Page 37 of Mastermind

“Yeah. Singapore, too. We may have found what they were really after.”

Lilith puts her hand to her earpiece and listens to someone for a moment. “Jessica?”

“Yes?”

“May I speak with you?”

“Sure. Excuse me, Theo.”

She walks over to another row. I can barely hear the words, but one stands out: IDR.

PART THREE

ESCAPE ARTIST

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

LANE CHANGE

IDR was waiting for us outside. My paperwork stunt didn’t impress Vivian Kieren. Before I could explain, Theo was slammed into the ground, his hands bound behind his back, and he was dragged into a truck while the rest of her team kept their guns trained on me.

I was treated with slightly more professional courtesy, although I was disarmed and shoved into the back of another vehicle with her men on either side of me to make sure I didn’t try to make a run for it.

Lilith protested and threatened to take this up with her bosses until Kieren pulled her ace card from her sleeve. Two of them, actually: a dusky, mustachioed CIA station chief named O’Donnell and his right-hand man, Shafner, who had the pale skin of an office drone. They worked with Korean intelligence and had major pull here.

I wasn’t sure at the time what kind of bullshit story Kieren told them to get their cooperation, but as I sit here in an interrogation room somewhere in Camp Humphreys, a US Army base forty miles south of Seoul, I have a feeling that no matter what I say, it won’t make a difference.

I’ve been locked in this room for two hours. Twice I’ve been offered coffee and an armed escort to the bathroom, which is more of a way to cover their asses if I complain about mistreatment than any act of kindness on their part.

The waiting irritates me. But what’s killing me is that I know that while I’m in here, they’re in some other part of the building interrogating Theo without the pseudopoliteness of coffee or bathroom breaks. I pulled him from a wretched prison cell less than twelve hours ago. He’s had half a full meal and still looks like walking death.

I could get out of this room. But then what? Rescue Theo and steal a C-141 StarLifter like in a Tom Cruise movie? The real world doesn’t work like that. How would I explain it to my bosses? And I’ll bet anything that Kieren has already told them where I am. Not Gerald, but whomever she knows at the FBI who’s senior and thinks of me more as an embarrassment than an asset.

The only way out of this is time. Which isn’t something I have right now. Every minute they’re in there with Theo increases the likelihood he’ll say something to incriminate himself or agree to something he doesn’t realize he’s admitting to. Kieren and the CIA would love to say they have somebody materially involved in the Void. Even if, later on, it doesn’t hold water.

The door opens, and Kieren enters with O’Donnell and Shafner. They take the seats on the other side of the table from me. O’Donnell watches me, waiting to see my reaction. Shafner is texting on his phone. Kieren sits with her arms folded. She’s beyond pissed. My airplane stunt probably didn’t help.

O’Donnell speaks first. “Blackwood, I’m sure you already know your career is over.”

“Do I?”

“You’re not a stupid woman. Of course you know you’re done. You’ve misappropriated a government jet. You helped a suspect escape custody. You interfered with a counterterrorism operation. Should I go on?”

“None of that is true, and shouldn’t I have someone from the FBI here? Last I checked, it wasn’t policy to interrogate personnel from other agencies without someone being present from that agency.”

“Would you like me to get the FBI liaison from Seoul here?” asks O’Donnell. “Norm’s married to my daughter. I’m sure he’d love to be in this room right now. Actually, I’m doing you a favor by not calling him in. In fact, I’m trying to do you a huge favor. There’s two ways this ends. One is you cooperate fully, and while your career is effectively over, you get to leave with your pension and no black mark that makes you unhirable. The other option is you put up your little fight, irritate us, but we eventually get what we want and not only is your career over, but we destroy you. No pension. Messy stories in the news about you fucking things up. That kind of thing. So, what do you think?”

I glance over at Kieren and the smug look on her face. She’s been quiet the whole time. “I take it he was your office husband when you two worked together in the CIA?”

Neither react, but I catch a tiny grin at the edge of Shafner’s mouth as he pretends not to be listening intently. It appears I hit the nail on the head.

“Let’s just say it’s good to have friends,” she replies.

“I want to talk to Theo.”

“He’s not a well man,” says O’Donnell. “We have a doctor looking at him right now.”

“Was the doctor with him when you started interrogating him?”