little smile on his face. He made a couple of marks on his clipboard and started to turn. As he did so, I saw the alarm bloom in his face.

“Look out, look out!”

He grabbed for my shoulders, started to pull me over to the side towards him. I ended up falling onto his legs in a tangle, taking him with me. I twisted as I went down, keeping the SIG level. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the outline looming in from the left, recognised the threat as another target. Number seven of a supposed six. Another of their mind games.

The sun was in my eyes, making the target little more than a dark silhouette. I aimed by instinct as I went down, but in that split-second before I fired I realised there was something different about that target.

Something wrong.

I fought to twist my hand even as my finger tightened irrevocably on the trigger. The SIG twitched as it discharged with a force that jarred my whole arm. The moving parts locked back on an empty magazine.

Rebanks rolled out from under me and climbed to his feet without speaking. He batted the wet earth off his camouflage trousers before he glanced down at me.

“Congratulations, Charlie,” he said then, his voice ironic. “Weren’t you paying attention when we told you there’d only be six targets? That was your principal you’ve just hit, running to you for help and protection.”

He waved towards the target. Still lying on the ground I turned my head looked at the cut-out figure, less than four metres away.

I could now tell it was a fairly realistic picture of a frightened-looking young girl with long hair. She was not holding a weapon and did indeed seem to be running directly towards me, frozen in mid-stride.

The weak winter sunlight streamed through the hole I’d shot high in her right shoulder.

***

Nobody else managed to shoot the principal during the CQB exercise. Mind you, hardly anyone managed to hit all the other targets either, even though they stayed up for what seemed to me to be half an hour a go.

Declan was the last man down the range. His shooting was so wild that Rebanks stuck to his back like an overcoat in high summer, leaving no chance that the Irishman was going to swing round and clip him by mistake. Even Declan didn’t manage to hit the girl at the end, although that was more by luck than judgement. He fired at her when Rebanks jumped him, but he missed.

Afterwards, O’Neill collected up the SIGs and he and Major Gilby climbed into one of the Audis and disappeared back towards the Manor without any comments about our performance. Or lack of it.

The rest of us got to walk back. I trudged along at the tail end of the group, a dark cloud of gloom settling over me. They’d set me up and I’d fallen for it. The thought sat badly on my stomach like a heavy meal.

“They weren’t being fair on you,” said a voice to my left. I turned my head to find Elsa walking alongside and watching me. I remembered my last conversation with Sean. Was Elsa the German security service plant?

I forced a shrug. “You try and stick your head above the parapet,” I said, “you shouldn’t be surprised when people try and blow it off.”

“The targets stayed upright for much longer for everyone else,” she said, as though I hadn’t spoken, her voice thoughtful. “They weren’t being fair on you,” she repeated. “Yet still you managed to hit them all.”

“Yeah,” I said, casting her a tired glance, “even the one I wasn’t supposed to.”

“When that last one came up at the end for me, Rebanks just nudged my arm. He didn’t grab me and pull me over.” She was frowning now. “You never stood a chance of seeing that it wasn’t the same as the others. They expected you to fail – but you know that, don’t you?”

“They wanted me to,” I said, managing to find half a smile from somewhere. “But I don’t always do what people want.”

“They’re going to make it harder for you next time,” she said, her face serious. “What have you done that they’re trying to trip you up all the time?”

Now, there was a question. Did Gilby’s men know about my dual role, or did they just not like it when they came across a woman who showed a spark. And why was Elsa so interested all of a sudden?

“I’m not the only one who’s trying to make life difficult for themselves,” I said, keeping my eyes on the needle-coated path in front of me.

I felt her stiffen. “What do you mean?”

“That lecture,” I said, glancing at her. “You must have known Gilby was going to take it badly.”

Either the German woman was a better actress than I’d given her credit for, or I’d genuinely thrown her off balance. She looked sincerely confused. “Why should he have done?” she demanded, and there was defiance in her lifted chin.

I stopped for a moment, staring at her, but could detect no hint of guile.

“You really don’t know, do you?” I said slowly.

“Know what?” she said. Bewilderment gave way to frustration. “Charlie, please explain.”

I turned and started walking again. We’d fallen a little way back from the rest of the group by now, and I felt safe to launch into the details Sean had given me about Heidi’s kidnap, and the Major’s involvement with the team who were guarding her. The trees had a convenient muffling effect, but I kept my voice low, all the same.

I suppose I should have been more wary about giving her the information, but I figured if she was secret service, she already knew it all anyway and if she wasn’t, well I probably needed all the help I could get.

Elsa was silent while I spoke. It was only when I’d finished and checked out her face that I saw the closed-in anger there.

“Dumb fuck,” she bit out quietly, and went on in German along what I gathered from the tone were similar lines. Her hands were balled into fists by her sides. “I knew I never should have trusted him.”

Now it was my turn for confusion. “Trusted who, Elsa?”

She took a breath and made an effort to loosen up, even flicking me a short smile that didn’t reach behind the lenses of her glasses. “One of my ex-colleagues,” she said, with no small amount of bitterness. “One of my ex- husband’s colleagues, also. Someone I thought was still a friend.” She gave a derisory snort, shaking her head. “Obviously not.”

We walked on another minute or so while I assumed she ran through a mental list of things she was probably going to do to her ex-colleague – not to mention her ex-husband – when she next got her hands on him.

“What did he tell you?” I asked then.

She sighed. “He told me he knew people who’d been on this course, that we would be asked to present such a lecture and he gave me the details of the Krauss case from the police file. He told me it was because he felt bad about how my husband had treated me and he wanted to help me. Now I realise he was just trying to make trouble for me. To make sure I failed. So they could all laugh behind my back.” She spat out another word in German that I didn’t understand, but it sounded like a useful piece of abuse. I stored it for later. “Bastard.”

“Elsa,” I said carefully. “When I came back to the room yesterday, someone had been searching my stuff.”

She frowned, distracted from her thoughts. “That’s strange,” she said at last. “I thought someone had been through my things, also. Nothing was missing, but some items were not quite as I remembered leaving them. Has anything been taken from you?”

I thought of the 9mm Hydra-Shok, tucked safely under Shirley’s bed. “No,” I said, “but you didn’t see anyone hanging around our rooms did you?”