Serve in the Shadows Recruitment, page 23
After three days, Derek passed his psychological, polygraph, and psychiatric evaluations, and his physical testing got waived due to his shoulder injury. The general aptitude testing he passed with flying colors. Having his brother help by telling him the answers didn’t hurt either. The medical exam, with the exception of the healing shoulder, showed he was in top physical shape. However, after seeing their fitness level and training regimen, Derek knew that would not be an issue once he healed up.
Senior Training Officer Russell, the training coordinator at Camp Peary, called in Derek to go over prequalifications. The Basic Operations Course began with learning many types of weapons, including C-4, and how to fire them. Derek was slated to start basic training in its entirety until John Hubble stepped in and brought his army file down.
Derek sat down with Officer Russell, and they went over his Pers Folder from the 75th Ranger’s. To Russell’s surprise, many pages contained edited and redacted information.
There were pages of workup training, but no mission or after-action reports. The army had its prized secrets and missions as well and they were not public knowledge, not even to the CIA.
Going over Derek’s qualifications listed, he found that he was on a more knowledgeable level than most of the instructors within the CIA that were currently training new employees.
“You are definitely more qualified than our normal recruits.” Russell flipped through many pages and stopped on weapons qualifications. “There aren’t any weapons we could teach you, except a few that may be used from World War Two, but they are just usually functional antiques brought out for show.”
“To be honest, sir, I could probably figure them out rather quickly. If needed.”
Smiling to Derek, he said, “No doubt. The first six to eight months of training here brings recruits up to speed with weapons, physical fitness, and unarmed combat.”
Turning a few more pages, Russell stopped and closed the folder. “After talking with the assistant director, I would like to move you to another of our training facilities in Hertford, North Carolina. There you will focus more on tradecraft while you heal up.”
“The doctor said I will be able to start using my arm again in a few weeks, and full recovery within two months or so.”
“Many of our courses are not physical, and you’ll still be able to do classroom work and practical testing.”
“Looking forward to it, thank you.”
“Welcome to the Company.”
Chapter 76
Harvey Point is a CIA training facility near Hertford, North Carolina. Here the CIA trained officers and others in the intelligence community in advance demolitions, surveillance, lock picking, defensive driving, and other courses such as opening envelopes without detection and even sketching.
During the course of the training, the recruits would go out into the “field” and perform tasks. They would set up surveillance on an unknown member of the public and follow them and report back to the instructors on their movements and behavior.
Other agencies used the Harvey Point for training, and the FBI could be seen working with Homeland Security, and at one time, Derek could have sworn he knew one member of the Seal Team working with explosives, at the car demolition site.
Most people in the surrounding community could hear muffled explosions from the peninsula at all hours of the day. The CIA would never acknowledge or deny that Harvey Point was a training facility, despite the explosions echoing across the Albemarle Sound.
Derek Lawson took to these courses and training like a duck to water. Many times, he only had to see the performance once and he would be able to replicate the task.
The instructors had never seen a recruit do so well, which led many to suspect he was a “mole”. Inserted into the CIA recruit training by a foreign government to infiltrate their organization.
Russell assured the instructors that despite having prior training, Derek Lawson was not a mole.
“Flaps and Seals?” Derek sat back on his bunk. “Couldn’t they come up with a better name for the course on how to open envelopes and packages, then seal them back up without anyone noticing?”
“Tradition, and it is too late to change the course names here. I kind of liked that one.”
Grant sat in the rooms only chair in Derek’s room.
The barracks resembled an army training facility, with a single cot, desk, and one chair. The same standard lamp sat on each desk and a small closet to the right of the door.
“You did really well on the lock picking. I guess all that practice we used to do paid off.”
Rubbing his shoulder, Derek winced. “Still a way to go with healing, but already starting to do better.”
“Don’t push yourself. There is no hurry.”
After a week of indoctrination and various courses to find out his competency level, Derek knew one thing.
“I am really thinking about trying out for the Special Activities Division.”
The Special Activities Division (SAD) was a division within the CIA that handles tactical paramilitary operations and covert operations. They tend to recruit for that division amongst the best of the special force’s specialists, from SEALS to Delta Force.
“I am fairly sure I would fit right in, and my skills tend to go that way.”
“Agreed. But before you go do all that, let’s go over some more French language training and German. Once you have those down, maybe Russian will be easier.”
Grant ignored the pillow that flew at him and landed on the chair.
“Let us start with trou de cul.”
Chapter 77
Ten Months Later
Derek Lawson sat at a small table and looked over the limited menu options. The café served the best coffee that Derek has ever had, and it is definitely worth stopping by for a few cups. Wearing dark dress pants, and a white open-collared dress shirt and sunglasses, Derek fit right in with the thousands of tourists this area saw on a daily basis.
Over the years while on vacation from deployment, Derek had many opportunities to vacation in Dubai, and he could think of no better place to start his training with the CIA in the field. The embassy branch in Dubai was tasked to Derek for a two-fold purpose.
First, Derek had been teamed up with CIA senior officer Steven Hutchings for field work training, and he was currently backfilling as station chief at the US Embassy in Dubai.
Secondly, information passed through the chain of command reported that the general has been found and had been hiding out in Dubai. His friends were against the Saudi Royals, and he has been in hiding here, at their expense.
After what he had been through, Director Hubble thought he owed it to Officer Lawson to witness the end and hopefully gain closure.
Solid and intense training had prepared Derek quite well, with the exception that his frame of mind seems to have changed. For the better or worse, he could not tell.
He tried to read every person he met now and to figure out if they were telling the truth or not. While walking in public, he was becoming very good at blending into any crowd and automatically checking to see if he was being followed.
Skills he possessed and used in the army were sharpened up ten-fold, while he continued to learn how to cheat, steal, lie to others and detect falsehoods.
Derek had learned some of the darker arts to humanity, and that couldn’t help but change one.
Glancing at his watch, he knew that the General Intelligence Directorate officers of Saudi Arabia were wrapping up their operation.
Looking up, Derek saw a small crowd of people leaving the Dubai Mall. They all wore dark suits and they were clustered around a smaller Arab man with a white beard and a gold keffiyeh. The man in the keffiyeh was being firmly led by the larger men, each holding onto one arm. The lead man out front talked into his collar microphone while directing any passersby to get out of the way. The telltale bulges of holstered shoulder weapons were present on almost all them.
The Saudi royal prince, Derek thought.
One guard walked out front and waved to the driver of a black and chrome, long extended window paneled van to pull up. Time seemed to slow down as many things happened at once.
“Derek! Incoming, get over here!” Grant appeared behind the serving counter of the café and yelled while waving at his brother.
A small four-foot UAV drone came straight down from the sky, above the towering mall roof and hovered for a brief second. Then with the electric motors engaged to full speed, it dove straight toward the crowd of men around window van. Derek quickly stood and ran to where his brother stood behind the serving counter, bringing the waitress with him in a football tackle to the ground.
Despite being over thirty yards away, the resulting explosion knocked over tables and shattered the windows in the café, and it also sent people screaming in pain to the ground. Many others would not scream again.
Debris and shrapnel ricocheted off the café sign right above Derek where he lay covering the serving waitress.
Cars that were parked upward of one hundred feet away had their alarms go off, and it was as if that signaled a release of horror. Screams of pain from patrons of the café and along the sidewalk started up as the reality quickly came crashing in.
Looking around the counter, Derek saw through the smoke the window van lying on its’ side. A ring of blood and charred smoking mutilated body parts lay where the drone blew up.
A few small fires had started on the undercarriage of the van, and within seconds, the gas tank exploded sending a fireball up into the air.
There were no survivors in the immediate area, and the explosion killed people up to fifty feet away and wounded dozens more.
Standing up, Derek looked around at the carnage.
Had he still been sitting at his table…
“Time to get to work, Derek. There are folks here that need you,” Grant looked around in horror at the effects from the bombing.
With his ears ringing, Derek nodded and helped the waitress up. She seemed to be in shock and unable to comprehend what was happening around or her luck at surviving.
Though his ears were ringing, Derek could still hear the sirens off in the distance startup. They would be making their way here shortly.
“Thanks, Grant. I owe you another one.”
“No problem! That’s what brothers are for, even if we are dead, and I am keeping score!” Grant winked at Derek and faded away.
“Who are you talking to?” asked the confused waitress.
“No one. Let’s go see who needs help,” said Derek as he guided the waitress out, keeping one eye to the skies.
Serve
In the
Shadows:
Training
Book Two
(coming soon)
Introduction
Stockholm, Sweden
Scott Clarke finished off his Hop Hound Ale and looked around inside at the Brewdog craft brewery. One end of the large room, an eighteen-foot brick wall along with a cement countertop running up the middle added rustic ambiance and running up the middle a long bar. Barstools and tables filled up most of the place, yet with the high ceilings and decorative lighting, it felt always open and spacious despite the evening crowds it always drew.
When the waitress passed by Scott, he took the opportunity to order a hamburger and another beer, with the crowd picking up fast he was unsure when he would see her again.
The Brewdog usually hired a small band or a DJ to play on Friday and Saturday nights for the customers. Tonight, a young lady, barely twenty years old, sat on a tall barstool playing the ukulele while singing into the microphone in a clear, youthful voice. She had very short blonde hair and a very pale complexion, but she was cute with freckles across her cheeks and nose. The singer may need a stool to stand taller than five feet.
Holding back a yawn, Scott rubbed his eyes and thanked the waitress as she dropped off the beer. Apparently, the meal would follow soon.
Looking up, Scott noticed that the owner had strung lights across the large room, and something about them almost made them seem to sway and they seemed to be floating weightlessly above the crowd.
CRASH!
Jumping slightly on his barstool, abruptly woken from his daydreaming, Scott looked over to see the waitress lying on the floor with her tray of empty pint glasses shattered all over.
The young lady’s performance suddenly stopped, and one could hear her sharp breath through the speakers.
Only half of the patrons responded to the waitress on the floor, by casually looking over.
More than odd.
When a large man sitting at the end of the bar fell off his stool and hit his head on the corner of the cement bar top before laying on the ground like a sack of meat, only then a few people turned their heads to look.
As if that were the trigger, people throughout the place fell over or collapsed, lying on the ground and not moving.
“Oh, my God…”
Scott looked up at the young lady on stage, the silence in the room made her voice amplify through the sound system, seem very loud. Her eyes darted around trying to take it all in, with a look of horror on her face.
Sitting on her stool, she let the ukulele hang down with her right hand holding onto its neck, sitting there with her mouth open, watching.
Within a minute, almost everyone had fallen in various manners to the floor with one exception.
Meeting Scott’s eyes, she tried to swallow a few times before whispering. “Are they alive?”
Shrugging his shoulders, Scott stood up and leaned down, feeling for the carotid pulse of the middle-aged couple that were recently sitting next to him. While feeling the neck, Scott could see bruises developing all over their bodies and their eyes seemed swollen shut, and very red-rimmed.
Looking up, he met her eyes once again and shook his head.
“No.”
Taking one step forward, Scott had trouble keeping his eyes open, and he stifled another yawn. His eyelids seemed impossibly heavy, and while blinking very slowly Scott dropped to his knees while he fought to keep his chin from going down onto his chest. Looking down at his arms, Scott could see large purple bruises starting to appear while his breathing is starting to become difficult.
“You should probably get out of here,” he mumbled to the girl.
The young lady stood up, knocking her stool over backward when the man in front of her fell down onto his left side. His head hit the ground with a loud hollow sound, bouncing once before settling.
Reaching behind her, the singer found the carry case for her instrument and she also grabbed an old small green canvas backpack. Picking her way carefully over the bodies on the floor, she quickly made her way to the exit.
Just before leaving, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out her cell phone. Quickly she snapped a few dozen pictures of the interior and the people on the floor, then turning around, she bolted out the front door and down the steps, out into growing darkness of Stockholm streets.
Holding back a scream, she kept her head down and never looked back.
About the Author
David grew up in a small-town east of Toronto, Canada. He has had many interests throughout the years including the military, martial arts, playing guitar, reading, and in his own mind, he is quite the excellent fisherman. David is married and has one daughter and a chocolate lab.
Serve in the Shadows: Recruitment is his first novel in the series and has plans to continue writing as long as he can.
Feel free to write to David Darling at:
author.david.darling@gmail.com
David Darling, Serve in the Shadows Recruitment
