| Liquid Thoughts | |||
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Edison Training Facility June 17, 2008, 1205 hours He looked at the water, the ripple created by the pumps that kept the pool clean. It was so inviting. It wouldn't have surprised him if the ripples had spelt out `Come swim in me!' The water wanted him, and he yearned for the water. His eyes made another quick scan of the pool area, noting the presence of a couple of other people He didn't know who they were, and there hadn't been any need to introduce himself. Paige hadn't seemed too interested in a swim, and that probably made sense with the cast. She was going to be busy doing something or other, and so he was to swim alone. That didn't bother him. All he wanted to do was work out some kinks that had developed from the amount of sitting this trip had required, and the pool was the perfect place to do it. He removed the goggles from the waistband of his black swim shorts (both of which he had picked up from the hotel on the way) and secured them in place over his eyes. He then bent his knees, reaching forward with his hands to grip the edge of the pool. Leaning back he prepared himself, listening to the countdown in his head. As soon as he heard the internal bang of the starter's gun he propelled his body forwards, the force coming from both his arms and legs as his body flew off the side of the pool. He straightened it at once, his arms locked tightly ahead of him. As gravity began to pull him towards the beautiful surface he began to dip his arms in order to enter the water more smoothly. A welcome feeling spread inside him as his fingertips touched the water, and then he was in, enveloped in watery heaven. Despite the water not being warm he still revelled in the feeling of it around his body. His legs gave a few dolphin kicks as he made his way to the surface, propelling him less powerfully than he would have wished. His legs had never been especially useful to him in the water despite allowing him to run extremely quickly when out of it. That didn't matter though, because his arms more than made up for it. He broke the surface of the water and immediately began to stroke his way powerfully forward, his hands lancing the water ahead of him one at a time, then cupping to provide added propulsion as they forced their way down the length of his body before breaking the surface again by his arse. Every third stroke he took a breath, and this meant that he was alternating the side in which he drew breath, a practise known as bilateral breathing. It allowed for more balance in the water, and in turn this allowed for more a streamlined body, which in turn allowed for more speed. This is what he was looking for. The first twenty lengths (or one thousand metres) he planned to complete as expediently as possible, just to see if his body could handle it. Distance swimming had never been his forte, especially not when going flat out. Countering that was the fact that he was in the best physical shape of his life, and he had spent a massive amount of time in the pool in the past couple of years. He reached the end of the pool quickly, powering himself towards the wall. Just before he reached it he tucked his arms under him, his body following suit as he flipped over beneath the water, twisting his body and placing his feet firmly against the wall. A quick push propelled him back down the pool. It was a perfect tumble-turn, and he felt great. Another eighteen tumble-turns later and he had finished his sprint. It had taken a lot out of him; his muscles protested to him with every beat of his heart. Still, he didn't allow himself to stop, electing to continue with a leisurely breaststroke instead. It was now that the cool water worked well for him, cooling his body down gradually, alleviating the aches in his muscles. Soon the aches became� well, pleasant in a way, reminding him that his body had taken the challenge and passed. He was still in peek condition. The slower pace allowed his mind to wander. He thought back to the meeting with Bella. What he had done to her still sat uncomfortably with him, even though she had understood the reasons for it. It was strange how he could kill people, torture them even, and not feel any remorse, and yet he felt guilty about what he had done to her. Maybe it wasn't so strange. After all, it wasn't as if Bella had been a true enemy. Yes, they had been on opposing sides, but that had been the product of a big mistake, he was sure, and he was as certain as he could be that they didn't differ much in their roles and outlook on the world. And that was why he felt guilty. He realised that now. It was because Bella was, in a way that was bizarre on that night, a friendly. He felt his body relax a bit as he glided through the water. It wasn't completely gone, and he would still like to talk to her to explain himself a bit more, but he felt like the guilt was finally subsiding. At the next turn he manoeuvred onto his back for a spot of backstroke, giving himself the opportunity to look around a little bit more. He examined the roof first, simply because it occupied most of his view. He then tilted his head to see if there was anyone else in the pool area. There wasn't. The two from before had departed at some stage leaving him to swim alone. There didn't seem to be anything else of note apart from the large clock hanging over one end of the pool. That long? he asked himself after seeing the time. Well, he knew he could lose himself in water. The next eight lengths were all butterfly, just to wear him out a bit more, before a final ten-length front crawl sprint. As his hand hit the side after the final length he realised that he had more than made up for the hours of sitting on this trip. His body, though exhausted, felt good. He relaxed now, letting the water hold him up, supporting his weight and soothing his body. After a couple of minutes he had returned to normal, or close to it. This he displayed by pulling himself out of the water easily, his arms hauling his body right out of the water in time for his right foot to find a place on the side of the pool, then his left. His legs provided the last push to take him to a standing position. Time to get a towel, he thought. He had left one on one of the seats dotted around the pool. The goggles were removed and slipped into the waistband of his swim shorts, then left to dangle. The towel he picked up before making his way round the pool to where Paige was sitting. He had allowed himself to forget about her during the swim. Not in a malicious way, he could just tell she had things on her mind, and so he had unconsciously allowed her to be forgotten until he was in a position to find out what they were. Which was now. "Paige?" he said as he approached her. She was holding lots of sheets of paper, and looking at them intently. As he neared her he noticed that they were images from a satellite. They couldn't have been that important otherwise she wouldn't have allowed him to see them, but they were interesting nonetheless. "Yeah?" she answered, looking up. "You alright?" He saw her eyes flick away before she answered. "Good swim?" "Yeah, it was actually. Needed a little workout." "You've been at it for three hours," she observed, and he now realised that her eyes had flicked up at the clock. Paige stood up and stretched her body. "So have you," was his simple reply. And I'd have much rather swum for three hours than looked at satellite images, he thought to himself. "Yeah, satellite stills. A buddy of ours from the ATF, that's the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, group of the government, he likes to send me satellite pics to look at." Why would he do that? "What do you do with them?" he asked her as he retrieved one of the envelopes from the neat line. He flicked through them, wondering why anyone would look at such things like this. They were all the same, after all. No, they couldn't be. "Compare them, mostly, find similarities and differences." She paused. "Those are in order." "Don't worry, I won't mess them up�" It was his turn to pause. Suddenly he found himself very confused. His mind just couldn't seem to put the pieces together, even though they were right in front of him. "There's like forty shots in here." His eyes focussed back on hers. "Yep, six hundred in total, spanning over 3 weeks. Though 4 of the shots suck because they were taken too early in the morning and they're all dark." A shrug of the shoulders. The gesture only served to confuse him further. Why on Earth would she be looking through all these? Usually there were dedicated teams of people who checked out recon images, but Paige had the images all to herself. And she was a shooter for the Americans, or at least that is what he had thought. Shit, was he wrong? "And you find things in these? All of these?" "Yeah, it's not that hard. It's the same area." Ok, now that had to be an understatement. There was no way one person could analyse all these images, not unless they had a few months to play with. He doubted that. Maybe she was working on just a fraction of them. "Still�600?" he asked her, hoping that her answer would shed some more light on it. "Wanna shoot?" she asked as she recovered the images from his hands. So that was a no then. Never mind, shooting would give him a chance to show off a bit. "You have a range in here?" "Uh huh," Paige replied, starting to gather the envelopes, "still and moving�and an obstacle course�thingy." "The range will do," he said with a smile, picking u a few of the envelopes for her. She took them from him. "The obstacle course is long�and boring. Range is better." He followed her to the range, only stopping to pick up a T-shirt. As they arrived he had his customary recon of the area and nodded approvingly. The range was more than adequate for their needs, and in many ways it mirrored what he had back home. There were little differences of course. There always were. She gestured for him to choose a weapon, and he decided on the smallest calibre pistol he could see, not even taking the opportunity to see exactly what it was. After all, it would soon become irrelevant if he could simply pick it up and shoot perfectly. Paige, he noticed, selected a forty-five. Maybe the Americans still believed that bigger was better, and a bigger gun did make a bigger hole. Still, as Sergei had told him before, a small calibre weapon in the hands of an expert was far more deadly than a weapon full of elephant-killing bullets being wielded by an idiot. The American `spray-and-pray' tactic had never made it in Russia; the Russians were much more at home with precision shooting. "So, what'd you do to your arm?" He'd neglected to ask her about the cast on the drive over, and now was as good a time as any to find out. "I fell." "That must have been quite a fall." She simply responded, "It was." "So, what are we shooting for?" The weapon had been loaded as they spoke, and he held it loosely at his side. A shrug. "Not much, this isn't my best skill. I fear I'd lose everything to you." "Fair enough." He pressed the correct button to send the target down the range. "We'll just talk." As soon as the target had stopped his pistol was already on its way upward, and as the sight lined up with the centre of the target he squeezed of a couple of shoots in rapid succession. The first slammed through with the second racing close behind it. He turned back to face her. "What do you do for them?" "What do you mean?" She sent her own target off. "Well, if you're anything like my lot then you were recruited for a specific job, such as shooting, intelligence gathering, counter- intelligence�" He smiled. "So, what were you recruited for?" She turned to fire off a couple of rounds. "I have average computer skills, little to none language skills, average shooting�I'd say� they hired me for my looks." She grinned at him. "Ok, and what else?" He hoped he didn't sound too much like a spook, but it wouldn't surprise him. Unlike trying to recruit an agent in a foreign country he knew that he could afford to be rebuffed. "You are persistent." Another couple of bullets were sent from her gun towards the target. "Seeing as this is all friendly then I'll make it two-way. Can't say fairer than that." A quick turn and he fired off four shots, all of them, he knew, finding the same hole created by the first two. The response was soft. "I'm smart." Was that a reason? If she were a genius they wouldn't have her out in the field shooting guns. "Lots of people are smart." A smile. "Not like I'm smart. I�uh, have a photographic memory, nearly one hundred percent recall. Whatever I see I memorize. Comes in handy in this business, especially with complicated things." Jesus, he'd heard about people like this, but had never encountered one. If she were in the RGZS she would have been kept well away from the field, that's for sure. He shook his head slowly, not believing that the Americans were using her in this way. "That's smart," was all he could say. "I also do science and medicine, kind of comes easy to me. So, smart but�well, it's a burden and I trust you'll keep this between us?" "Of course. I know that such things can be used against you. It may sound a bit strange, but you can trust me. Despite everything else I keep my word." "And you?" she asked, staring into his eyes. "Why were you recruited?" "They got me mainly for my shooting ability I imagine. Seems that they see some potential in me, like they can groom me. I can do other things as well, but shooting is my main skill." With that he spun round and sent off another two shots at the target, listening for the sound that denoted a hit. He heard it, which was not a surprise at all. A good demonstration all round. He watched as Paige sat with her legs crossed on the shelf of the booth and leaned against the partition that separated their booth from the neighbouring ones. "Who's the girl?" she asked him. "What girl?" he replied, just a little shaken at the question. Ok, she had said she was smart, but this was just slightly unnerving. He knew that showed but he couldn't help it. "The one that keeps you from straying with pretty girls that hit on you while you're DJing." There was a large grin on her face. He was still concerned. "Is it that obvious?" "No, I'm female, I pick up on those things." He sent another couple of bullets downrange, hoping that he hadn't missed this time. "So?" she asked him again. He sighed deeply. This was a big step for him, another brick in the house of friendship� or more likely a whole wall. "Her name is Yelena." "That's a beautiful name." "It suits her," he said with a genuine smile. "We're to be married soon." "Are you happy?" He managed to stop chuckling at the face she had pulled at the mentioning of marriage enough to reply, "Very much so." "Then it's good, you're lucky." "Yeah, I am. That is between us though. I won't let any harm come to her, and the best way to do that is to keep her out of the firing line. The less people know, the better." "Of course," she said with a nod. "It may sound a bit strange, but you can trust me. Despite everything else I keep my word." The way she said it made him chuckle again. "And what about you? Anyone special?" "I don't know. There's this guy�and�well�he's far away and we kind of work together sometimes�it's just�" "Complicated," he said for her. "Yes, very much so, and there's this other guy�and that's just a debacle�" "Two?" Now that was a bit of a surprise. No wonder she had seemed so keen on him at the club. "Well, I kind of don't count either, they're more like�just there, kind of. It's very, well�fucked up, basically." "Well, if you ever need any advice or help, you let me know." And he meant it. "Ok, Dr. Love, I'll keep that in mind." He watched her, almost seeing her mind working. "What's on your mind?" "I want to ask you something and I don't want you to think I'm weird or anything." "I already think you're weird." He smiled softly at her so she knew that was to be taken in a good way. She still made a face at him for it, but then turned more serious. "I came from a different place than the SIA, I had been there a long time and it was pretty bad. We did things and I didn't really get a chance to think about what we were doing too much. Then I came here and I've had the chance to think about things�do you�do you think there are good guys and bad guys?" His eyes dropped to the floor as he contemplated the question. His first thought was where had it come from? A moment of panic swept over him as he considered that she might somehow know what he had done not too long ago to a certain individual who was most likely dead now from the injuries he'd inflicted. Was she letting him know she knew, and that he had been in the wrong? No, she couldn't know, and besides, she wouldn't have been this open with him if she considered him to be bad. Am I a bad guy? he asked himself. He'd murdered one person methodically, knowing what he was doing, and he'd tortured another. Back then it had all been so clear, but now that he was being asked to examine his own actions it all became so blurred. No, he wasn't a bad guy. He had his reasons, and they were still correct as far as he was concerned. So why had she asked him then? Was he missing something? Were they more alike than even he appreciated? He hadn't expected the trip to turn out like this, hadn't expected half the things that had happened, and he especially hadn't expected to be facing a question that made he examine his conscience. Return |
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