Agent Zero. Джек Марс

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СКАЧАТЬ dared to look up. His interrogator stared back impassively, coldly. “Your name.”

      “Reid Lawson!” Reid felt heat rise in his face as the pain congealed into anger. He didn’t know what else to say, what they wanted him to say. “Lawson! It’s Lawson! You can check my… my…” No, they couldn’t check his identification. He didn’t have his wallet on him when the trio of Muslim men took him.

      His interrogator tut-tutted, and then drove his bony fist into Reid’s solar plexus. The air was again forced from his lungs. For a full minute, Reid could not draw a breath; it finally came again in a ragged gasp. His chest burned fiercely. Sweat dripped down his cheeks and burned his split lip. His head hung limp, his chin between his collarbones, as he fought off a wave of nausea.

      “Your name,” the interrogator repeated calmly.

      “I… I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” Reid whispered. “I don’t know what you’re looking for. But it’s not me.” Was he losing his mind? He was certain he hadn’t done anything to deserve this sort of treatment.

      The man in the kufi leaned forward again, this time taking Reid’s chin gently with two fingers. He lifted his head, forcing Reid to look him in the eyes. His thin lips stretched into a half smirk.

      “My friend,” he said, “this will get much, much worse before it gets better.”

      Reid swallowed and tasted copper at the back of his throat. He knew that blood was an emetic; about two cups’ worth would cause him to vomit, and he already felt nauseous and dizzy. “Listen to me,” he implored. His voice sounded tremulous and timid. “The three men that took me, they came to 22 Ivy Lane, my home. My name is Reid Lawson. I am a professor of European history at Columbia University. I am a widower, with two teen…” He stopped himself. So far his captors had not given any indication that they knew about his girls. “If that’s not what you’re looking for, I cannot help you. Please. That’s the truth.”

      The interrogator stared for a long, unblinking moment. Then he barked something sharply in Arabic. Reid flinched at the sudden outburst.

      The deadbolt slid back again. Over the man’s shoulder, Reid could see just an outline of the thick door as it swung open. It appeared to be made of some kind of metal, iron or steel.

      This room, he realized, was built to be a prison cell.

      A silhouette appeared in the doorway. The interrogator shouted something else in his native tongue, and the silhouette vanished. He smirked at Reid. “We will see,” he said simply.

      There was a telltale squeak of wheels, and the silhouette reappeared, this time pushing a steel cart into the small concrete room. Reid recognized the conveyor as the quiet, hulking brute who had come to his home, still wearing the perpetual scowl.

      Upon the cart was an archaic machine, a brown box with a dozen knobs and dials and thick black wires plugged into one side. From the opposite end trailed a scroll of white paper with four thin needles pressed against it.

      It was a polygraph machine—probably nearly as old as Reid was, but a lie detector nonetheless. He breathed a sigh of half-relief. At least they would know that he was telling the truth.

      What they might do with him afterward… he didn’t want to think about that.

      The interrogator set about wrapping the Velcro sensors around two of Reid’s fingers, a cuff around his left bicep, and two cords around his chest. He took a seat again, produced a pencil from his pocket, and stuck the pink eraser end in his mouth.

      “You know what this is,” he said simply. “You know how this works. If you say anything other than the answers to my questions, we will hurt you. Do you understand?”

      Reid nodded once. “Yes.”

      The interrogator flicked a switch and fiddled with the knobs of the machine. The scowling brute stood over his shoulder, blocking the light from the procedure lamp and staring down at Reid.

      The thin needles danced slightly against the scroll of white paper, leaving four black trails. The interrogator marked the sheet with a scribble, and then turned his cool gaze back to Reid. “What color is my hat?”

      “White,” Reid answered quietly.

      “What species are you?”

      “Human.” The interrogator was establishing a baseline for the questions to come—usually four or five known truths so that he could monitor for potential lies.

      “In what city do you dwell?”

      “New York.”

      “Where are you now?”

      Reid almost scoffed. “In a… in a chair. I don’t know.”

      The interrogator made intermittent marks on the paper. “What is your name?”

      Reid did his best to keep his voice steady. “Reid. Lawson.”

      All three of them were eyeing the machine. The needles continued unperturbed; there were no significant crests or valleys in the scrawling lines.

      “What is your occupation?” the interrogator asked.

      “I am a professor of European history at Columbia University.”

      “How long have you been a university professor?”

      “Thirteen years,” Reid answered honestly. “I was an assistant professor for five and an adjunct professor in Virginia for another six. I’ve been an associate professor in New York for the past two years.”

      “Have you ever been to Tehran?”

      “No.”

      “Have you ever been to Zagreb?”

      “No!”

      “Have you ever been to Madrid?”

      “N—yes. Once, about four years ago. I was there for a summit, on behalf of the university.”

      The needles remained steady.

      “Don’t you see?” As much as Reid wanted to shout, he fought to remain calm. “You have the wrong person. Whoever you’re looking for, it’s not me.”

      The interrogator’s nostrils flared, but otherwise there was no reaction. The brute clasped his hands in front of him, his veins standing stark against his skin.

      “Have you ever met a man named Sheikh Mustafar?” the interrogator asked.

      Reid shook his head. “No.”

      “He’s lying!” A tall, lanky man entered the room—one of the other two men who had assaulted his home, the same one who had first asked him his name. He swept in with long strides, his hostile gaze directed at Reid. “This machine can be beaten. We know this.”

      “There would be some sign,” the interrogator replied calmly. “Body language, sweat, vitals… Everything here suggests he is telling the truth.” Reid couldn’t help but think they were speaking in English for his benefit.

      The tall man turned away and paced the length of the concrete room, СКАЧАТЬ