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And wait.
Andwait.
At one in the morning, a pair of headlights flickered in the distance. I sat up, watching the truck begin to slow as it closed in on Sophia’s driveway.
“There you are.”
I’d mulled over how to play this. Now that I knew Sophia was a flight risk, my interrogation techniques were limited.
In any other scenario, I would have already sneaked into the house where, the moment my target stepped over the threshold, I would have immediately immobilized them, then interrogated him or her until I got the information I came for. Quick. Easy. Done.
In the best-case scenario, I’d use the Reid Technique. This is the most commonly used (and accepted) interrogation technique. It involves a three-pronged approach including factual analysis, interviews, and interrogation. But I didn’t have the time—or intel—to take this route.
My next option was enhanced interrogation techniques, a personal favorite of mine. This is what you see in the movies. On its most basic level, it’s torturing detainees for information. This includes waterboarding, walling, sleep deprivation, prolonged confinement, etc.
The US Department of Defense maintains a list of “approved” techniques. Astor Stone Inc. does not. There are no boundaries to what his mercenaries are allowed to do to gain information, mainly because what we do is under a black cloak of secrecy.
I was not surprised when I learned of this leniency, considering a part of our training was to undergo waterboarding. In fact, during our training, we were schooled in the enhanced interrogation techniques that werenotapproved by the government. The ones considered too brutal and inhumane.
These include ice-water baths, repeated waterboarding, hallucinogens, rough physical takedowns (vicious beatings), hanging stress positions, sexual-abuse threats, death threats, and rectal feeding (a crude way to deliver nutrients to a human for the sole purpose of keeping them alive so that they can continue to endure torture).
While I have been witness to, or personally used, most of the above, I’ve always taken a particular interest in psychological manipulation, the least messy of the bunch. My specialty was uncovering the detainee’s weakness and exploiting it until he or she cracked. Kusma and I weren’t so different in this way.
So, I had a few options for how to approach Sophia. But after the dramatic event at the diner, I decided to try a more gentle, unfamiliar approach—at first, anyway.
I slipped out of the SUV, zipped up my coat, and lifted my hood. Big fat snowflakes swirled around me. The frigid wind howled through the trees, stinging every inch of exposed skin. It was dangerously cold.
I made my way through the woods, keeping my eyes on the pair of headlights ascending Sophia’s driveway.
I arrived at her yard the moment she cut the engine.
A few seconds slid by, then a full minute. I wondered what the hell she was doing in there, or what she was waiting for. Impatient, I stepped out from behind the trees and walked right up to the truck—where I was greeted by the barrel of a .357 Magnum.
My brow cocked. I took a step back, raising my palms in surrender. Sophia had either seen me or anticipated that I would be waiting for her when she returned.
Smart girl.
Behind the foggy window was a blurred head of frizzy blond hair, and a pink-tipped finger curled around a trigger.
“Welcome home,” I said in a voice loud enough for her to hear me through the closed window.
“Get the hell out of here or I’ll shoot you,” she yelled back, foolishly emboldened by the thin pane of glass between us.
The corner of my lip twitched because I kind of believed her.
“I have a few questions I want to ask you, that’s all. And I’m not leaving until I do.”
“I’m going to call the cops.”
“Be my guest,” I said, although I hoped she wouldn’t.
Working for Astor was a slippery slope of deception. We weren’t allowed to tell anyone, including law enforcement, what we did for a living. Therefore, if I were arrested, I would likely spend multiple days in jail while Leo and Astor did whatever they did to orchestrate my release. It had happened a few times before, and I really didn’t want to go through that again.
Sophia lowered her gun, just enough for our eyes to meet. Her cheeks were flushed, her nose red, her chest rising and falling with adrenaline.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Justin Montgomery.”
