Assassin's Tripwire. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ was that nasty little voice nagging at him. What was it? What was he missing? He looked at the file again as he walked, shuffling through the photos of Eidra, the description of his arrest and the appended analysis of the security flaw that had allowed him to get so close to the President.

      In theory, security at the meet and greet with Hahmir had been as tight as Wonderland got. There should have been no way for a random national to penetrate the concentric rings of the security cordon, but Eidra did. He’d posed as a member of the press. When it came time for the dog-and-pony show after the President and Hahmir had done a lot of talking for the television cameras, Eidra had stepped forward.

      On the table next to the media dais had been a cup of those stupid pens politicians used to sign bills one letter at a time. One of the Man’s people had scheduled a ceremony to sign some piece of legislation or other after the main diplomatic fanfare was over. Eidra had moved up to the microphone cluster, sidestepped as if he’d tripped and then dived for the pens, coming up with one in his fist like some kind of dagger.

      He’d been within three steps of the podium on which the President stood. Eidra had covered that distance in fractions of a second, diving for the Man as if he would bury that pen in his neck.

      Hahmir had stepped in front of the President.

      The Syrian leader had taken a stab to the shoulder before the Secret Service tackled Eidra. Still more operatives hustled all the dignitaries to separate armored safe rooms. The place had been utter chaos for the next hour, as the finger pointing and speculation began. That was when the talk of Hahmir-as-hero had started. The idea stuck, and by the time the President and Hahmir had called their joint press conference later that day, the two of them were pretty chummy.

      Hahmir’s wound was superficial and, as part of covering up the whole incident in the press, the Syrian leader had agreed not to speak of it. Much as the media loved a hero story, it would be far too ugly if word got out that an unauthorized individual had gotten so close to the President and visiting foreign dignitaries. It was that much worse that it all happened on White House property. And while the President was not stupid, he very much wanted to believe that Hahmir’s good faith was genuine.

      Which left only the mystery of Eidra.

      A lone nut sneaking into the media pool was not so far-fetched. Eidra need not be anything or anyone more sinister than a crazy person. After all, there was no shortage of nuts who wanted to take a poke at the President.

      But Eidra, at least at first glance, appeared anything but nuts…and their attempts to investigate his background had met with enough obstacles that Brognola was becoming very suspicious. Eidra was a ghost. Someone didn’t disappear that effectively unless a skilled cybertechnology team was backing him up, and that meant the involvement of some government or terrorist organization.

      Except for speaking his name, Eidra had not uttered another word. He’d given them nothing to go on. They didn’t know his nationality and they weren’t sure of the derivation of Eidra itself. So far, while imprisoned, he had eaten mechanically when food was put in front of him, slept when he was allowed to sleep, and made absolutely no comment, protest or action of any kind with regard to his incarceration.

      It wasn’t natural. Brognola was no stranger to conducting interviews and interrogations from within the deepest, darkest government holes imaginable. When a man dropped off the world and into a place like this, he went through predictable phases. Sure, those phases didn’t happen in the same order with everyone, and they weren’t always of the same duration, but you could count on some degree of defiance, bargaining, despair… There were a few other shifts, but what they all had in common was that the prisoners reacted. They made noise. They demanded to see someone in authority, perhaps to speak with their own governments. They pleaded. Sometimes they cried. To just sit, stand or eat without making any comment at all… It wasn’t natural.

      It all added up to a picture Brognola didn’t like. That was why he’d come here today. He wanted answers. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until he got them. The President seemed to think the matter was over, with Eidra imprisoned and the Syrians now nominal allies. But the moment the weapons shipment had gone missing, Brognola knew there was more to it all than this simple narrative.

      Finally, they arrived at the door to Eidra’s cell. They were on the lowest level of the black site here. That was fitting, Brognola supposed. No one had ever escaped from this place. No one ever would. That was because the men who guarded it would kill Eidra, Brognola and even themselves if that was what it took to keep Wonderland secure from the monsters lurking behind these locked doors.

      “Open it,” said the man from Justice.

      The guards nodded. At Brognola’s order, they opened Eidra’s cell door. The interior was much like any cell in any prison across America, with one exception: this one had a cot, a stainless-steel toilet with no seat and a steel table with two steel chairs. The table and chairs were cemented to the floor. No amount of time and effort would set them free, not without power tools. The reason the cell boasted a table and chairs was because here, in the black prison, every cell was also an interrogation room.

      “Do you want him chained?” one of the guards asked. Eidra, sitting on his bunk, didn’t look up.

      “No,” Brognola said. He supposed he was being macho, proving to himself that a spindly punk like Eidra couldn’t take him barehanded. Brognola might be aging and he might spend his days riding a desk, but he’d be damned if he was going to shrink in fear behind these stevedores while a scarecrow like Eidra stared him down. The prisoner could not possibly weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds. He was one of the thinnest men, for his height, that Brognola had ever seen.

      “I’ll get the bucket,” one of the guards said. He let himself out of the cell. Brognola nodded to the other one, then sat down at the table. The remaining guard went to the bunk, clamped one beefy hand on Eidra’s shoulder and guided him up and over to the interrogation table. Eidra sat across from Brognola without prompting.

      “You heard?” the big Fed said. “The bucket is for you. We’re going to waterboard you. ‘Enhanced interrogation,’ they call it. It’s going to feel like you’re drowning. You won’t be. You’ll stay alive and awake for as long as we keep you that way. And you’ll get to feel every excruciating moment of it, for as long as we say you do.”

      Eidra looked up at Brognola and actually met his eyes. Then the corners of his mouth turned up. He smiled. Brognola did his best to hide his surprise.

      “Eidra,” the prisoner said.

      “The name, rank and serial-number bit, eh?” Brognola said. “Okay. That’s fine. Nobody thinks they’re going to break the first time.”

      Eidra leaned forward on the table. Brognola told himself to be wary. If the man tried to head-butt him or bite him, he would be ready for that. He had seen people blinded, had seen them nearly lose noses, when victimized by similar maneuvers.

      “Eidra,” the prisoner said again. He leaned back and smiled even more smugly.

      The other guard returned with a cart containing the items necessary to get the job done. “It’s time,” Brognola said. “I just wanted to see if you had anything to say before we began.”

      Eidra shook his head, which was remarkable of itself. He crossed his arms, still defiant. And in that moment, in that second of familiarity, Brognola felt as if he’d been hit by lightning.

      “Damn,” Brognola said.

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