Calculated Risk

aim. After one reload the final target appeared and she lifted her weapon.

“It’s a grandma.”

Quinlan squinted a little and checked out the picture. It was a grandma. Not once had the buzzer sounded above their heads. When he checked the stats on the monitor above the control panel, he saw the result. Twenty out of twenty. She’d hit every target she was supposed to and missed every one she should have.

“Well?”

“Perfect,” he said, trying to recall the last time he’d seen any rookie come close. Not that there was any point in trying to remember something that hadn’t happened.

Sabrina set the gun down and removed the ear protectors. She raised her hands in the air and jerked her hips a little to the left and right. “I rock!”

Unable to help himself, he smiled.

“Quinlan. A moment.”

They both turned as they spotted a suit walking toward their cubicle. The man’s name was Geiger, one of the assistant directors of the counter-terrorist division at the agency. He was also in charge of the Youth Adoption Program and Quinlan’s superior.

Quinlan lifted his ear protectors off his head and removed the safety goggles. “You’ve got a few more magazines left,” he told Sabrina, indicating the ammunition in front of her. “Push the target back as far as it will go and see how you do.”

With that he left the cube and met the man in the walkway that ran behind the row of units. The man had about ten years on Quinlan, but remained in solid shape. The gray at his temples gave him a distinguished look, as did the expensive suit, but there was no mistaking the fact that this man was once an active agent. Hard-core.

He glanced over at where Sabrina was firing.

“She’s got good form.”

“She’s accurate,” Quinlan stated conservatively.

“I saw the readout on the judgment program upstairs.”

This was news. “You were checking up on us. Her.” Quinlan internally bristled at the idea, but gave no indication of that to his superior.

“I’m in charge of the YAP. Currently, she’s our only student. It’s my job to follow up. Yes, I’ve been checking up on her. She’s established quite a reputation in your absence. Most of the other trainers hate working with her because she’s too damn smart for her own good. What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Does it bother you working with her?”

“No,” Quinlan said.

Geiger paused for a second as if waiting for Quinlan to continue. When he didn’t, Geiger pushed. “I’m looking for an assessment.”

“You have my early reports. The reports from the others.”

“I do. But I want to hear it from you. Will she make it?”

“She’s got a tremendous amount of potential,” Quinlan offered.

“Clearly. Perfect on the judgment test first time out. I’ve never seen that before,” Geiger noted.

“Neither have I.”

“How is that possible?”

“I believe, although you would have to ask her, that it’s probably a result of the speed at which her brain processes information that she sees. She’s able to spot the target and identify it as a threat or not almost instantaneously. It gives her an edge.”

Geiger acknowledged the information. “That’s fine. But the reports I’m getting back from some of the other trainers aren’t as favorable. They say she’s willful.”

That wasn’t a surprise. “She has a difficult time following orders. Comes from being on her own and independent for so long. There was only her father, and he was more absent than present. She essentially raised herself. She can also be impatient, which I believe stems from a tremendous confidence in her abilities.”

“You’re saying she’s cocky,” Geiger interpreted.

Quinlan followed the man’s gaze to where Sabrina was dancing about in the cube as she studied the target that she’d decimated with shots to the head and heart.

In the center of the target, she’d shot, albeit a lopsided one, a smiley face.

“She’s…” Quinlan didn’t finish that thought before Geiger interrupted him.

“Ready for phase two,” Geiger stated.

Quinlan’s stomach pitched, but again his face remained expressionless. “She’s only seventeen.”

“She’ll be eighteen next month.”

“We’ve never put anyone through phase two training until-”

“Look,” Geiger interrupted again. “You said it yourself. She’s been on her own for a long time. She’s mature enough to handle what comes next. And frankly, phase two is the only way we’re going to find out if she has what it takes to succeed as a field-op. Otherwise, we’ll move her behind a desk decrypting code.”

“She doesn’t want that.”

“It’s not a matter of what she wants, it’s a matter of where she’s best suited. I’m hearing words like willful, cocky and impatient. It’s time to break her.”

Break her. The words lingered in his mind and Quinlan recalled telling her the same thing once when he first met her. He’d been trying to intimidate her then and it had worked. This, however, would be different. This would be for real. He hadn’t expected it to happen so soon and everything inside him said she wasn’t prepared for it.

Phase one was about learning. Letting her expand her mind. Letting her use it like she’d never been able to before. It was about teaching her body how to defend itself and how to attack. It was about learning how to shoot a gun and making the right decisions. These were the things she’d been ready for.

Phase two training was brutal. Survival training, torture resistance, psychological manipulation. Every agent went through it. Those who survived mentally and physically moved forward, those who didn’t were cut from the program or retrained for another job. Quinlan had been twenty-five, a former army officer, a grown man, when he’d done it.

“Despite her abilities,” Quinlan countered, “in many ways she’s still just a…a kid. You push her too far too fast, and you’ll never get her back.”

“She’ll be eighteen next month,” Geiger repeated as if that made it all right. “We’ve got women in the armed forces, in battle situations, who are handling the pressure of enemy engagement. It’s time to see what she’s really made of.”

Quinlan opened his mouth to refute that even battle conditions couldn’t compare to some of the psychological games that a rookie agent was put through, but Geiger’s expression was closed. He was done listening to any further arguments.

Then the assistant director once more studied the topic of the conversation, assessing her with his eyes. “Phase two,” he said, apparently definite in his decision. “Starting tomorrow. You know the exercise.”

Quinlan did and for a brief moment he wondered if he was going to be sick.

“Up until now she’s been having a little too much fun,” Geiger noted. “Phase two should be enough to wipe the smile off her face.”

With that Geiger moved on and left Quinlan standing alone. He turned to where Sabrina was loading the gun and watched her as she turned around with her back to the target, her arms over her head, the gun upside down. She fired and when she brought the target forward she saw that she missed the head only by an inch.

“Damn it,” she cursed. “Let me try again.”

Quinlan stood there and thought about what tomorrow would bring. He thought about how it would change things between them and why that made him sad.

Then he dismissed his feelings entirely. Sabrina Masters had a gift. That gift could be used to protect and serve her country. It was his job to get her ready to do that. And so he would.

Even if, when it was all said and done, she hated his guts.