Chapter 7 #2
After decades in the field, he knows his brain picks up thousands of minute signals subconsciously and processes them instinctively. His gut is never wrong. And while his gut is currently telling him to be on high alert because he’s being watched, it’s also telling him he’s not in any danger.
He grins to himself and relaxes back into the couch. The little Gremlin is finally seeking him out. He missed her practice fight with Bill because he was on duty overseeing the men’s training program, but he heard she took him down in only a few minutes.
He’d wondered how long it would take her. For the past few weeks, she’s been learning evasive maneuvers and asymmetric warfare tactics from Bill and Phoenix.
Shade—heaven help him—has been teaching her security and situational awareness.
They used to be able to sneak up on her anytime.
Now it’s like she has eyes in the back of her head.
He’s worked with hundreds of operatives over the years, and even he’s impressed by how quickly she’s picked up the skills.
And Hawk, in his seemingly hands-off approach, has been teaching her stealth and surveillance.
Not by lecturing or demonstrating techniques—just making it obvious to her each time she gives herself away and making her figure it out for herself.
It’s maybe the most challenging way to learn something—by constant failure—but it will also give her the best lessons and greatest chances of getting it right. Eventually.
Three weeks ago, when they’d started training her on the sly, Ruger had decided to oversee her training in weapons handling and munitions.
He can still teach her a lot, but much of it is brute-force techniques.
So far, she’s been learning to be the silent blade between the ribs.
What he’s been waiting to teach her is how to be the shock-and-awe campaign.
Some jobs call for precision and completing the task without anyone knowing it’s done. Other jobs require firepower and a grand display of superior strength. He grins to himself, hoping this means she’s ready for that training.
“Have a seat, Gremlin,” he says, a fraction of a second before he feels the cold barrel of a gun pressed to the back of his head.
She’s getting good. He’ll give her that.
He didn’t even hear her open the door or sneak across the floor, which means she’s watched enough to know to avoid the squeaking board just inside the doorway.
The board he intentionally loosened to act as a subtle doorbell, announcing whenever someone enters the building.
He hears her let out a deep sigh of frustration and feels the gun being lowered.
“How?” Ulayna complains as she rounds the couch and plops down next to him.
He shrugs because he doesn’t have a good answer for her. She’s had weeks of training while he’s had decades of real-world practice.
“You didn’t actually do anything wrong,” he tells her. “You obviously greased the hinges on the door. You know to avoid the squeaking board. You’re not wearing any perfume that would give you away. And you were as quiet as a mouse.”
“Then how did you know I was there? And how did you know it was me?”
“Instinct.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and pouts. “How am I ever going to sneak up on Hawk if you all have such good instincts that you know I’m coming, even when I do everything perfectly?”
Ruger shrugs again. “You’ll need to find the right opportunity.
” He gestures toward the TV. “Obviously, the soccer game wasn’t enough of a distraction for me.
I wasn’t vulnerable. You need to find—or orchestrate—a time when Hawk is vulnerable.
A time when he either has his guard down, or he’s too distracted to notice you. ”
He turns to look at her seriously. “And that goes for all operatives. You’re good.
I can’t believe how good you are after only a few weeks of training.
But you’re no match for someone with decades of experience.
If you’re going up against someone with the level of training that our team has, you need to set yourself up for success.
Engineer a setting where you can win. Even the playing field. ”
Ulayna nods, and he can see the wheels turning in her mind, thinking through possibilities. “Even the playing field,” she murmurs. “I can do that. Somehow.”
She smiles at him, and there’s a devious glint in her eye. Ruger suddenly feels bad for Hawk because when Ulayna finally gets him, it’s going to be epic.
They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching the soccer game. Ruger waits, patient as a monk, because he knows she didn’t just come here to practice sneaking up on him.
After a few minutes, Ulayna starts fidgeting in her seat. She bites her nails—a nervous tell that she’ll need to learn to suppress.
Finally, she asks, “You’re good at blowing stuff up, right?”
Ruger grins. “Buildings, cars…” His smile turns into a mischievous smirk. “Women’s skirts.”
Ulayna narrows her eyes at him and punches him lightly on the shoulder.
He has fun teasing her, but their relationship is more like that of siblings.
It’s clear as day to anyone who cares to look that she and Alexi have the hots for each other.
It’s only a matter of time before they’re making their own kind of explosions.
For the life of him, he can’t figure out why they don’t get to it already.
“Why do you ask? What do you need to blow up?”
“I don’t need to blow it up, exactly. Maybe just shock someone.” She tucks her feet up under her and turns to face him.
Respecting her, he pulls his focus from the TV and gives her his full attention.
Ulayna sighs in defeat, then admits, “Shade keeps getting into my bedroom at night. No matter what I do, he’s able to pick the lock on either the main door or the balcony door.
I can shove furniture against the doors, but that’s a pain in the ass.
And I can set up systems that alert me when he enters, but that doesn’t keep him from getting in.
What I need is a booby trap that teaches him my room is off-limits.
I don’t want to kill him, obviously. But I’d like to teach him a lesson. ”
Ruger’s eyebrows meet his hairline at her audacity. She’s got balls—figuratively speaking—and he likes it.
“Is it possible to electrify a door handle?” she asks. “I figured that would give him one hell of a shock, maybe knock him out, but it wouldn’t damage anything.”
“Oh, girl. You are wicked.” He grins.
Ruger thinks about the possibilities for a few minutes before finally answering her.
“It could be done a few different ways. But it’s a little tricky.
You’ll need to set it up so you don’t accidentally shock yourself, rig it so that he can’t see it beforehand, and wire it so it gives him a nasty shock but doesn’t kill him. ”
“Okay… How do I do all that?”
“First of all, if he’s wearing tactical, rubber-soled boots—which he usually is—he won’t feel a thing because the boots are too well insulated. But if you wet the floor in front of the door with just a little salt water, the current will move right through him. That’s problem number one.
“Problem number two is that with standard household current, it’s not the volts that get ya, it’s the amps.
If you rig something straight from a standard electrical socket to a door handle, when he touches it, his muscles will contract and seize up around the door handle.
He won’t be able to let go. After just a few seconds, his heart could go into ventricular fibrillation, potentially killing him. ”
Ulayna grimaces. “I feel like I should probably avoid that.”
He chuckles, loving her ruthlessness. “You can wire a light bulb in series with the wire. It will act as a resistor because the electricity has to pass through the bulb’s filament first. If you do that, he’ll get a nasty shock, but it won’t kill him.”
She grins. “How bad of a shock?”
Ruger tips his head side to side, thinking. “If he steps in the salt water, which is a good conductor, the shock would be pretty nasty. It’ll probably scare the shit out of him and make his arm go numb for several hours. He’d definitely be dazed, giving you time to issue a counterattack.”
“Let’s do it,” Ulayna says. There’s a viciousness in her eyes that Ruger finds quite endearing. “Do we need any kind of special supplies?”
“Nah,” Ruger says. “We can get everything we need around here. We just need an electrical cord, duct tape, wire cutters, and a regular incandescent light bulb.”
Ruger climbs to his feet and pulls her up off the couch with him. “Come on, Gremlin,” he says. “Let’s go make you a booby-trap Shade is not likely to forget in this lifetime.”
—
Feeling restless, Ulayna paces in her bedroom. With Alexi gone, she doesn’t have dinner plans to look forward to, and she’s getting a little bored. She’s not used to having so much autonomy over her time, and she doesn’t really know what to do with it.
She was up early, practicing her combat skills with Bill and Phoenix. But they could only give her a couple of hours of their time because they needed to run Alexi’s men through a training drill.
She’d thought that making the booby-trap for Shade would take the rest of the day. But it only took an hour for Ruger to round up all the supplies they needed and teach her how to set it up.
It’s barely two in the afternoon, and she has no idea what to do with the rest of her day.
She could steal another one of Alexi’s cars and go for a drive.
Shaking her head, she discards the idea. She’d been able to charm her way past the security guard at the front gate a few times, but after Alexi caught her last week, he’d given specific orders that she was not allowed to go driving without him.
She flops down on her bed with a sigh. Running through ideas in her mind, she keeps coming back to her problem with Hawk. It’s been weeks, and she’s no closer to discovering how he might be vulnerable. The challenge nags at her.