“And that you’ve never been in battle,” he added.
“You’re worried COC won’t give you the okay, Agent Walker.”
“Oh, yes they will. This is just red tape. Someone’s gone fishing in Montana, and I don’t have time for them to catch their trophy rainbow.”
“You’re sick. You want to torture that boy. That’s what this is really about.”
“You’re the boy,” Travers retorted, tapping Kohler’s chest hard. “That’s what this is really about.” He nodded over his shoulder at the stone wall. “I’m going in.”
Kohler stepped boldly between Travers and the doorway leading to the interrogation room. “I can’t let you do it, Agent Walker,” he said firmly, raising his fists and squaring up. “Maybe that guy in there doesn’t get due process in a court of law, but he’s getting it from me. You’re gonna wait for a call from the chain of command, even if it is a few hours away.”
It took all of Travers’s considerable self-control not to react. Kohler was a big blond kid who was only a year past starring in Ivy League football and dating its prettiest cheerleaders. But he wasn’t nearly ready to swim in the deep end of this pool. “Get out of my way, Agent Beam,” he ordered calmly. “You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“No, you bastard, I’m doing what’s right, and you know it. You’re the fool.” Kohler stuck out his chin defiantly. “Do you know who my father was?”
Travers nodded deliberately. “I do know, and I don’t care.” That was a lie. The only reason he’d allowed Kohler this much leeway and disrespect was entirely wrapped up in who the kid’s father was. “All I care about is keeping this country and its people safe. Nothing else.”
“You don’t get it, do you? You think you actually have a say in what goes on in the world. But you’re just a pawn, you stupid nig—” Kohler caught himself but not nearly in time. It was a massive gaffe. Still, he managed a smug smile. “You better watch yourself, boy.”
Travers stared into Kohler’s arrogant eyes for several seconds. “I’ll give you one more chance, Agent Beam. Step aside.”
“Fuck you!”
Travers glanced over Kohler’s shoulder at the stocky man standing in the corner, the only other person in this room. “Agent Smirnoff.”
“Yes, Agent Walker?”
“Attack.”
Agent Smirnoff raised a Taser gun and fired, sending 50,000 volts of electricity and 1.7 joules of power exploding through Kohler’s body. The young man dropped to the cement floor like a sack of dirt the instant the charged projectile struck him and began convulsing and begging for help with barely intelligible moans.
Travers nodded grimly. “Nice shot.”
“Thanks.” Agent Smirnoff gestured at Travers. “Don’t listen to that kid, Agent Walker. He doesn’t get it. You’re a good man.”
“I’m not worried about him.”
Agent Smirnoff’s real name was Harry Boyd. Travers and Boyd had known each other for nine years, but they never called each other by their real names when an interrogation subject was in the area — only as “Agent” followed by the agreed-upon liquor brand code of the day. It was all for the benefit of the kid in the next room. Travers just hoped that kid hadn’t heard Kohler call him “Major Trav.” Even that partial mistake could turn out to be deadly with these people.
“Welcome to my chain of command, Agent Beam,” Travers muttered as he leaned down and removed a small, clear plastic bag from Kohler’s shirt pocket while the kid continued to twitch and spasm. “You’ll be okay in an hour.” He glanced at the turquoise-hued powder inside the bag, then rose back up and tossed it to Boyd. Inside Red Cell Seven the newly developed powder was known as TQ Haze. “Take care of that delivery, will you, Agent Smirnoff?” He gestured at the floor as Boyd caught the bag. “Take care of our dribbler, too.” Travers’s cop friends had nicknamed what Kohler was doing “dribbling” because Taser victims resembled basketballs bouncing up and down on the hardwood. “Don’t let him swallow his tongue.”
“Like I said, Agent Walker, you’re a good man. If it was me, I’d hope he did choke to death.”
Travers patted Boyd on the shoulder as he passed. “We’re all in this together. And there’s good and bad everywhere.”
“Bad everywhere I’ll give you,” Boyd replied stoically. “I don’t know about good.”
Travers grabbed a plain black ski mask off a hook on the wall, slipped it over his head, and pushed open the door. Kohler was right, he thought as he entered the interrogation room. He was worried about not getting his okay from COC. But he was more worried about his country.
The subject stood on his toes in the middle of the dimly lit room, struggling to ease his nagging physical discomfort as best he could by constantly changing positions and shifting his weight. His frail wrists were lashed together above his head and secured to a large silvery hook that hung from the ceiling by a shiny chain. He was skinny with a dark complexion, and he had a shock of thick black hair. It was cold here in the basement — on purpose — and he was naked from the waist up — on purpose — so he shivered as he twisted beneath the hook. Other than a plain wooden chair, a chest of drawers, and a bucket, which were all stationed in one corner of the room, there was nothing else within the four stone walls except Travers and the subject, whose driver’s license claimed he was from Philadelphia — and more important, that he was seventeen.
“Hello, Kaashif.”
“Hello, sir,” the young man answered politely but miserably through his chattering teeth, watching Travers’s every move as he held his head back to ease the intensifying ache in both shoulders.
“So, you are the discoverer.”
“The what?”
“That’s what your name means, right? The discoverer.”
“I am not sure.”
“You’re not fooling me, you little son of a bitch.”
“I am not trying to fool you, sir.”
Travers moved across the room until he was standing directly in front of Kaashif. The young man was five-six, so at six-three Travers towered over him. “I’m going to ask you some very important questions this afternoon. I expect you to—”
“Why am I here?” Kaashif blurted out. “What have I done?”
“Easy.”
“I am so thirsty,” he gasped. “So thirsty. Please, may I have something to drink?”
They hadn’t given Kaashif anything since yesterday afternoon, so it had been almost twenty-four hours. He had to be pretty well dehydrated at this point. “Agent Smirnoff,” Travers called over his shoulder. “Can I have that glass of water for our guest?”
“Absolutely.”
Nathan Kohler’s ongoing agony from the Taser attack was still audible — which Travers liked. It made this situation even more frightening. He could tell by Kaashif’s expression that he was hearing those sounds of suffering coming from the other side of the open door. He had no idea who was in pain or why — only that someone was.
“How old are you, Kaashif?”
“Seventeen,” he muttered as he strained against the rope binding his wrists.
“That’s what your driver’s license says, but I don’t believe it. I say you’re at least twenty-four.”
“I don’t know why you are so hating me. It must be because I am a Mus—”