Chapter 8

The Recruit: The Training

ISIS had found Jake and now was demanding an oath of loyalty. Jake had no problem with that particularly when he was told his training would begin as soon as he took the oath. He thought he would be sent to one of the Arab countries for training. Jake’s knowledge of the middle east was practically nonexistent. They explained that he would be trained locally in Canada, and he would still keep his job and report to his parole officer. He wasn’t happy about that until they explained to him he was now an undercover spy, a secret agent. 

Jake’s free time was taken up with training. He was blindfolded and driven to the camp for the first time. It was somewhere in the forest, but he didn’t know where. His instructors were all masked and addressed as Instructor. He was disappointed because his first day consisted of physical evaluation. He did OK on strength tests but any activity such as running and jumping he ended up panting furiously and unable to finish the test. Thus, his training started with getting into fighting shape.

After he was pushed to exhaustion he was sent to sit in a tiny classroom in which he was introduced to Improvised Explosive Devices (IED). The concepts were simple for Jake to follow, but he pretended to be stupid. Jake was good at swearing and being a bully and those talents played right into the misjudgment they were making of him. At the end of the day he was blindfolded and after an hour and a half drive they dropped him off near his apartment but not right at it.

Although he had not enjoyed the day he still felt part of something and despite his intentionally poor performance, no one called him a dummy or said anything offensive. He liked his new friends even if he had only seen the face of his recruiter.

His training continued one day per week for months. Although he was pretending to be a slow learner Jake was becoming an even more dangerous perp than he had been in the past.

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