‘Abrahem!’ he screeched, and the drill fell silent as he sobbed in ragged breaths. ‘Abrahem, that’s all I know. Somebody in Iraq.’
Muller’s body convulsed with a shudder and he passed out.
The masked men looked down at Muller for a moment and then the tall man ripped off his mask.
‘You think that’s all he’s got?’ asked another of his masked accomplices as they tore off their mask to reveal long dark hair and exotic eyes.
Lopez lifted an electrode from Muller’s belly, along with the tube of fake blood she had sprayed across the drill and Ethan’s clothes. The electrode was connected to a pair of car batteries concealed beneath the table, the current spread by the fake blood to prevent burns to Muller’s skin.
Ethan tossed the drill aside. Psychology was everything, perceived pain and bloody gore almost more frightening than the act of torture itself. He had once read that the threat of torture was often a more effective means of obtaining confessions than the actual application of the pain itself. In Muller’s case his awkward viewing angle and belief that his guts were being drilled out, accompanied by a mild pain that was vastly inflamed by his own imagination, had been enough to extract what they needed.
‘He just passed out in fear,’ Ethan said. ‘There’s not much else there, but we have a name and a location: Abrahem, Iraq.’
‘That’s not a lot to work on,’ Lopez pointed out.
Ethan turned to the two DIA men beside them, who had now also removed their masks.
‘Get in touch with the DIAC, give them what we know. Maybe they can figure something out from there.’
‘What about him?’ one of the agents asked, pointing at Muller’s comatose form.
‘Get him home, leave no trace, and then inform the local police of what he’s suspected of doing. A search of his clinic should reveal the names we’re after and provide evidence of his illegal activities. He’ll be repatriated to the US for trial. Let’s get this done and disappear.’
‘Where are we going?’ Lopez asked Ethan.
‘Iraq,’ he replied.
XVI
The unmarked SUV pulled up at an oval near the Titanic Memorial in south west DC, where the Potomoc’s tidal basin met the Anacostia River at the Georgetown channel, the green waters sparkling in the sunshine.
Neither Hannah nor Vaughn had said a word during the short journey down from the Capitol, and their escorting agents had likewise remained stonily silent. As the SUV pulled up so one of them opened their door and stepped out, beckoning them to follow. As Hannah climbed out, the agent gestured toward a row of police patrol vehicles parked alongside the city’s EMC Fireboat launch.
‘You’re safe here,’ he said, apparently aware of their discomfort. ‘Take a walk in the park, why don’t you?’
Hannah rounded on the agent. ‘What the hell is this? You have no jurisdiction to accost federal agents going about their lawful business in…’
The agent climbed aboard the SUV, closed his door and the vehicle pulled away long before Hannah could finish her sentence. Vaughn glanced at the nearby memorial park.
‘We gonna take a walk then?’
‘What else do you want to do for them?’ Hannah demanded. ‘Bend over?’
Vaughn grinned, immune as ever to Hannah’s fiery retorts. ‘I want to know what the hell this is about and I guess the answer is in there.’
Hannah glared at the nearby wooded glade as she yanked her sunglasses back down over her eyes and marched toward the park.
The park was half empty at this time on a weekday morning, a few casual strollers and dog walkers here and there minding their own business and paying little attention to Hannah as she walked along the riverfront. At the end of the walkway was a wide wall, atop which was a stone memorial plinth of a man with arms outstretched, looking out across the Potomac.
Nearby a series of park benches were unoccupied except for one, upon which sat an elderly man in a dark blue suit, his hands folded comfortably in his lap as he looked at her. Hannah instinctively made her way across to him with Vaughn following.
‘Who the hell are you?’ Hannah demanded.
‘Nice to meet you too,’ the old man replied. ‘My name is Douglas Jarvis.’
‘Warner’s handler,’ Vaughn recalled from their research. ‘His name was mentioned back at that homicide scene in Virginia, remember?’
Hannah did indeed remember. Warner had spoken to a cop guarding the police line outside the hotel in which Stanley Meyer had been murdered, and later had been on the phone to somebody called Jarvis.
‘Mister Jarvis,’ Hannah greeted him with little warmth, ‘is it customary to abduct federal agents?’
‘No,’ Jarvis replied, unconcerned. ‘Agent Ford, I am here to offer you information for your own protection.’
‘My own protection?’ Hannah echoed, bemused. ‘I’d have imagined that it was your people who need protecting, after everything I’m uncovering right now.’
Jarvis smiled. ‘You ever heard of Pandora’s Box?’
‘I’ve read Hesiod,’ Hannah snapped back. ‘I’m not interested in mythology, Mister Jarvis, I’m interested in justice and I won’t stop to get it.’
‘Don’t wish too hard,’ Jarvis suggested.
‘Why did you bring us here?’ Vaughn asked, curious. ‘You could have just called us in or allowed us into the DIA when we turned up earlier today.’
Jarvis slowly got up from the park bench and slipped his hands into his pockets as he stood before them.
‘You’ve been given some kind of carte blanche by Director LeMay to go all out after Ethan Warner.’
Jarvis’s forthright assertion of what had been a covert directive put Hannah off balance.
‘The details of our operation are classified and cannot be shared with any outside party regardless of…’
‘Take the stick out of your ass,’ Jarvis muttered as he waved Hannah aside with an idle wave of one hand. ‘You’ve stood in front of the DFBI and now you think that you’re on a mission for the good of the world, best buddies with LeMay, untouchable.’ Jarvis smiled faintly. ‘Didn’t stop me from grabbing you off the street, did it?’
Hannah frowned. ‘You trying to make a point?’
‘You’re being sold up the river,’ Jarvis replied. ‘LeMay wants somebody expendable to pursue Warner to the ends of the earth, to do whatever it takes to prevent the DIA from exposing what LeMay’s got his dirty little paws into. You think that you can’t cross any lines, that you can walk roughshod over your superiors in your mission, and that when you’ve achieved it you’d be lauded to the world as a superhero and showered with plaudits for your valiant achievements.’
Jarvis looked at Hannah for a moment and then at her partner, Vaughn.
‘Let me guess about her,’ he suggested to Vaughn. ‘Headstrong, impulsive, tenacious and likely to get herself into trouble before she even knows what she’s doing?’
Vaughn raised an eyebrow. ‘Hit it on the head.’
Hannah shot him a hurt look, then glared back at Jarvis. ‘What’s your point?’
‘You’ll be used by LeMay and then disposed of,’ Jarvis replied. ‘He’ll use you as a means to get what he wants, and then you’ll find yourself out of the Bureau before you even know what the hell happened. Non — disclosure agreements signed, healthy pension, everything they can offer to get you out of the building and off their minds, and if you fight back…’
‘What?’ Vaughn asked, although Hannah remained silent.
‘Then they’ll play dirty.’