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CHAPTER 7

Chaim was coming out of one of the testing rooms the following Friday morning, and found Zalman standing in the hallway. “Hey. Waiting on me?”

“Yes.” Zalman fell in beside him as he walked down the hall. “Just want to make sure—are you serious about wanting to be part of the Gibborim?”

“Yeah, I am.” Chaim looked up at Zalman out of the corner of his eye. “Why?”

“Have you done any karate or judo or anything like that?”

Chaim snorted. “If it wasn’t in Torah or Talmud or school, I didn’t get to do it. No, I didn’t have anything involving martial arts, and not a lot of athletics in general other than swimming in Boy Scouts. My father didn’t allow room in my schedule for things like tennis and basketball and karate. He barely made room for Scouts. Why? Am I going to have to pass some kind of fitness exam or something?”

“No. On the other hand, while your body is getting harder and tougher from the conversion, you need to learn how to use it.”

“Makes sense, I guess,” Chaim said. “I hate exercise, though.”

“This won’t be exercise as you think of it,” Zalman said. “Think of it more like an odd dance.”

“So what, when, and where?”

Zalman stopped where another hallway crossed the one they’d been following. “I’m leaving in a couple of hours.”

“That New York thing?” Chaim remembered that coming up in the conversation with Rabbi Mendel.

“That New York thing. I’m not sure how long it will take, so I’m bringing in someone to train you. His name is Gil Haleva, and he’s an Israeli arms master. I’d have probably brought him in anyway, but this works out best for right now.”

“Does he know you?”

“Yes, he and I have worked together before.”

“Does he know about…us?”

“He knows that I’m unusual, but he doesn’t know that I’m a vampire.”

“So don’t let the secret out.”

“Right. Don’t say anything about that. In fact, he’s smart, and he’s been around me before, so try not to talk about anything odd at all. He can put pieces together pretty well.”

“Uh-huh. Just play dumb and do what he says?” Chaim let a little sarcasm creep into his voice.

Zalman shook his head. “If he asks questions, you can say that we’re related. Anything else, just tell him that you’re not authorized to talk about it. The only other thing is to not out-perform him. Just do what he says, the way he says to do it, and ignore any side comments.”

Chaim nodded. “Got it. When will he show up?”

“He should be here Sunday morning.” Zalman pulled something out of his pocket. “Here. You’ll want this.”

Zalman draped a silver chain around Chaim’s neck and put another of the magen medallions in Chaim’s hand. He stared down at the Gibborim inlaid in the center of it. Suddenly the seriousness of it all transfixed him like nothing else had since the night he met the blonde. He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring at the medallion, but finally he closed his hand around it and closed his eyes. It took him a moment to find the right Hebrew words.

“Now if I have indeed found favor in Your sight, Adonai, let me know Your ways, so that I may know You and continue to find favor in Your sight.”

Chaim felt that haShem would not mind him paraphrasing the prayer of Moses from Exodus 33. After all, at that moment if anyone was as much a stranger in a strange land as Moses had been, it had to be him.

He tucked the medallion inside his shirt and opened his eyes. It did not surprise him that Zalman was gone.

* * *

It was Sunday afternoon when Haleva made his appearance. After the early afternoon’s blood tests, which were becoming more of a trial due to the increasing toughness of Chaim’s skin, Chaim had taken over one of the visitors’ offices which was equipped with a moderately powerful computer and three monitors, browsing the information available about the various universities in Israel, trying to get a feel for what they were like. He’d already committed to Mendel’s suggestion, after all—he might as well start trying to get on board.

There was a tap at the open door. He looked up to see a grim-faced stranger in sweats looking at him.

“Yes?”

“Are you Chaim Caan?” The stranger’s voice was a dark tenor with some rasp to it. Chaim’s neck hairs stirred.

“Yes. You?”

The stranger smiled, which transformed his face. He entered the room and held out his hand. “I’m Gil Haleva, and I’m here to get you started on training.”

Chaim stood up. “Hi. Yeah, I’m Chaim. Glad to meet you. Have a seat. I thought you were going to be here this morning.” At least he was wearing a decent set of sweats himself, so he looked somewhat presentable.

Gil pulled up a side chair and they both sat. “Bit of a weather delay in the flight, but I’m finally here.” Chaim blinked. He hadn’t paid attention to the weather in weeks. “So, tell me, do you have any kind of training or martial arts experience?”

Chaim shook his head. “No, sorry. Nothing.”

“Actually, that’s good.” Gil was obviously earnest about that response. “It means you don’t have anything to unlearn, and we can start with building the right foundation right away.” He leaned forward in his chair a little. “What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish? Strength? Speed? Self-defense? Competition?”

Chaim considered that. “I’m not sure that I know enough to answer that question.”

Gil’s eyebrows contracted a bit at that. “Okay, why did Mordechai call me in, then?”

“Oh.” Chaim pulled his Gibborim medallion out from under his shirt and handed it to Gil. “That’s because I want to do the same kind of work he does.”

Gil’s eyebrows went the other direction. “Ah.” He tilted his head and looked at Chaim. Chaim could just see him wondering what the prep-looking American kid was bringing to the table for Mordechai to want this kind of training for him. After a moment, Gil shrugged and handed the medallion back. “Okay. If that’s true, that will simplify things.”

“Why?”

Gil’s mouth quirked at one corner. “Because if you’re going to work with or for Mordechai, you won’t need any of the competition stuff or any of the civilian nonlethal self-defense stuff. We’ll focus on the real hard stuff. This will be all about turning you into a lethal killing machine.” His face was sober and his eyes bored into Chaim’s.

Chaim kept his face still. He’d come to that conclusion himself after hearing Zalman’s account of being in Warsaw. Still, it was a bit of a shock to hear it so bluntly expressed.

After a moment, Gil continued with, “I mean, you do know the kind of work he does.” That wasn’t a question.

“Some.”

“Okay.” Gil leaned forward a bit. “Just so you’ll know, I’ll teach you a foundation of Krav Maga, the Israeli Defense Force fighting system, then we’ll move on to those techniques that you will most need to know and figure out what will work best for your size and strength and skill.” He leaned back. “When do you want to start?”

Chaim looked at his watch. “How about now?”

Gil grinned. “Yeah, no time like the present. Got an exercise room?”

“You could say that.” Chaim shut down the computer and led the way to the workout room.

Looking around the room, Gil whistled. “Not very big, but at least one of everything necessary, and state of the art. Nice. What about one with space to spar?”

“Next door,” came from behind them. Marta had entered the room. She had what looked to be a shirt in one hand, which she tossed to Chaim. “Here. We’re going to want readouts from your sessions, and the sticky electrodes won’t work. This has the monitors incorporated into it, so you can work out and not worry about them getting knocked off. Just don’t mess it up. Those things are expensive. Hi, Gil.”

“Marta.”

So they knew each other. That was good. Probably.

Chaim held the shirt up and whistled. “Looks tight. Spandex?”

“Spandex’s successor. Stretches easier, breathes better, and it doesn’t bind.” Marta walked over and opened the connecting door to the other room.

“Ha.” He looked at Gil and gestured at the door, following him through.

The room they entered was a bit over twice as large as the workout room, with mats covering most of the floor. Gil looked around. “Yeah, this will do. So,” he turned to Chaim, “you wearing trunks under that?”

Chaim had to make a mental shift of trunks = shorts before he understood the question. “Yeah.”

“Well, let me see what I’ve got to work with.” Gil spun his hand in a forward-looping circle a few times, then set his hands on his hips as if he was waiting. Chaim stripped off his jacket and sweatpants and tossed them on a nearby table.

“Shirt,” Gil said. Chaim peeled off his T-shirt and added it to the pile. He stood in place while Gil walked around him. “Hmm. Pale. You could use a little sun.” Chaim managed to not frown as Gil chuckled. “Very low body fat. Less than five percent if I judge it right.” He looked at Marta.

“About three percent, the last time we measured it.”

“Height?”

“Five foot nine,” Chaim responded.

“One and three-quarter meters,” Marta added.

“Weight?”

“One hundred eighty pounds,” Chaim said.

“Actually a bit more than that now,” Marta said. “Eighty-six kilograms.”

Gil’s eyebrows rose. “Must be dense structure, then.”

You have no idea, Chaim thought, suppressing a smile.

“You’re very lean and you look fit. Do you run?”

“Yeah,” Chaim laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Gil said with a quirk to his mouth. “Let me in on the joke.”

Chaim waved a hand at Marta, who had a smile on her face.

“He runs a fifteen-k on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. The last two weeks he’s been running a twenty-five percent grade.” She dropped the smile and shrugged. “He’s not world-class, but there’s nobody in my running club that could keep up with him.”

Not world class yet. Chaim kept that thought behind his teeth, suppressing another smile as he did so.

“Weights?”

“Not a lot,” Chaim said. “I do some free weights and leg presses on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”

“Bench press?”

“One hundred twenty kilograms,” Marta responded. “We haven’t been pushing that.”

Yet another smile suppressed by Chaim as he noticed Marta didn’t say how many reps he did the press.

“I can see that,” Gil said. “You’ve got a greyhound here, not an ox.” He stepped up to Chaim, squeezed a bicep for a few seconds, then slapped the back of his hand against Chaim’s abdomen. “Hard.” He held his hand out to Chaim. “Match my grip for as long as you can.”

Chaim took the grip, and started to squeeze as hard as he could, but remembered in time Mordechai’s instruction to not outperform Gil, so he slowly ramped up his own compression until it balanced with Gil’s. The Israeli held the grip for almost a minute, which surprised Chaim, but he maintained his own grip to match. At last, Gil nodded and released. Chaim followed suit.

“Good. Good strong grip.” He looked at Marta. “Can I see copies of his physical baseline?”

She shrugged. “That’s up to Chaim. Privacy laws, and all that.”

He thought about that for a moment, taking into account everything Mordechai had told him. “Gross physical condition and attributes, yes,” he finally responded. “Bloodwork, scans, and other details, no. If in doubt, no.”

Marta grinned and looked back at Gil, whose mouth was a bit twisted. “And I was told to remind you at this point that the nondisclosure agreement you signed earlier when you got here covers everything you see, hear, experience, or do while you’re here, as well as any observations or conclusions you might arrive at while you’re here or after you leave. You can think about it. You just can’t talk about it, communicate, make any kind of electronic or physical notes about it, or in any way cause those thoughts to leave your head and be transmitted to someone else except Chaim and the staff here. Clear?” Gil said nothing—his frown deepened. “Else you’ll be dealing with Dr. Mendel—or Rabbi Avram, whichever persona he would present to you that day.”

“Oh, no,” Gil said. “Anything but that. I’ll be good.” The frown was replaced by a look of concentration. “When can I see what I can see?”

Marta grinned again. “Now. We expected your request and anticipated his directive.”

Gil looked back over his shoulder. “I need tonight to think about this…tonight my time, that is. I’m eight hours ahead of you, so…”

Marta interrupted. “He’s living a night-shift schedule right now, so he’s not too far off of what you’re on.”

“So, meet for breakfast?”

“After breakfast,” Chaim said, avoiding the whole issue of food and eating.

“Nine hundred hours Tel Aviv time, then.” Chaim nodded. “Great.” Gil turned to Marta again. “Lead me to it.” They left the room together.

Chaim moved over to the table to reclaim his T-shirt and sweats and put them on. He stood there with his hands on his hips, wondering if this was such a good idea. After a time, he shrugged. One way or another, he’d get through it. He suspected there’d be some unpleasant moments in the next little while, but his life was already such a sterling example of shit happens he couldn’t see how a few lumps and bruises could make things any worse.

* * *

Gil scrolled through the report. “I don’t see his body temp in here, but from what I felt out there when I was touching his arm and hand, it’s probably way low. What, thirty-five Celsius?”

“Close. Resting, it’s usually around thirty-four point five Celsius.”

Gil scrolled back up. “So, resting blood pressure usually around eighty over fifty, resting pulse around thirty-four, resting temp around thirty-four point five Celsius.” He shook his head. “This guy is a calendar model for low-key low-stress, right?” Marta didn’t respond. “What’s he like when he’s worked up?”

Marta reached over and clicked on another tab on the screen. “These are the readings from his last fifteen-k, right at the end of the run before we shut it down.”

“Hmm.” Gil frowned. “No change in the temp. Pulse forty-one, blood pressure ninety over sixty. Hmm.” He toggled back to the previous screen. “Didn’t you tell me he was running these at a twenty-five percent grade?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm. Way under all the norms.” He toggled back to the second screen. “What happens when he’s exhausted?”

Marta shrugged. “Nothing. Same numbers.”

Gil looked at her. “No drop-off when he’s physically exhausted?”

“We haven’t been able to get him to that state without starving him, and that skews our tests.”

“Right-handed or left?”

“Right dominant,” Marta said, “but pretty good usage with his left. Not ambidextrous by any means, and I don’t think you’d want to give him a complex detailed minute assembly project to work left-handed, but he eats left-handed a lot, and works a computer stylus left-handed just fine.” She shrugged again. “I think you’ll find he’s both flexible and adaptable.” She grinned. “Those aren’t exactly the same things, you know.”

Gil shook his head. “I think I’m beginning to see why Mordechai wants me to train him.”

“Mordechai has said nothing to us about what he expects to develop from this, but between him and Dr. Mendel I’m sure there are multiple expectations, and wheels within wheels.”

“Heh. Not only do I expect that, I’d be disappointed if that wasn’t the case.” Gil stood. “Okay, I’ve seen enough for now. I need to think about this. Is there some food available without leaving the complex?”

“Some sandwiches in the break-room refrigerator. Kosher, of course. Roast beef with Grey Poupon tonight, I think.”

“Great. Show me the way.”

* * *

“Forget the idea of martial arts,” Gil began the next morning with a sneer. “Krav Maga is a combat system, especially the way the Israeli Defense Force uses it. There is no art to it. It is a brutal approach to combat whose sole purpose is to at least incapacitate your opponent—your enemy—in very short order, if not outright destroy him.”

He was walking around Chaim in slow steps as he spoke. Chaim didn’t turn his head to watch him, but he did track him by his steps.

“Krav Maga is to other combat systems what English is to other languages. Just as English is a mongrel language that will mug other languages in back alleys to take and assimilate words and expressions and concepts, so Krav Maga is a mongrel combat system that will adopt, pilfer, and outright steal anything from any other combat system that it thinks might be useful. And this is why I was glad when you told me that you hadn’t had any training, because it really will speed things up if you don’t have any old habits or muscle memory to get in the way of what I’m going to teach you.”

Gil stopped in front of Chaim, maybe two steps away. “Can you touch the floor?”

Chaim didn’t say anything, just bent at the waist with his knees straight and placed his palms on the floor in front of him.

“Good. How about the other direction?”

Chaim brought his hands up and straightened, then kept moving slowly as he bent backward in an arch and ended up with his fingertips touching the floor behind him.

“Uh, yeah. That’s good. Straighten up, please. My back hurts just looking at you.”

Chaim straightened with a small smile. No need to tell Gil that the scientists had been testing his flexibility since his first day there.

Gil had his arms folded across his chest once Chaim was able to look at him again. He was slightly taller than Chaim. The older man’s face was neutral, and Chaim tried to match that as he returned his gaze, eye to eye.

“Right. First of all, every Krav Maga instructor has his own way of teaching. We’re not very formalized…not like some of the karate schools. The one thing we all have in common is this is a very aggressive, very hard combat system, so our teaching is much the same. Even in defense it’s aggressive. Everything is done hard and fast. My preferred method is to teach a few of the defensive moves, then teach you how to spring into offensive moves from those. Then repeat with other moves.

“Second, despite what I just said, training in a gymnasium or dojo is not the same as combat. There will be rules—maybe not very many, but there will be rules. Combat doesn’t have rules. Training and sparring can last for a fair amount of time. Combat is fast, hard, and brutal. In combat, the first man who makes a major strike will usually win. So you won’t get the feel of combat from training or sparring. You’ll get the moves, but you won’t get the feel. And that’s why a lot of trainees don’t survive their first real fights—because by the time they break past their training experiences and figure out how they have to go all out, their opponent has made that major strike and they’re down and probably out.

“Third, you can start out training in trunks and tees and barefoot, but before long I want you working out in street clothes and the heaviest shoes you have.”

“I have a pair of Doc Marten boots,” Chaim said.

“Good. Great.” Gil dropped his hands to his hips. “The idea, obviously, is that fights and combat don’t happen in gymnasiums—they happen out on the street, out in the fields, so you need to be used to fighting in street clothes or uniforms.

“Any questions?”

“How long will it take me to become good?” Chaim asked.

“At least you didn’t ask about becoming a master.” Gil got a thin smile on his face. “The answer is, how long have you got? The philosophy is, if you’re not learning new stuff every time you fight, you’re probably not doing it right. The question you should have asked is, how long until you’re competent? That depends on how hard you want to work. My contract here is for three months. If you focus and work hard, you could have the basics pretty well incorporated by then. After that, it’s just practice and experience.”

Just practice and experience, Chaim repeated mentally. Somehow he didn’t think it would be that simple.

“One final point,” Gil said. “We’re both going to be tired and sore and cranky most of the time before this is over. This is going to be hard for both of us, although in different ways. Doing this kind of intensive training is almost as hard on the instructor as it is on the trainee.

“I haven’t overstated the fact that this is a hard and rough and aggressive combat system. We’ll try to minimize damage, but accidents happen in training, especially when we’re going to be moving as fast as we are. I think I can promise there won’t be any major broken bones, but no guarantees. We will certainly have a fine collection of bruises, you probably more than me. If this bothers you, now is the time to walk away.”

Chaim shook his head. “I’m not any fonder of pain than the next guy, but I need this. If this is the only way or the best way to get it, so be it.” He shrugged. “It is what it is.”

* * *

Two weeks into the training, Chaim was still struggling with the workouts. It wasn’t the physical aspect of the workouts that bothered him most. He was actually doing okay with that, from what he could tell, which surprised him somewhat. No, it was the mental aspect that was plaguing him. Hitting someone and being hit was hard for him at first, especially the hitting someone part. He just wasn’t comfortable at trying to be violent. He’d never been one to stick up for himself in conflicts. He’d always been the one to turn away, even when he knew he was in the right, or more importantly, even when he knew the other guy was wrong. He was finding it more difficult to overcome a lifetime of habit and conditioning than he had thought it would be.

And tonight was a case in point. Even after two weeks, he still felt a reluctance to lash out at Gil. He knew the moves, but it felt like his mind was dragging weights. By the time he would start a strike or a kick, Gil would be at least one move beyond it, if not two. It was starting to frustrate him.

Anger flared in his mind and flowed through his body. His shoulders tightened, his hands lifted a fraction of an inch, his eyes narrowed. Gil danced in and threw a straight left. Chaim didn’t think—he just reacted, throwing his left hand up to block the punch to the side while he ducked and turned in to hammer his right fist into Gil’s left side between his hip and the short ribs. An instant later he brought a kick around with his right foot, aiming to take out Gil’s left knee, but Gil had already started to lift his leg, so he only kicked the calf muscle. It was a good hit, though, and Gil winced as it landed. The instructor backed off and held up both hands, grinning like a madman.

“Finally!” Gil said, holding one hand to his side as he reached down to rub his calf with the other. He spat his mouth guard into one hand. “Finally, you throw a punch like you mean it. And the kick was solid, too. Glad today wasn’t boot day. Good job, man.” He straightened. “Whatever it was that got you to do that, remember that. That’s what I need from you every time we face off, okay?”

Chaim nodded.

“Good. Now, do it again to prove it wasn’t a fluke.” Gil put the mouth guard back in and raised his hands. Chaim raised his own hands and began moving. The anger still flowed, and he felt lighter than usual.

* * *

It became easier the next couple of weeks for Chaim to call up the anger. Toward the end, he wasn’t even feeling the anger. It just jazzed his body, but left his mind clear. So maybe it was just adrenaline.

He mentioned it to Dr. Hurwitz, and ended up regretting it almost immediately, because the doctor and Marta interrupted his next practice session to draw blood. By now his skin was getting tough enough that it was hard to get the needle through, even with the larger-bore reusable titanium needles they had had to start using. They were more painful than the usual one-use disposable kits, as well. Those kits were a topic of dark humor in the lab now.

The frequent anger—if that was what it was—was leaving him edgy. Or at least, he thought it was the anger. But maybe—maybe it was just part of becoming a vampire. Maybe it was just how he was going to be as he continued his “conversion.” Maybe…

That thought didn’t give him much comfort. Despite Mordechai’s assurances that he didn’t have to become a monster…despite the example that Mordechai set before him…despite Rabbi Avram’s assurance that he would not lose his place among the sons of Abraham because of what he had already become, what he was continuing to become, that fear still lurked in the dark corners of his mind. And it seemed like the dark corners were growing, and becoming darker.

What caused Chaim to turn a corner was a chance discovery. He stepped out into the hallway after a session with Gil, and something teased his nose that he hadn’t smelled here before. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Gil replied, massaging the left side of his ribcage where Chaim had landed a solid blow a few minutes earlier.

“That smell.” Chaim started down the hallway. “It smells like…chlorine.” He started trotting, leaving Gil and Marta behind. He paused at the cross-corridor to sniff, turned to his left, and kept moving. That corridor ended in a T-junction with another corridor, where another sniff took him to the right for about twenty feet. He stopped in front of a double door, and took a deep breath. “Water…and chlorine.” He opened the door.

Marta and Gil found Chaim standing on the edge of a large swimming pool. “Why didn’t you tell me this was here?” he said, not turning from the water.

“It was shut down when Covid hit,” Marta said to his back. “It’s been empty for almost two years. It wasn’t approved for reopening until right before you came, and it turned out one of the circulation pumps had to be replaced. They finished filling it with water yesterday, and started the chemicals this morning. It should be swimmable…”

“Now,” Chaim said, stripping off his shirt. A moment later his shoes and slacks joined his shirt on the concrete and he made a near splashless dive into the water.

“Well, I was going to say tomorrow, but it’s probably okay now,” Marta said to Gil.

“At least he wasn’t commando under the slacks.”

They watched Chaim swim for a couple of laps. “The kid’s a pretty good swimmer,” Gil said.

“He’s from California,” Marta said. “What did you expect?”

Gil laughed. “I’ll see him tomorrow.” He turned and left.

Chaim did three more laps before stopping, exulting in the feeling of knifing through the water. When he had finished, he came up to the side of the pool and rested his forearms on it to look at Marta. He had what felt like the biggest smile he’d ever had on his face.

“Boy, that feels good,” he said, shaking his head and flinging waterdrops all the way to where Marta sat on a bench against the side wall. “I wish I’d known this was here. I’d have been down here nagging the workers along. Olympic sized?”

“Olympic length,” Mara said, “but only half the width—five lanes instead of ten.” She smiled at him. “I forgot until just now you’re from California. Between the ocean and every other house having a pool, I imagine you lived in the water.” Her voice sounded a little envious.

Chaim shook his head. “Not in my neighborhood. There were usually only one or two pools on each block, and I didn’t do the ocean thing.”

“Why not?”

“First of all, no time. Between a full load at school and then Torah studies and later Talmud studies, I didn’t have the time for the ocean.”

“And?” she said.

“And?” Chaim repeated, looking at her. She frowned at him, and he relented. “Let’s just say I wasn’t a good fit with the ocean crowd: too short, too pale, too plump, too big a nerd, and last but not least, too Jewish. Saturday was prime beach and surfing time, and I’m Orthodox, so I didn’t get out then.”

“Ah. But there’s got to be more to it than that. You’re too good at swimming for it to be just an every once in a while thing for you. My cousin did competitive swimming. I know what good looks like. You’re good.”

“Yeah, well, that would be my mom.”

“Your mom?”

Chaim’s mouth quirked. “Yeah. A Jewish mother, right? Well, around fourth grade she got all worried that I wasn’t developing correctly and I needed more socializing, that school and shul weren’t enough. I’m sure she got it from Oprah’s book club, or something like that. She talked to her friends, to our rabbi, and to her therapist, and somehow arrived at her own consensus that Boy Scouts were the answer. So she told my dad to get me in Boy Scouts.”

He placed his palms on the surface and pushed up, almost shooting himself out of the pool to land on his feet. “Dad refused, saying that I didn’t need it and I shouldn’t waste time on it.” A sort of grin crossed Chaim’s face. “I remember when that happened. I think that was the first time Dad had told Mom she couldn’t have something she was serious about. It was January when she asked, and for the next three weeks it was like Idaho was camped in our living room. Just cold, man.”

Chaim shook his head. “You know, I thought my dad was a smart man, but taking that long to give in was pretty stupid on his part. You don’t mess with a Jewish mother in full-bore mama mode. Even I know that. So he finally gave in, and I started Scouts. It was a troop made up mostly of Jewish kids sponsored by one of the synagogues in town. The high school swimming coach was our assistant scoutmaster, and every single one of us got a merit badge in swimming. Most of them got drafted for the school swim team.”

Marta laughed. “Did you like Boy Scouts?”

Chaim shrugged. “It was okay. I made almost all of my merit badges on science and technology stuff, and some urban topics. Think I only did one campout, and was thoroughly miserable the whole time. Made Eagle Scout at fourteen.”

“Wow,” Marta said. “That was fast. Didn’t that used to be something only older scouts did?”

Chaim shook his head. “Nah, not these days. The Eagle Scout thing is still the premium rank, so they want as many kids to get it as they can. So they have started telling parents to get their kids to Eagle by the time they’re fourteen, because after that they discover girls, and too many of them lose interest.”

Marta laughed again, and shook her head. “Darned girls, messing everything up.” She grinned at Chaim. “So, did you make your Jewish mother happy?”

“Not really. I learned to work and cooperate with others, sure, but I can’t say I made any close friends. I’m connected with a few of them in social media, but I don’t hang out with any of them now. Haven’t since I made Eagle and left the program.” He bent over to pick up his clothes and shoes.

“Wet underwear is no substitute for a pair of swim trunks, you know,” Marta said with a deadpan expression.

Chaim looked over at her in surprise. Marta was ordinarily all business, and the comment was a little more personal than she usually made. He felt a bit of a blush on his face, which surprised him. He’d not felt that kind of emotional reaction much in the weeks since his life-changing encounter. “You’ve seen more of me than this,” he tried to joke back. It left him a bit uncomfortable.

“You do realize you’ve opened a new door, don’t you?” Marta asked. He looked at her with raised eyebrows. “I mean, Dr. Hurwitz is going to develop a whole new battery of tests for this, you know.”

Chaim groaned. “He will, won’t he?” He shook his head again, then looked up with a gleam in his eyes. “Good luck with getting the EKG patches to stick to my skin in the water, though.”

* * *

Chaim didn’t care if the team came up with more tests or if they wanted him to swim with EKG sensors glued to his body. Just being able to swim frequently helped him level out. It was something he had done well before the “conversion,” and the fact that he could still do it well helped him feel like maybe things would be okay.

After a couple of assessments of his metabolism and exertion during swimming, the team decided to not pursue those any further. The results mirrored those from tracking his running, and the waterproof wireless sensors were not inexpensive. Chaim was just as glad. The adhesive for the waterproof sensors made his new-model vampire skin itch. The team actually did more tests about that than they did for the swimming. There was a running joke about “vampire repellent” for a few days.

After that, things settled to a form of normal, except that Chaim wasn’t quite as tense as he had been. And now, if no one could find Chaim, they looked in the swimming pool first.

Chaim replayed the last part of his initial conversation with Gil in his mind many times, usually just after a grueling workout. It wasn’t particularly satisfying that Gil turned out to be a fine predictor of the near future. Tired-sore-and-cranky pretty well described Chaim’s state of being most of those days—even with the vampire-adjusted body and metabolism—because it turned out that Gil hit like a mallet. He didn’t seem to be pulling his punches any in the training, and Chaim just had to absorb it and take more. The reminder that “It is what it is” became Chaim’s mantra as he started counting down the days to the end of the contract.

The last two weeks of the training were just in street clothes: Docker-style slacks and athletic shoes or the Doc Marten boots. With his natural strength, Chaim had no problems with the extra weight, and by that time he’d had enough practice to adjust to the feel of the clothes and shoes. Even with the new calmer Chaim, he still had plenty of anger and adrenaline to fuel his practices. He was still having to restrain his reactions, even so. Apparently he was doing a good enough job of that, since Gil never said anything.

Chaim’s countdown was at four days when he neared the open door to the usual conference room one night. He stopped several steps down the hallway, because the room was occupied, and they were talking about him.

“We’ve gotten a baseline about exertion and duration from your workouts that really extends and enhances our datasets.” That was Dr. Hurwitz. “That is almost invaluable to us.”

“I’m glad to have been of help”—that was Gil—“but I’m not sure you know what you have, here, Doctor Hurwitz. Can I give you my perspective?”

“Sure.”

Chaim leaned against the wall in the hall. He wasn’t going anywhere until this was over.

“First, once I got him engaged, this kid’s ability to focus is incredible. I’ve had very few students like him, and I’ve taught some of the best in Israel. He learns fast—I show him a move, and in three days it’s committed to muscle memory. He makes mistakes—he can’t help but make mistakes at this stage of his training—but he doesn’t repeat them. He’s dangerous now. When he has more experience, he’ll be lethal. When he has a lot more experience, he’ll be Death on two feet.

“Second, I don’t know what you’ve done to him. He’s hard, physically, but he’s as fast as anyone I’ve ever worked with. And I can’t find his limits. I’ve tried to wear him down, but he wears me down instead.

“Third, I don’t know what you’re doing with him, but whether you realize it or not this kid could be a super soldier. I’m sure you have plans for him. If Mordechai is involved, I’m not sure I want to know or should know what those plans are. But please, if something like that is possible, please tell Israel about it. If he can be cloned, or if his training can be duplicated, whatever. Because the IDF would pay any amount to have even a company of that kid’s equivalents. It might actually keep the nation alive for a few generations.

“Fourth, whatever comes of this, I hope someone instilled ethics and morality in that kid, because I really don’t want to think about what he’ll be capable of if you didn’t.”

Chaim swallowed at that. And what Gil didn’t know probably made the observation even more pointed.

“Doctor Mendel and Mr. Zalman haven’t discussed any plans with us,” Dr. Hurwitz said.

“Of course they haven’t said anything…yet.” Gil’s sarcasm was thick in his voice. “But the kid showed me a Gibborim medallion like the one I’ve seen Mordechai wearing, and Mordechai arranged the training. I’ve worked with Mordechai. I’ve worked with people who worked with him during the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War. I’ve talked with people who worked with him during the 1956 Sinai War and the first Arab War in 1948 and 1949. And I’ve heard stories about what he supposedly did in World War II. So I’m absolutely certain that Mordechai has a plan. That man wouldn’t sneeze or fart without a plan. Whether he’s even told himself yet that he has a plan, I don’t know, but he has a plan. Count on it.”

Chaim suppressed a rueful chuckle. Mordechai had said that Gil was sharp and would pick up on even the tiniest pieces if given an opportunity. He was right.

“How much longer will you be with us, Mr. Haleva?”

“My contract is for three months, and it’s just about up. I could stay a few days longer if someone was willing to pay my rates, but I have to be back in Tel Aviv absolutely no later than ten days from now. So one way or another, I’ll be gone soon. And I really need to talk to Mordechai at least once before I leave. Do you know if or when he’ll be back?”

“He was supposed to be back to check on things a couple of days ago.” That was Marta. “We haven’t had a word from him.”

“But that’s not too unusual,” Dr. Hurwitz said dryly. “He and Dr. Mendel both tend to have very fluid schedules, you might say.”

“I can imagine.” Gil’s tone was even drier.

“So is the training finished?” Marta again.

“Basically,” Gil responded. “He’s learned the techniques and the drill. Now he just needs experience, and I can’t give that to him. I can’t stay that long, and you’re not paying me enough for that. But tomorrow night I’m going to give him his graduation exercise.”

Chaim’s forehead creased at that statement. Gil’s tone indicated he wasn’t smiling when he said that, so somehow Chaim doubted that it would be what his dorm buddies would have called a party.


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Framed