Wrong Place (The Wrong Series) (13 page)

“We can investigate them for a couple of days, but I assure
you I won’t find more than Mr. Grey and Ms. Fisher to be competent,” Jacob said. 

“Why? Do you
get off on killing others?” Trish asked.

Jacob didn’t
answer, but the answer was yes. Jacob had fought in two wars over the past few years. One was in Afghanistan, and the other was in Iraq. Something inside of him had broken there. He began to enjoy the thrill of killing another human being in the way a hunter may enjoy killing an animal. After seeing his sickness, his commanding officers didn’t find him unfit to serve. No, instead, they found a better use for his special talents. He was to get information out of their enemies. He would torture other human beings, and in turn, gain information that would prevent potential terrorist attacks, saving many lives in the process. Much like killing, Jacob began to enjoy toying with his victims. After a while, it no longer mattered to him what they had done or what information they had for him. He simply enjoyed taking all of another man’s power and then slowly draining his life from him. He enjoyed the look in another person’s eyes when their life expired. When policies changed on issues like torture in the United States, a few people had to be thrown under the bus. As it turns out, Jacob was one of those people. He was dishonorably discharged, and many people had the nerve to act as if he was lucky to only get that punishment. His years of service, all of his honor, everything was gone, and for what? Following orders? Learning to find enjoyment in his job and becoming the best at it? No. None of it made any sense to him. After returning home to San Francisco, he received a phone call from a mysterious man who called himself Markus Boyd. He offered him an opportunity to do what he loved once again. There would be no rules in his new job. He would get to retrieve information in several different ways, but most importantly, in the way that he had grown to love. No one would ever be able to judge him for it again, or so he thought.

“Fine
then, don’t answer me,” Trish said.

“Don’t ask questions that you don’t want to know the answer
s to,” Jacob said while blankly staring out the window.

* * * * *

After checking into the hotel room, Sam was still anxious to teach her newest subject.

“I really don’t
think I want you to hit me in the nose again tonight,” Nathan said.

“Wh
at’s wrong? Are you scared?” Sam asked in a teasing way.

“Of course
, I’m not scared! I was just thinking that we could do something a little more normal tonight.”

“Normal? W
hat did you have in mind?”

“Well, let me see,” Nathan
said while taking his cell phone out.

“
What are you doing?”

“I’m seeing what’s
going on in Atlanta tonight.”

After a few minutes of
toying with the phone, Nathan put it back in his pocket. He found something there in town that he had always wanted to do, but he wasn’t very sure that Sam would want to do it.

“Okay
. There are two things we could do that sound good to me,” Nathan said.

“What
are they?”

“
We could grab some dinner and see a movie, or we could do something that I’ve always wanted to do.”

“What’s the thing that you’ve
always wanted to do?”

“Well
, the Boston Wildcats are playing Atlanta in about an hour. Seeing a Wildcats game is on my bucket list,” Nathan said.

The Boston who and a bucket
list? What is he talking about, Sam wondered. There was a rather long silence before Nathan broke it.

“You know what
? That was stupid. What am I thinking? You don’t want to see a basketball game. Let’s just go get some food, and then maybe I can take you to a movie or something like that.”

Sam thought for a minute. She knew that the last few days had been hard on Nathan a
nd that he needed something fun right now. She was also curious to see what the big deal with those two teams was. Why would Nathan care so much about two sports teams? She had decided; they were going to the game.

“No, let’s go to the game.”

“Are
you sure?”

“Yeah, if it’s
important to you, then we should go,” Sam said.

“Wow! You’re
now officially the most awesome woman ever. Thank you.”

She hardly felt awesome. In fact
, she was downright confused. Was basketball really so popular?

Once they arrived at the stadium
, Nathan spared no expense. He bought the best seats that were still available. When they found their seats, Sam couldn’t help but notice that Nathan looked like a little boy on Christmas morning while he was waiting for the game to start.

“So what’s
the deal with you and this team?” Sam asked.

“
How can I put this?” Nathan said while gathering his thoughts.

“This team has always been an escape of sorts for me. When things weren’t going so great in my life
, I could always sit down and watch a Boston game. They were never disappointing to me.”

How could a grown man be so attached to a team f
ull of people who probably didn’t even know he existed? Were other men this strange, she wondered. As the teams ran out of their locker rooms, Sam recognized something. The uniform, she thought. She could clearly remember her father wearing a shirt that shared the look and design of the players running onto the court. Maybe he too had an obsession with this team. It would make sense since we were from Boston, she thought to herself.

“Wha
t’s wrong? Come on. Stand up,” Nathan said.

As the game went on
, Sam found that it was both confusing and exhilarating to her. She couldn’t believe that this many people would gather together for a game. It was strange, but she couldn’t help but have a little fun. She had never experienced anything like it. After the game was over and they were exiting the stadium, something caught her eye. Walker . . . yes, that was the name on the back of the shirt my father was wearing so many years ago, she thought to herself. After seeing the look on her face, Nathan couldn’t help but be confused. For two and a half hours she has had a confused look on her face, and now she wants a jersey, he thought.

“Good idea
. Let’s get a couple of souvenirs,” Nathan said as he bought them both a jersey.

“
You didn’t have to do that,” Sam said.

“I wanted one, and
I’m starving. Do you want to get some food?”

The truth was
that she was pretty hungry, too.

“Sure
, why not.”

At a restaurant a few yards from the stadium, Nathan and Sam had just ordered and were waiting on the food.

“
I don’t mean to pry, but I hope you can trust me by now,” Nathan said.

“What is it? I do trust you
,” Sam quickly said.

“Well, you seemed pretty confused about the basketball game. It was almost like you didn’t know how th
e game even worked, and back in Memphis, you didn’t know who Elvis was. It just seems strange. I don’t mean to sound odd, but where did you grow up after the foster homes? Were you overseas or something?”

Sam sighed. She had truly hoped to avoid this subject
, but it looked like some explanation was now necessary.

“Look
, you seem really secretive about this, and if you don’t want to tell me about it, then that’s fine, but I just want you to know that you can trust me.” 

“Well
, this is a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Nathan
said.

“Okay
, it all started when I was eight years old.”

C
hapter 13

When I was eight years old, I was approached by a man named Jerry Roberts at my foster family’s home with a ‘special opportunity’ for ‘special children.’ You see, from the time I learned to read, I was constantly reading. Once I started school, I was reading at a level far beyond any of the other children my own age. While in school, I buried myself in schoolwork the same way that I had previously buried myself in books. I had no family and no friends. All I really did have was whatever I could accomplish through school. By the time I was eight and everyone else was in the third grade, I was already in the seventh grade. Some of the other kids thought that I had the ability to simply absorb knowledge, but that wasn’t true. I had nothing else to concentrate on in my life but learning, so of course, I excelled in ways that far surpassed my peers. I didn’t do anything that normal children did. I only studied. That’s why I was supposedly ‘special’ to this man. It was his job to take extraordinary children and train them to apply themselves in extraordinary ways. I, of course, as an orphan, accepted his invitation almost immediately. All that I knew in that moment was that I couldn’t keep bouncing around from place to place, and this was an opportunity to be in one central location, at least for a little while.

The place for me an
d the rest of these so called ‘special children’ was basically an academy. For the first two years, we all learned things on a more academic level. We were learning things between the ages of eight and ten that you were probably learning in high school. It was like heaven for someone like me. There was no time to think of the family I had lost, and no more irritating children who only wanted to do things that, to me at the time, were trivial. There were only children struggling to get through with the extremely stressful academic expectations that were being put on them. I welcomed that challenge because I had never really felt challenged at my normal school. They would hand me something, and in a small amount of time I would master it. Here, I had to struggle at times. It was somehow refreshing to be truly pushed to your own limitations and then to somehow surpass them. We worked from eight in the morning until seven at night, only stopping for bathroom breaks and meals.

After the age of ten, the class schedule changed. Our time was split among three things: our usual academic training, conditioning and self-defense classes, and finally weapons training. As time went on, I mastered all of these things. By the time we were thirteen, competitions were being held in every category. I scored the highest on almost all academic tests, held the record for every timed physical exercise, and placed in the top five in marksmanship in my class. I was beyond proud of myself and extremely confident. As time grew closer and closer to the point that we would all graduate, we were told that we would soon have to make an important choice. The program was made to produce men and women who could do extraordinary things, and now we were all going to have to pick a career for ourselves. Some people from our group went on to build rockets, become politicians, scientists, and even lowly agents like me. I just couldn’t choose for myself. I had no sense of identity. I had been told what to study, what to eat, and when to sleep for my entire life. The decision was too much. Without anyone to guide me, for the first time, I felt like a lost child. I looked at the catalog we had been given and pointed at a random thing on the page. That’s what I picked. I was going to be a CIA agent. I really never pictured myself as an agent or any of the other things on the list, but I didn’t seem to have the choice to be none of them. There was no option that simply said you can just leave, although I don’t know what I would have done if there had been.

After graduation
, I moved on to another place. This was where I, among the others who chose the same career path that I did, were going to train. It was kind of like college might be to someone from your world, only it looked more like a military base. The first thing they did was try to break us. They wanted to make sure we would do anything they asked of us without ever even questioning it. It was, or so I thought, the mark of a good agent. I would not be so easily broken, however. I had done what I was told back at the academy, but I wanted to do those things to begin with. This was altogether a different scenario. I hadn’t really even wanted to be here to begin with. I just had to pick something, somewhere to go, but this decision had been a mistake on my part. I watched as the others broke. Each one of them followed the same pattern. First their bodies gave out through the extreme physical exertion we were being put through. Then their minds broke. Grown men, big men, would break down crying in the dirt, and that’s when it would happen. The soldier would come to the realization that life truly was easier when their commander made all of their decisions for them. When they unquestionably obeyed this tyrant, life could be bearable again. When their attitude began to reflect this, they were embraced. They were now accepted. Yes, they still had to work to keep their bodies in shape, but it wasn’t in such an unbearably mind breaking way. One day when about half of my class had made this transformation, I emulated the process. I had seen it a half dozen times before, so it was easy. I collapsed and pretended that my body could no longer move. I lay there crying in the dirt like an idiot. I truly felt like a fool. Here I was acting like a weak little girl when I could have easily taken double what had broken the others, but did I really have a choice? They were going to break me at some point. Why not get this process over with, I thought. All I can take pride in about that time is that they may have broken everyone else in that place, but I retained what little sense of self I had when I entered it. After the first year of being there, they started teaching us all different types of things that I had previously not learned at the academy. I learned six different languages fluently, learned the basics of how to care for an injured comrade, learned how to make and disarm explosives, and then many other things. When I left that place, I felt as if I could take on the world, not that I had ever really wanted to.

When my trai
ning was officially complete, I was twenty-four, and I went to Washington to a small place that the agency provided for me. I was grateful for what they had given me. I had no money, after all. I met my handler. He’s an extremely kind man. I almost didn’t know how to react to such kindness because I hadn’t encountered anyone like him since I was a child. He eventually grew into someone who was much like an older brother to me. If there’s one thing that I do miss about the CIA, it’s being able to talk to him. Then I got this assignment and the rest, as you know, is history. I do still wonder something sometimes, even now. What if I had said no to Mr. Rolland? Was that really even an option, or was he just trying to be kind and pretend that there was a choice in the matter? Who would I be today if none of this had ever happened to me?

Nathan sat back in his chair. He was shoc
ked by the volume of information he had just heard. It was almost too much to mentally try to digest at one time. He knew that Sam had seemed a little strange at times, but now he knew why. A large part of him pitied her in that moment. The childhood that she missed out on was irreplaceable. How could their own government have a program in existence that trained children? Just the thought of what Sam had described angered him.

“Well
, say something,” Sam said expectantly.

“I’m sorry.
I’m just a little shocked. It’s no wonder you don’t know certain things that are common knowledge. You’ve been off the grid for your entire life.”

“Yeah
, I know,” Sam said in a voice that hinted at a sadness that she was trying to keep inside.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you. Have you ever thought about just walking away
from the CIA after all this is over? You don’t owe them anything. If anything, they owe you for taking away your childhood.”

“I don’t even know if I would be allowed to
walk away. After all, the program that I went through was a secret. I think we’re pretty much expected to be quiet about it and be lifers in whatever we chose to do.”

Nathan sat back and th
ought for a second. An idea was brewing in his mind, and he didn’t know if it was a good one, but he had to suggest it. Sam needed someone to look out for her, and if he could help her in any way, after what he had just heard, he was going to.

“My friend L
ee can make fake IDs and passports. I think that with his help you could pretty much pass for whoever you wanted to be and go wherever you wanted to go.”

“That does sound good
, but I don’t exactly know who I want to be or where I would want to go. As a matter of fact, sometimes I feel like I don’t know much of anything about the real world. Where would someone like me even go?” Sam asked in a dejected tone.

“I’ll tell you what, I ca
n’t give you back the time you’ve lost, but I can help you out right now. Anytime you have a question about anything or anyone, just ask me. Maybe eventually you’ll be able to decide where you want to go if you know a little more about the world around you.”

“
Thanks, but I just don’t know that I would ever be cut out for civilian life at this point.”

“You would be fine. N
o, you would be better than fine. Trust me. We’re all just making it up as we go. You aren’t as different from everyone else as you may think you are. Now I’ll tell you who Elvis is and what the duck walk in Memphis is all about,” Nathan said while smiling.

They enjoyed standard
, but to Sam, very important chatter all through their meal and on their way back to the hotel.

When they got back to
the hotel, Nathan and Sam both got into their adjacent beds. Sam cut the bedside lamp off. Then, out of the darkness Nathan heard her soft voice.

“Thanks for tonight. I’ve never told anyone about my life before
, so consider yourself to be pretty much my most trusted friend right now.”

“No problem
. I’m happy that you trusted me enough to share it. Do you want to know a secret about me?” Nathan asked nervously.

His sudden change in tone was enough to make Sam feel a little nervous.
What in the world is he about to tell me that makes him so nervous, and should I be scared about this statement, too, Sam wondered.

“Sure.
”

“I think
that I might like you . . . like a lot,” Nathan said.

Silence was all that was heard. Sam was struggli
ng to say something, anything. What do I say? Oh God, what do I say to that, She wondered.

“I don’t expect you to say anything back to me. I just thought
that you should know that you mean a great deal to me, too. Good night, Sam.”

“Good night,” Sam
answered in a low voice.

Why didn’t I say anything
to him? I mean, I do like him, or at least I think that I might, she thought to herself. She sighed and smiled. Well at least
he
likes me, but why can’t I tell him how I feel? How do I feel? Lord, I’m hopeless, she thought as she finally closed her eyes and started to try to go to sleep.