Page 203 of The Black Trilogy

Hurrah! High praise indeed from Nate. That was the start of his thaw towards me, much to my relief. As he was Black’s best friend, life would have been uncomfortable if the attitude he’d displayed at our first meeting pervaded for my entire stay.

After Nate came an old-timer named Herb, a botanist who talked to his greenery like it was human. Under his tutelage, I learned which plants were safe to eat, which had medicinal properties, and how the select few could be used to kill someone. With Herb’s help and Black’s permission, I started my own deadly garden out the back of Riverley Hall, fascinated as I watched my evil little fiends sprout and grow.

A mechanic of dubious origins improved my hot-wiring skills then taught me new ways to break into a car, the best methods to disable an engine, and how to sabotage parts of the vehicle to turn it into a death trap. I vowed to check my brake lines regularly from that point on because it was all too easy to damage them.

The high points in those first three months were few and far between. After physical training from five to twelve, I had half an hour to eat lunch then I’d carry on until nine with another thirty-minute break for dinner. My brain was worn out from all the studying, and at night I’d fall into bed wondering how I’d ever get through another day. Black had turned into the devil incarnate, and Riverley Hall became my living nightmare.

Think I’m kidding? I recall telling him that if he told me to “Just do it” one more time, I was going to just shoot him.

At that point in our lives, I didn’t like him very much at all.

CHAPTER 23

AFTER THREE MONTHS with Black, I became aware of a gradual shift.

I’d stopped worrying whether I’d stick around until the half-year mark to collect my money and get out of there and instead started questioning if I was good enough. Would he want me to stay?

Rather than deliberately antagonising him, I found more and more that I was seeking his approval, although I still managed to irritate him effortlessly.

At the beginning of month four, he came down to breakfast smiling. I’d seen that look before. Usually, it meant I’d finish the day black and blue with my brain about to explode.

“What now?” Did he want me to learn Icelandic? Take on gang members armed with only a fork? Build a road bridge out of toothpicks? By that point, nothing would have surprised me. “Go on, give me the bad news.”

He took his egg-white omelette from Mrs. Fairfax and added an avocado on the side. “I’m going to teach you to fly.”

I put my slice of toast down. “What, like in a plane?”

“Unless you sprout wings between now and ten o’clock.”

A plane it was, then. A T-34C Turbo-Mentor to be precise. The US Navy used them as training aircraft, but Black had scrounged one up from somewhere. He flew a few circuits of the airfield and explained the controls, then handed me a bunch of manuals.

“Some bedtime reading,” he said.

I groaned. At least it was better than the book on rifle sights he’d made me read the week before. “When do I get to drive the plane?”

“When you’re ready. And you’re not to fly like you drive. I don’t think my heart would take it.”

“I’ve never crashed.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

Three more days passed before he let me get behind the controls. I was scheduled to fly for two hours a day, but I found myself extending that time because I enjoyed myself so much.

And once I’d mastered the plane, Black turned up on the back lawn in a helicopter.

“I thought you’d enjoy trying that too,” he said.

My eyes lit up like a kid on E-numbers. “I think you might be right. Again.”

Despite the time spent flying, Black didn’t let up on the physical training. One weekend, he called in a favour from an old friend and took me along to the Naval Amphibious Base at Little Creek where he and Nate used to be stationed. They’d spent several years in the Navy SEALs before moving on to the CIA, in some special division they were both so cagey about that I didn’t even know its name.

“I want to see you go around the assault course,” Black said. “Find out what you’re capable of.”

“Is it difficult?”

“They call it the ‘Dirty Name.’”

That didn’t sound good.

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