Klay had a different notion. The CIA worked for him now.

•   •   •

Like a rottweiler at the Palm Beach Kennel Club,” Major Thomas said as Klay huffed to a stop his first day of training. The retired Marine checked his stopwatch. “If you ever gotta run for it, start early.”

Klay was panting, hands on knees, sweating his blue T-shirt purple in the crisp mountain air. “I don’t make a habit of running,” he managed to say.

Morning workouts were designed to help focus his mind rather than to get him into any kind of shape. To his boxing skills, Major Thomas added close quarters techniques, reciting “Surprise, speed, violence of action” over and over as they worked hand-to-hand, blade and no blade, Filipino-style. Thomas chiding him for wanting to hit a man’s skull with a closed fist when he could be just as effective using his palm, and still pick up a fork the next day. “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast,” he coached. “Good.”

Klay would be an agent, Eady explained, but not an employee. An asset, “like the many brave men and women the Agency relies on around the world.”

Eady insisted Klay be schooled in the same basic techniques a career intelligence officer would receive. “As much to give you a vocabulary for this world as to help with any specific skills,” Eady said. “Besides, maybe one day you’ll join us full-time.”

Much of his CIA training mirrored what he did as an investigative journalist. For instance, showing up unannounced on a target bearing an extra cup of coffee and maybe some doughnuts—or a six of Carlsberg and a pack of smokes—was, in Agency-speak, “Always provide amenities.” Klay laughed when his instructor wrote the rule on the whiteboard for him.

“What?” the man asked.

“Nothing,” Klay said. “I’m from Philly. It’s called not being a jerk-off.”