Washington, D.C.
Deep in the heart of the cesspool of the warehouse district of the nation’s capital, in a decrepit cinder block building with corrugated metal roof and doors and a nearly none-existent heating system, two men without masks loomed menacingly over the figure zip-tied to a metal chair. The woman’s long dark hair, scraggly and wet with sweat and blood, covered her face and the bruises she had gotten in the past twelve hours.
Alex Yaroslav ran his hands through his own dark hair, revealing the long scar on his jaw line. How much more could this woman take? He had never seen anyone—man or woman—endure such pain. It was as if she liked it. Sure the Agency had trained her for this eventuality. But training alone could not account for her resolve. His friend Danko had tried nearly everything on her. He had punched her, cut her, added chemicals to the cuts. Used electrical prods. He even used a butane torch on the woman’s breasts, nearly burning off her nipples, and still she had not given up the encryption codes to the flash memory card. Her endurance had given him. . .what did the American’s call it? Major wood? Yeah, he wanted to give it to her big-time. But he had his orders. If he and Danko could get the information from her, then, and only then, could they screw the woman. It was their incentive. Their bonus.
Alex pulled his friend Danko away from the woman and whispered softly, “What do you think, Danko?”
His friend shook his head. “I don’t know. Nobody can hold out this long. I think we should try to make her water tight.” Danko smiled with that thought.
“No. You heard our orders.”
“You are thinking the same thing, Alex.”
“Maybe. But we could be the next to get strapped to the chair if we don’t follow orders.”
Danko shook his head and ran his hands over his bald head. “What about Jake Adams?”
“What about him?” Alex glanced around his friend at the woman, who seemed to be slumping over more, her head almost in her lap.
“He gave the flash card to this Agency whore,” Danko said. “He set the encryption code. We just need to pick up him and get the code.”
“Or find the scientist, Tramil,” Alex reminded his friend.
Danko laughed. “In a perfect world. I thought that’s why they hired Milena in the first place. She’s supposed to be a computer genius.”
Shaking his head, Alex said, “Not even Milena can break five-hundred-twelve bit encryption.”
Suddenly a figure appeared in the shadows alongside the door to the outer warehouse.
“Let me take care of this,” Alex said to Danko.
Moving in closer, Danko whispered, “Make sure he knows I want to have this woman ‘before’ she dies.” He smiled and squeezed his friend’s arm.
The bald man walked off and stood next to the woman in the chair, as if wondering what to try next.
Alex went to the doorway and considered shaking the lobbyist’s hand, but then remembered the guy would never make skin-to-skin contact. Not that they would have anyway, since Alex had never seen the guy without his black leather gloves.
“Has she told you anything?” the Lobbyist asked.
Glancing back across the room, Alex turned to the man and said, “No, sir. I have never seen anything like it. She seems oblivious to pain.”
“Everyone has a button to push, Alex. You just need to be creative enough to find what motivates her. I heard she and Jake Adams were an item at one time. Can you exploit that?”
Alex shrugged. “If we had Jake Adams. But we let him go so he would lead us to the scientist.”
The Lobbyist tightened his jaw and smirked. “And how did that work for you?”
“It was not our fault,” Alex assured the man. “Adams killed Bogden before we got to Montana and then took Tramil somewhere.”
“And you lost them in a state with more cows than people,” the Lobbyist said with derision.
“Have you been to Montana? It is huge. He could be anywhere.”
“I don’t want excuses, Alex. Obviously Jake Adams came back here to drop off the flash card to his Agency contact.”
“His old girlfriend,” Alex corrected with a smile.
The Lobbyist shook his head slightly. “Will she ever give you anything?”
If Alex said no, he knew that the game would be over. “I don’t know for sure. Like you said, everyone has a breaking point.”
“But we don’t have time for this.” The Lobbyist walked into the room toward the woman in the chair. “Let’s see her face,” he said to Danko.
The bald man grasped the Agency woman’s hair and pulled back her head. The woman’s eyes seemed to open wider when she saw the Lobbyist.
“You,” the woman whispered through bloody, puffy lips.
“So you know me,” the Lobbyist said. “How much longer do you plan on holding out on us?”
She laughed. “I work for the government. I get paid if I sit here in this chair or at Starbucks.”
“But not if you’re dead. How would Jake Adams feel about that?”
“You don’t have the balls to kill me,” she said.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you know Jake Adams. He’ll hunt down every one of you and kill you. Then he’ll find those who pay you and kill them.”
The Lobbyist laughed. “You think he cares that much about you? Where has he been the last ten years? All over the globe, but not in your bed. With other whores. He might simply shrug with your death.”
“Then put a bullet in my head you fucking pussy,” she screamed at him and struggled as best she could against her restraints.
With one swift motion, the Lobbyist pulled a silenced gun from his pocket and pressed it against the woman’s forehead. He pulled the trigger and the gun simply clicked without firing.
The woman didn’t budge.
The Lobbyist laughed and racked a .22 round into the chamber of the automatic pistol. Then he shoved the gun against her forehead again and pulled the trigger again. This time the gun coughed and the woman’s head slumped. She was dead immediately.
“Christ, you actually killed her,” Alex yelled. “What the hell?”
The Lobbyist pointed the gun at Alex. “You have a problem with that?”
“Yes! Danko and I wanted to. . .you know.”
Danko nodded but said nothing.
The Lobbyist laughed aloud. “I was never going to let you do that. Now clean up this mess. We have a little trip to take in less than twelve hours.”
“Not Montana again,” Danko pled.
“No. I just found out that Jake Adams is in Korea. We’ll meet up with our friends there and get what we need from Adams.”
Danko and Alex both nodded.
“Should we cut her up and dispose of the body?” Danko asked.
“No,” the Lobbyist said. “We want her body found and identified quickly. I want Jake Adams to know his old girlfriend was just tortured and murdered.”
“But why?” Alex asked.
“Because that’s when Jake Adams makes mistakes. When he’s so pissed off he can’t see straight. He’ll be thinking only of getting back to Washington and won’t see us coming for him.”
The three men all laughed now.