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This was all part of the plan. The plan Lancelot—no, Charlie—and Eric had drilled into her for the last hour.
Sylvia touched the older woman’s hand. “Alicia?”
Her eyes opened, but she stared into middle space, awake but seemingly not aware.
Sylvia’s eyes drifted to the IV bag that hung off the pole on the bed. The sedative was wearing off, but something else had been injected, something that would make Sylvia’s mission easier.
Sodium pentothal. Truth serum. Despite its name, it didn’t make people tell the truth. Narco interrogation was, according to the crash course she’d been given by Charlie, more myth than truth.
Pentothal couldn’t make someone talk. Best-case scenario it would decrease Alicia’s cognitive brain function, in theory making it harder to lie, since lying was more complex than telling the truth. Sylvia wasn’t sure she agreed with that, but Charlie and Eric had just stared at her when she started musing on relative emotional weight of truth versus lies. Hugo had been ready for a good philosophical discussion, but Charlie shook his head, grinning, and told him to “shut the fook up.”
Now it was time for Sylvia’s mission—she had to admit she felt like a considerable badass because she had a mission. It was time to question Alicia.
Sylvia squeezed her hand. “Alicia? Can you hear me?”
Alicia blinked, and after a moment her eyes focused. She looked around, but there was no alarm in her expression. “Where are we?” she asked, seemingly only mildly curious.
“On a private plane.”
“Why?”
Sylvia glanced quickly at the sloped wall behind the head of Alicia’s bed, then back down at her former mentor. “You’re with the Masters’ Admiralty.”
Alicia’s lips curled, a sad impression of a snarl. “Fools.”
“Why?” Sylvia asked softly.
“Why do I fight them? They are evil. The playing field…” Her voice trailed off, eyes closing.
“They keep the playing field off-balance,” Sylvia prompted.
“Yes.”
Again, Sylvia glanced just beyond Alicia’s bed, then back to the woman.
“Why are you obeying the man?” Sylvia asked. The carefully worded question had the intended result.
Alicia’s eyes popped open, then narrowed. “I obey no man.”
“You’re fighting his war.”
“I’m fighting a war that needs to be fought.”
“But a secret society in Europe…it doesn’t really affect us. You’re smarter than that, or at least I thought you were.” Sylvia shrugged. “You must be doing it for him. For Varangian.” She deliberately pronounced it slightly differently than Charlie had.
“Varangian,” Alicia snarled. “He is…” Her face softened. “He is a man worth following.” Alicia swallowed, and it looked painful. Sylvia took a small cup, adjusted the flexible straw, and held it to Alicia’s lips.
When she’d drunk her fill, Sylvia set the cup aside. Alicia lay back, her face going slack for a moment as she took several deep breaths.
“You should run,” Alicia said quietly. “Get away from them. He has plans.”
“Plans?” Sylvia asked, then winced.
Charlie was standing beyond the head of the bed, where Alicia couldn’t see him. He’d slipped in while she was still fully sedated, administered the pentothal, and then waited silently.
They were hoping Alicia might talk to Sylvia, reveal things she otherwise wouldn’t. Sylvia wasn’t a trained interrogator. She was an excellent conversationalist, but that was an entirely different skill set.
And that was why Charlie held a whiteboard and an odorless marker. He glowered at her, the whiteboard reading “Plans?” with a double strikethrough.
