✔ᵉⁿᵍˡⁱˢʰ Ghost Story - American Assassin✔

shot 02

According to Declan's information and records, there were a total of seven candidates completing Hurley's training at the time. Five young men and two young women. CIA, FBI, Homeland and a former Marine. A few months earlier there had been nine, but one had been shot in Baghdad and the other had been sent straight back to the CIA by Hurley. Incompetent had been Hurley's reason. Nothing more. On the page for comments and justifications, Incompetent was written across the entire page, with a bold dot at the end. And, the imprint of the period was still visible on the following pages. So, in Hurley's eyes, the candidate must have been a real nuisance. Very likeable.

Even before the fourth candidate, Nathalie had lost her appetite, because her head was pounding like crazy, listening was more difficult than usual, and after this so-called 'training' it was even more difficult not to fall asleep right there and then. But it did not matter, she was here and a lot of people depended on her to do her job properly.

After number six had left the room, Nathalie threw her head back with a groan and ran her hands over her face and then through her hair. Just one more person, she repeated over and over, getting up with cracking joints and moving to the closet where she had put her bag when there was a direct knock.

"Sit down quietly," Nathalie smiled, pointing with her hand to a free chair as she fetched a water bottle since the young man had stopped at the door, and then, circling the finger of her free right hand in the air as she walked back to her chair, "Was there a reason you stopped at the door? Did you generally prefer to stand? Did you just not want to sit down because I was standing there instead of sitting? Or did you think this would be quick and it wasn't worth it?"

"This is a test, isn't it?" judging by the short-haired man's less than enthusiastic tone, it hadn't been a question, it had been rhetorical, and so Nathalie didn't have to answer him either, "So what do you want to hear?"

"Nothing at all. I just ask a few questions, you answer or not, and that's it. Accordingly, you've just given me your first answer," Nathalie replied after taking a sip from the bottle, sitting down broodingly and exchanging the bottle in her hand for a clipboard on the floor, "How did you get to know Mr. Hurley and what was the reason?"

"In my Navy days he was my instructor," the brown haired man replied in a less than interested tone, resting his forearms on his thighs and rubbing his hands together, "After he retired and started this training program he brought me in."

"So you are his favorite among all the 'candidates'," Nathalie stated matter-of-factly, writing a few sentences to that effect without reacting to the short-haired man's reaction, picking up where she left off, "Better position, benefits and other behavior towards you, but the (ever-increasing) pressure and expectations are correspondingly higher (on you). So a disappointment on your part toward Mr. Hurley will weigh significantly more than anyone else's. What is your name?"

"You infer that from my answer?!", there was nothing more than a smile at this assumption and yet it was clear, for the former Navy this seemed to be the purest waste of time and if this was not a duty he would definitely not be sitting here, "You must have read my name somewhere or am I mistaken? But for your record, to make it complete, Ronnie."

"Sweet," Nathalie smacked her lips tonelessly, pulled her right knee up to her chest, placed the clipboard against it, and began writing, giggling, "Mmh...... Relationship?"

"Relationship," Ronnie repeated the last word as if Nathalie might be kidding him, searching her face to see if he had misunderstood the question, "Is there a more specific definition for that?"

"Mother, father, grandparents, aunt, uncle, other relatives, boyfriend, girlfriend," Nathalie began to rattle off, because under normal circumstances this question shouldn't be that hard to understand, but each of the seven had asked, "Engaged, married, divorced, children. Relationship or relationships, respectively."

"Thanks for explaining," Ronnie returned soberly, leaning back against the back of the chair and looking directly at Nathalie, "No children..."

"Interesting," Nathalie interrupted Ronnie, making a cross on her piece of paper and a quick note in the margin, causing him to look at her with a look that didn't follow, "Do you want children?"

"Okay, stop, um, back up. What's so interesting about my answer now, please?", at the end of this conversation conclusions were being drawn from answers no human could understand, Ronnie thought to himself and sighed inwardly, with the accompanying question of what the hell he had gotten himself into, "Explain it to me.

"Very simple. The others answered either boyfriend, girlfriend, or no relationship for relationship, and your answer was no children," If Ronnie had been the first in the interview, it would not have been noticed at first, and only when the conversations were evaluated, which is why Nathalie would have picked it up in the next conversation, "Accordingly, by this deviation from the previous answers, my question. Do you want children?"

"If I answer wrong now, am I a killer for you?", actually it should have been a joke, but as Ronnie had to notice, Nathalie did not contort her face in any way, nor was there a slight smile in it, "Do you want any?"

"Evade with a counter question. Does this conversation make you uncomfortable? Do you feel uncomfortable right now when someone asks you personal questions and you have to answer them? You don't have to answer; it shows in your body language. Gestures; facial expressions; your attitude, towards the questioning and of course towards the evasion, better said, the "not answering", it was not uncommon that some people felt uncomfortable, even difficult to talk about their own lives with strangers or from the beginning didn't have much desire for such a conversation and this, in the form of body language, showed and made itself noticeable, "No. In my job I don't want one".

"And now you have my answer," there was not much to say and yet Nathalie looked at Ronnie as if something else was coming, "No, with that you have heard me say it."

"Too kind. For now, though, that should be enough," if only because it was obvious that Ronnie didn't have much of a desire to talk, which made her job all the more difficult, "There's no right or wrong with this. It's just a matter of making sure that people with a certain amount of ego don't pose a threat to the population. I would rate you, based on what I've learned from you so far, as a High school quarterback. Now whether that is positive or negative is up to you. A person says more than what's on their record. So nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Ronnie replied slowly and suspiciously, not having understood Nathalie or this conversation at all, and from there just got up and walked to the door, where he turned around again, "Are you telling me I have a problem with my ego?"

Clueless, Nathalie shrugged and filled in the remaining blanks with answers and conclusions. It was up to him to judge. One thing was already clear. Ronnie was not unlike Hurley.