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Those Held Accountable
Chapter 1: Awakening
Captain Bill Forest could kill for a drink. Realizing he was thirsty, he started to wake up
from his favorite brown leather chair in his calm Florida cot’s living room. Only there was one
thing. Bill couldn’t move his wrists from the armrests and his ankles seemed to be locking him in
his sitting position. Now that he was waking up a little more, he found he wasn’t in his favorite
chair. Didn’t even resemble it as his eyes cleared up. The leather upholstery shifts and contorts
before his eyes into a hard splintering wood with nylon straps restraining his joints.
He also found he wasn’t in his living room either. The white walls adorned with
memorable pictures of his deceased wife and kid were rapidly melting into black concrete slabs
with cracks and something he could swear was blood. His 30 inch plasma was replaced by a
projection screen showing a man’s head staring at him with a blank indifferent look on his face
flickering sporadically. On top of the projector sat a regular home camera and the wires that
stuck out of it ran under the chair and into the unknown back.
Bill’s neck hurt because of the injection point his captors had sedated him through and
was still groggy from the drugs. He fought back bile as he spoke “Where… where am… the fuck
am I?”
With no reply he tried again, only louder “hey. HEY! Where the fuck am I?”
This time a screech of feedback came from a speaker in one of the corners as someone
picked it up to talk. Whoever it was tapped the microphone twice, blew into it, and finally asked
in an enormously deep voice, “Do you know this man?”
“I don’t know who the fuck you are. I can’t see you.” came Bill’s fast retort.
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Suddenly a rip of electricity coursed through this spine making him cry out in pain. The
shock only lasted for a second but Bill convulsed for almost a minute before he slumped back
into the chair. Breathing hard and panting loudly, he said under his breath “Can’t take a joke,
huh?”
The speaker came on again “One more like that and I’ll fry every nerve in your body.
Again, do you know this man?”
It was hard to focus on the image on the projector but he finally managed to make out the
unshaven scruff, broken nose, and short brown hair of his former friend Nicholas Bandera. The
small features of the Puerto Rican bleeding into his vision, Bill recognized him only when he
could make out the sullen hazel eyes. Bill tried to remember the last time he’d seen the man but
all he could remember was a burning house, two bloodied bodies on a floor, and rage; pure
unbridled, world-destroying rage. Bill didn’t want to give his captives anything confidential and
he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them anything they didn’t know yet. So he decided to relay
such basic information that a twelve-year-old could’ve deduced it by simply looking at the
picture on the screen.
“Yah, I know him,” replied Bill, “Nicholas Bandera, 41 years old, 4 foot 7, and a great
mechanic.”
“And? We know that’s not all of it.” provoked the voice.
Bill, again, defied them, “That’s all classified dumbass. You’ll have to do a hell of a lot
better than that. I don’t negotiate with terrorists or idiot kidnappers like yourselves. Now how
about you tell me who you are and where the fuck I…”
Another shock forced another shout of pain and another fit of convulsing. It wasn’t the
electricity that hurt, it was the tension the muscles put on themselves due to the overstimulation
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that caused the intense pain. Sweat began to bead all over his body as Bill fought to keep his
consciousness and his vision faded in and out again.
“I won’t ask again,” explained the voice slowly, “who is this man. We need all
documentation. And don’t try my patience.”
Bill panted between the items on his list of classified documentation on his former squad
mate, “ Mechanics Expert for the 23rd division Spec-ops unit of the U.S. Navy Seals, callsign
Echo-Echo-Nine-Five, bit of an asshole, dishonorably discharged for misconduct on the corp.,
escaped from Colorado Territorial correctional facility on death row, current status…” Bill
paused, “unknown.”
“You mean K.I.A. as of 1300 hours, May 30th 2034. We know that you killed them all.
Nobody survived the base.”
That made Bill angry. Not that they knew he killed Bandera, no, he was happy about that.
Bill was angry at the blame thrust upon him. He wasn’t responsible for Bandera’s men turning
on each other. Bandera’s uprising rose up against itself because he was a shitty leader not
because Bill had killed someone other than the man he was there to kill. The bullets were flying
way before Bill infiltrated the fortress and they were still flying when he exfilled. He shot one
bullet in that Op and the carnage that was blamed on him caused by the negligence of another
fueled his rage to the point where he believed he could rip out of the chair that so defiantly held
him in place.
“You don’t think he deserved it?” Bill yelled at the speaker, “That son-of-a-bitch killed
thousands, THOUSANDS! And somehow I’m the one that’s wrong for killing one man?”
“You know damn well you didn’t kill just one man. We also never said Bandera was
right,” placated the bodiless noise, “we simply know you eliminated him and his anarchistic
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army. What we need to know is how you did it. Bandera was holed up in a heavily fortified
fortress for 9 months and we were unable to so much as make a dent in his fortifications. We
need to know how you, an old , worn out war hero, slipped in and out of that hell hole without so
much as making a fucking dog bark. We need to know the whole story and whoever helped you
do this. Bandera deserved to die but having a lethal weapon like you on the streets of the
motherland does not make for a comforting thought.”
“Wait,” Bill was piecing things little by little as the drugs released their grip on his brain,
“9 months? When I infiltrated Bandera’s stronghold there were only Russian forces outside
shelling the walls. And you said ‘motherland’ and the only nationality that uses that term, to my
knowledge, are the Ruskies. So are you telling me I’m still in fucking Russia? I remember the
plane landing in New York damn it!” Bill had no idea if his little “I found you out” ruse was
going to work but by the extended silence he could tell he had hit some kind of nerve.
Chapter 2: Objectives, Assignments, and Government Bastards
“Why, hello President of Russia, Mr. Nickoli Greskov,” said Bill with obvious sarcasm,
“and might I say what a lovely limo! Is this real Corinthian leather?”
President Greskov was a heavily built man who large muscular shoulders were equalized
by an enormous beer-belly. He had a large Rasputin-esque beard moving as if alive each of his
words and the man’s eyes showed that his heavy smoking did little to alleviate the whole
countries problems that were almost literally on the man’s shoulders.
Having the cuffs taken off before he was pushed into the limo was the only comfort that
the Russians allowed him. His bag full of equipment left over from the assassination was in the
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trunk, inaccessible from the car, and there were six of the black suited guards in full armor
packed in between him and the man in the five thousand dollar suit; two were next to bill on
either side as was Greskov’s and the last two were sitting on the long seat across from a minibar. When they forced Bill into the stretched car, he made note of all of the luxuries that the
President was so accustomed to. The tinted sunroof that could easily have been used by an
amateur sniper with the most primitive of resonance imaging, the windows that wouldn’t have
stood up to even tampered five millimeter rifle rounds, the windshield that he was sure would
give to just one three-inch buckshot, and finally the unreasonably high suspension that could roll
over a ballistic missile like a common IED mine. Yah, the veteran thought, the price of luxury.
“So nice of you to think so my American friend. We always pay attention to detail,” the
Russian President returned the same salty tone.
“Tell me, how many flaws have you observed in our operation so far? A real American
tactician like yourself should have noticed a few of them by now, eh?”
“A real tactician never tells his enemy what he’s doing wrong, Mr. President.”
“But we are not enemies,” Greskov cocked an eyebrow, “are we Mr. Forest?”
Bill’s face became scornful towards the president, “Let me jab you with some drugs,
kidnap you, and pump electricity into your spine until you need a pacemaker and then come talk
to me about friendship.”
Greskov’s cocky look died as the soldiers around him, at least the ones that spoke a little
English, fiddled with their guns and shifted uneasily in their seats. The President muttered
something in Russian that calmed them down a bit, but not by much.
“I am truly sorry if we caused you any pain,” said Greskov in feigned sincerity, “you see,
with the utter destruction you left in the stronghold, we were uncertain that you were completely,
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ahh… how you say… sane? We needed to assess whether your mind was in working condition
where you could not hurt people.”
Bill understood the President’s use of caution, as ungrounded as it was, and he fiddled
with the small part of the goatee under his lip as he calculated the exact number of stupid
mistakes that could’ve cost many Russian lives.
“Thirty-two,” Bill blurted out, still in his thinking pose.
“What?” Greskov was first surprised at the answer and then at the number as Bill stared
straight at the President.
“Thirty-two idiotic mistakes with the procedure in which I was captured. First off,” Bill
counted on his fingers for all to see, “I was not bagged on the way here so I know exactly where
I am. Second, these soldiers are so bunched up in here that I could take them all out with one
bullet. Third, the cuffs should’ve been taken off of me after I was in the car, and this limo, by the
way, is an assassins wet dream, just to name a few.”
“I can see that we underestimated your skills,” said a now flat faced President as he
poured himself a glass of vodka from a smoky and expensive looking bottle that was closest to
him on the mini-bar, “though, I guess the American military does not teach respect. Even of the
simplest kind.”
“With all due respect, Greskov,” said Bill in a matter-of-fact voice, “this whole time I
could’ve killed every single person in this limo and I’dve been to France by now. I think not
killing you is courtesy enough, ok?”
“Enough with the formalities,” cut the President abruptly, waving his free hand, “do you
know why you are here?”
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“Are we talking about normal business here,” Bill inquired, “or am I now your personal
lap-dog? ‘Cause I don’t like being caged.”
“No. I am… how to put it…” Greskov leaned to the soldier on his right and spoke in
Russian for a bit, “Ah, investing in your new Private Military Corporation, or bounty hunting
company whichever you prefer.”
Bill almost got to complaining but Greskov broke him off, “Now, I am hiring you to
assassinate a high value target for me so you will, of course, be compensated. The money will be
wired to the account or accounts of your choice and as a bonus we will continue to track down
the people you want to kill for your own reasons.”
Bill’s eyes shot wide, “What do you know about that?”
Greskov found his leverage and his smile returned, “We have recently come into a rather
large file containing information on four individuals. The kind of information that is only
recorded for assassinations.”
Bill was seething at the thought that the government had gone through his base of
operations. It had taken him a long time to compile all of that information and losing it now was
not in the game plan.
Bill growled at the president through gritted teeth, “If you value your life you will return
those to me.”
The Presidents smile was quickly replaced by an angry sneer and barked, “And if you
value your life you will do as I say! It is as simple as a call to my file keeper to send all of that
work into the nearest fire.” Greskov let that sink for a moment before continuing, “Now, should
you be found out or captured the Russian government will deny any and all participation or
accountability. We are hiring you, not enlisting you. Understand?
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“What I understand is that you’re blackmailing me into doing your dirty work.”
“Good!” resigned the president. Greskov drank the whole glass of vodka in one quick
motion. Setting the glass down on the mini-bar, he reached over the guard to his right to retrieve
a large brown folder that had a big red stamp along both sides of it with Russian letters. Bill
could only guess that it said “Confidential” or “Classified”.
“So, here is the dossier on the team you will be working with and inside you will find…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa there partner.” Bill cut him off, clenching his eyes and shaking his
head, “I work alone. Anyone that tries to help only gets in my way. Just tell these people to back
off and let me do my job.”
“They are the best in their professions,” Greskov assured with raised eyebrows, “and I
think you will find their talents to be a bit more than helpful on the road ahead. As I was saying,
you will find the information on your first target inside the file. We heed him dead, but making it
look like an accident would be preferable and beneficial to both of us.” Greskov threw the file on
the floor in front of Bill’s feet.
A kind of Mexican standoff the ensued as the president waited for the old, yet chiseled
veteran to pick up the dossier. With both men sizing the other up, the silence was only broken by
the occasional bump in the road or cough of a soldier.
Greskov sneezed.
Bill took this opportunity to quickly look away from the president and swipe up the
dossier in one quick motion before the man recovered.
Greskov wiped his nose with a red handkerchief and placed it back in his right jacket
pocket. ”Now that we are on the same terms, I would like to thank you in advance for what you
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are doing for the Russian government and people,” Greskov snidely remarked. “Don’t screw it
up.”
“Hey, listen…” began Bill in a louder tone. He started to move up in his seat to make
better eye contact with the president but one soldier, a big slack-jaw like the rest of them, went to
butt him back with the stock of his AK. Bill was faster than that. He grabbed the fold out stock
and blasted his hand through the hinges that held it in place. Before anyone could register the
scene that was unfolding Bill swung the twisted metal and hit the soldier square in the face. The
man’s nose split like a pistachio as the blood could be seen through the black mask that covered
half his face. Bill yet again raised the weapon to strike but a fury of clicking and Russian
plosives stopped him. Bill instantly froze and dropped the stock on top of the still bleeding and
swearing Russian and slowly turned back to his original seating position facing a now smirking
Greskov.
“So,” the president hissed past the guns pointing at Bill from all directions, “Do we have
a deal, American?”
*****
Bill paced his cot in warehouse 4-I on a cell phone that the president had packed in the
dossier. The Russian government was nice enough to give him the warehouse to start his
company but not nice enough to clean their shit out of before they left. The huge walk-in was
populated with only a few desks and the bottom half of an ancient decommissioned Abrams tank
in the back right corner. The floor was a polished concrete but you could barely see it through
the litter of empty plastic Smirnoff bottles and other junk that was lying around.; chairs of all
sized were thrown about, almost all of them missing one or more legs, and there was a towering
pile of garbage bags in the top left corner of the main room. There were three doors on the left
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and right walls and they all led to equally filthy areas. The first door on the left wall, if you could
get a battering ram to open it, led to the kitchen where stains governed the room from ceiling to
floor. All of the tables were broken by a clean break through the middle and the red bar stools
had giant rips in their red upholstery. The two doors next to it were both bunks for soldiers but
Bill chose the first one on the right because the mattresses there didn’t have piss, shit, and vomit
stains on them. The second door on the right was an empty room save for only a large green
filing cabinet with nothing inside it and four brooms. The only other thing Bill could find in the
room was a small Makarov pistol, with a clip loaded into it, taped to the back of the cabinet. The
final door on the right was completely flush with the wall and painted to blend in with it. Bill
would’ve passed right by it had the door been fitted correctly and not had a thin black strip
framing it. Bill found no way to open it, no door handle or slot and it wouldn’t budge no matter
how hard he tried to pry it, but looking at the utter pigsty that expanded before him he decided he
had enough work to do.
Bill paced again and kicked his green digital-camo backpack before throwing it back onto
the bed. Bill had only packed the essentials or the trip. A few changes of clothing, a computer,
toothbrush without toothpaste, and his trusty .352 Magnum complete with a scorched handle and
shiny top.
“And on top of it all I’ve got to babysit all of these fucking kids!” Bill vented into his old
friend, the air force pilot that got him into Russia, through the flip-up cell phone. It had taken
Bill three minutes and the card that came with the phone said it only had a five minute charge.
“I mean, yah I’m getting some minor compensation but what the hell are they getting,
huh? A pat on the back and a bottle of expired vodka to take home to the folks at the prison? The
fuck is that!? Every single one of these kids has been discharged from an army and the shit
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they’ve done should’ve landed them right in the chair! They’re not even from the same country
or Christ’s sake!” Bill let out a sigh after the monologue. Bill had exaggerated through his
frustration as minor compensation was about 300 thousand dollars wired to multiple accounts
and, although it was about 200 thousand less than the Special Forces were paying him, he
accepted because of the information the Russians stole from him.
“Well I told ya,” said his southern friend through the phone, “‘fore I dropped ya off that
they wasn’t gonna be happy to see ya. ‘specially after you killed the dude you said you was
gonna kill. So don’t gimme that “poor me” sop story bullshit. If you wanna come back you
gonna haveta book yer own flight, man.”
“Actually Dennis, they asked me to get my own pilot, the cheap bastards. So I was
thinking…”
“Oh, FUCK yah!” cut the redneck so loudly that Bill had to pull the phone from his head,
“Any chance to get my wings back I’ll gladly take. I’ll get my bird back from the base, fix ‘er up
a little, get down there and…”
“Dennis, slow down. I think you should take commercial for this one, they sent the ticket
over already anyway. It should be in your mailbox by tomorrow and there’s a runway not far
from here. I’ll have you picked up there and then we can talk birds. This phone only has like a
minute left on it and I gotta call one more person. That alright with you?”
“You got it man. We like brothers, you and me. Gotta stick…”
“AAAGH, Fuck!” A small detonation and a puff of smoke blinded Bill and temporarily
deafened him in one ear as the timed detonation of the phones insides went off. Coughing and
waving the phone in the air to clear the smoke, Bill regained his hearing and through the phone
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straight through the doorway yelling “Russian assholes!” The phone hit a chair and the two
pieces of the flip out split in two.
Damn it, thought Bill, finally got through to the guy and I couldn’t even talk to him for
two fucking minutes. Bill sighed again, shook his head, and resigned to walk out of his room and
grab the four brooms from next door. He set them leaning on the wall in front of the room and
continued to sweep the first corner of the room into a neat pile and then, grabbing a loose piece
of cardboard and an empty garbage bag, scooped the refuse into the black void. The empty clunk
of the plastic alcohol bottles reminded him of his friend Dennis again.
Dennis Leroy Dale was a true southern redneck and was proud of it. Always fascinated
by planes he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and quickly rose the ranks as one of the best pilots in
the whole Force. He also was the biggest drunk. His fancy flying and “no-holds-barred”
approach to his tactics caught the attention of the government and he was soon re-stationed with
Bills unit. They quickly became best friends. However, though the pay got better, Dennis’
drinking did not. Before every mission Dennis could be found with a bottle of whiskey in hand
and ready to fly into enemy airspace as soon as you could wake him up from wherever he had
decided to pass put the night before. Nobody liked the fact that Dennis flew drunk but nobody
complained because he flew great when he was drinking and they were afraid of what he might
fly like if he was sober. So, Dennis kept his bottles and nobody said anything.
Until the 23rd was disbended.
When the group dispersed, Dennis was left without a job, without money, and without
booze. He soon went into what he likes to call “Flight Withdrawal” and applied to be a crop
duster for his hometown in North Carolina. Dennis wasn’t proud of the old duster, a noticeable
downgrade from the special converted B-2 Bomber that flew the team to all of their missions, but
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at least he was flying again, getting money, and finally stuffing it down the drain with all of the
booze. Bill thought, with how willing Dennis was to come and fly for the Russians, that he had
caught him on a day that he started to hate his job.
Guy needs his wings like he needs his bottle, Bill thought, I’m actually surprised he
didn’t call me.
Bill continued to sweep and bag until he had filled and tied the massive garbage bag. It
took him by surprise how little he had actually swept, a large corner, and decided to look over
the “team” that Greskov had assembled for him in the name of procrastination. Folding out a
chair and spreading the files out in front of him, Bill went through the names one by one.
Man, Bill thought as he read the files, this is going to be interesting.
Chapter3: The “B” Team
Bill opened the dossier as he did before and sorted the files by relevance. He put the three
team members on a bottom row nearest him and placed his targets information on the other side
of the bed. The target had a parcel of pictures that showed his face but the three on the bottom
had no pictures with them; just the choppy text outlining their basic features like hair color and
height. Bill usually did this same exact outline on one of those fancy table-top touch computers
that the government gave to the spec-ops unit back in the day and at the time he felt a longing for
that again. Shaking away the distracting thoughts and emotions Bill began to read to himself the
information on the three individuals.
Mark “Hack-It” Heckitt was a genuine genious when it came to computer systems and
security. Stationed within the U.S. Cyber-Security Division, Mark became well known for his
prowess at remaining undetected while hacking international security and his ability to hack any
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terminal even by verbal scenario. The one thing that held him back was the young man’s
stubborn behavior. Mark prided himself on creating a revolutionary security program guaranteed
to keep all malware out and even went so far as to call it “un-hackable”. The Pentagon, when
confronted with this new technology, saw not the positives, but the negatives. The official report
said that the programs slow integration and immensely complex coding gave Mark an undue
advantage over the pentagon. They shunned his program and ultimately integrated a much
smaller, more cost effective, and less secure system.
This enraged Mark. He felt he needed to send a message to the Pentagon, to the people
who couldn’t see greatness. The plan was to hack into the Pentagon’s “new” security, cause a
small crisis to scare the ants, and then arise the better power with the respect due to him. With
two accomplices as lookouts, Mark successfully hacked into the Pentagons system. But that just
wasn’t enough for Mark. He completely shut down the Pentagons network and stole millions of
dollars’ worth of government secrets. Unable to trace the attack back to him, the government had
decided to give Mark an honorable discharge from the C.S. Division due to prior service. Mark
was at a loss of what to do in life and one day decided that if the U.S. had no more opportunities
for him, maybe Europe did. Mark landed in Germany a month later and another month in had
fallen to his old hacking habits again. However, because of the lack in funds and thus
technology, Mark was often detected and hunted by local authorities for hacking into just about
everything. He ended up traveling to Moscow to escape local authorities in Turkey and hacked
into the president’s personal computer by mistake.
“It was a hackers dream,” the dossier quoted from an interrogation, “I thought it was just
some rich know-it-alls attempt at saying ‘hey, come hack me. I dare ya’.” Since then Mark has
been living a normal life in Moskow as the president’s personal IT specialist.
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“Great a stuck-up technophile with an aversion to human interaction,” thought Bill
stubbornly and out loud, “just what the team needs.”
Cynthia Right was the next file on the bed and the smallest file in the dossier. Cynthia’s
last name was originally LouBoufe when she enlisted in the French army. Top of her class in
espionage and stealth, Cynthia was sent off on many special missions for the army. Army life
soon grew boring and she found herself stealing things that had nothing to do with missions.
Jewelry, money, any valuables were targets when she was deployed and the thrill of the heist was
what kept her doing it. Unfortunately this adrenaline rush was due to fall and it did when her
supervisor, the Chef de Bataillon, received a black eye and a broken jaw for his sexual advances
on the highly trained spy.
“That bầtard deserved it,” exclaimed Cynthia in a quote from the court case, “my only
regret is not being able to cut off his balls before they dragged me off of him!”
Cynthia’s subsequent honorable discharge from the army was followed by a disgust with
the French people as a whole, the official name change, and an irresistible need to steal. Cynthia
Right became one of the most feared thieves in Italian history as she became Il Ladro do Ombre,
the thief of shadows. However, Cynthia hated stealing as it reminded her too much of her
experience with the army and the things she stole. So she swore to return Anything she took the
day after. The thief later grew tired of the game of cat and mouse she was playing with herself
and decided to visit the places she hadn’t been to in her espionage days. Number four was
Moscow, after Istanbul, and she was drawn to the nation’s palace where she met the general of
Russia’s army who later phoned her in for the team.
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“Covert operations my ass,” remarked Bill, “she’s a fucking thief. And once a thief,
always a thief.”
Picking up the final and largest of the files on Jake Lee, Bill flipped through the
analogues of the most recent parts of his life. Jake was originally the chief firearms developer in
England for a new assault rifle called the M-76 in 2015. Unfortunately Jakes project was
discontinued due to new rail-gun and automatic weapons development in the U.S. He was then
re-evaluated and put in charge of England’s PE-5 Plastic Explosives research and production
team. Because of the extreme insensitivity of the explosives predecessor PE-4, Jake and most of
the research team believed that most extreme explosives precautions that were usually required
to handle volatile compounds were unnecessary in the production of the new PE-5.
5 years later the new explosive was finished and was being produced to be shipped to
England’s armies. However, Jake, as head of development, had overlooked many things in order
to expedite the process by a year and one of those things that he deemed unnecessary was testing
for alternative detonation methods via simulation. Had he undertook this process, he would’ve
found that carbon monoxide reacted negatively with the compound and set it alight. He would’ve
also found that the new compound created after the chemical reaction would explode when
blasted with cooled or solid carbon dioxide. So when the trucks came to load the new explosive,
the bricks caught on fire. When people tried to kill the fire with extinguishers, the base exploded.
158 lives were taken and 265 people were wounded, 84 critically.
“I blame myself for all of this,” sobbed Jake in a recording he left the day of the
explosion in his office, “If I had just gone with standard procedure, did things by the book, those
people wouldn’t be dead!”
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After the accident at the base, Jake went into a self-exile where he secluded himself from
the outside world. Jake left England to hide in the one place he thought he could be alone
forever, Russia. Jake became a beggar in Saint Petersburg and made a very low life out of the
small donations and soup kitchens around the city. Jake was finally taken in by a family who he
found were attacked by thieves often. Finding a liking for tinkering with traps, Jake found a new
purpose to life and grew famous within small communities. The dossier didn’t say how they
were able to get Jake into the team but hinted at some word reaching the president of the small
hero.
Bill found the similarities in each of the stories, the Russian safe haven and the
extraordinary detail, to be a bit peculiar; but he wasn’t complaining. The more he knew about
these people the better. Bill was just about to reach for the file on his target when something
made him stop. The sound of loose snow crunching under chained tires made him freeze. Bill
simply waited.
He was waiting. Waiting for movement, action, or the lack thereof in order to determine a
reaction that was appropriate and effective. Minutes passed like hours until he heard the sound of
three car doors open and slam shut as four distinct voices chatted together about some indistinct
topic. Bill didn’t care, he was already at the door formulating a plan on how to make his first
impression on the new blood.
If these guys are as inexperienced as the files say, thought Bill, then I believe that
training should start as soon as possible. As in, right now.