“How’s your hand strength?” he asked, sticking out his own. “Give me a good squeeze.”

She squeezed.

“Ow! Mind me bones.” He shook out his hand. “See, then, you can pull this off. Simplest thing in the world.” He grabbed her right wrist and bent her thumb backward. “Most people’ll come along nice and quiet rather than suffer a dislocated thumb. Separates us from the animals, you know.” He let her go and looked thoughtfully at her. “I know I said no nancy-pants shit, but there’s a fellow not far from here teaches jujitsu and knows all about nerve points. Most folks don’t have the touch for it, but you might.”

“Okay,” she agreed.

At the end of the second week, Pilar made her third attempt on the obstacle course. She made it across the monkey bars with a good deal of difficulty, did the ladder drop with a good deal of trepidation, and cleared the pit.

Not the wall.

“I just don’t have anything left by the time I get there,” she said to Rogers.

“You will.” He rubbed her shoulders. “Keep working that upper body.”

On the following Sunday, they were actually given an afternoon of free time. Loup went for a long run by herself, bypassing the forest to explore the countryside. Afterward she wandered into the gym, and found Pilar doing pull-ups. She stood for a moment, watching her.

“Hey,” Pilar gasped, unexpectedly acknowledging her. “You’re so totally checking me out.”

“Maybe.” Loup smiled. “Look at you, all muy macha.”

She dropped. “I can only do six or seven. But that’s six or seven more than I could do two weeks ago.” She thrust out her bare arm, tensing her muscles. “Look. You can see the difference.”

“Pretty impressive,” Loup agreed.

“Do you like me better this way?”

“Better? No. I like you every way.”

“Good.” Pilar sighed. “Because if I get through this, I swear to God, I’m never working out this hard again in my life.”

“Does this mean I exist again?”

“Yeah, I guess.” She smiled wryly. “I don’t know for sure if I’ll pass, but at least I don’t think it’s gonna kill me anymore. Anyway, I miss you.”

Loup shook her head. “Pilar…”

“I know, I know. Shut up. It worked for me.” Pilar grabbed her hand. “Hey, let me try and throw you.”

On the mat, she executed a fairly decent hip throw. Loup ignored all of Clive’s instructions on falling and caught Pilar around the waist at the last minute, bringing her down atop her and cushioning her fall.

“Oof!” Pilar caught her breath. “No fair, baby.” She kissed Loup’s throat. “But I’m not exactly complaining.”

“Oh, you don’t get off that easy.” Loup rolled her over. She pinned Pilar’s lower body with her legs, bracing herself on her arms above her. “Two weeks!”

“I told you why!” Pilar wound her arms around Loup’s neck, trying in vain to tug her head down. “Don’t be mean.”

“I’m not.” Loup relented and kissed her.

“Mmm.” Pilar got her legs free and scissored them around Loup’s waist, trying to roll her. Loup let her, enjoying Pilar’s pleasure in her newfound strength. Her hands slid under Loup’s tank top as she kissed her. “Now I have you.”

“Inneresting technique,” a voice above them offered.

Pilar scrambled to her feet, flushing. “We were just… umm…”

“I can see what you were doing, sunshine,” Clive said mildly. “All made up, are we?”

“Are we?” Loup asked Pilar.

She smiled sidelong at her. “Yeah.”

Clive cleared his throat. “Well, it’s very commendable to find you both in the gymnasium during your free time, but if all you’re planning on practicing is snogging and groping, I suggest you take it elsewhere.”

“Okay.” Pilar pulled Loup to her feet and began leading her toward the door.

“I didn’t mean this very second!” he called after them.

“Too late!” Loup called over her shoulder.

It was a blissful relief to have things back to normal between them, but it didn’t fix everything. By the end of five weeks, Pilar could complete a 5K run and do the whole obstacle course—even the wall.

She just couldn’t do it in under an hour.

“More cardio,” Rogers advised her. “You’ve got to push yourself, sweetheart.”

“I am!”

“Push harder.”

They got a break from the hand-to-hand training in the final week when Clive taught them marksmanship.

“We provide discreet security,” he said. “When you carry, you’re gonna carry concealed.” He slid a small pistol from a side pocket holster. “This here’s what we call a Baby Glock. It’s a nine-millimeter subcompact semiautomatic pistol, and before you get your hands anywhere near it, you’re getting a long talk on gun safety.”

It was a long talk, indeed.

“Is it loaded?” Pilar asked when he finished, eyeing it fearfully.

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

After further demonstrations, he led them to the firing range, taught them the correct stance and grip and how to align the sight and pull the trigger. He had them dry-fire the pistol until he was satisfied, then showed them how to load it and check the chamber, drilling them over and over.

“Right.” He pushed a button, and a paper target with the outline of a man slid forward. “Here goes.”

The pistol cracked three times in succession, spitting out casings. Pilar jumped and put her hands over her ears. Three neat holes appeared around the edges of the figure’s marked heart. Clive pushed the button again and removed the target, summoned a new one.

“Give it a go, Taz,” he said, handing the pistol to Loup.

She aligned the sight and squeezed the trigger. The pistol kicked in her hand. A hole appeared in the target.

“Nicked his spleen,” Clive observed. “Try again.”

She fired it three more times, getting closer to the heart.

“Not bad. It takes practice.” His Dataphone rang. He fished it out and glanced at it. “I’ve got to take this. Sit tight until I finish. No unsupervised gunplay.” They nodded, and he answered his phone, walking a distance away. “Yes, Mr. Lindberg.”

“Ooh, Magnus.” Pilar nudged Loup. “Go eavesdrop, baby. You’ve got really sharp ears.”

“Okay,” Loup agreed.

She drifted closer toward Clive, pretending to examine the target mechanism.

“Yessir, absolutely,” he was saying. “Not a problem in the world. If I had ten of Loup, I could invade a small country.” Pause. “To be honest, I’ve not made up me mind.” His voice was troubled. “She’s a nice girl and she’s trying hard. If she were just some bird taking a self-defense class, I’d pass her with flying colors, but the caliber you want for this line of work?” He shook his head. “I’m not sure.” He listened. “That’s Rogers’ lookout. She might make it, she might not. My call, that’s purely on defense skills.” He listened some more. “We’ll see. Maybe she’ll surprise me.”

Loup sidled back.

“Well?” Pilar asked.

She shook her head, the lie making her heart ache a little. “Nothing.”

“All right, then.” Clive came striding back. “You ready, sunshine? Your turn.”

Pilar handled the loaded gun gingerly.

“It’s not gonna bite and it’s not gonna go off by itself,” he said. “Widen your stance a touch. Flexed elbows, locked wrists. There you go.”

She lined up the sight and pulled the trigger. The pistol fired and a hole appeared in the target, slightly off center in the heart. She blinked. “Ohmigod. Did I do that?”

“Jaysus!” Clive breathed. “Can you do it again?”

She fired three more times, holding the pistol with increased confidence with every shot. All but one of the shots pierced the target’s heart, and the one that missed, missed by only inches. “Holy shit!”

“Holy shit, indeed.” He called up the target, unhooked it, and presented it to her with a bow. “Nice shooting, sunshine. Who’d of thought it, eh?”

Pilar accepted it, dazed—but not so dazed that she didn’t remember to keep the pistol safely pointed at the ground. “No kidding.”

Loup smiled happily. “Surprise!”

Clive narrowed his eyes at her. “Little pitchers have big ears, methinks.”

“Huh?”

“Hey, Clive?” Pilar folded her target. “Is Sabine a good shot?”

“That one?” He scratched his head. “Just missed qualifying for the Moscow Olympics. I forget which event. It might have been the fifty-meter rifle. Why?”

Pilar sighed. “No reason.”

THIRTEEN

Ben Rogers clicked off his stopwatch. “Sixty-one minutes, seventeen seconds.”

Pilar dropped to the ground, gasping for breath. “Fuck!”

“How bad do you want it?”

She glared up at him. “After all this? Bad!”

He shrugged. “Tomorrow’s the day. What can I tell you, sweetheart? I’ve done all I can for you. Run faster.”

At dinner Pilar was downcast, picking at her fish.

“You’ve gotta eat,” Loup said. “You’re gonna need the energy. Forget the fish, eat your fries. Floyd always said carbs were best.”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter,” she said in a defeated, weary tone. “I’ve tried and tried. I can’t do it, Loup. I can’t crack an hour. I’m sorry, I really am. And they don’t call them fries here, baby. They call them chips.”

“Whatever. Pilar, let me pace you tomorrow.”