Foresight by EJ McBride

of their setup, most of the agents they spent time with were willing to open up at least a little bit. One was married with two young children and had taken the job because of the money, it was his way of fast-tracking a military career, creating a nest-egg then retiring young and living out the rest of his life in Florida. Another, their least favourite of all the instructors, would bore them rigid with his bigoted opinions and tales of how the country was going 'down the shitter', before admitting that he had been single for the past 6 years and didn't really have any friends. It wasn't much, but for a team of people who were professionally 'closed off', it was a rare glimpse at their human side.

    Boal was better at hiding his human side than anyone else at the agency. Most of the instructors chose not to enter into conversation about him, never bringing his name up and steering conversation away from him when they needed to. Despite his relatively mediocre size and stature, he'd built up a reputation for being fierce with a fiery temper. He was ex-military back in the UK, Clara knew that much, but beyond that he was as much of a closed book as was possible in Clara's life, keeping his thoughts shielded almost effortlessly from her and Robin around the clock. There was no ' catching him off guard '. His role in the agency wasn't clear, but then you don't exactly contact Human Resources for a copy of your job specification when you work for a highly secret government agency. From what they understood, he was the recruiter and ' talent scout ' as he referred to it. He would get tips about people with certain skill sets and then put himself in a position where he could meet and test these people. He'd mentioned in a conversation over dinner one evening that more than 99% of the people he met and tested didn't have the skills that Clara and Robin had, or even close, and that despite the advantages of using computer algorithms to pull these people out of the woodwork, more often than not he wasted his time. This had made Clara even more dubious of his intentions, and she'd often ponder why a man with his level of intelligence and employability would devote his life to the pursuit of literally less than a handful of people, meeting potentially thousands of 'fakes' along the way. She figured that whatever she was going to be doing for him long-term, it was more than just the odd bit of interrogation, and found herself getting panicky and anxious when she considered what might happen if she ever decided she wanted to leave.

    Sleepless nights were unfortunately compounded by this thought, in more ways than one. Not only could she not leave the agency, she couldn't physically leave the premises, and save for the odd trip to a makeshift shooting range or assault course somewhere out in the desert, she'd spent the last 4 weeks in the same house. The garden of the building was stunning, full of lush tropical plants, paths that would lead off through trees and around small water features; there was even a heated outdoor pool. But the entire place was sealed off with enormous walls, the kind you usually saw on the news belonging to drug lords, tanks and armoured personnel carriers smashing through the front door for the television cameras. Surveillance equipment tracked every square inch of the grounds, and the agents would take it in turns to man the exits. Clara knew that Boal had made it clear that if she ever wanted to leave, all she had to do was go, but she was pretty confident that wasn't the case at all. As she sat outside on this particular early morning, staring at the gate that lead out of the grounds, her mind racing back to the days she'd spent on the pier in Brighton Beach, she wondered if she should put her theory to the test. She missed the hustle and bustle of New York, and not knowing when she was going to get out, was starting to get antsy.

    At about 5.40 Clara headed inside, glancing at her watch and realising that