Context: The surface antagonist of Book 3 - Jeffrey Kone, the CEO of the tech company Cyocent International - has just been captured by the A.T.X.D. for his efforts to create an illegal, commercial space colonization program funded in secret by the shady SIGA Syndicate. But as we saw in a previous scene, during that capture, Cassy Wayne was captured and Laney Davidson (main character) was paralyzed by a remote-controlled seizure. With Cassy missing, Ashley - the Team Leader of the new Stealth Angel tactical team - takes the role of interrogating Kone. This is a chance to see how Ashley uses the strategy of getting the suspect to crack by outsmarting them instead of torturing them (which is banned in A.T.X.D.). Furthermore, Kone briefly met Ashley earlier in the book - she was posing undercover by a different name and she managed to get a little intel about Kone's Defiant Project in a hotel ballroom. So let's see what Kone's response is to seeing Ashley's true colors.
>>>>>>>A.T.X.D. HEADQUARTERS<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>INTERVIEW HALL<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>10:05 AM MDT<<<<<<<
Ashley had barely stepped through the doorway to the viewing space for Room 10 when she heard some shouting through the recording system.
“Thank God Almighty you showed up, Captain,” Rowan drawled irritably but with an added sense of relief. She then jerked a thumb at the see-through mirror where Kone, bound to the table by basic handcuffs, continued to demand angrily at them. “This nut job is worse than my third brother when we were kids. He’s been demanding the usual ‘I need a lawyer, I won’t talk’ crap. But now that you’re here, I can go get a coffee and soothe the headache I’ve acquired.”
“Well, lucky for you, Major,” Ashley replied with a friendly smirk, “he’s not your suspect anyway. In fact, given that he’s a low-risk detainee, I’m surprised he even has a guard.”
“Just be careful in there, Ashley. Especially if this guy knows what you look like, he will tear you a new one.”
“Oh-ho, he wishes. Back at the Hotel del Monique, he might’ve had that leverage. But he’s in my house now, so he’ll follow my rules or suffer the consequences emotionally.”
At this point, Kone had tired himself to the point his head burned like an overheated car engine. Was anybody even on the other side of the reflective window? He’d heard about the police using such window screens in interrogation rooms, but the fact nobody was telling him to shut up through a speaker system put the tycoon on edge. In fact, when he took a moment to sit quietly for like thirty or more seconds, all Kone could hear was his own breathing. Was he all alone? Was his fate to be the tormented subject of some psychological torture experiment to see how long he could tolerate the silence before he broke down and lost his sanity? Most importantly, who were these people who had breached his corporate office and now his rocket assembly site and kidnapped him?
When the door to the interview room suddenly slid open with a click and a pressurized whizz, the disturbance affected the silence in the room to the point that Kone almost fell backward in his chair from the shock. But as though that wasn’t enough, the shock took on a new form as a stomach-churning, cold recognition of the person who came in. The pinkish-white skin, the brown hair, the dazzling brown eyes, that beautifully young and firmly expressive face, and that swift walking pattern: Rachel Anderson from the Hotel del Monique. So all this time, she was a spy for these black ops haunches?
“What….how…how the hell…?” Kone’s mouth kept sputtering random words and phrases while his mind remained blank. But finally a sentence came together. “What do you want from me, Ms. Anderson?” He didn’t ask it like a polite question, but more like a forceful and sour demand. Strangely, the woman he knew as Rachel didn’t answer him. Instead, all she did was pull up her own chair, flip through some files in a basic manila folder, and at one point leaned back and set her leg on the edge of the table away from Kone.
“You can’t keep me here for more than 24 hours, Ms. Anderson,” Kone warned. “I know my rights. And I’ll also press charges for false imprisonment, failure to show a warrant, assault and battery.”
Again, Ashley kept flipping through the notes that, in reality, were just random files she’d picked up along the way and had no actual bearing on the task at hand.
“So what are you going to do to me? Chain me up and torture me for information? Leave me to die in a box without food and water? Run experiments on my body without my permission?”
On purpose, Ashley kept her mind blank and her face didn’t change.
“WILL YOU FUCKING SAY SOMETHING!! YOUR CHARM DOESN’T WORK ON ME ANYMORE!!”
Aside from a quick scorning breath from her nose and a slow shifting of the foot, Ashley still kept silent.
“GOD DAMMIT! I WANT ANSWERS! I WANT TO KNOW WHY YOU’RE KEEPING ME HERE WITHOUT MY ATTORNEYS AND WHY I HAVE TO SUFFER!”
“Funny,” Ashley finally began, tossing the folder down on the table and removing her stretched out boot from the edge before turning to face Kone directly, “We want answers too. Namely, what’s your connection to SIGA?”
“Who the fuck is SIGA? And why would you care, Miss Anderson?”
Ashley cleared her throat without opening her mouth before interjecting with, “First of all, Mr. Kone, this isn’t your company’s property and I don’t care how many billions of dollars you make. This is my room, my interview, so show some respect. And to emphasize that, it’s actually not Rachel Anderson. It’s Captain Ashley Miller. So I’ll say it again, screwhead; show some fucking respect to me if you want to get out of this alive.”
“Alive? Are you going to execute me just because I don’t kiss you when you want me to?”
“Yick, don’t even go there.” Ashley then took a moment to look back at the window, not fully sure if Melody or another officer or two were watching the interview behind the reflection. Although the Captain knew that the International Code explicitly carried an automatic death penalty for anyone who used or authorized black ops torture techniques on suspects in the extraterrestrial domain, Kone didn’t know that. So out of both disgust for Kone and desperation to find her teammate Cassy, Ashley pulled a trick.
“You know what happened to the last person we pulled in for interrogation who came from a high and mighty place like you, Mr. Kone?”
“What do you mean? What did you do to him?”
“It was a she, actually. She was a former U.S. Senator. Unfortunately, she stuck her nose in places she wasn’t supposed to and learned some of our organization’s secrets. She thought we were associated with the Left Wing, the Communists, and threatened on social media to reign Armageddon upon all who supported such causes. But her posts became too great a risk, so we abducted her just like we did you. We asked her nicely to remove the posts and recant herself, which she obviously refused because she believed we had no leverage over her.”
Kone was starting to turn pale, but Ashley continued with her fibbed up, cloak-and-dagger horror story.
“So we locked her in a room, subjected her to weeks of isolation with no contact to anyone, and no items of comfort either. Golly, it’s quite interesting how resource-reliant the human race is given the experiments we’ve run here. By Saturday of that week, she was already complaining about the lack of her car, her house, and her campaign. But within two weeks, she was fretting about her kids, her marriage. By week four, she was a nervous waste: she could no longer talk in plain English sentences. In fact, she didn’t have much in the way of words left in her vocabulary. So we dumped her in a mental health institution, where she now sits a traumatized soul: having completely forgotten her identity and not knowing that she has a family wondering where she is.”
Although the story itself was made up, Ashley was citing a couple of prior cases. For starters, she weaved in the details of a tech-op A.T.X.D. had conducted to stop a right-wing senator from threatening a minority community in her state whose population included disguised extraterrestrial residents. But in reality, the senator in question had simply gotten her social media account “mysteriously” deleted and, by her own irrational doing, ended up losing her bid for re-election. Simultaneously, the Captain cited a DESA case that involved helping a young man suffering from amnesia regain his memories following capture and psychological torture by a black ops organization with ties to the extraterrestrial criminal underground; the members of said organization having all been captured or terminated by A.T.X.D. during the rescue. Despite the more realistically happy or at least amicable endings, Ashley’s well-twisted fib was enough to get Kone unhinged and, judging by the color and expression on his face, scared for his life.
“Oh, and before you start using words like ‘bitch’ and ‘whore’ to describe me,” Ashley continued on a slightly different topic but with the same objective in mind, “Beware: as Captain, I have the authority to do whatever I want with you. And behind that wall,” the Captain jerked a thumb at the reflective window, “we’ve got a really mean crew who specialize in breaking people. One of them, she ties up your hands and breaks your legs, then gets creative if you still don’t talk. Another is a big guy who likes throwing his weight, or excuse me, other people’s weight around the interrogation room. Managed to throw a nasty wannabe soldier right through that window, actually, after giving him some added bruises. And then…”
“Okay!” Kone admitted with frightened exasperation. “Okay, fine. Fine! I’ll cooperate. What do you want to know?”
“Well, I’ll ask my first question again,” Ashley repeated calmly. “What is your connection to SIGA?”
But again, like a computer program stuck in a loop, Kone looked at Ashley and asked, “Who is SIGA?”
Ashley narrowed her eyes dully at the question, but Kone insisted, “I’m serious. I don’t know…wait, is that the name of the people I work with?”
Comedically paralyzed by her suspect’s apparent stupidity, Ashley sputtered a sloppy laugh as she tried to keep herself from howling with it. After taking a moment to cough and again clear her throat, the Captain clarified, “So let me get this straight: in your wealthy world, you sign a contract with somebody and you don’t even check if they’re legitimate? You know that such careless use of your signature and ignorance towards the small print is an easy way to sabotage your career and your dreams.”
“Well, I guess that already happened.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Technically…no factually, I don’t own the Defiant Project anymore. I just pretend to. It was my idea, and I had the plans and the funding to enact it.”
“So who’s actually running it? Your sponsor?”
“That….Hannah Turner.” Kone was either still traumatized by Ashley’s lies or romantically dedicated to Ms. Turner that he couldn’t bring himself to insult his supposed business partner on record. “She’s the one pulling the strings.”
“Well, something tells me she doesn’t want to explore space like you, Mr. Kone. Or was that even the plan to begin with?”
“I…” Kone abruptly held his tongue as though he were about to let something really damaging slip. Ashley gave him a serious look to warn the CEO of Cyocent that she was going to stick to her fictional threat if he didn’t start talking. Kone then asked, “I assume your security system is leak proof, right?”
“Is that any of your concern, Mr. Kone?”
“Not to me, no. But…”
“But what? What is it you’re worried is going to be leaked?”
Kone clutched his lip at this and began sweating profusely. And while undercover wasn’t necessarily a regular task of hers, Ashley recognized that look from experience.
“Lemme guess, you’re in love with Ms. Turner but you already have a wife. And you’re worried that this could get out and damage your rep…”
“No!” Kone unintentionally shouted his response. Then as though assuming he’d hurt Ashley’s feelings, which he hadn’t despite the startling burst, he clutched his forehead and gritted his teeth. Ashley kept a wary expression, but deep inside she could tell there was something more worrisome here. Then her mind wandered back to what she’d heard in the initial briefing about Ms. Turner: her day job-cover as a CIA analyst, her expertise in the field of spy work, and her beautiful looks. And from personal experience in the field, Ashley knew that with some men, it didn’t take all that much to win them over. Hell, she had come dangerously close to a quid-pro-quo date with Kone herself back at the Hotel del Monique under the guise of Rachel Anderson. But then that gave her an idea, and she quickly pushed back from the table to get someone.
“Wait, Captain Miller,” Kone protested, “Where are you going?”
“To discuss something with my high and mighty boss,” Ashley lied again, “and to get something useful.”
“Wait no! I swear…” Kone must have thought he was going to be tortured to death because he got really flustered, but Ashley ignored him and left. However, just five minutes later, Kone was surprised when Ashley returned with someone who wasn’t mean, muscular or malicious like the Captain had said earlier. Quite to the contrary, Nadine accompanied her TL and pulled up a second seat next to her as they resumed the interrogation.
“Who are you?” Kone asked with increased wariness.
“Ignore him, Hornet,” Ashley replied. “Just analyze something for me.”
Nadine nodded while Ashley got back to her last question.
“What are Ms. Turner’s plans with your Defiant Project, Mr. Kone?”
Again, though, Kone got shaky and silent. That was Nadine’s cue and, without closing her eyes or making any kind of hand gesture, began to telepathically probe Kone’s mind. And what she felt was rather interesting but also gave cause for concern. She was expecting to find that Kone was embarrassed or worried about losing his marriage, that his ego was surging like a heart in a state of fibrillation, or that he was scared about being tortured. What she saw instead was much deeper but luckily not well shielded. She felt shame, but it was more gut-wrenching: like Kone had betrayed someone in the past. And the fear was of a type Nadine remembered all too well from her own parents when they fled from ISIL back in Iraq: in Kone’s case, it was paternal. And judging by the intensity of the cold in that fear, Nadine came up with a reasonable conclusion for their suspect’s behavior.
“Y’know, beyond your inability to keep your eyes off other beautiful women, Mr. Kone,” Nadine replied, “you do a poor job hiding your emotions. Now I’d assume that comes from you wanting celebrity attention all the time.”
“Oh yeah, and don’t get me wrong,” Ashley chimed in, “that’s something to savor every so often. But celebrity life carries a lot of risks with it too; such as associating with shady people behind the scenes.”
Kone not only clenched his teeth this time, but shut his eyes tightly. In response, that feeling of paternal obligation and shame seemed to burst in a field of fiery energy from what Nadine could sense. So she continued.
“You are afraid, but it’s not egotistical. You’re scared that you’re about to lose someone really close to you. And from the degree of your fear, it’s definitely not Ms. Turner.”
Ashley widened her eyes slightly with sincerity as she deduced what Nadine had already concluded. She then transcribed her thoughts verbally to her suspect. “Ms. Turner is holding your family hostage, isn’t she, Mr. Kone? And if you talk, she’ll have them executed.”
“Yes, goddamn that bitch,” Kone exhaled. He then looked at Ashley with sincerely worried eyes and then made an unusual request.
“Captain Miller, I know it’s not my place to make any demands or strike up deals with you. You already made that clear.”
“Spit it out, Mr. Kone. What do you want?”
Looking up towards two rear corners of the room as though looking for the cameras, Kone put his hands on the table and replied solemnly, “I will stick to my word from earlier that you’ll learn everything you want to know about the Defiant Project. But before I do that, please, with whatever black ops or militarized power you have at your disposal, protect my family. If Ms. Turner knows that I’m in your custody and she even thinks I’m speaking to you, my entire family will be slaughtered.”
Ashley looked at him with some wary intrigue, but Kone reaffirmed his position by adding, “Your colleague is right. I don’t do a good job hiding my emotions. Also, off the record, I haven’t always made the smartest business decisions for Cyocent and its employees, and I haven’t always kept to my promises. But this is personal, and where my family is involved, I will do anything to protect them, even if it means abandoning my dream. Please make sure my family is safe first, then I will tell you what you need to know.”
“Fine,” Ashley returned plainly, then leaned forward herself. “And when we get them to safety, you’d better make sure you don’t default on that deal. Because while my colleagues and I are not so heartless as to kill a person’s entire family and make them watch, I will make you suffer physically and emotionally in other ways if you lie to me. Are we clear, Mr. Kone?”
Feverishly, Kone gave a silent nod. But as Ashley and Nadine stood up again, he asked, “Wait, don’t you need my address?”
“She’s got all the tools she needs, Mr. Kone,” Nadine replied with a sly twist of the lip and tilt of her head.
With that, the two women left the interview room and the door shut behind them. Once again, Kone was left to hear his own breath quietly echo off the blueish-black walls of the box which he sat in.