Chapter 8

Unfortunately, Kiana did not get to enjoy their new house in Mill Creek for long. Instead, she was shipped off for training, which was a three month program, and her superiors at the USIA wanted her to do it during the summer so she would have it completed by the time school resumed in the fall. She was more than a little apprehensive, especially at first, because it meant she would be away from Michael the entire time and she had never been away from him for that long before.

He tried to make her feel a little better by saying they would communicate daily via the internet (she was allowed to take her laptop with her), but it really didn’t do much to comfort her. Regardless, there was nothing she could do, as the training was required of all new agents, and as such she was flown to the USIA’s western training facility (later, she learned there was another, called the eastern training facility, somewhere on the east coast). It was in Nevada, in a completely isolated area in the middle of the desert, and it was an old military base that had been converted for USIA use. Kiana’s plane landed on a small airstrip that was on the base’s eastern side and she was greeted by a man named Ulysses Harrington. Harrington was an older man, in his mid to late sixties, and apparently he was the training facility’s ‘chief of operations,’ whatever that meant. He was a tall, lean man and was in great shape, especially for someone his age, and he did his best to make Kiana feel at home.

“I think you’ll enjoy your time here. Our training program is pretty intensive so it’ll be a lot of work, but word is you’re a real go-getter so you should fit right in. The program is a combination of classwork and physical training. Most of our students are adults, in the normal program, but we currently have three other applicants for the teen program so you’ll have a few partners in crime, so to speak.”

At that, he led her to where she would be staying, which was a small building, a barracks of some type, filled with metal bunks. Already within the building were the other three students Harrington had referred to, and they had made themselves at home throughout the building. Harrington introduced Kiana to each of them and they all seemed friendly enough. The first was a tall, lanky boy from Texas named Daniel Smith. He had long, shaggy blond hair, blue eyes, and a thick, Southern accent.

“Everyone calls me Smitty.”

The second student was a shorter, heavier boy from Montana named Jamie Logan. He said he was from a city called Bozeman but Kiana had never heard of it. He had dark, brown hair and eyes to match.

The third student was a girl named Jennie Osterman, and she was from San Francisco. She was about Kiana’s height but was a little heavier. She had long, black hair and straight bangs that hung to the middle of her forehead.

Harrington told them they had orientation first thing in the morning and said he would stop by at 8:00 am to get them, then left them alone for the remainder of the night. Kiana chose a bunk near the far wall and unpacked her things (she had only been allowed to bring one suitcase of clothing, a bag of toiletries, and her laptop computer, so it didn’t take long), and spent the rest of the evening getting to know the other students. Like her, they all had parents who were USIA agents, and like her they were all sixteen (Smitty’s birthday was just a few weeks away so he was almost seventeen).

The next morning, their training officially began. Harrington gave them a brief orientation which included a tour of the training facility, which was actually quite a bit bigger than Kiana had originally thought. She and the other students watched as a bunch of adult trainees ran by, and if she hadn’t known any better, she would have thought the place was a military boot camp, not an intelligence agency’s training facility. There was a shooting range and a long, complex obstacle course. They all laughed as an adult trainee, a man wearing baggy, gray sweat pants, slipped from a rope near the middle of the obstacle course and fell headfirst into a mud pit.

Shortly after their tour concluded, they were sent to a building filled with small rooms and their “classwork” officially began. They had multiple classes per day with several different teachers, and the classes covered a broad range of topics that apparently were useful for agents who did work in the field. Apparently, there were some USIA agents who were primarily office workers or laboratory technicians, but the four of them were being trained specifically for field work. After three classes, they were given a brief lunch break in the training facility’s cafeteria and they quickly learned the food there was awful. The vegetables tasted like rubber, and the chicken was so dry they all had to drink a glass of water to wash it down. After lunch, they reported to the training facility’s gymnasium where they were to begin their fitness and combat training. For the first few days they did little more than weight lifting, running, and an assortment of other types of workouts, including a few trips through the obstacle course they had seen on their orientation tour. Kiana, who was athletic by nature, always did well and finished quickly, but the other students struggled and one time Smitty ended up flat on his back in the mud.

As far as Kiana was concerned, however, her real training didn’t begin until the fifth day. The four of them were in the gymnasium, working with an instructor named Charles O’Reilly on self-defense and other basic combat techniques. O’Reilly had clearly spent a lot of time in the military and he acted more like a drill sergeant than an instructor. He ran them through a series of basic drills, barking at them most of the time, and most of the drills were just simple defensive moves designed to fend off potential assailants or muggers. Everyone did fine but Kiana, who had practiced taekwondo since she had been five, found it terribly boring and unchallenging, and she finally decided to do something to liven things up a little.

“Pretend you’re walking down an alley,” O’Reilly said. “And I’m a mugger. I come at you with a knife. What would you do?”

He pulled a small, plastic knife from his pocket and held it in front of him as though he meant to attack her.

Kiana shrugged. “How about this?”

As fast as lightning she kicked the knife out of his hand, then followed with a second kick to his chest that knocked the wind from his lungs, then followed with a third kick that swept his feet out from under him and sent him tumbling face first onto the floor. They were standing on mats so he wasn’t injured by the fall, but even so it took him several seconds to recover and climb back to his feet.

In the meantime, another instructor, a small man who had been working with a group of adult trainees a few feet away, rushed over. He had seen what had happened and his eyes had grown large with interest. He walked up to Kiana and addressed her.

“That was impressive, young lady.” He had a deep voice, especially for a man his size, and a thick, Korean accent. “What did you do?”

“It was taekwondo.”

The man smiled. “I know it was taekwondo. What were the moves?”

“Nothing fancy. Two snap kicks followed by a sweep.”

He nodded. “How long have you been practicing?”

“Over ten years. I started when I was five.”

“What school?”

“ATA Anaheim.”

“Your rank?”

“Black belt. Fourth degree.”

His eyes lit up the minute she said it. In many ways, he looked like a child who had just been given a present on Christmas day.

“Finally. After all of these years they have sent me a student worthy of my time. Do you have your dobok here with you?”

A dobok was the traditional uniform worn by taekwondo practitioners. Typically, it was loose fitting, with a white jacket and matching pants.

“I do. It’s in my suitcase back in the barracks.”

“Put it on and join me on the far side of the gymnasium. My name is Gwon Ji-hoon. You will refer to me as Master Gwon and from now on you will do your physical training with me and me alone. Understood?”

At the time, Kiana didn’t really know what to think and she didn’t really know what was happening since she didn’t know who the man was (other than his name) but even so she did as told. She ran back to the barracks, dug her dobok from her suitcase (she almost hadn’t brought it since she hadn’t been certain she would need it), and changed into it. As soon as she had it on, she ran back to the gym, to the spot on its far side where Master Gwon had told her to meet him.

And then she stopped in her tracks. He, too, had changed, and like her he was wearing a dobok. Unlike hers, however, his was solid black. But the thing that caught her eye wasn’t his dobok or its color. It was his belt. He wore a solid black belt that had nine stripes on it.

Her jaw dropped open.

He was a saseong – a grand master.

In taekwondo, there were several ranks divided into two sections, junior and senior. The junior section was divided into ten different ranks, commonly referred to as color ranks. Your rank was shown by the color of the belt you wore. A newbie started with a white belt, then worked his or her way up to a black belt. After obtaining a black belt, you were in the senior section which was divided into nine ranks, which many people referred to as degrees. First degree was the lowest, and ninth degree (grand master) was the highest.

Kiana had never sparred against a grand master before. As such, she was immediately cautious and more than a little intimidated.

“Show me your stances,” he said.

She did as told. She took her place on the mat next to him and went through a series of the most common and useful taekwondo stances, including the attention stance (charyot sogi), the closed stance (moa sogi), the walking stance (gunnun sogi), the parallel ready stance (naranhi junbi sogi), the rear foot stance (dwit bal sogi), and the sitting stance (annun sogi).

“Very nice. Your form is flawless, young Kiana. Now show me some hand attacks.”

She went through a series of her favorite hand attacks, including both closed and open fist strikes.

“Good. Now show me some blocks.”

She went through a series of some of her favorite blocks, including the single forearm block (wae sun palmok), the low block (najundi makgi), the rising block (chookya makgi), and the palm block (sonbadak naeryo makgi).

“Now some kicks.”

Kiana smiled. She liked all aspects of taekwondo and she was good at them all, but to her nothing was better than kicking. She never really knew why, but right from the start as a young girl she had always liked kicking the stuffing out of things. As a result, however, she had found it slightly funny, and quite a bit ironic, that she had taken up softball and not soccer. But then again, that was probably Michael’s influence, since he had always liked softball so much.

She went through a series of her favorite kicks, including the snap and sweep kicks she had used to take down the first instructor, O’Reilly, and also a roundhouse kick (dollyeo chagi), an axe kick (naeryeo chagi), and a spin kick (bandae dollyeo chagi).

“Impressive. It’s clear you have had some good instructors. Your form is perfect and your concentration intense. But you are much too slow. If you want to be truly effective you must double your speed.”

Kiana was surprised and a little taken aback. Over the years, she had received little criticism from her taekwondo instructors. She had always been the star. She had progressed from rank to rank faster than any student in the history of her school, and she had spent the majority of her time sparring against boys since they were the only ones who could give her a challenge (other than the school’s instructors, of course). And even the boys had had their hands full facing her, and one year she beat fifteen of them in a row.

“We will spar,” Master Gwon said. “And you will increase your speed. Or you will pay the price. Understood?”

And so began the most horrific beatdown Kiana had ever received. She tried to use her best moves on him, the same moves that had won her tournament after tournament, but none of them were effective, not in the least. Punches, kicks, and even combinations of both were blocked effortlessly. He moved so fast and so smoothly it almost seemed inhuman. Kiana was speechless.

“Faster,” he said.

She threw blow after blow, as fast as she could, but nothing had any effect. He blocked everything.

“Faster.”

She did as told, increasing her speed to a level she didn’t even think possible, and couldn’t help but notice she was breathing heavily (possibly harder than she had ever breathed before), and she was covered with sweat. Beads of it ran down her sides and dropped onto the floor below her.

And then, without any warning whatsoever, he turned the tide on her. Up to that point, he had been doing nothing but blocking her attacks, but he began to mix in a few of his own. The first was a simple open-palm strike aimed at her chest. It caught her completely off guard and sent her tumbling flat onto her back.

“You must be faster. Both with your attacks and with your blocks. But do not focus on one to the detriment of the other.”

She climbed to her feet and began again. Unfortunately, her fate was exactly as before. She threw five or six punches, and an equal number of kicks, then found herself flat on her back, the result of a snap kick to her midsection. A few seconds after that a sweep took her down, and a few seconds after that a roundhouse hit her in the side of the head. It hit her so hard she saw stars and had to shake her head so she could see clearly again.

But even so, she was not going to give up, not for a second. Quite to the contrary, she was more excited than ever. She had always wanted to improve her taekwondo skills and she had always had aspirations of one day being a grand master herself. As far as she was concerned, she had found the way to do that. There was no doubt in her mind Master Gwon could take her to the next level and as such she was going to take full advantage of everything he would teach her.

Even if it meant she would get beat to a pulp in the process.