Quinn walked back to the stairwell and turned on the camera. Thankfully, he hadn’t damaged the fragile lens mechanism during the process of his hack. The focal length had changed when he’d removed the glass IR filter so the focus was slightly off. But other than that, the device worked perfectly. The dark teakwood stairs showed up a ghostly gray in the LCD screen while the blood looked like pools of black ink around the body.
Carly’s mouth hung open in amazement when he showed it to her.
“That’s incredible,” she said. “How do you learn stuff like that?”
“A misspent youth.” Quinn shrugged. “I learned the stun gun thing with my brother during a break from college.”
Carly started to laugh, but her eyes locked on the dead body. The success with the camera had taken her mind off it for a moment, but the stark reality of death came flooding back.
“What now?” she whispered.
“Now?” Quinn said, holding up the camera. “Now we go hunting.”
Chapter 53
Virginia Ross stood naked and very much alone in the corner of the empty concrete room. She’d always envisioned cells as being smaller, but this one was cavernous — big enough to add to the heavy weight of insignificance brought with it. The echoing expanse of the place only made her feel more naked than she was. Closer walls would have been welcome friends.
Apart from the institutional stainless-steel toilet with a water fountain and small sink at the top, there was nothing else in the room, not even a privacy screen that was common in modern prisons. No bed, no chair — even the table where Agent Walter had questioned her had been taken away, presumably because it gave her something to hide behind.
Until she’d been dragged off to this secret hellhole, no man had seen Virginia Ross out of her clothes since her husband had died. She’d never been svelte, even in college, but the very thought of intimacy after her husband was nothing short of gruesome. She found it sobering how much emotional safety the thin layers of cloth had offered. Even the scant running shorts and clammy T-shirt had allowed her some sense of humanity. Now, even that was gone and the lily-white object of her self-doubt now glared at the cameras in full, uncovered glory.
Of course, she’d read reports of the resistance training agents endured as part of specialized units. She was well aware of how instructors systematically broke them down by taking away anything that made them human. But reports could not come close to the abject terror of a fifty-four-year old woman when the three men marched into her freezing cell and ordered her to hand over the last few scraps that covered her body.
Ross was a highly educated woman who held her own in debates with world leaders from some of the most misogynistic countries on the planet — but when those three men, hardly older than college frat boys, backed her against the concrete wall and sneered at her nakedness, she’d babbled like an infant. A slap would have stunned her less.
Ross read somewhere that the more civilized a person was, the harder they took certain forms of interrogation. It made logical sense, but logic flew out the window when dimpled nakedness was exposed to the stares of leering men. She’d lost control of her bladder, setting her captors to cackle at her predicament.
She’d wanted to ask for a towel but, she, who just hours before had commanded the most powerful intelligence organization on earth, found it impossible to open her mouth and speak.
The men had fanned out like wolves, ready to rush in and grab her. Ross could hear blood rushing in her ears. Tears poured down her cheeks. Her throat was so tight she was certain she might choke to death at any moment.
The apparent leader of her tormentors, a pasty thing with greasy black curls and a gold chain on his neck, took a half step forward. He towered over her, using his bulk for intimidation.
“Boo!” he said, his face just inches from hers.
Ross recoiled as if she’d been punched. The men all shook their heads as if they were disgusted. They left her alone — shaking, naked, and vulnerable, but untouched.
She was standing with a shoulder tucked in the corner, forehead leaning against the wall, when she heard the metallic click and whir of the cell door. Agent Walter walked in carrying a thick file folder tucked under his arm. He was wearing a different suit, brown but just as wrinkled as the gray one. Two men in gray coveralls followed him, carrying a rusted set of bedsprings. They set the springs inside the door and then ducked out for a moment, to return with two stainless-steel chairs. One chair had a padded seat. One did not. Both shone like mirrors under the bright light of the cell.
Agent Walter said nothing of the rusty springs, leaving Ross’s imagination to run wild about their purpose. After checking to make sure there were no more instructions, the two helpers left Walter to his work.
Ross tried to squeeze deeper into the corner when the heavy steel door slammed shut.
“Looks like you found the only hidey-hole you could.” Walter chuckled, nodding toward her corner. His voice rattled around the room like a pebble in a tin can, grating on Virginia Ross’s nerves and making her want to scream. She bit her tongue, resolving not to give him that satisfaction.
He shook his head when she didn’t answer, still laughing under his breath. “I’ll have to suggest we move to circular rooms. That way you people won’t have anywhere to run.” He flipped the padded chair around so he could sit looking across the back, staring at her as if she were an animal in a zoo.
“I assume you’ve taken a polygraph before,” he said.
Ross held her breath. She wanted to act indignant, but when one’s appendectomy scars were showing, haughtiness was a difficult thing to muster.
Walter’s chin rested on his hands along the back of the chair, muffling his voice. “It’s a simple question, Virginia.”
“Of course, I have,” she said. “Many times. I want to know why I can’t have my clothes.”
“You’ll have to earn them back,” Walter said. He reached in his suit pocket and pulled out a small wad of white cloth. “But, as a sign of good faith, I brought you this.” He pitched the cloth on the ground like it was a treat and she was a dog he was trying to lure closer.
She took a tentative step toward him, stooping quickly to snatch up the gauzy scrap. It turned out to be a robe like some women wore over their swimsuits on the beach. Several sizes too small and made of thin, nearly transparent cotton, it barely reached the middle of her thighs. She had to hold it closed in the front, but it was still a welcome gift.
“Thank you,” she said, angry with herself the moment she’d uttered the words.
All business, he nodded to the other chair, five feet in front of him. “Go ahead and sit,” he said.
“I’d prefer to stand.”
“It wasn’t a request,” Walter said, his voice dripping with contempt.
Clutching the robe shut with both hands, one at her breasts, the other just below her bellybutton, Ross maneuvered herself into the chair so she didn’t have to face him directly. She shivered as her skin touched the cold metal.
“Anyway,” he said, once she was seated. “About the polygraph. I have some questions we need to go over beforehand, you know, to make certain you are aware of what we’ll be asking you.”
Agent Walter opened his manila folder. He began with a series of rapid-fire questions about her education, where she’d lived, her family, the date and cause of death for both her husband and her daughter. He touched on, but never delved deeply into, CIA operational issues. Everything he mentioned was already widely known and a matter of open source. The questions went on and on, more like some sort of word-association test than any quest for information.