Page 12 of Remade (Hillcroft Group #3)
I wasn’t going to lie. I was fucking nervous about this part of our training. We’d known it was coming; instructors had given us hints, some reading material, several warnings, and a list to prepare us. And now, the day was here. Our resistance-to-interrogation training was officially starting.
It was the first time we’d been shown to one of the larger classrooms in the schoolhouse, and we weren’t alone. Aside from us nine recruits, twelve government officials were here for the same training.
Tanner and I sat together at one desk, and we looked around the room as Beckett, Rose, and Coach got ready for the introduction.
“Some of the guys here are really old,” Tanner whispered.
“Yeah.” I wondered which agencies they all came from. Were they really as new as we were? Because this wasn’t Tanner and me being ageist or anything, but to start fresh when you were in your forties…? In this field?
“Listen up, everyone!” Coach hollered. “Welcome to your RTI training! We expect two-thirds of you will pass.”
Tanner and I exchanged a glance.
Operator Rose took over. “Over the next six weeks, we will put you through some of the roughest training you’ll ever experience, and it still won’t compare to an actual hostage situation. Most of the techniques are either illegal, condemned, or both, and frequent check-ins with our on-staff psychiatrist are mandatory.”
Aw, man. Doc. As if I didn’t talk to him enough.
Beckett was next, and he was holding a clipboard. “You will be divided into three units, and when you hear your name, you immediately go to your assigned mentor for this training. I will be in charge of Charlie, Coach will take care of Delta, and Operator Rose will be in charge of Echo.” While he spoke, Coach and Rose positioned themselves closer to the door, so maybe two units were going to other classrooms. “Carlos Garcia, Lorraine Freeman, Tanner Kelley, Riley Grey, Zander Morris, Caitlin Staff, and Jerry Perez, you’re Delta and going with Coach.”
“See you on the other side,” I muttered under my breath to Tanner.
“Knock on wood,” he joked back and left.
As his unit shuffled out of the room, Beckett continued.
“Next up, Echo! Tim Lawson, Elliott Jones, David Montgomery, Leighton Watts, Miguel Flores, Gabriella Ortiz, and Michael Littrell.”
That was my cue. I’d already known I wasn’t going to end up in my own boyfriend’s unit anyway.
I grabbed my notebook and aimed for Operator Rose, and I followed him across the hall to another classroom.
This room was on the large side too, so maybe we required the space.
“Have a seat, everyone,” Rose said. “One student per desk, thanks.”
I sat down in the back and studied the others. Some of them definitely looked like they worked for the government. I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, but… How they dressed, how they moved…
Rose leaned back against his desk and had his own clipboard. “Watts, Flores, and Ortiz are our Hillcroft recruits. All three are former Army. And that is the extent of the intro I’m asking the rest of you to present. Starting with David Montgomery.”
The man in question sat near the front, and he gave us all a cursory glance. “Montgomery, FBI. Started out in the Navy.”
The man next to him spoke. “Elliott Jones, private security. Former Navy too.” He was one of the older guys here. Like mid-forties.
“Tim Lawson, ATF. Former police officer.” Also older.
“Littrell, private security. USMC.” Seriously old. He might be over fifty.
Great. Now we all knew one another.
“Over the next six weeks, you will take on our RTI training like a team,” Rose told us. “You’ll be on your own at times, in pairs sometimes, and together as one unit a few times too. Jones is an exception. He’s completed our training, aside from the sensory deprivation portion. He’ll be with us this week only.”
Jones inclined his head.
Rose continued. “Before the first segment begins at oh-five-hundred tomorrow, you will go through the reading material again, and you’ll memorize the information I’m about to hand out. As I hope you know by now, there are various degrees to resistance. More often than not, you’re protecting intel or a person, but you won’t succeed if you starve or black out from exhaustion, malnutrition, or torture. It’s absolutely vital that you learn to find a balance between protecting your asset and your own immediate future. Some information can be surrendered in exchange for water and food.”
I chewed on my lip and made a note. Bo had been oh-so right. There was a reason we’d started profiling long before we’d reached this part of our training, because we had to know people. We had to know human behavior in order to find the balance Rose was talking about. After all, there was no one-size-fits-all here. Much depended on the person holding us hostage. If they were trigger-happy or not. If they were bored or restless. If they were patient or erratic.
Nutrition, I jotted down too. ’Cause that was another thing. If I was out in the field with limited resources, I was going to need to know what exactly would keep me alive. Fat? Slow carbs? Fiber? What would sustain me the longest?
Protein bars with peanut butter seemed like a good choice, but I needed to study the topic properly.
Operator Rose walked by me, leaving a piece of paper upside down on my desk, and I picked it up.
Echo Unit
“You’ll find a code at the top of the paper,” Rose declared. “It’s the team’s duty to keep that secret. The interrogators do not know it. Which brings us to the team that will interrogate you. They are highly trained operators with Hillcroft and agents with our sister agency JATE Shield in LA, and they are allowed to use the same torture methods you might get subjected to if you get your ass captured in the field.”
Holy fuck, this was really happening.
I was nervous and, yeah, okay, a little scared too, but this fucking worked for me. Adrenaline started pumping through me at the mere prospect, bringing me back to when Bo had told me I’d find joy in more than using my gun. I’d get my adrenaline hits from rescue operations, from training, from pursuit, and from…well, life. A life I loved.
“In case you need the reminder, escalation won’t be sudden,” Rose went on. “Our interrogators will increase your suffering slowly, and every trainee has the right to call it quits whenever you want. And if you want to stop, you say your mentor’s name. In Echo’s case, that’s me. If you utter Operator Rose at any point, everyone will back off, and the sensory deprivation and whatever else will cease. Just keep in mind this will be reflected in your evaluation.” He returned to the front desk and faced us with a serious look in his eyes. “I don’t need to tell you that this is a matter of life and death. It’s our goal to make this as realistic as possible—nothing else can prepare you for the worst-case scenario in the field. All while—don’t give your life for a fucking drill. If you need to stop, you need to fucking stop. Am I making myself clear? Nobody’s getting kicked out for needing a break during training. Ever.”
I took a breath. “Understood, sir.”
The others understood too, and Rose nodded once.
“Take twenty minutes to read the information we gave you, and feel free to discuss things with your teammates.” With that said, he strode out.
I exhaled and dropped my gaze to the paper again.
Code: EchoZeroTwoFive
Scenario: Your unit has broken in to an armored truck in downtown DC, where you retrieved a box with a code inside. The interrogators have footage of the unit being within 25 meters of the break-in. You and your unit are prime suspects.
Use your training to get through 72 hours without revealing the code.
Seventy-two hours without revealing the code…
We could last that long without food, no sweat, but preferably not without water. So that was at least one thing we’d need to bargain for.
We could go without sleep, too, but it would lower our guards, slow us down, and possibly fuck with our heads.
Then there was pain. We were about to discover our thresholds for pain.
“EchoZeroTwoFive,” I heard Gabriella whisper behind me.
I cleared my throat and looked up, ready to address the others. “We need to create fake details that we can give up in exchange for water, some rest, and hopefully less pain.”
Jones looked up too, and he eyed the other trainees.
Miguel spoke. “And we gotta make it simple. Just enough details—and they gotta be decent in terms of what the intel is worth—but nothing else.”
“We’ll expand the scenario,” Montgomery suggested. “For instance—a getaway vehicle. An escape route. The location of our headquarters, et cetera.”
I frowned. “I like the first two, but nobody would divulge their headquarters for some water. Whatever intel we surrender needs to be believable and realistic.”
“Agreed,” Gabriella said. “In addition, with the getaway car…? We need to be careful there too. I’m all for a silver Camry, but no flashy military-green Porsche. The car needs to be somewhat difficult to find—and we can’t remember the license plate or something.”
Valid point, except?—
“It needs to be a car the whole unit fits into,” Lawson pointed out.
Yeah. That. There were seven of us. It had to be a decent-sized SUV. Inconspicuous.
“Hold on, we’ll settle this right now,” Miguel said. I looked back at him, and he was on his phone. “Let’s see… We have, uh… Okay, here. The Hyundai Palisade has sold over 500,000 units at this point. Common enough?”
“It’s a fairly affordable make too,” Lawson added with a nod. “It doesn’t stand out.”
Jones cleared his throat. “Just mentionin’ that we have plenty of time to map this out after we’re done here.”
Okay, true.