The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller (32 page)

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Authors: Shane Kuhn

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BOOK: The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller

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“Do you think I’d be up here if I was still after you?”

“You’re up here because you’re working a target. Based on the surroundings, my guess is it’s someone in intelligence. CIA. Rogue. About five foot ten, a hundred and forty-five pounds. Josef Ricard. Am I getting warmer?”

“What have you done?”

“I told him to get the fuck out of Dodge before he gets his brains splattered all over Robert Frost country. I told him that his lovely assistant is really a cold-blooded killer who is using him to get close
to his boss so that she can cut his throat with a Tanto knife—Yakuza style, of course.”

“Congratulations. Now that you’ve destroyed my career, please say something cryptic about tying up loose ends and put me out of my misery.”

“You’re not a loose end, Alice. I am.”

“Now you’re making no sense.”

“Neither did my father when he suggested I come here. But then I started thinking about it, and it made perfect sense. He knew that I could never go on with my life if I didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

I set my gun on the floor.

“I love you, Alice.”

I kick my gun across the floor, well out of my reach.

“All I need to know is if you love me.”

I roll the box with the Harry Winston ring across the floor, within her reach. She just looks at me, waiting for the punch line.

“You’re fucking crazy. You know that?”

“Not anymore.”

She pulls her gun and levels it at me.

“I don’t love you,” she says defiantly. “And I don’t see how you could possibly love me.”

“Believe me, if I could walk away from this, or better yet, put a fucking bullet in your head, I would. But I know who I am now. And I know that you’re part of that.”

“No, John. I’m not.”

“Then pull the trigger,” I say, ready for anything. I can hit the water now. And all of me can disintegrate into the depths.

She is frozen in this moment, completely torn between her true self and the put-on persona that fell in love with me.

“I can’t do it.”

“Just squeeze.”

“I’m not talking about killing you. I’m talking about what happens if I don’t kill you. What you want. I can’t do it.” She fights the tears that are now rolling down her cheeks, mocking her bravado.

“Neither can I. But I’m willing to die trying.”

As we sit there staring at each other, wondering what to do next and thinking for ourselves for the first time, I think back to my first week of training. After Bob got me out of juvie, he took me to a cabin in the woods that was a lot like this one, made me a hot meal, and sent me to bed. It was the best night’s sleep I’d had in years. But when I woke up in the morning, he was gone. At first I thought he had just gone out for supplies. Then the bullets came smashing through the windows, obliterating everything in the cabin. I spent the next three days doing everything I could to survive. When I tried to hide in the cabin, Bob burned it to the ground. When I tried to run, he sent dogs to hunt me down. When I tried to fight, he scorched the earth around me with bullets and explosives.

On the third day, as I cowered behind a rock, half-starved, frostbitten, burned, bloody, and dehydrated, I screamed that I gave up, that he could kill me if he wanted. In fact, I begged for death. That’s when Bob walked up and sat me up against the rock. Instead of killing me, he gave me a drink of water, covered me with his jacket, and told me I was
ready
. He saw the state of complete confusion on my face and explained that, until I was fully prepared to die, I would never be a true predator.

It was this statement that made me what I was at HR. And it’s this statement that has made me what I am now. I’m not a predator. I’m Marcus Hunter. Who are you?

Acknowledgments

This book exists because of the guts and genius of Sarah Knight; the rock-and-roll soul of Hannah Brown Gordon; the help-you-hide-a-body guidance of Brad Mendelsohn; the Shaolin white eyebrow–style kung fu leadership of Marysue Rucci and Jonathan Karp; the earth-shattering love and support of Amanda D. M. Kuhn, Skoogy D, K Bear, Jo Mama Kuhn (best mum ever), Ky, Mary B, Big Bri (Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam), Cherry, G. Vance, Suzie, Brad, Silver, and Nixon and Kennedy (canines representing political duality); the Boy Named Sue love and fearless support of my late father, Kenneth Kuhn (the tough got going, Pop); the heartbreaking love and redemption of my beautiful late sisters, Tina and Kara Kuhn (thank you both for making me the twisted maniac I am today); the professional support, dedication, and karaoke skills of Ed Wood, Stéphanie Abou, Kirsten Neuhaus, Rachel Hecht, Molly Lindley, Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich, Elina Vaysbeyn, Kate Gales, and Brad Pearson; and the ink, wood, metal, and muscle of Simon & Schuster in the United States, Sphere/Little, Brown in the UK, Dumont in Germany, Sonatine in France, Pantagruel in Norway, and Alnari in Serbia. A true disciple of life has many deities. These are mine.

About the Author

Shane Kuhn is a writer and filmmaker with twenty years of experience working in the entertainment business and the ad world. In feature film, he has written screenplays for Universal, Paramount, Sony, Fox, and Lionsgate. In the world of independent film, he is one of the original founders of the Slamdance Film Festival and currently serves as an Executive Board member of Slamdance, Inc. A shameless product pusher in the ad world, he has worked as a copywriter, creative director, and broadcast video director and producer for several notable brands and charitable organizations. As a college baseball player, he threw a fastball in the low 90s, but his career was cut short by a Bull Durham strike zone.
The Intern’s Handbook
is his first novel. He lives with his wife and family in a bi-coastal/mountain migration pattern that includes Massachusetts, Colorado, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition April 2014

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Jacket design by Roberto de Vicq Cumptich

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kuhn, Shane.

The Intern’s handbook : a thriller / Shane Kuhn.—First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

pages cm

1. Law firms—Fiction. 2. Internship programs—Fiction. 3. Impersonation—Fiction. 4. Assassins—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3611.U394I58 2014

813'.6—dc23

2013034014

ISBN 978-1-4767-3380-7

ISBN 978-1-4767-3385-2 (ebook)

Contents