“We had to do it. Anyway, it wasn’t so bad,” she says dismissively. “It’s not like we chopped off a finger.”
I grip the edge of the basin. “Did you see her face?”
“Of course I saw her face. I took close-ups of it. That was the reaction we wanted, remember?”
I move past her into the bedroom, shrug off the towel, and slip on the boxers I wear for bed. I don’t worry about my nakedness in front of her. We’ve slept together on the odd occasion, and I can tell by her posture and the light in her eyes she’s angling for a repeat experience. It bothers me she feels this way when all I feel is the chokehold of guilt.
Nolene slips her arms around my waist and rests her cheek against the bare skin of my back. “Don’t let her come between us,” she whispers. “We’re fighting for something greater here.”
It’s nearly midnight. I’m not going to sleep with Nolene tonight. Or any other night, for that matter. In truth, for me at least, the attraction is waning. “It’s been a long day. I’m tired.”
Nolene stiffens against me, her arms loosening their hold. “I can take a hint.”
I suppress a sigh. I can’t afford to antagonize her. We’ve worked together for five years and I need her commitment to the cause.Turning to face her, I kiss her lightly on the lips. “Sorry I’m a grouch. A good night’s sleep should sort me out.”
She gives a rueful smile. “Understood. If you need me, you know where I am.”
Her room is next to mine. Amy is locked away in a room directly across from us.
I watch the sway of Nolene’s hips as she saunters out of the room. History hangs heavily between us. We met five years ago at an animal activists training camp. In the month we were there, we were taught surveillance and sabotage, document falsification, how to work undercover, how to evade arrest, and what to expect if the police got hold of you. Like me, Nolene excelled in the more physical aspects of the course—the fitness training, unarmed combat maneuvers, and interrogation deprivations.
One area Nolene struggled in was the lock-picking course. No matter how many times the instructor explained to her the ins and outs of picking a lock, she was unable to master the technique. I often glimpsed her struggling late into the night with an array of locks and picks spread out in front of her, a frown of concentration on her attractive face, swearing viciously when she failed to get it.
“Okay, enough,” said the instructor finally, a trace of exasperation evident. “If you’re on a job and you get stuck, use a bump key or a pick gun.”
Lock-picking was a skill I swiftly mastered. I seemed to have a special affinity for cracking all kinds of locks—wafer, warded, tubular, lever, magnetic. No matter what sort of lock the instructor tossed my way, I was able to unerringly manipulate the components inside. It became a game between us, the teacher hunting down the most complex locks, the pupil working cockily to break them.
I had my profession as a veterinary surgeon to thank for my newly acquired skill. The slim steel of a lock-picking tool fitted into my hand as comfortably as a scalpel.
At the end of the training, the instructor shook my hand in admiration. “Looks like you’re a lock-pick hacker like me.”
Nolene found her calling in the explosives training course. Her passion became my aversion. There was a disturbing light in her eyes as she lapped up lectures detailing the ins and outs of making homemade bombs using weed killer and sugar, quickly graduating to the more advanced classes dealing with time-delay and remotely-detonated fuses.
It was a course I begrudgingly completed. Arson and explosives made me uncomfortable. There were too many uncertainties, the risk of accidental injury or death too high. I preferred a more focused approach—get in, get the animals out. Firebombing campaigns struck me as too dangerous and unpredictable.
Evenings were spent listening to informal lectures on the animal liberation movement, its history, its philosophy, its activists.
And then we were initiated into our first raid—a mink farm, a safe distance away from the training camp. Under the critical, assessing eye of our team leader, we donned dark clothing and taped black masking tape over our zippers so the reflection wouldn’t give us away.
We came in on foot through the woods and used bolt cutters to cut through the back perimeter fence topped with concertina wire, two team members staying behind to create additional escape holes for the mink. Previous recon missions had established where trigger alarms and surveillance cameras were hidden and these were quickly disabled.
The stench was almost overwhelming as we entered the long, dim barns where the mink were housed in cages. Activists moved down the rows, working swiftly to free the mink and tear up the breeding cards. I estimated I opened close to four hundred cages that night.
I liked working with Nolene, she was cool and level-headed. At the start of the raid, when someone accidentally triggered the motion-sensor light outside the caretaker’s house, causing him to step outside to investigate, she took the initiative and from her hiding place imitated the call of a barn owl. After a minute, in which we held our collective breath, the caretaker went back inside, his suspicions allayed.
Although there was not enough time to free all the mink, the operation went smoothly.
Both Nolene and I passed. The feeling was the same exhilarating sense of purpose I experienced at my graduation ceremony from veterinary school. The last day of the camp, I defied the rules and swapped contact information with Nolene. A small voice in my head whispered that Nolene’s penchant for strongarm tactics might one day lead to tragedy, but I dismissed that doomsayer voice. I’d keep her in line.
When I started Animal Freedom Defenders two months after leaving the camp, I called Nolene and she agreed to join me.
Yes, there’s a lot of history between us. But not much else. Not anymore.
I massage the back of my neck, stiff with the stampede of memories. I stretch out onto the bed, staring at the ceiling, but seeing only the stricken look on Amy’s face.
Feeling drowsiness finally overtake me, I welcome the oblivion that will cause me to forget today. To forget what I’m slowly becoming—a man as merciless as the one Amy has for a father.
14
