Chapter Nine
ANGEL SINCLAIR
To my astonishment, the shooter suddenly released me. I staggered backward, grabbing my neck as our driver—apparently not dead—entered the room, climbing over the discarded chair. He patted our attacker on the shoulder. The attacker pulled the ski mask off his head. He was young, blond, and had a friendly smile. He gave us a quick smile and salute, disappearing out the door.
Frankie, Wally, and I stared in shock.
“Y-you’re not shot,” Wally finally stammered, stating the obvious.
“I am not. Let me introduce myself.” He took of his sunglasses and tucked them neatly into the pocket on his white dress shirt. “I am Dexter Donovan, training director of UTOP.”
He held out a hand, but none of us stepped forward to shake it.
“Wait. None of this was real?” I exclaimed, looking around. “This was some kind of test?”
He turned his attention to me. “That’s correct, Ms. Sinclair. We like to have a baseline for every potential candidate before they receive any actual training.”
“A baseline?” I repeated, still trying to wrap my head around the situation. We hadn’t even been on the campus for five freaking minutes and they threw us into the middle of an active-shooter drill? What kind of baseline did they expect from three kids?
“Wow.” Wally pushed a hand through his hair. He was still shaking. “Okay, so we’re all technically dead. What does that mean? We failed our first test?”
“There’s no winning or losing at UTOP, Mr. Harris,” he said. “There’s only response and counterresponse. We’re simply collecting data.”
“But…he said we were all dead,” Frankie exclaimed.
“Oh, he was right. If this was real, you’d all be dead.” He wrinkled his nose at the bleach smell and motioned with his hand. “Let’s move to more comfortable quarters. The smell is getting to be too much in here.”
He turned and left the room while Wally, Frankie, and I exchanged worried glances. How was this possible? We’d just arrived on campus and had already failed at something? I wasn’t used to failing, and I didn’t like how this had played out. Swallowing my anger and frustration, I followed Mr. Donovan. I should have suspected something like this. It was a spy school, after all.
Mr. Donovan led us down a corridor and up two flights of stairs before he stopped in front of a door. A plaque on the wall near the office read Dexter Donovan, Director, UTOP. He pressed his thumb to a pad on the door and then tapped in a code before the door swung open. He motioned for us to enter, so we did.
A huge wooden desk dominated his office. Three chairs were placed side by side in front of his desk, and he indicated we were to sit, so we did, like three obedient children, with Frankie in the middle. Mr. Donovan didn’t sit but leaned back against his desk, folding his arms and studying us like lab specimens. I wondered if he were going to tell us he’d be driving us home now.
He didn’t speak for some time, presumably giving us time to reflect on our failure. We sat in silence, awaiting our fate.
Finally, he asked us a question. “What do you think was your first mistake?”
“Leaving the car?” Frankie immediately volunteered. She glanced uneasily at me, then Wally. In my opinion, she got bonus points for having the courage to answer first. “You told us to stay put, after all.”
“But the shooter was coming toward the car,” Wally countered. “We could have been trapped with no easy exit, if he came to investigate it.”
“What if the car windows were bulletproof?” she suggested.
“What if they weren’t?” Wally’s fingers drummed anxiously on his thigh, something I noticed he sometimes did when he was upset. Clearly, he didn’t like failing, either. “We’d be trapped and dead.”
“True, but we ended up dead anyway. Right, Mr. Donovan?” Frankie looked at him for confirmation, but he just asked us another question.
“What else did you do wrong?”
Another stretch of silence ensued before I finally spoke. “We went into the buildings. The woods would have been safer.”
Wally and Frankie gaped at me in astonishment.
“But going toward the buildings was your idea,” Frankie finally said.
“I know.” I wished I could take my decision back, but I couldn’t. What had been done, was done. “In hindsight, it was a mistake. I ended up trapping us in a room, which was basically the same thing as trapping us in the car. We should have headed into the woods just like Wally suggested.”
“Anything else, Ms. Sinclair?”
I hated these feeling of inadequacy. It was a direct hit to my intelligence, the one thing I thought I had going for me. “We should have split up.”
“Ah, hindsight is quite useful, isn’t it? Why would it have been better to separate?”
“Because three targets moving in different directions are harder to track down and hit. We lost any advantage by sticking together.”
“Exactly. Now, let’s examine your actions once you were trapped inside the staff room. While it was admirable you all found items with which to protect yourself, you didn’t have a cohesive plan of action.”
We didn’t respond. What could we say? He was right. We’d been three scared kids.
Mr. Donovan pushed off the desk and walked in front of us. “For example, Ms. Chang, you chose a bottle of bleach, which was perhaps the most useful weapon gathered between the three of you. But you were too far away to use it properly. If you would have stood closer to the door, you might have been able to disarm your attacker when he crashed into the room. The same with you, Mr. Harris. While your aim with the serrated cake cutter was surprisingly accurate, the distance gave your attacker plenty of time to be prepared to catch it. It likely wouldn’t have taken him down, either. Just annoyed him more.”
He paused and looked at me. My cheeks were still burning with embarrassment. His scrutiny only made me flush more. “You, Ms. Sinclair, were the only one to use your so-called weapon correctly. You waited until you were close enough to get the salt in his eyes. However, if Jonas had been a real attacker, you would have been shot as soon you lunged at him. So, you would have been dead, too.”
I looked down, clenching my hands in my lap, mad at myself for not anticipating any of this. If I got another chance, it wouldn’t happen again.
“But it happened so fast,” Frankie protested. “It wasn’t fair. We weren’t expecting it.”
“I’m aware of that, Ms. Chang.” Mr. Donovan stood and walked over to the window, looking down at the grassy quadrangle area. “That’s part of your training here at UTOP. An operative must always be expecting it.”
He stood there quietly for a long time. Finally, he turned around.
“You’re dismissed. Jonas is outside, ready to take you to your dorms. You’re located in the special KIT area, which is in the back of the campus. You’ll have everything you need there, including a library, a gaming room, television, a gym with a swimming pool and a basketball court, an open field for sports, a walking garden, and your own cafeteria. Other areas of the campus are restricted to current UTOP students only, unless you’re specifically guided there by a staff member. Fraternization with other UTOP students is forbidden for obvious reasons. They’re future US operatives. But you’re not prisoners here. Once a week, on Saturday, we’ll take you into town for a few hours to hang out, shop, and decompress. I don’t need to repeat that you’re not allowed to talk about any of your activities here to anyone outside the establishment. You can, however, discuss normal activities, classes, friends, course load, etc., with your friends and family, of course.”
“Is there even cell service here?” Wally asked. “We were going to call for help when we were in the car, but we couldn’t get any bars.”
“We blocked it for the purposes of the exercise. It should be fine now.” He walked to the door, opened it. “As I mentioned before, we wanted a baseline—to see how you handled yourselves in an emergency. You’re free to call your parents to let them know you arrived. However, before you do that, I want to offer you a chance to go home. I assure you, it only gets harder.”
“You want us to go home?” Frankie asked, puzzled. “We just got here.”
“I’m offering you the option, no questions asked. An exercise, like the one we just conducted, can be quite traumatic for some students. If you feel uncomfortable with this kind of thing, now is the time to say so. Therefore, I’m offering you a chance to go home. I would completely understand if you feel this kind of thing isn’t for you.”
Wally glanced at me with questioning eyes. Frankie looked between both of us. I lifted my chin, gritted my teeth and said nothing. Neither did Frankie and Wally.
Silence stretched on.
“Well, does your silence mean all three of you wish to continue?” Mr. Donovan asked.
We nodded.
“Then it’s settled. Please spend the afternoon unpacking, making yourself familiar with the KIT compound, and meeting your fellow UTOP nominees.”
“There are other nominees?” I asked.
“There are, indeed.” He shook each of our hands gravely. “Welcome to the UTOP trials. I wish you all the best of luck.”