Starfire Page 19

  “Flex, we got a job to do,” Wohl said. “Keep your opinions to yourself. Dice?”

  “Doughboy.”

  “Geek,” said the third.

  “Be nice to the young man,” Wohl said, wearing that malevolent smile again. “He’s had a most traumatic experience, and besides he’s a hardworking engineering student.”

  “A brainiac, huh?” the one named Dice asked. “My kid used to watch a brainless cartoon called Dexter’s Laboratory on TV, where this really smart kid gets bushwhacked by his dumb sister all the time. Let’s call him ‘Dexter.’ ”

  “I still like ‘Doughboy’ better,” the third said.

  “ ‘Dexter’ it is,” Wohl announced.

  “That’s a lousy call sign,” Brad said. “I’ll pick my own.”

  “Dexter, call signs are earned, and they are picked by your teammates, not by yourself,” Wohl said. “You haven’t earned anything yet. But call signs can change, for the worse as well as for the better. Work hard and maybe we’ll give you a better one.”

  “What’s your call sign?”

  “For you, it’s ‘sir’ or ‘sergeant major,’ ” Wohl said, looking at Bradley with serious menace. “You’d better get that right the first time.” To his men in turn he said, “Dice, find us a safe and securable hotel to stay in, in San Luis Obispo, close to campus. Flex, get in contact with Chief Ratel and ask if he can set up a martial-arts, countersurveillance, and firearms training program for us ASAP.” To Brad he said, “Let’s see your shooting hand.”

  “Shooting hand? I don’t have a shooting hand.”

  “Then which hand do you pick your nose with, Dexter? C’mon, we don’t have all day.” Wohl grabbed Brad’s right wrist, and Brad opened his hand. “Jeez, tiny little hands just like your father. That’s probably why he joined the Air Force—he didn’t have hands big enough to hold even a friggin’ girl’s gun.” He held the hand up so the third team member could see Brad’s hand. “Rattler?”

  “Smith and Wesson M and P .40 cal,” the third team member said in a low, growling voice. “Or a peashooter.”

  “Forty-cal it is,” Wohl said. “Get to it.” The three team members pulled out cell phones and got to work. “One last thing, Dexter.”

  “I hate that call sign already,” Brad said.

  “I hate that call sign already, sir,” Wohl corrected him. “I told you: do something worthy for the team and yourself, and you might get a better call sign. And start showing some respect for your superiors around here. I should’ve kicked your ass across the hangar for the way you spoke to President Martindale yesterday. I will next time, I promise you.” Brad nodded and wisely said nothing.

  “Now, we can do several things to help you detect and defend against danger, but we can’t do very much for your friends,” Wohl went on. “We’ve noticed that you don’t really hang out with anybody but your research team of nerds on that Starfire project, which is good, but I want you to limit your time in public with anyone. If a hit team starts to target your friends to get to you, it could spell real trouble for everyone that we could not contain. Understand?”

  “Yes,” Brad said. He could feel the anger rising in Wohl’s expression. “Yes, sir,” he corrected himself.

  “Good. Grab some breakfast, get your things together, and be ready to move out in ten minutes.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brad said. He returned to the conference room and noticed that all the breakfast sandwiches were gone. “This is starting out to be a really shitty day,” he murmured. But he looked back across the hangar and saw the CID unit with his father inside of it, and he smiled. “But my father is alive. I can’t believe it. I’m living in a dream . . . but I don’t care, because my father is alive!”

  REINHOLD AEROSPACE ENGINEERING BUILDING

  CAL POLY

  THE NEXT MORNING

  “Brad! What in heck happened to you?” Lane Eagan exclaimed when Brad entered the room. The others shot to their feet and gaped in horror when they saw the long, ugly bruise on the side of Brad’s head and face—no amount of ice had yet been successful in hiding it, although the swelling had gone down considerably.

  “Hi, guys,” Brad said. They all came over to him, and he especially liked Jodie’s concerned touches. “I’m okay, I’m okay.”

  “What happened to you?” Kim Jung-bae asked. “Where have you been? In a hospital? We have been worried sick about you!”

  “You’re not going to believe this, Jerry: I was involved in a home invasion the other night, after we made our presentation,” Brad lied. Eyes popped and mouths dropped open in complete surprise. “Two guys broke into the house and whacked me on the side of the head with a club or baseball bat or something.”

  “No shit?” they all exclaimed. “What happened?”

  “No idea,” Brad lied. “I woke up and there were cops everywhere. Paramedics checked me over, I gave a report, and that’s pretty much it. They found drug stuff on the kitchen table and thought that maybe some crackheads wanted a place to get high.”

  “Oh my God, Brad,” Casey gasped, “thank God you’re okay.”

  “I’m good, I’m good, Casey,” Brad assured them. “My gyros tumble a little bit every now and then, but I can still ride the bike.”

  “Where are you staying?” Jodie asked, and Brad thought he detected a twinkle in her eye and the hint of an eager smile. “You’re not going back to that house, are you, mate?”

  “Heck no,” Brad said. “The landlord had a fit. He’s having workers move the furniture that didn’t get smashed up, and he’s going to board the place up. I’m not sure what he’s going to do after that. I’m in one of the all-suites hotels on Monterey Street. I might be there until the semester’s over and students blow town. I’m going to apply at Cerro Vista and Poly Canyon and try to avoid going into the summer dorms if I can.”

  “Good luck with that, mate,” Jodie said. “Applications for Cerro Vista had to be in two months ago, and Poly Canyon’s apps had to be in last year. You might have to live off campus again if you don’t want to live in the dorms.”

  “Okay, all that’s being worked, so let’s get to business before we have to scurry off,” Brad said, and their meeting got under way. It lasted only a few minutes, long enough for everyone to report their team’s status, coordinate their lab schedules, and put in requests to Brad for supplies or information for the upcoming week, and then they hurried off to class.

  Jodie walked along with Brad. “Are you sure you’re all right, mate?” she asked. “That’s the worst bruise I think I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’m good, Jodie, thanks,” Brad said. “I wish I could say ‘you should see the other guy,’ but I was out cold.”

  “Why didn’t you call me, Brad?”

  “There just wasn’t time, Jodie,” Brad lied. “I was out like a light, and then I had to deal with the cops, the paramedics, and then the landlord.”

  “Then where were you all yesterday?”

  “Sitting around with ice packs on my throbbing head, listening to my landlord shouting orders and ranting and raving about dopers and crime and the breakdown of society,” Brad lied again. “Then he helped me find a hotel. My head hurt so much, I just crashed after that.”

  “Why don’t you stop by my place after classes?” she asked. “You don’t just want to go to a hotel by yourself, do you, with no one to look out for you?” This time, Brad didn’t have to guess her intentions—she reached out and touched his hand. “What d’ya say, mate?”

  His head was swimming a bit with all the stuff happening to him in the past few days, so his reply was a bit hesitant, and Jodie’s smile dimmed. “That sounds great, Jodie,” he said, and her smile returned. “But first I have an appointment after our lab session.”

  “Doctor’s appointment?”

  Brad decided he wasn’t going to lie to this woman about everything if he could at all avoid it. “Actually, my landlord—the ex-Marine, I think I told you—he’s setting up a training program for me. P
hysical fitness and self-defense.” He wasn’t going to tell Jodie about the countersurveillance and other spy training classes, or the weapons training—hey, he thought, not telling something is different from lying, right? “He thinks I’m too soft and need to do more to help myself in situations like home invasions.”

  “Wow,” Jodie remarked, blinking in surprise. “You’re right with this?”

  “Sure,” Brad said. “I spend too much time sitting on my ass—a little physical fitness will do me good. One hour a day. I can be over your place around seven.”

  “Perfect, Brad,” Jodie said, her worried and perplexed expression quickly disappearing. “I’ll fix us something for dinner. I can pick you up and take you around to your appointments if you don’t feel well enough to ride the bike.”

  “I’m good so far, Jodie,” Brad said. He actually liked the idea, but he didn’t know what the gym would look like, and he wanted to get a feeling from Wohl and whoever his trainer was going to be before he brought others around. “But thank you.” He gave her a hug and got a kiss on the cheek in return. “See you around seven.”

  “See ya, conch,” Jodie said, and hurried off to her next class.

  He received a lot of surprised and some shocked expressions as students on campus saw his big ugly bruise, and Brad actually considered buying some makeup until the thing healed, but kids on campus were fairly open and tolerant—and he sure as hell didn’t want Chris Wohl or his team members to catch him with makeup on!—so he put the thought out of his head and tried to ignore the looks. Thankfully he didn’t need narcotics to kill the pain, so he made it through his classes and his session in the engineering lab on the Starfire project without too much difficulty, only an occasional headache that subsided when he stopped thinking about it and concentrated on something else. Afterward he locked his computer backpack in a locker, retrieved his gym bag, then hopped on the bike and headed off to his first physical-fitness session.

  The name of the place was Chong Jeontu Jib, written in both Korean and Latin characters, on the south side of town not far from the airport. It was a simple two-story frame building, old but maintained very well, with a yard fenced in with chain link that had some exercise equipment and weights in a small workout area. Beyond the fence in the back was a gun range set up against a large round dirt wall which formerly surrounded petroleum tanks that stored fuel during World War II bomber training missions. The window in front was covered from the inside with United Korea and American flags, and the glass front door was covered with a large U.S. Air Force flag. Inside he found a counter, and beyond that a large workout room with the floor covered in a blue gym mat. The walls were covered with all sorts of awards, trophies, photographs, and martial-arts weapons.

  A short, thin man with a shaved head and gray goatee approached from a back room. “Dexter?” he called out. “This way.” Brad walked around the counter and had just touched the mat when the man called out, “Don’t touch the mat with your shoes on, and only with respect.” Brad hopped off the mat onto a linoleum walkway. The second room was a little smaller than the first, with another blue gym mat on the floor, but instead of decorations and awards it had a weight machine, treadmill, boxing speed bag, punching bag, and posters of arrows pointing to various spots on a human body—Brad was sure he was going to know all he needed to know about that stuff before too long. There was a back exit and what looked like a locker room in the opposite corner.

  “You’re late,” the man said. “I’ll let you slide today because it’s your first time here, but now you know where the place is, so don’t be late again.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I won’t, sir,” the man said. “The sergeant major told me you were in Civil Air Patrol and attended the Air Force Academy for a short time, so you know something about military courtesy. Employ it when you deal with me or anyone on the team. You’ll know when you can address us any other way. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Next time, show up ready to work out. I don’t want to waste time waiting for you to change. This is not your private resort club where you can stroll in and out as you please.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The man nodded toward the locker room door. “You got thirty seconds to change.” Brad hurried toward the locker room across the blue mat. “Stop!” Brad froze. “Get back here.” Brad returned. “Get off the mat.” Brad stepped off the blue mat onto the linoleum. “Dexter, you are in a Korean dojang,” the man said in a low, measured voice. “The center of the dojang, the mat, is the ki, which means ‘spirit.’ You train to learn how to accept the spirit of martial arts, the merging of inner peace and outer violence, when you step on the mat, which means you must respect the spirit that resides over it. That means you never touch the mat wearing footwear, you are prepared for a workout and are not in street clothes unless the lesson calls for them, you get permission to enter and leave the mat from a master, and you bow at the waist facing the center of the mat before you step on the mat and before you step off. Otherwise, go around it. Remember that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now get moving.” Brad trotted around the mat and returned wearing his workout gear in record time.

  “My name is James Ratel,” the man said when Brad returned, “but you don’t have to worry about real names or call signs because I’m ‘sir’ or ‘chief’ to you. I’m a retired U.S. Air Force chief master sergeant, thirty-three-year veteran, last serving as chief master sergeant of Seventh Air Force at Osan Air Base, United Korea. I’m a master parachutist with over two hundred combat jumps in Panama, Iraq, Korea, and Afghanistan as well as dozens of classified locations, completed Army Ranger School, and I’ve got two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. I am also a fifth-degree black belt and master instructor in Cane-Ja, a fifth-degree expert black belt in Krav Maga, and a nationally certified firearms and baton instructor. Here I give private self-defense and firearms lessons, mostly to retired military. I expect one hundred and ten percent each and every second you are in my dojang. Give respect and you will get it in return; slack off and your hour with me will be pure living hell.”

  Ratel retrieved a small device with a neck strap and tossed it to Brad. “Self-defense training takes months, sometimes years, and the danger facing you is immediate,” he said. “So you’re being given this device. Wear it always. It works almost anywhere in the country with a cell signal. If you are in trouble, press the button, and myself or anyone on the team that might be nearby will be able to track you down and assist. More likely, given the adversaries you face, it’ll help us locate your body faster, but maybe we’ll get lucky.” Brad gave Ratel a stunned expression.

  “Now, since this is your first day, you’re probably still hurting from being clubbed on the head, and you came in late, which I excused, we’re just going to do a fitness evaluation today,” Ratel went on. “I want to see your maximum number of pull-ups, crunches, dips, and push-ups until muscle failure, with no more than ninety seconds’ rest in between, and your best time on a two-mile run on the treadmill.” He motioned to the other side of the room where the treadmill and other exercise implements were waiting. “Get moving.”

  Brad trotted over to the exercise area on the other side of the room. He was thankful that he did so much bike riding, so he thought he was in pretty good shape, but it had been a long time since he had been in a gym, and he had never been fond of pull-ups. He started with those and managed six before he couldn’t pull himself up again. The crunches were easy—he was able to do eighty-two of those before having to stop. Dips were fairly new for him. He got between a set of horizontal parallel railings, grasped them, extended his arms, lifted his feet off the linoleum, lowered his body as far as he could, then extended his arms again. He could manage only three of those, and the third was an arm-trembling strain to complete.

  His arms were really talking to him now, so Brad decided to do the running test next, and he got no complaint from Ratel, who was watching and taking no
tes from across the room. Now he was more in his element. He cranked the treadmill up to a nine-minute-mile pace, and found it fairly easy. He used the time to rest his weary arm muscles for the push-ups, which he thought would be easy as well. After the two-mile run, his arms felt pretty good, and he dropped down for push-ups but found he could only manage twenty-eight of them before his arms gave out.

  “Dexter, you wouldn’t have been able to graduate from Air Force basic training with those numbers, let alone the Air Force Academy,” Ratel told him after he trotted around the blue mat and stood before him. “Your upper-body strength is pitiful. I thought you were a high-school football player—you must’ve been a place kicker.” In fact Brad was not just a high-school football place kicker but a punter, and could snap a football twenty yards. “We can work on that. But what bugs me the most about what you just did was your lousy stinking give-a-shit attitude.”

  “Sir?”

  “You were dogging it on the treadmill, Dexter,” Ratel said. “I get you’re a bike rider and in pretty good shape aerobics-wise, but it looked like you were just taking it easy on the treadmill. You set a lousy nine-minute-mile pace—that’s not even an ‘average’ score in basic training. I said I wanted your best time on a two-mile run, not your lackadaisical time. What’s your excuse?”

  “I needed to rest my arms before finishing the tests,” Brad said. “I thought a nine-minute mile was pretty good for starters.” With every word he spoke, the little man’s tiny little eyes got angrier and angrier until they looked as if they were going to pop right out of his head. Brad knew there was only one allowable response: “Sorry, Chief. No excuse.”

  “You’re damned right there’s no excuse, Dexter,” Ratel snarled. “I told you about respect. There’s nothing respectful about only doing things half-assed. You don’t show respect for me, and you sure as hell don’t show it for yourself either. It’s your first day here, and you haven’t showed me one damned thing I can respect you for. You came late, you were not ready to work out, and you took it easy on yourself. You’re not showing me squat, Dexter. One more session like this, and we might as well call this thing off. Get your stuff and get out of my sight.” Brad retrieved his gym bag by the bathroom, and by the time he came back, Ratel was gone.