We walked out of my room and made a left turn. We found ourselves in a corridor with plenty of doors, each of them identical to the one we had just walked through. Barry then explained.

"This is where almost everyone sleeps at night, apart from Antonio and a few others." he said "Each room has a bed, a table for personal belongings and a small toilet. Yes, the structure is quite simple, but we don't spend hardly any time here anyway."

After a couple of more turns, we stopped at a lift, and Barry opened its door and ushered me in.

"I guessed you would prefer this instead of taking the stairs." he said with a grin.

I then looked at the buttons and saw that we were on floor minus two, but Barry pressed the button to go to floor minus three. There were five floors in total, from zero to minus four. My previous thoughts had now been confirmed: the entire base was underground.

The lift then stopped and we got out.

"Welcome to the training room" said Barry, lifting his hands up and slowly turning around in a circle "You will probably be spending quite a bit of time down here, working out, practicing your shooting, etc. Keep up!"

The place really was huge, roughly about the size of a school gym. Maybe bigger.

In one corner I saw a few  men, lifting weights, doing push-ups and other aerobic strength exercises. There was even a small boxing ring, where I saw two guys punching themselves to death.

I just hoped that I wasn't going to end up doing that in my "training sessions".

We then slowly moved on to another part of the gym and saw a group of men learning what seemed to be karate.

"How many things do you people have to teach yourselves?" I asked, surprised.

"Well, learning the martial arts can be a great way to becoming a better killer, you know." said Barry "It improves your speed and accuracy. But all these skills aren't compulsory. Trust me, the more skills you learn, the better."

We finally arrived at the last part of the gym. But I didn't need anyone to explain to me what it was: a shooting range.

There were dozens of targets, shaped like people, moving objects or just plain circles. They were lined  up in little alleys, each of them with a small pistol and a pair of headphones to cover the noise. I knew these sort of places existed, like for the army or something, but I had never actually seen one with my own eyes.

This was the busiest place in the gym, with at least twenty people firing at the targets and running about the place.

We then went back to the lift, and Barry finally spoke again.

"Okay, that's the training room. Any doubts? Questions you want to ask?"

I thought for a moment.

"Oh yes" I said "Are there any women in your organization?"

Until now, I hadn't seen any.

"Eeh, not very many" he answered, scratching his chin "But the few that we have coordinate our missions staying here at the base."

"Why? Do you think that women can't do the same job, that they aren't as good as you? That can be quite sexist, you know."

"Don't tell me all of this. I'm not the one in charge here! Anyway, let me show you the last floor of our base."

And with that, he pressed the button to go to floor minus one.

"Wait" I said "What about floor minus four?"

Barry just looked at me with an uninterested expression on his face.

"Just the garage and the prison cells." he said "In fact, it is where we kept you before you went to see Antonio. Remember?"

"Oh."

There was then an awkward silence as the lift rattled on upwards.

"Anything else you want to ask me?" said Barry.

"How many of you killer people are there?"

"You mean in the organization."

"Yeah."

"Guess."

"Oh, I don't know. Eighty?"

Barry forced a laugh. "No."

"A hundred?"

"Nope."

"A hundred and twenty."

"Not even close. About three hundred."

I raised my eyebrows "Really? Well where are they all? There weren't that many people in the training room."

"Zack, we don't just sit around here all day like grannies, you know. Right now, more than half of our organization is out there, stealing, killing, illegally selling weapons on the black market and who knows what else!"

I stood there, imagining what filthy business the criminals where up to.

"And now where are we going?" I asked slowly, dropping the previous topic of conversation.

"Wait and see" answered Barry.

The doors of the lift then opened once more, to reveal a dark room, not as big as the gym but just as busy.

"What's all this?" I asked.

"You can call it whatever you want" answered Barry "but I prefer to call it The control room. Why? Because that's exactly what they do: they control."

"Right" I said slowly, looking around.

To start off with, it was very noisy. There were many desks, lined up in rows, and almost every single one of them had a computer with a person at it, typing and clicking like mad, doing who knows what.

Phones rang. Computers buzzed. People hustled  about. Man, I had never seen a place so busy in my life.

"What exactly do they...control?" I asked, looking at Barry again.

"Our missions, obviously" he answered, but then, seeing that I was still quite lost, he continued " They coordinate the robberies, the murders, etc. by staying here at the base, hacking into computers, keeping contact with the men on the actual mission,... you know, all that sort of stuff. Do you follow?"

"Yeah" I said slowly.

"Good"

I then looked up and saw a huge screen at the other side of the room, at least three meters tall. But just as I was about to ask Barry what it was for, we heard someone shout:

"They're on!"

Immediately, the whole room got even noisier. There were more shouts and sounds, that practically deafened  my ears.

"What's happening?!" I asked Barry.

But instead of answering, he dragged me into a  hidden corner, where hardly anyone could see us.

"Stay here and watch."

"Watch what?"

But he just pointed at the screen.

Suddenly, it flickered to life, and the whole room went quiet.

On the  big screen we saw a projection of what seemed to be some sort of GoPro camera recording, but it wasn't just any video. It was live.

On the recording we saw a small group of men, maybe thirteen or so, silently creeping behind a small brick wall.

"What on earth is this?" I whispered to Barry.

"These guys are some of our people" he explained " They're on a mission, but I'm not too sure what exactly they are doing."

"Right. But why are we hidden in here, whispering like this?"

"I'm not allowed in here, in theory. And neither are you, by the way. If Antonio sees you..."

"Oh. Maybe we should leave then?"

"What? No! This is exciting, I want to see what happens" he said, pointing at the screen " Just keep watching!"

I sighed and looked back at the screen.

"How's it going?" asked someone. They were clearly asking the man with the camera, on the mission.

"So far, so good." answered the man  "We got past the first barrier without too many complications, so now we just need to get inside, probably through one of the back doors."

I watched uneasily as the men continued to move forward, ever so silently but swiftly, across the grounds. I then wondered where they were and what one earth they could be doing.

Whatever they were going to do, I just hoped it wouldn't involve any killing.

Suddenly, there was a crash of noise, and the sound of gunshots came rocketing through the speakers.

"We're under attack!" shouted one of the men "Fire at will!"

I saw on the screen that a small group of guards of some sort had surprised the killers, appearing in the camera's vision.

Expecting the worst, I quickly shut my eyes, not daring to see what would happen next. But I was too late. The last thing I saw was one of the guards get knocked over backwards by the force of  a bullet, and collapse down to the floor, a look of absolute terror on his face.

I looked away from the screen and covered my ears, while trying hard not to think about what had become of the poor guard.

The entire room still echoed with the sounds of gunshots and ringing  screams.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, there was a sudden crackling noise, that cut short all the other sounds, and after a few seconds I looked up again slowly, to see that the screen has gone black once more. It was over.

"Wh-wha..." I tried to say, but I couldn't quite formulate a word in my mouth.

"Shht" whispered Barry.

A dominating silence then filled the room.

"Sir, we have lost contact with them completely" said someone.

I peered over to see that the person was talking to Antonio himself. Even though I hadn't seen him, he had probably entered the room ages ago. He was scowling again, silently muttering little curses, maybe even swearing.

But suddenly, he turned round, and that's when he spotted me, and my blood froze.

Barry, realizing that things were about to get bad, grabbed me strongly by the arm.

"Time to go" he said, while dragging me out of the room and back into the lift.

We didn't say a word all the way to my bedroom, but just as he let me in, I tried to say something.

"Barry,..." I started.

"Not now, Zack, not now." he interrupted "We'll talk about this some other time, maybe tomorrow. Remember, I want you up and dressed by seven o'clock. Goodnight."

And with that, the day ended and Barry walked away, once again leaving me alone, but this time, in a place I was already starting to get used to.