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  “Makes sense.”

  Zivah sat back and appraised Maya. “Now for the rules. First, no fraternizing between male and female candidates. No exceptions.”

  Maya nodded. “I understand.”

  “This course of training usually requires six months. But you’ve been placed on an accelerated course – call it a pilot program – which will compress it into three. It means you’ll be training for twelve hours a day, seven days a week, instead of the usual eight hours with weekends off. If you can’t handle that, you can tap out at any point.”

  “And then what happens?”

  Zivah took another bite, chewing methodically. “I wouldn’t suggest doing so.” She swallowed and took a sip of black coffee. “You’ll have several instructors. One will be for hand-to-hand fighting, another for weapons, another for explosives, still another for general spycraft. You’ll start with hand-to-hand today and then progress to weapons, finishing the day with spycraft. Explosives training will begin in two weeks, assuming you’re still with us.” Zivah glanced at the two women on the far side of the room, eating wordlessly at their own table. “When they started last month, there were five in their group. I don’t expect any of you to make it.”

  “You haven’t seen what I’m capable of.”

  “Right. But I can count. Maybe you’re the exception. I hope so. We want the exceptional candidates, not the merely superior ones. We already know everyone here’s superior – your test scores demonstrate that or you wouldn’t be here. But to make the cut…let’s just say it takes something more.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “Every morning you’ll be expected to be up by 6:00, fed by 6:15, and ready to train until dark. You’ll get fifteen minutes for lunch, and after training, half an hour for dinner. Three hours of study time after dinner – you’ll need to absorb written material every night – and then lights out. The following day it starts all over again.”

  “Is there any time allocated to working out?”

  Zivah gave a gentle snort. “Perhaps you don’t understand. You’ll be exercising at least four hours a day with your hand-to-hand training. That will more than compensate for any time spent away from a stair stepper.”

  “I like to do pull-ups and sit-ups. Core strength training. And run.”

  “Then get up at five instead of six and do your routine. Any time here not spent asleep is committed to the course.”

  Maya nodded. “Okay. I presume you know I’ve already had Krav Maga training.”

  “You were shown the basics. What you’ll learn here is more akin to a master’s program.”

  “Good. But I have a question.”

  “Ask.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Why does it matter? You can’t contact anyone while you’re here.”

  “No, it’s not that. I have no family. I was just wondering what base this was…”

  “It’s of no concern. You will have no contact with the general population on base. This section is off-limits to all personnel except for carefully screened kitchen and cleaning staff. Make up any location you like, and that’s where you are.”

  They finished their meal, and Zivah pushed back from the table. “I understand you had a head injury?”

  Maya held her hand up to the back of her skull. “I think it was a rifle butt. I got some stitches.”

  Zivah’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not a great sign that someone was able to land a blow, regardless of what it was with.”

  “It was dark. There was a firefight. About twenty to one. I was the one. Somebody was able to get behind me.”

  “That’s quite a story. But that kind of mistake in the field gets you killed.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “I read the report. Your ass was saved by the IDF. If they hadn’t shown up, you’d be roasting on a spit out in the high desert after being passed around for amusement a few hundred times.”

  Maya held the woman’s icy glare. “Then it was my lucky day, wasn’t it?”

  Zivah pushed back from the table. “Come on. We’ll see whether you still think so by the time the sun goes down.”

  Chapter 18

  Maya and Zivah marched across a dusty field to the edge of an abandoned obstacle course, where a tent was set up to provide shade. The heat would mount as the sun worked its way across the sky, and Maya was grateful that the most exercise-intensive portion of her instruction had been programmed for the mornings.

  A small man emerged from the tent as they neared, also wearing black sweats, his sparse head of gray hair tousled but his posture ramrod straight in spite of age. Maya estimated him to be in his late fifties or early sixties, built like a fireplug. His physique radiated strength, but wiry, like a coiled spring, and his face looked like he’d lost more than his share of fights: his nose was flattened from being broken multiple times, and there were small scars on his cheeks and brow. Zivah stopped in front of him and nodded.

  “Gurion, this is Maya. She got slammed in the head with a rifle a few days ago, so bear that in mind for the first sessions.”

  Gurion looked Maya up and down and then slowly circled her, as if inspecting a prize horse. He grunted and eyed Zivah. “You never give me the easy jobs, do you? What did I do this time?”

  “Maya’s been through the IDF basic training, so she thinks she knows everything about Krav Maga. Isn’t that right?” Zivah asked, her tone taunting.

  Gurion snorted. “IDF? That’s fine if you get into a catfight in a grocery store, but it isn’t going to do you much good in the real world.”

  “I also trained at a dojo for several years. I know some martial arts. I can handle myself,” Maya said, refusing to rise to the bait.

  Gurion frowned. “Famous last words.” He unstrapped his watch, checked the time, and set it on a nearby collapsible camp chair. He glanced at Zivah. “All right, you can leave her to me. Come get the body in four hours, assuming there’s anything left.”

  “At least try not to leave another mess for me to clean up,” Zivah said and, with a last glance at Maya, retreated back across the field to the cluster of buildings.

  “Okay. Now that’s over, let’s get down to business.” Gurion held up his hands. “Take your best shot at me. I want you to lay me out. There are no rules. Anything goes–”

  Before he could finish, Maya was a blur, leveling a sweep kick at his knees to knock his legs from under him. He twisted effortlessly and, with two sharp blows, dropped her flat onto her back in the dirt.

  “Not bad. Of course, you’d be dead, but still, I have to admire your instinct to catch me by surprise. There’s no such thing as a fair fight, only a fight you win. Whatever it takes, whatever sleight of hand or misdirection you can conjure up, you should use.” He leaned over and held out his hand. “Get up.”

  She tried to get his wrist in a lock, and he slipped aside with a grin. “Good. Never give up. It’s never over until one of you is dead. But for now, stop trying to break my arm and get on your feet so I can lay you out again.”

  Maya did as instructed.

  “Let’s skip the bullshit, shall we? I read your dossier this morning. You did a couple of years in Ofek before going into an orphanage, and you spent a lot of time in a nearby dojo. Did I miss anything?”

  Maya shook her head. “That about covers it.”

  His eyes narrowed. “My hunch is you learned a lot more about fighting in Ofek than you ever did in basic training. Am I right?”

  She nodded. “Close enough.”

  “What’s the worst you’ve ever hurt someone in a fight?”

  “With my bare hands?”

  “What do you think? No, with a car. Of course with your bare hands.”

  “I’ve broken jaws and arms. Cracked ribs. A few concussions.”

  He eyed her with newfound respect. “Really? And what about injuries to yourself? What’s the worst?”

  “I broke my hand. Fractured two bones punching someone. I was fifteen.”

&nbs
p; “So you learned better than to slam your fist into someone’s face.”

  “It was a shoulder blade.”

  “Fine. My job is to teach you to use every part of your body as a lethal weapon. To do that, you’ll need to know all the nerve meridians, so you can pick and choose the strikes you deliver. What I liked about your approach just now was your speed and that you went for my knees. Knees are particularly vulnerable and a great way to instantly incapacitate someone. The problem was that you telegraphed your intention. I watched your eyes, so I saw where you were going to deliver the kick.”

  “How did you know it was going to be a kick?”

  “Body language, and because you’re female – your instinct is to use your legs, because they’re much stronger than your arms. My goal is to disabuse you of that habit and teach you to do more damage with the palm of your hand or a few stiff fingers than with a steel-toed boot. That will work to your benefit in a real fight because any adversary will assume you’ll favor your legs.” He paused and looked into the distance before continuing. “I also knew you’d use the right leg, because I can see you’re right handed. You need to learn to be ambidextrous so there’s no preference. When you’re in the field, you’ll inevitably have to use the skills you’re weakest at, so you need to ensure you’re not weak at anything.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “You work. Constantly. When we’re done here, I’ll give you a rubber ball. You’ll spend every waking moment squeezing it in your left hand, building the muscles in that arm. I don’t even need to test your grip to know that your left is considerably weaker than your right. We’ll compensate for that by working that side harder. Same for your legs.” He stepped back and studied her frame again; she looked back at his tanned, pugnacious profile, a trace of a scar running from his jaw down his neck. “Have you ever heard of parkour?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You will. Once we’re done with hand-to-hand, I’ll show you the basics. It’s a self-sufficiency discipline that’ll enable you to scale buildings, trees, anything, using just your body. It will also build strength. How many push-ups can you do?”

  “In one go? Maybe…seventy-five?” she said. “I mainly focus on abs…”

  “We’ll get you to three hundred within a few weeks.”

  She looked at him doubtfully.

  He returned her skepticism with a frown. “We can start now. With your first hundred. Don’t worry. I’ll do them right next to you. I can do three hundred while I’m napping. But you’re a girl, so your upper body strength won’t be the same. Which we’ll offset with other skills. But even so, I need you to be twice as strong as the average man as your starting point. Do the first thirty normally, then put your hands together like this for the next thirty,” he demonstrated, thumbs next to each other. “Spread them out wider than your shoulders for the last forty, like this.” Gurion showed her how wide.

  They both lowered themselves to the ground, and Gurion counted off the push-ups as he did them with Maya, his voice evidencing no strain even as they passed the sixty, seventy, and eighty marks. By the time they made it to a hundred, Maya’s arms were burning and aching, but she wouldn’t collapse and give Gurion the pleasure of seeing her squirm. They stood, her limbs trembling from the strain, sweat beaded on her face as she breathed rapidly. Gurion looked like he’d just had a massage and bath, no evidence of any exertion visible.

  “We’ll do that again tomorrow. The following week, we’ll do it twice each day. If you make it to week number three, we’ll do it three times. It develops different muscle groups than sit-ups or pull-ups, as does the rubber ball. Now, assuming you can still use your arms, I’ll show you some strikes that you never learned in basic training.” He paused, thinking. “Your dossier says you were a gymnast?”

  Maya nodded. “Since I was eight. But obviously, I stopped after…when I was incarcerated.”

  “That’ll come in handy for parkour. At least there’s a small ray of hope.”

  By the time her four hours with Gurion were over, Maya felt like she’d been dropped off a building onto broken glass, and her top was soaked through. Rarely had every muscle in her body hurt, but this was one of those times. Gurion’s last words to her after showing her some introductory concepts of parkour were more ominous than anything else he could have said: “You’re going to be in some pain tomorrow, but don’t worry. It’ll get worse the day after.”

  Zivah returned and led her back to the complex and into an underground firing range, where a tall man with a hawklike profile was assembling a pistol with dexterous fingers.

  Catching his attention, Zivah introduced them. “This is Teo. He’s one of our foremost experts with weapons. You’ll spend two hours with him, break for lunch, and then another two. Teo, meet Maya. Gurion’s just used her as a punching bag for the first session.”

  Teo nodded. “Let’s see how good a shot you are right now. We’ll use that as your baseline. In order for me to sign off on you, you’ve got to be nothing short of miraculous by the time we’re done. I failed the last twelve candidates. I like failing them. I look for excuses to fail them. You’re no different.” He held up a 9mm Jericho like the one she had used at the mosque. “How familiar are you with this weapon?”

  “Very. I killed a few terrorists with one a couple of days ago.”

  “Let’s see whether you got lucky or not. We’ll start at fifty meters.”

  “What? That’s the limit of this gun’s accuracy.”

  “That’s what they say. I’m here to show you how to narrow the odds at that range and farther, right out of the gate.” He peered at the gun. “How much do you know about suppressors?”

  “Suppressors. Silencers, right? Um, they silence the gunshot.”

  “Correct. But they don’t quiet them that much unless you use subsonic ammo. Do you know why?”

  “Less blast?”

  “That, and because the crack a shot makes is due to the bullet breaking the sound barrier – 350 meters per second. It creates a mini sonic boom. If you use custom subsonic loads paired with a heavy bullet, it quiets the gun down substantially. I’ll show you later.”

  Maya spent the remainder of the morning firing a variety of handguns, with and without suppression. Teo scored her efforts, which he studied with a look of disgust before putting his clipboard down.

  “You’re going to have to really work at this. You’re not bad, but to pass, you need to be incredible,” he warned.

  “I’ll get better with practice.”

  “You better hope so. That’s usually the one that gets them every time, in case you’re wondering. Handguns. Most never develop into exceptional shooters, and anything less won’t cut it. Your adversaries will always be good or very good. Survival usually comes down to being that much better.”

  After a short lunch break they moved to rifles. Maya’s scores were at the upper end of the range this time. Teo kept his reaction subdued, but she could sense he was impressed. She’d always done well in basic training, so it didn’t surprise her, but it was the first time that day that she felt like she’d done anything but fail.

  Zivah led her into one of the outbuildings and introduced her to her third instructor – a female with long auburn hair and an easy smile. “Maya, this is Nava. She’ll be teaching you tradecraft. Which is everything from surveillance techniques to lock-picking to evading detection.”

  “I also specialize in silent killing, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Nava said with the first trace of friendliness Maya had seen out of any of the staff.

  Zivah took her leave, and Nava sat across from Maya, apparently at ease, with none of the overt hostility of the other instructors. Maya wasn’t sure whether that was a positive or not, her nerves by now fine-tuned to expect threats wherever she looked. Nava explained some of the basics of covert surveillance tactics, her pleasant voice a relief after Zivah’s harsh bray. By the time they had finished their four-hour stint, Maya had a working know
ledge of dead drops and techniques that would enable her to follow a novice without being detected.

  “The problem with professionals is they know what to look for, and even the most skilled surveillance will offer clues it’s underway,” Nava explained. “That’s why you’ll find that it’s generally a bad idea to try to use these techniques on intelligence operatives. If they’re in the field, they’ll always be ultra-paranoid and taking constant precautions. Which is your final lesson for today. Your cynicism and paranoia are your greatest survival tools. I’ll teach you how to regulate them, how to harness them so you can use them in a productive fashion. You need to modify your natural alarms so they have a hair trigger.”

  “Sounds like you’re always in a low-level state of panic,” Maya said.

  “Yes and no. A better way of putting it would be to say that to be successful at this, you need to remove yourself from the equation, staying alert and paying attention to the signals without letting them spook you. That requires you to be both desensitized and hypersensitive. I know that sounds paradoxical, but it isn’t in practice. You want your senses tuned, but you want to evaluate the data they’re providing you dispassionately. Clinically. That would work better if you were a sociopath, but hey, we can’t have everything.”

  “So I need to learn to turn everything off, in terms of emotional triggers.”

  Nava nodded. “Exactly. To become what I call a limited sociopath, in the sense that you can be calm and collected under circumstances that would have a normal person panicked. That removal of the self from the stream of incoming information enables you to make lightning evaluations without your judgment being clouded by emotion. It takes a special kind of person, which, fortunately, your evaluation shows you are. Highly analytical. The sort of thing you’d expect to see in an engineer or a physicist. You have that, Maya. We just need to teach you how to shut down the emotional part of your brain when necessary.”

  “Can that really be taught? I mean, I’d think you’re either born with it or not.”