Integrity, p.29
Integrity, page 29
I looked at both men as best I could. “So, just want to bring this up and double-check—is this legal? I’m an American citizen and I’m being questioned without a lawyer. No Miranda rights?” I raised my voice for the video camera pointing at me from over Swarthy Man’s left shoulder. “Because I would like to state for the record that I have not been Mirandized or formally offered a lawyer, and I would like a lawyer please and thank you.”
“You haven’t been arrested. We’re simply talking.” Swarthy Man opened a leather-bound notepad and extracted a Mont Blanc pen. “Let’s start from the beginning. On the fourteenth of October this year, at approximately oh-nine hundred, you received a call from an asset of yours who you refer to as Hadim. Correct?”
Okay then. That’s how it was going to be. I ran through all my options. I didn’t have many. Be silent and stay here for an indefinite amount of time, strapped to a chair, or tell the truth and hope I was smart enough not to incriminate myself, or Halcyon. I decided on the second option for now. “Yes.”
“And what did that conversation consist of?”
“Words.” Okay, so telling the truth didn’t mean I had to be forthcoming.
He sighed. “Dr. Martin. I’m going to be frank with you. I’ve been here for fourteen hours already, my back is killing me, and I really don’t want to sit here with you for the next eight hours while we play runaround. We both know that I already know what happened and simply need to get it on-record. So, why don’t you stop playing intelligence analyst and give me the facts so we can both go home.” A smirk. “Well, so I can go home and you can go to what’s going to be your new home for the foreseeable future.”
His attempt to soften me did anything but. A cardinal mistake, admitting he had something to lose, or wanted something other than information—even if it was just a fake-out to try and establish rapport. The only thing in my future was a secure facility so why wouldn’t I try to bargain?
I sat up straighter. Well, kind of. It was difficult with the restraints. “I am an intelligence analyst, so isn’t it logical that’s what I’m behaving like? Not sharing information unless I’m certain is in my DNA.” I stretched forward as far as I could, ignoring the strap tightening around my chest. “How do I know that you deserve to know what I know? You’ve shown me no real identification, so how can I trust that you have the security clearance to receive this information?”
“You can trust it because you’re strapped to a chair and I’m not. And I know you discussed this with your direct superior, Derek Wood, so I believe that’s proof enough that I have clearance.”
Nice play. But he could have learned that without being a good guy. “Right. Well, you know what I believe? I believe in a flow of information. I tell you something, you tell me something. It’s how I’ve operated for the past decade and I have to say it’s worked pretty well for me so far. Where am I to be held after you’re done with me here?”
“In a facility. Why did you take the intelligence you’d received from your contact and…go on the run?” The way he said it was like it pained him to use such a basic phrase for what I’d done. “I have to believe that someone of your supposed intelligence would know that goes against every rule we have.”
“I didn’t take the intelligence. I left work that day thinking it was just ordinary information. Why, and how, would I have taken anything?”
“I’ll rephrase. Why did you use human resources, after the fact, to access secured areas of an agency server to take the intelligence for yourself?”
“Because a massive asshole broke into my apartment demanding everything I had pertaining to this. Given the information was from a legitimate source and something I needed to pursue in an official capacity, I’m sure you can imagine I was more than a little freaked out, thinking a foreign agent was trying to infiltrate the agency.”
“I see.” He made notes. Pointless notes given this was being videoed. “Why not bring up your concern with your superior?”
“Because…” My nose itched furiously, but with my hands stuck to the chain at my waist I couldn’t do anything. I bent my head to scratch the itch on my shoulder. “Because I didn’t know if I could trust him, given he was one of only three people who were directly aware of what I’d learned.” The triangle of trust. Any more points and the shape is too big. Too many places to leak.
“Trust in your colleagues is important.”
“It is.”
“I suppose my big question is, what exactly were you hoping to accomplish?”
This would be so much easier if I could tell him all about Halcyon and the Protocol at play behind the scenes. Time for the Lie. I was so sick of the Lie. The Lie made me look like a traitorous idiot, two things I was not. “My job, primarily, which is to get to the bottom of the information and put as clear a picture together as I could so I could give it to those people in a position to act on it. Accountability for those who did wrong. And to stop this from ever happening again.”
“By what means?”
“Whatever means I needed to use.”
“Would you have leaked the information as you threatened?”
I said nothing. No way, not leading myself down that path of incrimination. I was already far enough along the path. But inside I was screaming, “No fucking way!”
“You’re an intelligence analyst, not a journalist, Dr. Martin. It’s not your place to decide what gets released or when. By definition, your job is to analyze and take that analysis to people who have the authority to act. Frankly, your behavior is disgusting.”
“I didn’t want to release it,” I admitted quietly, ashamed that I was even giving him that bit of information. “I took an oath, and I would never betray that. I wanted answers and for the people responsible to be accountable. I wanted to save lives.”
“Foreign lives?”
“All lives, American or otherwise,” I said emphatically. “This, this…thing is horrific. No human should ever be exposed to it. It’s criminal.”
“Again, that’s not for you to decide.”
This guy was clearly cyborg, not human. “Have you seen the video?”
“I don’t know what you’re referring to,” he said neutrally.
My hands strained at the restraints. “Bull-fucking-shit! We’re both here so you have to know. You have to have seen it. That test isn’t a threat, like look at what we have so don’t go starting wars with us. It’s fucking murder. And it’s wrong on so many levels, legal and humanitarian, that it makes me sick. And my government ordered it.” It felt good to get it all out, to finally let myself rage at what I’d seen. It was actually kind of nice to know Halcyon would take care of things—remove Berenson, stop the chemical manufacture—and I could just do and say what I wanted because I was fucked anyway. “Do you keep track of news and current events, Mr., um…”
“Smith,” he supplied.
“Of course.” I turned my attention to McDonald’s. “And let me guess, you’re Mr. Jones?”
There was the faintest smile twitching the edge of his mouth but he said nothing.
Back to Smith. “Do you? Pay attention to the news? Given what I assume to be your job, I’d be surprised if you answered in the negative.”
“Yes.”
“Great. One point for staying abreast of current events. You’re not as dumb as I thought. So you would know about all the really horrible fucking things going on in the world, most of it to people who don’t deserve it but are caught in the crossfire, so to speak. But this…this wasn’t even a war crime. There was no war where this happened. It was murder. I listened to the audio recording of the conversation, watched the body cam video of the chemical weapon test, heard the audio of people screaming, or trying to as they choked on blood and their lungs came out of their mouths and their skin peeled from their flesh.” I didn’t bother to hide my emotion. They could call me weak, sentimental, a woman or whatever else, I didn’t care. I owed it to those people to be horrified, outraged, appalled, and to not disguise it.
He said nothing. I tried again. “It’s a crime. Our government committed a crime.”
“I’d be careful if I were you, Dr. Martin,” he said conversationally.
“And why is that, Mr. Smith?”
He turned the pen around in his hands, casually, as if bored and needing to fidget. “What you’re saying skirts dangerously close to treason. Accusations like that are dangerous. We’ve tried to help you but it seems you’re not interested in that. You’re only interested in this little crusade you’ve decided to pursue.”
“It’s not a crusade,” I rebutted testily. After a second I toned myself down. “I was simply doing my job. And I’m curious about what it is about that you don’t like. The fact I found out our government manufactured an illegal chemical weapon and tested it on humans? The fact our government basically bribed a foreign entity to do this testing on civilians, presumably to create some illusion of keeping our hands clean? Or the fact I discovered the military officer who was the front man for this transaction is the vice president’s illegitimate son?”
To his credit, he displayed no reaction. The guy was good. I could admire his professional skills, even as he was using them against me. I waited for exactly thirty seconds and when he still didn’t answer, I kept talking. “I disclosed this information to nobody who didn’t have clearance. The only person I spoke with about it already knew. Derek Wood. So why exactly am I in this position? Because I found out this dirty government secret? Because I embarrassed the president by uncovering the fact his choice for VP isn’t as upstanding as he made him out to be?” I would have loved to do a thoughtful chin tap but alas, the chains prevented that. “Someone else would have found this out, if not me. Would you be treating them the same way?”
“You’re in this position because you went against everything our intelligence community stands for. And I highly doubt anyone with a modicum of integrity or intelligence would do what you did.”
“Bulllllshit.” I leaned back in the chair, trying hard to appear confident and nonchalant. Tricky when you’re strapped to a chair. “I was doing my job. Getting to the root of information. I’m incredibly good at it, if you’ll check my performance evaluations.”
He ignored me. “I think some time to think about how you want to proceed might be beneficial.” Smith stood, smiling like a shark. “While you’re thinking, we might have a chat with Sophia Flores.”
If I could have punched him, I would have. I tried to leap from the chair, but hit the restraint strap around my chest, and would have tumbled to the floor if the chair hadn’t been bolted to it. “You sonofabitch,” I snarled at him. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
He eyed me with disdain, and I caught a touch of condescending pity in the expression. “You stupid stupid woman. You of all people should know how this works. You don’t get to deal. You have no power here. The only thing you have is your hubris.”
“How do you know I didn’t anticipate you wouldn’t uphold your end of the bargain I made? How do you know I didn’t film a video detailing everything, showing everything? How do you know I haven’t done that and scheduled it to release in three days, unless I cancel the command, which I won’t unless you do what I asked. Leave. The. Flores. Family. Alone.”
“I know you haven’t because you’re not that smart. Or that stupid.”
Ouch. Not true. I am smart. Really.
“You’re also terrible at bluffing.”
Am not. I raised my chin and looked right into his cold blue eyes. “I hope they test that chemical weapon on you next.”
Smith graced me with a sardonic smile. “Have a nice evening, Dr. Martin.”
* * *
The pattern was easy to discern. And also really fucking rude. I’d been put in a dark room, but every hour, someone would disturb me, either by banging on the metal door or turning on the light or coming in the room to shake me. A bastard technique but an effective one. I’d be useless with fatigue by the time they were ready to talk to me again.
Predawn wake up. I think? I couldn’t tell what time it was anymore. Fucking assholes. In between the constant wake-up calls, I had managed to snatch snippets of sleep. I probably would have been better off not sleeping at all. After a bland breakfast of cereal, undercooked toast, overripe fruit, and watery coffee, they left me alone in the claustrophobic room. They left the lights on, the bright fluorescents searing my brain.
My day was broken only by calisthenics and yoga, and meals delivered by a faceless person who knocked on my door then shoved the tray through a slot. Fruit and crackers snack. Sandwich and fruit lunch with weak tea. Popcorn and fruit snack. Sandwich and soup and chocolate pudding cup dinner. When you’re bored, things like food become very interesting. They’d even apologized after giving me a roast beef sandwich, and had promptly replaced it with a vegetarian option. But they seemed to take perverse pleasure in interrupting my yoga with noise. I’d spent a lot of time in Child’s Pose.
The room they were keeping me in was of reasonable size and the toilet even had a privacy partition to give me some dignity from the camera in the corner. Deluxe. It was nothing like the tiny, dark, dirt-floored room I’d been held in during my captivity in 2017, but the thought of being held against my will still had a constant shudder of discomfort running down my back.
Sophia had presumably arrived home and was now resuming her normal life without me. Good. Normal was good. She deserved normal. Maybe I could be normal? One day. Then we could date and move in together and live like a regular couple with a cat. Excitement mixed with dread in my stomach until I felt queasy. No. My life would never be normal. I lay down on the narrow bed and rolled over to face the wall.
Another night of hourly disturbances leading into a predawn wake up for the day. Fucking assholes. Same breakfast as the previous day, and the moment I was done eating, the remnants of my meal were removed. The door opened again, no knock. Unremarkable man in cargos and a polo. “Against the wall, legs spread, hands flat against the wall. I have a Taser.”
“Lucky you.” I assumed the requested position as he reinstalled restraints around my wrists and attached them to the chain he fastened firmly around my waist. With a hand on my elbow he escorted me back to the room where I’d been interrogated, er…debriefed the previous evening. Or, was it the evening before? Yes, two nights ago. Yesterday was a day of nothing. Wasn’t it? My pals Smith and Jones were there in the same positions as before, and I made myself smile as I was strapped to my other pal, the chair. The cuffs were left on, but this time they unfastened them from the chain around my waist so I could move my hands. Kind of. “Good morning, friends. I’d like my phone call now please.”
Smith’s thick dark eyebrow twitched up. “You’re not under arrest.” He leaned forward and I heard the creak of leather. “This isn’t jail, nor is it television. The rules that you seem to think apply here do not.”
“Oh? Really? I’m not? So I can go then? My bad, I thought being detained under one of the zillion Patriot or Homeland Security acts meant I was stuck here until you decided to let me go.”
“How have you been sleeping?”
“Like a log. Great mattress.”
“Enjoying the food?”
“It’s delightful. Please send my compliments to the chef.”
He leaned back in the chair and set his pen down. “Ms. Flores was very helpful. Very cooperative.”
A muscle in my jaw twitched and I cursed myself for my reaction. “Did you tell her I said hi?”
“No. I forgot.”
“You guyyyyys,” I whined. “Dammit. Now she’s going to think I’m ghosting her. Do you know how hard it is to date at my age when you work the hours I do? I finally found someone I’m attracted to, who didn’t seem like they were going to throw a tantrum about the fact I miss dinners and movie dates and planned outings, who’s also fabulous in bed, and you’ve ruined it for me. After your visit she probably thinks I’m a creepy weirdo and also a traitor to my country. Thanks.”
Nothing from either of them. Time to dial it up.
I blew out a breath and fanned myself. “Speaking of the sex, phew. Out of this world. I mean, I’m talking best-of-my-life stuff, the kind of fucking that gets you through the cold lonely nights, if you know what I mean. This one time, she—”
“That’s enough, Dr. Martin,” said Smith, not bothering to hide his bored distaste. Scratch him. I probably could have stripped naked and not gotten a rise out of him. Metaphorically speaking.
Jones tried to hide it, but a flush rose above his starched collar. Bingo. His ineptitude in Tampa had given me the idea and this exchange cemented it. If there was any chance, then he was the one I could use for leverage and to get information. I winked at the younger man.
Smith cleared his throat. “Now. Let’s start at the beginning.”
“A very good place to start,” I deadpanned. Dammit. I should have sung it like Maria from The Sound of Music. Next time.
“On the fourteenth of October this year you received a call from an asset of yours you refer to as Hadim. Correct?”
Aw shit. It was going to be like that, was it. “I feel like I’ve just stepped into a time machine. We’ve established that already.”
“Why did you pursue something outside of your official duties? Why did you seek outside help? Why did you run?”
“We’ve been over this,” I drawled, dragging the words out. “But I’ll go through it again in case you’re a little slow. I sought outside help because I was locked out of using my usual work channels. I sought outside help because half the things I learn every day come from outside help. How do you think we come by intelligence? Magic?” The annoyance at the stupidity and pointlessness of it all rose up again. “And I pursued it because some thug, maybe foreign, broke into my house demanding the intel, which was a huge hint that it was important. As for running, see my previous answer.” Because Halcyon told me to, you dimwit.
