Page 33 of Out of the Shadows
COSMO
“Have you done this before?”
I almost jump out of my skin. I’ve been so busy plotting my exit, I’ve not noticed Daniel come up beside me.
I look him square in the face. “Yes, and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I really can’t see the point of running around pretending to be soldier boys. This is a pointless waste of time and money. What’s this got to do with working in the financial sector?”
Daniel doesn’t answer but a slight twitch at the corner of his lips makes me wonder if we’re on the same page — or at least when it comes to our team building experience.
“We’re here and we need to just get on with it whether we like it or not.” His eyes narrow as he watches the others scatter. “Everybody seems to be heading west for some reason, which means we’ll go east, before we skirt back around. The aim is for us to work in partnership but somebody needs to take the lead. Do you want to do it?”
There’s a hint of challenge in his voice and it makes me bristle. He thinks I’m not up to this, but if he’s trying to set me up to fail he’s got another think coming.
“No, I don’t.”
“Very well, in which case you follow my instructions down to the last letter. Understand?”
“Yes, Sir.” Without thinking, I give him a mock salute.
Daniel’s laser-like gaze doesn’t leave mine, and I can feel heat prickling at my cheeks.
“Whether you want to do this or not is irrelevant. But this is still work time, and everything that implies. Put your visor on and follow me.”
He strides forward, not giving me time to respond, leaving me standing and feeling like the petulant kid I don’t want to admit I’ve lapsed in to.
“How do you know they’re all headed west?” I ask, catching up with him.
“Angle of the sun.”
I look up through the trees at the patch of grey sky. Sun? What sun? I don’t bother to ask.
Daniel’s darting from tree to tree, making barely any noise, whereas I’m kicking through the leaves, not trying to keep quiet and treating it like a Sunday afternoon stroll in the park. I might as well be waving a banner.
“Crouch down, and be quiet. You’ll make us a target, otherwise,” Daniel hisses as he looks at me over his shoulder. “You don’t want to do this, you’ve made that plain. But I want to make something plain, too. These exercises might seem ridiculous to you, and personally I believe there are more effective ways to build a strong team, but this isn’t some kind of jolly away from the office you appear to be treating it as—”
“If your idea of a jolly is wrangling a load of sheep, you’ve ld a very sheltered life.”
Oh, fucking hell…I’ve overstepped the mark, I know I’ve overstepped it, and even with his visor down, I can see he’s gone pale.
“I’m sorry, that was—”
“What’s wrong with you, Cosmo? Do you have some kind of self-destruct button that you can’t help but press? I’ve given you chances before but I’m asking myself why I bothered. All this sheep wrangling and playing boy solders, as you put it, is about how you and your workmates operate as a strong and cohesive unit. It’s about who’s a team player and who isn’t, and some hard decisions are going be made on the basis of herding sheep and playing paintball in the woods. So you need to think seriously about your attitude because I’m not here just as a participant, I’m also here as an observer, and to be honest I’m not impressed with what I’m seeing.”
His words don’t just chill, they freeze. This really is it, I’m on a final warning, and we both know it.
“I’ll let you think about what those words mean, but for now we’ve got opposing forces to destroy.”
Without another word, Daniel darts over to a huge tree, leaving me feeling like a dog with his tail between his legs. I follow him, all thoughts of getting paintballed out as quickly as possible shoved clean out of my head. I’m not just going to get through this, I’m going to make sure we win.
“Right, what we’re going to do is move around in a wide semicircle. We take it slowly and quietly. We need to assess our surroundings. We don’t just blunder through but move forward going from cover to cover. That large gorse bush over there,” he says tilting his head towards a load of prickly stuff, “that’s where we’re heading. Make as little noise as possible.” Daniel’s glowering at me to make sure I understand his words, and all I can do is nod. “Good. Follow in my footsteps and I mean, literally, follow in my footsteps.”
That’s exactly what I do. Even though the ground is covered in fallen leaves and twigs, we make very little noise as we move through it. Our progress is steady as we dart between patches of cover, keeping ourselves low and looking all around us.
This is nothing like the paintball I played before, where everybody was shouting and crashing through the woods. This all feels a lot more serious.
I’ve been doing my job well since Daniel’s bombshell arrival at Cleaver Jackson, but I know I can do better just like I know I’ve been taking the piss. Just like I know I’ve been goading him. But there’s something, now, about this ridiculous situation where we’re dressed as fake soldiers and running about in Devonshire woodland that makes me want to grab the gauntlet he’s thrown down to me. It’s got little if anything to do with the precarious status of my job. No, this is personal. I willnotlet him see me fail, as I’m going to prove to him the very little he thinks of me is wrong.
Everything has changed. My heart’s pumping hard, my muscles are taut and twitchy, every nerve ending is on high alert. I’m attuned to every little sound. Every bird call, every crunch of leaf, every snap of a twig. All the time watching, watching, watching. My breath’s coming hard and making a little circle of mist on the inside of my visor.
