On the drill ground, twenty-five actors stood in two ragged lines as Tom West handed each of them a training schedule.
Matthew skimmed his copy: drills, PT, and more—targets brutal enough to make him blink. The instructor, freshly discharged from the army, clearly meant to turn them into near-soldiers.
"Soldiers who fight for their country carry a burning pride in their hearts," Tom West boomed. "Only by living their hardship can you feel it, so I've drawn up a regimen tough enough to make you hurt!"
He looked icily severe. "This morning: formation drills. This afternoon: three-mile run!"
Training began at once. Formation work was dull, tedious; Matthew would rather run three miles than pivot left and right.
Still, wanting and doing were two different things—he buckled down and gave it everything.
Not everyone shared his attitude, and soon Tom West was yanking the slackers out of line.
"James McAvoy!" he barked at a British actor. "Thirty push-ups—now!"
producer Gary Goetzman happened to arrive; James McAvoy could only obey.
More unfortunates followed—Michael Fassbender among them—punished with extra push-ups for sloppy drill.
Barely an hour in, every actor, Matthew included, realized Tom West wasn't just cold in looks—he was cold in action.
A bona-fide demon instructor.
The two Assistant Producers who had escorted the actors here yesterday also paid separate visits.
When Kate Jeffrey appeared, Matthew caught her watching his group; before leaving she murmured something to Tom West.
He wasn't naïve enough to think Kate Jeffrey had forgotten the morning's incident, yet she could hardly sway Tom West—Gary Goetzman himself had introduced the man yesterday.
And indeed, after she left, training resumed unchanged; Matthew noticed no special treatment whatsoever.
Still, he tracked her out of the corner of his eye until she disappeared into a small building north of the warehouse.
He guessed her office must be somewhere inside.
Morning drill ended; thanks to his prior fitness Matthew felt fine, while the rest trudged to the mess hall groaning, too sore to move once seated.
After lunch, seeing Michael Fassbender and Eion Bailey slumped in their chairs, Matthew said, "I'm stepping out for a walk."
"Aren't you tired?" the bulky Michael Fassbender asked, nearly crushing his seat. "Rest a bit, man."
Matthew shrugged. "I've been working heavy part-time jobs; this morning's workout was easier than my shifts."
Eion Bailey eyed him, saw he looked fresh, and waved him off. "Go ahead—we'll sit here and die slowly."
"Deal." Matthew flashed a grin. "I'll bring you guys coffee when I'm back."
He left the canteen, circled the vast airport hangar, found a concealed spot, and studied the small northern building—four shabby, time-worn storeys.
Crucially, he hadn't spotted a single camera en route.
Understandable: the converted military airfield was huge,
its outdoor back-lot alone covered a thousand acres—full coverage would cost a fortune.
Besides, the era of ubiquitous surveillance hadn't arrived yet.
Still, he wouldn't jump to conclusions; training had only begun—he'd keep watching.
From hiding he observed staff trickling back from lunch to the offices—mostly clerical crew and a few Assistant Producers.
After a while Kate Jeffrey appeared; once she entered, Matthew strolled in pretending to look for someone, found nothing unusual, and left.
Next he hit the car park and quickly located the Land Rover.
The sight stirred an urge to smash it, but he held back and started plotting.
Stuff steel-wool scouring pads up the exhaust? Rumour said it starves the engine, fouls the plugs, stalls the car—hard for a mechanic to trace.
Or dribble RTV sealant along the window seams and washer jets; better yet, buy a litre of acetone and pour it along the glass channels, especially where the windows drop.
The old Matthew had apprenticed as a mechanic—learned few honest skills but plenty of dirty tricks.
Loosening wheel-nuts or spraying oil on brake discs was out—that could kill someone.
Laying screws in front of the tyres, though—that would make patching impossible.
Power-folding mirrors on this model? He could simply wrench one the wrong way.
Worst case, he could still plug the tire valve with a dab of sealant.
Or grab a slingshot and shatter the windshield with steel shot. He'd played with slingshots since he was a kid and was confident that, with a high-draw one, he could smash it from thirty meters without breaking a sweat.
Just as Matthew was weighing the options, he spotted a surveillance camera on the far side of the car park—the first one he'd seen in the whole sprawling Hatfield Aerodrome.
The lens was grimy, as if it hadn't been cleaned in years and had long since been abandoned, but Matthew wasn't about to take the risk. He scrapped the hare-brained schemes and left the car park at once.
"Better to stay on the straight and narrow," he muttered as he walked. "Step back and the sea is wide, endure a moment and the wind dies down."
Matthew had gone quite a distance before he glanced back at the Land Rover; what galled him was the man, not the machine.
On the way back he rang Britney, only to have her assistant pick up—Britney had just stepped into the recording booth and couldn't talk.
He hung up, bought three coffees, and returned to the restaurant.
"Where've you been?" Michael Fassbender asked idly as Matthew sat down. "Aren't you freezing outside?"
Matthew flashed his phone. "Calling my girlfriend." He pulled out a chair, slid two cups toward them. "Drink while it's hot."
The three chatted for a bit, finished their coffees, and by the time they emptied their cups it was afternoon training. Though Michael Fassbender and Eion Bailey were exhausted, they had to muster on time.
The afternoon called for a three-mile run. To foster team spirit they were split into trios; Matthew teamed up with Michael Fassbender and Eion Bailey. Per Tom West's rule, every trio had to cross the line together or the run wouldn't count; the three slowest groups would be saddled with fifty extra push-ups.
The actors ranged from forty down to eighteen. On his own, Matthew could cruise into the top five without strain. Eion Bailey, born in '76, was still solid; the burly Michael Fassbender, a '64 vintage, was flagging badly and became the weak link.
Two-thirds of the way through he began gasping; Matthew and Eion Bailey hauled him along, shouting encouragement.
After another lap of the field Michael Fassbender bent over, wheezing. "Should've… should've never signed on for this shoot."
Matthew was practically dragging him. "Didn't you read the training plan? Today's the easy day—soon we'll be doing this with thirty-pound packs!"
Sweat poured off Michael Fassbender. "I'm dead meat!"
Yet, with their help, he stumbled across the three-mile finish. Plenty of actors were in poor shape, so their trio still ranked near the front.
The three last-placed groups, as expected, were ordered to knock out fifty push-ups—no leaving until every rep was done.
On day one alone, Tom West had delivered a blistering wake-up call.
He seemed to have transplanted the army's playbook wholesale.
But he'd overlooked one thing: many of these actors were minor celebrities from comfortable backgrounds; they weren't soldiers to be ordered about.
By day's end most of them limped to the changing rooms; only a handful, Matthew among them, looked unfazed.
Over the next days Matthew trained hard, yet he began to notice something odd: whenever Kate Jeffrey appeared on the field, Tom West would eye him for a spell, as if waiting for him to slip.
But he performed flawlessly—arguably the best of the lot.
Perhaps he was naturally suspicious, yet he couldn't shake the feeling that Kate Jeffrey and Tom West were hatching something.
Matthew guessed Kate Jeffrey wanted him booted off the picture.
Trouble was, he'd been personally cast by Tom Hanks; without iron-clad cause, he couldn't be replaced.
Kate Jeffrey, the Assistant Producer, surely knew that. She showed up daily, watched, but did nothing—for now. She observed Matthew, and he observed her, only he kept his surveillance covert.
On the fourth day of training, Matthew repeated his routine: after lunch he excused himself to "call his girlfriend," slipped to a secluded corner of the warehouse, and watched the small office building to the north.
Soon Kate Jeffrey emerged from the offices and walked toward the warehouse.
Matthew shifted position, still watching from cover; Kate Jeffrey opened a side door and stepped inside.
An Assistant Producer entering the props-and-wardrobe warehouse was routine. He waited, but barely two or three minutes later Tom West appeared from afar and went through the same side door.