Deadly Fierce // Mitch Rapp

V

I was driven somewhere and Irene said, "You can take the blindfold off."

I did so saw trees. We were in a forest. I asked, "So, what do I need to know about this guy?"

"Stan Hurley. He's a warrior. Ex-Navy SEAL. My daddy served with him on the Persian Gulf."

"Did you go through this program?"

"I went through a program. Not like this one. It's not like becoming a spy or Special Ops, none of those things."

"Good."

We pulled in front of a cabin and the car stopped. A dog barked and Irene stepped out of the car. An older man walked part-way down a set of stairs.

Irene got back in the car and said, "Don't prove me wrong."

I gave her a small smile and grabbed my bag before exiting the car. I looked at it as it drove away and Stan said, "She ain't coming back." He walked over to me. "Hey. Eyes front and center."

"Sorry." I replied.

"'Sorry?' Do I look like one of your college professors? You talk to me, you call me 'sir', son."

"Yes sir."

"What the fuck you doing here? Did you have some bad things happen to you, some shitty things happen to you? Now you wanna kill those mean old terrorists. Go get some bad guys. What makes you think you can make it through me selection process?"

"Permission to speak, sir?"

"Sure, go ahead if you got something to say. Like this is all a big mistake and you wanna go home. You wanna go home? Good. Get the fuck out of here. I'll drive you myself."

"Not at all, sir. I was gonna suggest we maybe speed this whole thing up? My guess is, if you and I go hand-to-hand, you could probably figure out inside of 20 seconds whether I have what it takes to make it through your selection process. So, what do you think?"

Another guy walked up and Stan said, "We got an empty cot, empty footlocker. They're both yours as long as you can last."

"Sounds good."

"Follow me." The new guy said.

I glanced back at Stan. "See you out there. Heard a lot about you, by the way. Excited to see what you got."

New guy took me into the forest with some other recruits.

Stan looked at me. "Kill me."

I started to attack him and he grabbed my arm and flipped me onto the ground. While holding me, he said, "People think you can slice a man's throat like this. That's only in the movies." He pressed the knife to the lower part of my neck. "Right there. Do it. No noise. No mess."

I got up and Stan said, "Victor, you're up."

Victor picked up a knife and started going after me. I grabbed the knife by the blade and knocked Victor to the ground before tossing the knife to the side. "What the fuck, man? Who grabs a fucking blade?"

Victor hit me and so I picked him up and knocked him to the ground before hitting him. "Come on, you fuckin' pussy. Let's go!"

Another guy went after me and Stan said to him, "You gotta have eyes in the back of your head."

Stan then shot a gun. "You flinch, you die. Orion is about the mission. It ain't about you. You go down there, you're a ghost, you don't exist. There's nobody, nobody coming back for you." I stood up. "You're about to be captured." Stan put the gun to his mouth and pretended to shoot. "Bye-bye."