Higgins Read online

  The second veteran agent was Decker’s opposite. Dark hair, severe eyebrows, no smile. His eyes were also sharp, but they were black—like a shark’s eyes. His movements were choreographed, as if he was forcing every step, every gesture.

  The three younger agents and Decker lined up at the front of the room while the other made his way to the podium. He gripped his fingers over the sides and scanned the group, only pausing momentarily on a few agents here and there. The Surfer. The Woman. Higgins.

  “My name is Agent Zyga.” He looked like he was swallowing poison. “Gentlemen...” he paused awkwardly. “And lady. Welcome to the Elite Interrogators Unit. Folks, you’ve been chosen because we think you just might have what it takes to change the CIA interrogation playbook. The keyword here is might. Just to be clear here. If you think you’ve been offered a new job, let me be blunt. This is a trial run. It will not be easy. It will not be fun. If you’re lucky, you’ll all be going home by the end of the week.”

  Higgins saw Decker’s eyes harden from across the room. The two agency veterans clearly were not on the same page about the direction things were moving.

  “You,” Zyga said, pointing to a lean man in the first row. “Stand up.”

  Lean meant fast, and when the man got to his feet, he did it so suddenly that he nearly toppled his chair over in the process. He wiped his palms on his pants and cracked one knuckle at a time on his left hand, then moved to his right.

  “You,” Zyga said again, pointing to a light-skinned man two rows up. “Stand up.”

  The second man stood slowly. His chest was broad and his arms were huge. He was at least six and a half feet tall. His hooded eyes and permanent smirk made him look like he was constantly on the verge of cracking a joke. But the smile dropped clear off his face at Zyga’s next words.

  “Pack up. Go home.”

  Neither one moved.

  Zyga raised an eyebrow. “Was I unclear?”

  “Sir?” the first man asked.

  “I know you weren’t born yesterday because no one can get that stupid in just twenty-four hours. Maybe you’re just hard of hearing, in which case, you’re both surely unfit for duty. Go. Home.” Zyga’s voice was dangerously low.

  The two men exchanged a look and gathered their belongings, slipping out of the room as quietly as they could, visibly humbled by the dismissal. Everyone else was dead silent.

  Zyga’s smile was not reassuring. “Any question when I tell you those two are the lucky ones? Let’s begin.”

  Chapter Three

  Zyga’s gaze landed on the woman first, and then Higgins. “Now, I realize not all of you are agents of the Central Intelligence Agency. Regardless, you will conduct yourselves in a manner befitting duly authorized protectors of our great country. And let me make one thing clear: There will be no special treatment. No coddling. Furthermore, you will do what is asked of you and you will not question it. We tell you to scrub a toilet, you’d better believe we are doing it in the name of national security. And you will work without complaint. In the end, only a handful will be left standing. They will be the winners. If I’m the only one left, I win.”

  Zyga came around the podium now and clasped his hands behind his back, walking the width of the room. There was a glint in his eye.

  “Our objective over the next several weeks is to find out how to improve our interrogation efforts.” He spat out the last words like he’d eaten a bad oyster, air-quoting the word improve. “As it turns out, the old ways aren’t media-friendly.” Air quotes again. “A contingency of folks tends to get their panties in a bunch when the bad guys aren’t given dinner on a silver platter and a kiss on the forehead before bedtime. It’s our job to find a way to make that contingency happy and still get our job done. Looking around the room, I must say I don’t have high hopes.”

  Higgins recognized the scare tactic, but he still had to work not to squirm in his seat. No one liked change, least of all Zyga, it seemed. His age and the way he was always looking down his nose told Higgins all he needed to know. Career agent. Seasoned field tactician. No-bullshit kind of guy. It was men like him who used to bully Higgins for using his brain instead of his brawn.

  But Zyga had to be quick and cunning, too, or else he wouldn’t be here. He may have been part of the old guard that preferred hard work and determination, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t perfectly capable of doing what Higgins did. OCUP, he called it. Observe. Calculate. Understand. Predict.

  “Every person in this room was either chosen by myself or Agent Decker here.” Zyga gestured loosely behind him, not bothering to give Decker a second more in the spotlight than necessary. “Each of you has a special skill that caught our attention. Each of you will bring your own method to the program. It is your job to convince us your way is the best way. If you don’t, you go scurrying back to whatever hayfield we found you in. Simple as that.”

  Higgins glanced around the room, landing on a person here or there. Most of the candidates were young but looked hardened. Only a few were outwardly anxious. A pale man in glasses and slicked back hair. Another one with a shock of red hair and a splash of freckles across his nose. Higgins knew they’d be the first to go. How? He just did.

  The woman across from him caught his attention again. Ram-rod straight in her chair, staring ahead. She didn’t watch Zyga as he paced at the front of the room, but rather watched around him. Higgins pegged her as someone after his own heart. Some entities are better known by what they displace as they move, like underwater anomalies stirring the scum on the surface of a lake. She was reading the room in this manner, and learning about Zyga in the process. As he watched her, she suddenly turned her head to the side and locked eyes with him. It was a challenging look, but Higgins caught the slightest glimpse of fear in her eyes. He recognized it instantly. She felt as out of place as he did. He responded with a slight smile.

  “Mr. Alvin Higgins.” Zyga’s voice boomed around the room. Higgins whipped his head back around. “I’m not sure which attic trunk Agent Decker pulled you out of, but I would think you’ve seen a woman once or twice in your life, no?”

  The room laughed, but not loudly enough that they didn’t hear Higgins’s retort. “Doctor.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s Doctor Alvin Higgins. I have two PhDs,” Higgins paused for a moment and then remembered to add, “sir.”

  “That must come in handy,” snarled Zyga. “I guess when you got some terrorist rat strapped to a table in the IR, it must be really effective to flash one or both your doctoral theses in his face. Let me ask you a question, doc. Do you think two PhDs make you twice as qualified as your colleagues?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Oh good, because neither do I. Which leaves me with the question of why you brought up that insignificant little detail in the first place.” Zyga turned back toward the room at large. “In fact, as far as I’m concerned, you are all underqualified for this program. The powers that be are spending a lot of money to get you up to speed in a very short time. There will be no excuses, and there will be no special treatment. Not even for you, York.”

  “Understood, sir,” the woman replied, in a voice half an octave deeper than Higgins expected. It was not unpleasant. It was rather like a single note from the upper register of a cello. She glanced once more at Higgins, her lips pursed, as if to tell him she blamed him for the exchange. Higgins didn’t even have time to give her an apologetic grimace before she turned away.

  “Agent Decker and I will be overseeing the program from a distance. We have a staff of senior agents who will be your mentors for the duration of the pilot program. They have complete autonomy here. You will treat their instructions as if they are coming directly from me. This is Spencer, Kinkaid, and Meyers.”

  Zyga introduced them left to right. Spencer was lean and serious, with short blond hair. Kinkaid had a pinched face and looked like a sculpture of boredom itself. Meyers was short and stocky.

  “Agent Decker will now divide
you up into groups,” Zyga continued. “This will be your team going forward. It shouldn’t take long to whittle you down.” He flashed a tainted smile. “Welcome to the NFL, folks.”

  Decker stepped forward, a folded piece of paper in his hand. “These teams are in no particular order. You have been grouped at random. You’ll complete the tasks given to you as quickly and as efficiently as possible. If you cannot work within your team’s dynamics, you will be sent home, plain and simple. Bluntly put, if you can’t be a team player, you can’t play on our team.”

  Decker’s instructions were as clear as Zyga’s, but his tone instilled more respect than fear, like a popular tenured professor. Higgins didn’t know Decker well, but he was much more inspired to follow his lead than Zyga’s. Higgins had never understood why people thought a show of power was the only way to get something done. Often it revealed a lack of confidence, a showy display of amped-up fury as a cover-up for impotence. Besides, what was that phrase about flies and honey?

  Decker began to read off names in groups of three. There would be six teams total, and it did indeed seem as though they were selected at random. The man with the slicked back hair paired up with the Watcher, along with a third, burly man with nearly no neck. The redhaired man and York, the woman, were on the same team as a tall, thin man with a bushy moustache.

  By the time Higgins’s name was called, he had a gut feeling he knew exactly who would be on his team.

  “Higgins,” Decker called out. “Johnson. Abrams.”

  Johnson was in fact the Surfer while Abrams was a wiry man with copper skin and shaggy black hair. The three men stood up when their names were called and two of the men meandered to the back of the room. Johnson, the Surfer, gave Higgins a dismissive look while Abrams shook both their hands enthusiastically.

  “Everyone calls me Abe. What should I call y’all?” His Southern accent came straight out of a can. Higgins felt like he was putting on a show. Southern charmers were diffusing, and it was likely he’d used this on many women over the years. He certainly had the looks for it.

  “Higgins is fine for me.” Abrams hadn’t let go of his hand yet, and he was beginning to feel nauseous from the vigorous handshake.

  “Johnson.” His voice was clipped, and he wasn’t meeting either one of their eyes. He wasn’t happy with his teammates, it seemed.

  Zyga’s voice boomed from the front of the room. “Your first task begins tomorrow at 0600, sharp. You will meet here for your instructions. If you’re late, you’re out. Dismissed.”

  Chapter Four

  Higgins awoke in his room at 0500 with giddy anticipation. He stretched and looked out the window. The sun struck the rolling lawn of the complex and sent a splash of gold across its peak contours. He then turned to see that a postcard had been slipped under his door sometime during the night. He picked it up. It was a neatly-printed set of instructions:

  You WILL

  1. Make punctuality a priority.

  2. Speak with no team instructors other than your own during assignment hours. Likewise, with teammates. Mealtimes will provide plenty of time for socialization.

  3. Observe a strict rule of silence regarding parties outside the agency.

  4. Observe curfew.

  5. Avoid alcohol and other intoxicants.

  Violations of any of the above WILL result in immediate action.

  Immediate action. Interesting choice of words. No doubt a touch of Zyga’s special flair. The ambiguity had to be intentional. Action could mean termination from the program. Or it could mean something else. Discipline. Punishment. Zyga seemed like the kind of guy who’d make you shave and rinse your razor with bleach, then send you back into the foxhole just to watch you break, and this before sending you marching out in shame with your belongings in a scarf tied to a pole over your shoulder.

  This did nothing to deter his enthusiasm. He was perfectly fine with the notion that each person must rely on his or her own set of skills to get through the program. If there was a sufficient stick behind each one, and a more-than-sufficient carrot in front, so be it.

  In the shower, he played a game of character assessment that was his favorite mental pastime. He ran down the list, picturing each one in his head. Johnson was a hothead. That wasn’t up for debate. Higgins would need to play his cards right so he wouldn’t become more of a target than he already was. That meant giving Johnson just enough power to feel like he was in control without letting him steal the spotlight. It wasn’t unlike dealing with psychopaths. If you could convince a psychopath that doing your bidding was worth more to him than it was to you, you’d really have a valuable team member – one who’d go above and beyond to fulfill what he believed was his own will. Not that Johnson was a psychopath. Higgins had found out long ago that the most valuable people skills one could possess were those that could be applied to a variety of types.

  Next one down was Abrams. It would only be a matter of time before that one found himself out of the program. He talked too much, and that would grate on someone’s nerves sooner rather than later. Probably Zyga’s. When it came to potential partners, if it was a toss-up between Abrams and Johnson, he’d take Abrams all the way.

  When Higgins reached the cafeteria, it was already buzzing with activity, and almost no spots were open by the time he got through the line. He chose a seat with his back to the wall. He spotted Abrams in the middle of a table regaling others with some grand tale of daring and adventure. The group laughed raucously, and Abrams let a sly smile cross his face. There was only one other candidate in the group, but already Abrams had roped him into his regular crew, leaning once in a while to chat in the other man’s ear. This was the only time when candidates weren’t separated from each other or under supervision, and Abrams was already taking full advantage of the opportunity.

  A tray landed in front of Higgins, spraying bits of egg across the table. Johnson loomed for a moment before sitting down and shoving an entire piece of bacon in his mouth. He said nothing for a full five minutes. He just sat there, eating and staring. It was an obvious intimidation tactic, one falling just short of a simian pounding on its chest. The man didn’t have a subtle bone in his body.

  When Higgins didn’t respond, or even look outwardly concerned, Johnson sucked food from his teeth and said, “How long do you think you’re going to last, Higgins?”

  “I couldn’t possibly know that.”

  “How ‘bout a ballpark guess?”

  Higgins chewed thoughtfully on a piece of sliced ham. “I’ll probably be in the top five, perhaps the top three. But there are a lot of factors to consider, number one is whether or not we’re graded fairly.”

  Johnson barked out a laugh that turned heads. “Top five? Tell me, what color is the sky in your world?”

  “You disagree, I guess.”

  “Good guess, Sherlock.” Johnson threw down his toast and leaned in across the table. “Let me give you a piece of advice, Higgins. Don’t try to fix what ain’t broke.”

  “Oh, it’s broken.” Higgins traded his fork for a glass of apple juice. “That’s why the EIU was initiated in the first place. The agency is looking for a fresh perspective.”

  “And you think you’re that perspective?”

  “We’ll find out.”

  Johnson shoved the rest of his eggs in his mouth. “Here’s a piece of free advice, Higgins. Don’t get in my way. You won’t come out the other end looking like a hero.” He peered over his shoulder, and both of their gazes landed on York. Johnson turned back with a derisive smirk. “And don’t assume a Top Five pick will turn you into a chick magnet.”

  Higgins let the dig roll off his back. “I’ll bear that in mind, thank you.”

  Johnson drank his orange juice in one go, belched heartily, and stood to leave. He checked his watch before glancing back at Higgins. “Don’t be late. I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let my team be the first to have someone sent home. Got it?”

  Higgins held up his apple juice in mock toast.
“Sure thing, Sarge. Cheers.” Johnson left without giving him a second glance.

  The cafeteria was nearly at full capacity by the time Higgins finished breakfast, his stomach still roiling from the confrontation. He may have played it cool while they were talking, but it wasn’t lost on him that Johnson and most of the others actually had experience in this field. He already felt like he was behind everyone else. The doubt was a foreign concept and as cold as a corpse when it coursed through him.

  As soon as he stood up, two agents swooped in to take his place and began shoveling food into their mouths. One was the redhaired man from yesterday. He looked weary and disheveled, like he had overslept, or hadn’t slept at all.

  Higgins had a whole ten minutes to spare by the time he made it back to the classroom. About half the class was there, including York, who sat in the same spot as yesterday, looking just as studiously cool as before. He tried to catch her eye as he made his way to his seat, but she was determined not to pay him any mind.

  Abrams led the way into the room with Johnson on his heels, presumably looking annoyed at having had his ear chewed off for the entire walk over. Immediately Abrams edged to the back of the room and sat next to Higgins with a cheery smile on his face. Johnson was forced to follow suit in order to be seated with his teammates, but he didn’t look happy about it.

  Zyga, Decker, and the three trainers strode into the room next. Zyga shut the door behind them. Two candidates were caught on the other side, looking confused and angry.

  One of them was the red-haired man from earlier, and even though Higgins couldn’t hear what he said, a single glance at the clock gave him a pretty good guess. There were still two minutes left.