Lisa Gardner: The killing hour

Recycled . It sounded so innocuous. Like some PC sports program-there are no winners or losers here, you’re just recycled.

Recycling mattered. New agents feared it, dreaded it, had nightmares about it. It was the ominous word whispered in the halls. It was the secret terror that kept them going up over the towering Marine training wall, even now that it was week nine and everyone was sleeping less and less while being pushed more and more and the drills were harder and the expectations higher and each day, every day, someone was going to get awarded the Deadly Deed of the Day…

Besides the physical training and academics, new agents worked on firearms. Kimberly had thought she’d have the advantage there. She’d been taking lessons with a Glock.40 for the past ten years. She was comfortable with guns and a damn good shot.

Except firearms training didn’t involve just standing and firing at a paper target. They also practiced firing from the sitting position-as if surprised at a desk. Then there were running drills, belly-crawling drills, night-firing drills, and elaborate rituals where they started out on their bellies, then got up and ran, then dropped down, then ran more, then stood and fired. You fired right-handed. You fired left-handed. You reloaded and reloaded and reloaded.

And you didn’t just use a handgun.

Kimberly got her first experience with an M-16 rifle. Then she fired over a thousand rounds from a Remington Model 870 shotgun with a recoil that nearly crushed her right cheek and shattered her shoulder. Then she expelled over a hundred rounds from a Heckler amp; Koch MP5/10 submachine gun, though that at least had been kind of fun.

Now they had Hogan’s Alley, where they practiced elaborate scenarios and only the actors actually knew what was going to happen next. Kimberly’s traditional anxiety dreams-leaving the house naked, suddenly being in a classroom taking a pop quiz-had once been in black and white. Since Hogan’s Alley, they had taken on vivid, violent color. Hot-pink classrooms, mustard-yellow streets. Pop quizzes splashed with purple and green paint. Herself running, running, running down long endless tunnels of exploding orange, pink, purple, blue, yellow, black, and green.

She awoke some nights biting back weary screams. Other nights, she simply lay there and felt her right shoulder throb. Sometimes, she could tell that Lucy was awake, too. They didn’t talk those nights. They just lay in the dark, and gave each other the space to hurt.

Then at six A.M. they both got up and went through it all over again.

Nine weeks down, seven to go. Show no weakness. Give no quarter. Endure.

Kimberly wanted so desperately to make it. She was strong Kimberly, with cool blue eyes just like her father’s. She was smart Kimberly, with her B.A. in psychology at twenty-one and her master’s in criminology at twenty-two. She was driven Kimberly, determined to get on with her life even after what happened to her mother and sister.

She was infamous Kimberly, the youngest member of her class and the one everyone whispered about in the halls. You know who her father is, don’t you? What a shame about her family. I heard the killer nearly got her, too. She gunned him down in cold blood…

Kimberly’s classmates took lots of notes in their eagerly awaited profiling class. Kimberly took none at all.

She arrived downstairs. Up ahead in the hall, she could see a cluster of green shirts chatting and laughing-National Academy students, done for the day and no doubt heading to the Boardroom for cold beer. Then came the cluster of blue shirts, talking up a storm. Fellow new-agent trainees, also done for the day, and now off to grab a quick bite in the cafeteria before hitting the books, or the PT course, or the gym. Maybe they were mentoring each other, swapping a former lawyer’s legal expertise for a former Marine’s firearms training. New agents were always willing to help one another. If you let them.

Kimberly pushed her way through the outside doors. The heat slammed into her like a blow. She made a beeline for the relative shade of the Academy’s wooded PT course and started running.

Pain, Agony, Hurt, the signs read on the trees next to the path. Suck it in. Love it!

“I do, I do,” Kimberly gasped.

Her aching body protested. Her chest tightened with pain. She kept on running. When all else failed, keep moving. One foot in front of another. New pain layering on top of the old.

Kimberly knew this lesson well. She had learned it six years ago, when her sister was dead, her mother was murdered and she stood in a Portland, Oregon, hotel room with the barrel of a gun pressed against her forehead like a lover’s kiss.

Fredericksburg, Virginia

6:45 P . M .

Temperature: 92 degrees

TWENTY-YEAR-OLD TINA KRAHN had just stepped out the front door of her stifling hot apartment when the phone rang. Tina sighed, doubled back into the kitchen and answered with an impatient hello while using her other hand to wipe the sweat from the back of her neck. God, this heat was unbearable. The humidity level had picked up on Sunday, and hadn’t done a thing to improve since. Now, fresh out of the shower, Tina’s thin green sundress was already plastered to her body, while she could feel fresh dewdrops of moisture trickle stickily down between her breasts.

She and her roommate Betsy had agreed half an hour ago to go anyplace with air-conditioning. Betsy had made it to the car. Tina had made it to the door, and now this.

Her mother was on the other end of the line. Tina promptly winced.

“Hey, Ma,” she tried with forced enthusiasm. “How are you?” Her gaze went to the front door. She willed Betsy to reappear so she could signal she needed a minute longer. No such luck. Tina tapped her foot anxiously and was happy her mother was a thousand miles away in Minnesota, and couldn’t see her guilty expression.

“Well, actually I’m running out the door. Yeah, it’s Tuesday. Just the time zones are different, Ma, not the days.” That earned her a sharp rebuke. She grabbed a napkin from the kitchen table, swiped it across her forehead, then shook her head when it immediately became soaking wet. She patted her upper lip.

“Of course I have class tomorrow. We weren’t planning on drinking ourselves silly, Ma.” In fact, Tina rarely drank anything stronger than ice tea. Not that her mom believed her. Tina had gone away to college-egads!-which Tina’s mother seemed to equate with choosing a life of sin. There was alcohol on college campuses, you know. And fornication.

“I don’t know where we’re going, Ma. Just… out. It’s like… a gazillion degrees this week. We gotta find someplace with air-conditioning before we spontaneously combust.” Lord, did they.

Her mother was instantly concerned. Tina held up a hand, trying to cut off the tirade before it got started.

“No, I didn’t mean that literally. No, really, Ma, I’m all right. It’s just hot. I can handle some heat. But summer school is going great. Work is fine-”

Her mother’s voice grew sharper.

“I only work twenty hours a week. Of course I’m focusing on my studies. Really, honestly, everything’s fine. I swear it.” The last three words came out a smidgeon too high. Tina winced again. What was it with mothers and their internal radars? Tina should’ve quit while she was ahead. She grabbed another napkin and blotted her whole face. Now she was no longer sure if the moisture was solely from the heat, or from nerves.

“No, I’m not seeing anyone.” That much was true.

“We broke up, Ma. Last month. I told you about it.” Kind of.

“No, I’m not pining away. I’m young, I’ll survive.” At least that’s what Betsy, Vivienne, and Karen told her.