Kira studied him. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me where we are and how long I was out for?”
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me about your work on WMD and interactions with terrorist leaders and dictators? And details of your husband’s activities?”
“Since I’ve been framed—yet again—and none of this is true, I’d be more than happy to tell you everything I know.” She paused. “But you first. Where are we? And how long was I out?”
Jake studied her with a renewed intensity, perhaps seeing if she would begin to squirm. She waited patiently, her cuffed hands folded in her lap, the scrutiny not appearing to intimidate her or make her uncomfortable in the least.
“It’s funny,” he said. “My instinct is not to tell you. You’re cuffed and have no weapons—or gellcaps. No technology, period. You’ve been stripped and probed extensively. Even if you had an invisible bug and transmitter—which this time I’m sure you don’t—your friends couldn’t rescue you. You’re going to tell me what you know, one way or another, and be a prisoner for the rest of your life. So I have no reason not to answer your questions.”
Jake stared at her once more for several seconds. “But you’re so damned relaxed,” he continued. “You’re not playing the captured terrorist about to rot in prison. You’re playing the carefree, affable young woman, chatting with a friend. Almost as if you arranged this just to size me up.” He paused. “What have I failed to take into account? Is there another shoe about to drop? Tell me, Kira Miller, what am I missing?”
“Not a thing. I’m not nearly as dangerous as you seem to think I am. You’re as thorough as they come. I did have a few rabbits up my sleeves,” she added with a grin. “But then you took away my sleeves.”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “Your charisma is remarkable. They say Steve Jobs was so charismatic, he projected something that came to be known as a reality distortion field. But I’ve never experienced something like this in person. Until now. And Jobs didn’t have your looks.”
“Thank you, Colonel. To be honest, I had expected to be beaten around the head with a bag of doorknobs, not to be given compliments.” She frowned. “But for all of my supposed charisma, I can’t even get you to tell me where we are or how long I was out.”
“You were out for seven hours. And we’re at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.”
Kira digested this information. Given Icarus was headquartered in nearby Denver, she knew Peterson well. It housed NORAD, as well as the air force and army space commands. And it was within a hundred miles of where she had been captured. “Isn’t Peterson a bit obvious?”
“Maybe. But your colleagues won’t expect someone as careful as I am to do the obvious. And since you could be anywhere, they’d have to be absolutely positive you were here to risk a raid to extract you. And even if they did they wouldn’t succeed. Not from a base this secure.”
“Impressive reasoning,” said Kira. She leaned forward. “By the way, is this conversation private, or do you have those video cameras you spoke of sending it out to a bunch of your friends?”
“Why do you care?”
“Maybe I’m not the exhibitionist type,” she replied dryly. “If I’m going to bare my soul, I prefer to know who I’m baring it to.”
“We’re being videotaped, but just for my own use. No one else knows about that. For this session only, our discussion will be private. But just so you don’t get any ideas,” he added, “there are three guards outside of this room. While you’re here, they’re checking in every ten minutes with my second in command. If they fail to check in, special forces teams will descend on this area like locusts.”
Kira lifted her hands and nodded toward the plastic cuffs locked around her wrists. “Are you sure three guards and handcuffs are enough? I mean, if you think it’d be safer to use leg irons attached to a cannonball, I’ll wait while you get them.”
“Don’t test me,” he warned. “My instincts tell me you’re still dangerous. Maybe I should restrain you further.”
Kira realized she had miscalculated and decided it was time to change the subject. “So tell me, Colonel,” she said, as if the prior exchange had never taken place. “How did you figure out I was alive? And learn about my ability to boost IQs? And most importantly, where did you get your misinformation as to my intentions?”
“Not misinformation. Unimpeachable evidence.”
“So you’ve said. How about showing me some of it then?”
Jake nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Why not?” His eyes narrowed in thought. “We’ll start with your, um . . . good friend, David Desh.”
He worked the touchscreen on a thin laptop on his desk connected wirelessly to a monitor on the table behind him. A video appeared on the screen.
Kira saw herself and David Desh sitting on the floor, their backs against a concrete wall in a gray, dimly lit basement. Heavy steel rungs had been bolted into the wall, and both prisoners had their wrists bound together behind their backs and through one of the rungs with plastic strips.
The scene came rushing back to her with a dizzying intensity. Her brother’s puppet—who they had first known as Smith, but who had later turned out to be a man named Sam Putnam—had captured them and moved them to the basement of a safe house.
The events of that night were seared into her mind. Putnam had taunted her, and had convinced her he had implanted an explosive in her skull that could liquefy her brain.
She hadn’t thought about this for a long time. Watching this footage brought back too many bad memories, but she couldn’t look away. Desh had managed to take a gellcap, and had faked illness. On the screen, sweat began pouring out of him in the cool basement, forced through his pores by the conscious application of his amplified intellect, which gave him exquisite control over his every cell and bodily system, autonomic or not.
Kira watched the video in horror and fascination. There was no doubt in her mind that this footage was real.
Three armed men now entered the frame. Desh had convinced them the contents of his stomach were about to erupt onto the floor, and that they needed to let this happen in the bathroom rather than suffer the mess and smell for an entire night.
One of the men freed him from the steel rung and began to lead him to the bathroom. A few steps later Desh doubled over and pretended to vomit. In the instant the guards looked away in disgust, he snatched a knife from the man beside him and buried it in the chest of one of the other guards. The moment Desh released the knife, he spun the man who had freed him to his left, just in time for him to take a tranquilizer dart meant for Desh.
The third guard was highly trained in several forms of martial arts, but Desh dismantled him as if the guard were moving in slow motion.
Desh had taken out the three men like an over-the-top hero in a martial arts film, with timing and fighting skills impossible in the real world. His actions were effortless. And just like in a highly choreographed stunt fight, Desh had known every move the men would make, almost before they did.
After having disabled the three armed men, he ducked behind the wooden staircase. A fourth man came rushing down to check on his comrades, and Desh calmly buried a dart in his leg through the opening between stairs. The man rolled down the last few stairs, unconscious.
Desh then freed Kira, and they both rushed up the stairs.
The footage continued, but the basement was now still.
“Okay,” said Kira. “This did happen. I’ll admit it. But so what? We were obviously justified in escaping. And David used non-lethal force when he could. Hardly evidence that he’s an enemy of the state.”