“Congress has doubled the IRS budget over the past 10 years―making that agency one of the fastest growing non-entitlement programs. It has increased its employment by 20 percent. The IRS’s powers to investigate and examine taxpayers transcend those of any other law enforcement agency. Virtually all of the constitutional rights regarding search and seizure, due process, and jury trial simply do not apply to the IRS.”
Will got a message from Turner on the same afternoon Zach spoke with Pops and turned himself in. He was now in charge. They had waited an hour too late to implement Ghost, allowing the feds to grab Zach’s family and use him as a public relations prop.
Will had gotten approval from Zach right after the mass shooting and prior to implementing Ghost to grab Ottosson and get whatever information they could out of him. It was time. Ottosson could be the perfect bargaining chip to secure Zach’s release.
Empowered by the arrest of Turner, the Deep State became even bolder. Governor Strasburg and Senator Simpson called a hastily prepared press conference after Zach’s arrest to seize on the momentum created by the supposed IRS bombing crime being solved.
On the steps of the Texas Capitol building, Governor Strasburg stepped to the microphone. “We are deeply saddened that someone attached to the Texas independence movement is also allegedly involved with these horrific IRS bombings and that federal officials have some belief that this Free Texas movement is somehow connected to the tragic mass shooting in Dallas. Because of this development and the fact that I am hearing from so many Texans and elected officials, we will not be calling a special session of the state legislature to take this issue up. We believe the public sentiment for this extreme action is waning and it is in everyone’s best interest to let this investigation take its due course before deciding to have any kind of referendum that would not honor those victims in Dallas,” said Strasburg as he conflated the vote for independence, which was more popular than ever with Texans, with dishonoring the child victims of the shooting.
After he was done, he took two steps backward and Senator Simpson stepped to the mic to make his statement.
“Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Texans and fellow Americans, I applaud the governor’s decision to cancel any plans for a special session of the legislature while this investigation progresses. We have heard from the Justice Department that Mr. Turner and his militia group are now being investigated for possible links to the horrific tragedy in Dallas. Texas needs to heal. It has lost two governors and two lieutenant governors in two years. The emotions from these types of tragedies fueled the fire of the independence movement. Most of you know my objection to this effort. I have never hidden my disdain for any illegal effort to separate Texas from the Union. This movement has bred the environment for these types of militia and white supremacy groups to grow and thrive. I believe, as does the governor, that we honor those child victims by postponing any plans for a special session to take up such a volatile issue. The governor and I will take a few questions.”
Will watched the press conference from his iPhone. He was incensed that the governor and the senator would have the gall to tie Zach to the mass shooting or the bombings. He immediately dispatched codes to Beard and several operatives in D.C. and on the east coast to implement the standing order they had established to nab Ottosson. The plan was already in place; now it just needed to be executed.
Ottosson was not hard to find. Turner’s operatives had been maintaining twenty-four-hour surveillance with the hopes Ottosson would lead them to Volkov again. Despite the fact that surveillance was in place, Ottosson could be found starting his womanizing efforts every evening at the bar of The Jefferson Hotel just blocks from the White House.
Will’s plan was to use Ottosson’s penchant for women against him. A very good-looking female operative was already stationed at the bar as bait for Ottosson. A few casual but suggestive looks, coupled with free-flowing alcohol and some flirtatious chatter, would likely be all it took to get Ottosson out of the bar and into a situation where the team could acquire him.
Finally, thirty minutes later than normal, Ottosson showed up at his usual spot. It didn’t take long at all for him to spot the female operative at the bar. She wore a tight pencil dress, and dark flowing hair cascaded down her back. Ottosson zeroed in on her after his first two dirty martinis.
The thirty-two-year-old female operative was excellent at playing coy with Ottosson, flattering him yet giving the impression she was unattainable. This encouraged Ottosson even more as he bragged about his importance to Congress and the administration, as well as his newly obtained wealth.
By 11:00 p.m., Ottosson had had nearly ten martinis and was feeling no pain when he suggested that the female operative retire with him from the bar to his swanky brownstone in Georgetown. She agreed to leave with him, on the condition they go to her loft in Alexandria, and that he wouldn’t drive drunk. She would summon Uber on her iPhone. There was no way Ottosson could resist her. She asked him to meet her outside the women’s restroom and then they would leave.
Ottosson went to the men’s bathroom first, then came out to wait on his newly acquired prize to exit the ladies’ room. When she came out, she pulled him into a private alcove and pressed against him with a deep kiss, grabbing his crotch. If the deal to go to her flat wasn’t a sure thing up to that point, she sealed the deal then and there.
Waiting around the corner was a non-descript Toyota Prius so common to many Uber drivers. But this wasn’t an official Uber car or driver. It was another operative on Turner’s team. Ottosson’s full attention was on the female operative and none of the precautions that a professional operative would take were even considered. He was totally and completely at the mercy of his goal to conquer this woman.
On the drive to Alexandria, she continually had to fight him off in the back seat from roaming hands and advances. For the female operative, she couldn’t get there quick enough.
The Uber driver told them he was within a few blocks of the address she had given him. She reached for a garage remote for a one-door garage that opened when she pressed it. Inside the garage was a minivan.
“We’ll go in this way,” she told Ottosson. He followed her like a puppy dog as she hit the button on the wall for the garage door to close. She pulled him to her once again to deliver another deep kiss.
As the garage door closed to the ground, four men jumped out from behind the minivan, dressed all in black, with ski masks. They tackled Ottosson. Immediately they restrained him as one put a washcloth full of chloroform over his mouth and nose and the other three held him down for the thirty seconds it took for the chemical to knock him out.
They quickly bound Ottosson’s hands, feet and mouth and loaded him into the back of the minivan where the third row of seats had been removed. One of the men gave her the signal and she hit the garage door button again, and the four men backed out of the garage, waiting on her to exit the garage before it closed. Once all were in the van, it backed up and sped away.
The female operative took out a small flask of mouthwash and took several swigs of the liquid and spit it out as she rolled the window down halfway.
“The things I do for my country,” she lamented.
Within thirty minutes, Ottosson regained his senses but the chemical mixed with the chloroform made him nauseous. The van drove for two hours to a remote, small warehouse in the Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia.
The crew pulled Ottosson from the vehicle and immediately strapped him to a chair in a room that had the eerie look and feel of a torture chamber. There were instruments of torture hanging on the walls and stains that looked like blood on the walls and concrete floor. Ottosson remained gagged and tied. Every time he made a sound, someone would slap his face smartly and tell him to be quiet. They also referred repeatedly to waiting until the “boss” arrived.
What Ottosson did not know was that everything in his field of vision was staged. The blood was from pigs. The torture tools had never really been used, but he didn’t know it. For an hour, he sat in silence as each one of the operatives would pick a tool from the wall and adjust it, sharpen it or make some other kind of reference to it. Ottosson, who had no experience whatsoever as an undercover operative, was becoming terrified at what might be in store for him. Just a few short hours before, he thought he was about to have his way with a very beautiful woman he picked up at a bar.
All were sitting quietly as the sound of a car pulling into another section of warehouse could be heard, along with some loud voices.
The door of the room Ottosson was sitting in suddenly swung open. A man, dressed all in black and a mask, walked in carrying a small sledgehammer.
“Mr. Ottosson, these next twenty-four hours will either be the worst of your life or you can cooperate with us and you will be returned to your home,” the man said. “Now, remove his shoes.”
The others quickly took off his shoes and socks. They then removed his gag.
“What the hell is going on here? Do you know who I am? I have diplomatic immunity. Do you know who I know in Congress? Hell, I know the president! Who the hell are you people?”
“Mr. Ottosson, I am going to ask you some very direct questions, many of which we already know the answers to. If you lie to us, it will be painful. The problem for you is you don’t know what we know. Do you understand me?” said the man with the sledgehammer, now referred to as the boss.
“Go screw yourself,” Ottosson answered.
Before he could finish the sentence, the boss swung the short sledgehammer, slamming it on the little toes of the Swede’s right foot. Ottosson let out a blood-curdling scream, trying mightily in his restraints to get free.
“Like I said, Mr. Ottosson, we can do this hard or we can do this easy. Take off his pants and underwear.”
“Am I going to die today?” asked Ottosson.
“That is totally up to you. I have a mind to just put a bullet in your head right now and be done with you, but you could be of some use to us.”
The crew cut his pants and underwear off him.
“Roll in the battery charger.”
The crew went to the next room and brought in a large battery charger used to boost the batteries of large diesel truck engines.
“Mr. Ottosson, the next wrong answer you give me, I’m going to instruct my friends here to connect those boosters to your balls. Do you understand me?”
Ottosson, eyes wild with fear, nodded.
“Do you know a Russian operative named Volkov?”
Ottosson hesitated. He knew that disclosing any information about Volkov was akin to him signing his own death warrant.
“Never heard of him,” Ottosson claimed.
“Lying on the very first question, Mr. Ottosson, sets a very bad precedent. Hook up the boosters!”
“No, no, no. I don’t know this man you speak of!”
The next thing Ottosson felt was the sharp pain of one of the booster clamps, like a battery charger cable, clamping onto his scrotum.
“Nooooo! Ouch! No, no. Okay, I know him. Take it off, take it off right now!”
“Take it off. I think Mr. Ottosson is willing to participate now,” said the boss. “Now, when was the last time you spoke with him and when was the last time you saw him?”
“I saw him in Alexandria several months ago at a pub. Honestly, that was the last time I saw him.”
“Why were you meeting with Volkov in Alexandria? What was discussed?”
“He was working on a project for us,” Ottosson said, nervously looking around to make sure nobody was picking up anything to use on him.
“What project was that? What was its name and what was its purpose?”
Ottosson tried to divert away from the subject. “I don’t know. I’m just a messenger. I was just told to meet with him and arrange payment obligations.”
“Bullshit, Ottosson. Pull that booster over here! Gag him! I don’t want to hear his screams!”
The team pulled the booster to him and this time put both cable clamps on his scrotum. Ottosson was screaming in pain.
“You think that’s painful? What until we dial up the voltage.”
“No, no, no. Okay, okay, okay! We were discussing Madison! Please, please take these off!”
The boss turned to the female operative and looked at her to make sure the video recorder was capturing everything. She nodded affirmatively.
“What was Madison?”
“It was a project to change public sentiment to eventually overturn the 2nd Amendment. Please, please take these off! I’ll answer your damned questions!”
“I want you to think very clearly before you answer this question. Were you on the Ida Kay when Chief Justice Noyner drowned?”
“Yes, yes, I was there.”
“How did he drown?”
“He fell out of the boat and we couldn’t save him!”
“Hit him!”
Another blood-curdling scream came out of Ottosson’s mouth as the booster was flipped on to its lightest setting for three seconds.
“I bet no woman has ever given you that kind of thrill up your leg,” laughed the boss. “That was only three seconds, Ottosson. You are apparently not a fast learner. We will increase the voltage the length of the boost each time you continue to lie to us or give us non-answers.”
“Okay, okay, okay! Please take them off. I swear I’ll tell you!”
“Then tell us what really happened on the Ida Kay?”
“He was injected with a neurotoxin that made it look like a heart attack. He did actually fall out of the boat, but he was already convulsing.”
“Who injected him?”
“Please, I’ll tell you! Just take these off now! Please!”
One of the operatives stepped back over to the booster as if he was going to turn it back on.
“No, no, don’t! Volkov was on the boat. He injected him!”
“Let’s go back to Madison for a minute as you are taking this trip down Memory Lane. Who orchestrated the mass shooting in Dallas?”
“I’m begging you. Please take off these cables! Please!”
“Mr. Ottosson, I’m not going to ask the same question twice. If I have to ask any question more than once, it will really piss me off and we might forget to turn the booster off once we turn it up. I really don’t give a shit if you die today. Do you understand me?”
“Okay, sir, okay! Madison was Volkov’s project! I wasn’t involved in the planning. He used three or four of his own people to pull that off!”
“I’m going to take a break. In the meantime, keep these booster cables connected and, if he makes so much as a whimper, hit him with 120 volts.”
The boss and two others left the room and closed the door behind them.
When they got out of the room, two of the men pulled off their ski masks.
“Damn, it’s hot in there,” remarked Beard.
“Not as hot as it is for Ottosson. What a wussy. He was singing before we even hooked up the cables,” said the third operative as he chuckled.
“That’s what happens when you’ve got no principles or belief system. This guy is a total whore, a sellout who’s only in it for monetary gain. He’s no ideologue; he’s simply a lobbyist playing spy games,” said Will, also known as the boss for this interrogation. He pulled off his mask.
“We’ve got a lot more questions for him. We will edit the video and get it ready. This should exonerate Zach and get him out of custody, right?” asked Beard anxiously.
“We’ve got to be smart about it. This is banana republic kind of shit. It will throw our entire system into a tailspin. So, no media. Everybody understand? We are going to use this information strategically,” commanded Will.
“Got it,” they both said in unison.
“Let’s go have some more fun,” said the third operative.
Ottosson was doing his best to remain still as the three men returned with their masks on, but the clamps from the battery booster were causing immense pain to his scrotum.
“Mr. Ottosson, tell me about the crash of the Texas governor’s plane,” said Will.
“I wasn’t there,” Ottosson answered painfully.
“That’s not what I asked you. Were you involved?”
“No, I wasn’t. Please take these cables off me. Please!”
“You’re lying again! Hit it!” yelled Will.
Five seconds is a very long time when you are getting shocked on your scrotum. Ottosson’s screams were guttural. He writhed grotesquely in response to the pain.
“Stop! Now damn it, Ottosson, I thought you were learning your lesson. My bullshit detector is like nothing you’ve ever experienced. Hell, the U.S. government was thinking about using me to replace their polygraphs!” Will joked to Ottosson. “Now, I’ll ask you again what happened to the plane?”
“Volkov was there. He’s an expert at that kind of thing. I don’t know exactly what he did but he promised he would take that plane down.”
“And what about the mechanic and his family?”
“Volkov,” Ottosson said flatly.
“Jesus, Volkov killed the wife and the small boy?”
“Volkov doesn’t leave loose ends – of any kind.”
Beard stepped up in front of Ottosson to ask the next set of questions.
“There was a Texas state senator named Milsap that was murdered execution style in downtown Austin. Is this the work of Volkov too?”
“Yes, it was Volkov.”
Beard turned and looked at Will.
“Why in the hell would you have this guy killed? He was about to leave office,” said Beard.
“We had secrets on him that compromised him with his wife, but he told her before we could. We had to make sure we had the numbers,” Ottosson said as he grimaced and tried to get comfortable.
“I’m going to have these cables taken off you. If for a split second we think you’re lying to us again, they are back on and this time it ain’t shutting off after five seconds. Do you understand, Mr. Ottosson?” Will asked.
“Yes, sir. Please, please. Take them off. The pain is unbearable.”
Two operatives reached over and removed the clamps. Ottosson was sitting in a small pool of blood where the clamps had penetrated the skin of the scrotum.
“A little blood, but he ain’t going to bleed to death,” said one of the operatives.
“Mr. Ottosson, you were using leverage on State Senator Milsap. What were you using this leverage for?”
“To kill the Texas independence referendum vote.”
Beard and Will turned and looked at each other. Surely, this move wouldn’t have been Ottosson’s alone.
“Kill it? By whose orders?” demanded Will.
“My superiors.”
“Boys, get those cables ready!”
“Okay, okay, okay. The administration wanted it defeated, by any means necessary,” Ottosson revealed.
Will stood up and looked back at the operative who was manning the video camera to make sure she captured this moment. The operative nodded affirmatively.
“Mr. Ottosson, I’m going to ask you very plainly about this in particular and you had better give me very straightforward answers. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where did the orders come from to assassinate Milsap?”
“We didn’t get exact orders like this to take anyone out. How those orders were executed was up to others.”
“Who ordered the Texas independence referendum vote to be stopped by any means necessary? Who was it?”
“The White House.”
There was complete silence in the room for a few seconds and Will again looked back at the video recorder to make sure the red light was on, indicating it was still recording.
“Who at the White House, Mr. Ottosson, ordered the vote to be stopped by any means necessary?” demanded Will.
“Chief of Staff Weingold.”
“We had you tracked and our records showed you were at the White House nineteen times total with President Johnson’s administration and now Bartlett’s administration. Who were you meeting with at each one of those meetings and what was discussed?”
“During the Johnson administration, it was mainly Attorney General Jamail Tibbs.”
“Did you ever meet with President Johnson?”
“Yes, one time.”
“Why? What was discussed?”
“It was a formal introduction and a celebration of sorts when Congress approved funding for our voting software.”
“That was it?”
“Yes, sir,” Ottosson said.
“What was the context of the meetings with the attorney general?”
“Mostly to report on simulated elections when we were testing our software.”
“Mr. Ottosson, this is another booster cable moment for you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“What was done in those simulations?”
“We produced varied outcomes in simulated elections.”
“Am I understanding you to say that you manipulated votes in those simulated elections?”
“Yes.”
“These were all simulated elections?”
“At first, yes. Then we actually did live test runs in actual state and local elections.”
“So, in effect, you changed some election outcomes?”
“Yes.”
“How many elections during this testing phase did CIS impact?”
“I honestly don’t remember, probably twenty or so.”
“Who told you who should win those elections?”
“The attorney general.”
“Was the software successful?”
“We failed to produce the desired outcome in two of the first five, but once we fixed our algorithms in the tabulation coding we got it right every single time after.”
“Was your CIS corporate headquarters in Sweden aware of this manipulation?”
“Not at first; we had some rogue programmers who got paid on the side to hijack the systems in place in the states. The Johnson administration was very successful in promoting the software and orders were streaming in from most of the states.”
“Are you saying CIS corporate later became aware of the reason these orders were coming in? At what levels in CIS were they aware that you were being asked to manipulate voting results?”
“I assume at the very top, although I’ve never spoken with the CEO directly about it. Sales of the software and support were sensational. If he had a clue, he didn’t ask, but there were others in management that turned a blind eye as the bonuses started to roll in,” admitted Ottosson.
“Here’s another booster-type question for you, Mr. Ottosson,” began Will. “Was the last presidential election modified or altered in any way by the CIS voting systems?”
“Yes.”
“How so?”
“Bartlett was losing in most of the battleground states. We changed the coding algorithms late in the evening to adjust the vote tabulations,” replied Ottosson, almost as if proud that they were able to do so without being caught.
“How can that go undetected?”
“The coding tabulation is done at the precinct level. This was a very tight election and a few counties in a few swing states were all Bartlett needed. We knew it would be a tight race and we were prepared for weeks ahead of time to adjust what was necessary.”
“I don’t understand. The Bartlett comeback was really unbelievable. Why not make it look simpler and therefore more believable?” reasoned Beard who was fascinated by what he was hearing from Ottosson.
“I was told to stand down on this until very late on election night. I don’t know this for a fact, but it is my understanding from Weingold that Bartlett really wanted to win this outright, without our manipulation. When it became clear that she could, in fact, lose, Weingold had us initiate our plan. It was later than we would have liked, but it did make for a great story.”
“A great story that wasn’t real, and a story people like us who have seen this government work, didn’t really believe,” retorted Beard angrily.
“So you have firsthand knowledge President Bartlett knew this election outcome was manipulated?”
“Well, no. I have never spoke to the president about any of this. My dealings were with Weingold only.”
“But you have every reason to believe the president knew this plan to change the outcome was in fact operationalized?”
“I have every reason to believe she did,” answered Ottosson flatly.
“What was CIS’ reward for this outcome?”
“More government contracts, but not just the election systems. Operating systems for many government functions. We also got approval for a $2.6 billion overhaul to the IRS systems.”
“Let’s go back to the Texas vote for a minute. How many people did you get to?”
“We had dossiers on every state legislator and state senator. We got to about twenty-five in total. Some had girlfriends, some had boyfriends, some had other secrets and a few, Volkov simply threatened family members.”
“And the White House was involved in this also?”
“Both administrations, yes.”
“Tell me about Senator Simpson? Have you had direct contact with him or with Governor Strasburg?” asked Will.
“We’ve met with both on numerous occasions about getting the voting systems into Texas. They have both been in meetings I have been in with Weingold.”
“Do you have firsthand knowledge of their participation or knowledge of Madison, the governor’s plane, the assassination of the chief justice, or the stolen elections?”
“I’ve never had any direct contact with them on any of those items, nor have I been present when they were discussed with, or in front of them.”
“But you said they were in meetings with Weingold?”
“Yes, but not at the White House.”
“Which means they aren’t on any official record or visitors log,” stated Beard to Will.
“Are you aware of meetings they might have had with Weingold or the president when you weren’t present?” asked Beard.
“Only to the extent that they stayed in meetings with Weingold after I had left.”
“How many of those meetings were there?”
“I can’t really remember the number, probably three or four.”
“Did CIS contribute any monies to their individual election campaigns?”
“Not directly.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means we got creative about how we helped them. CIS had American subsidiaries and dummy individuals who could contribute themselves, but the money actually originated with CIS.”
“Jesus, this just keeps getting better,” said Beard sarcastically.
“Sir, please tell me I’m not going to die today,” begged Ottosson.
“At the rate you are cooperating, probably not,” answered Will. “Just keep doing what you are doing. We will want more details later.”
“Let me ask you this, Mr. Ottosson,” asked Beard. “In your best guess, how many officials in this administration knew the motives and players regarding Madison?”
“Probably five or six.”
“Who would they be?” pressed Beard.
“Weingold, the attorney general, the president, and likely a couple of others.”
“You’re telling me right here and now that the president of the United States knew this mass shooting was going to occur?”
“What I’m telling you is she knew an event, or a series of events, was going to take place that would bolster her position on reversing or minimalizing your 2nd Amendment.”
“That’s unreal, but I think I get it!” said Beard. “So, something like this was in the works before y’all killed Chief Justice Noyner?”
“Even with the mass shootings that have happened in the past, the president’s political party couldn’t defeat the NRA and they couldn’t overturn a conservative majority in the Supreme Court. It was a three-step plan. Make sure the majority of the Court was changed by electing Bartlett for future nominations, get rid of Noyner, who was the primary conservative, and sway public opinion in a massive way. You have to admit it was ingenious.”
“Look, you frickin’ scumbag. Don’t get too cocky or I’ll slap those booster cables back on your balls so fast your eyes will bulge out!” yelled Will, irritated at Ottosson’s cockiness and willful disregard for American laws.
“Mr. Ottosson, can you tell us how many members of Congress and the Senate are familiar with any of these operations you have spoken about today?” pressed Beard.
“About a dozen of them would be aware of one or more of these operations.”
“Which ones? Would it be safe to assume that there are members of both parties that may have a hand in these?”
“You gentlemen must remember my main point of contact for all these operations was the chief of staff. Rarely was I at any meetings where any members of Congress could be trusted with the magnitude of these operations, but I can tell you that the leadership in Congress from both parties knew or was aware of some of these operations.”
“Leadership from both parties?” Beard asked to confirm.
“Yes.”
“How many members of Congress and senators did CIS funnel election campaign funds to?”
“Literally, most of them.”
“What about state politics? Did CIS fund elections in individual state elections?”
“Most definitely. That was my primary job. I got forty-eight out of fifty states to buy our election software. CIS gave me a lot of money to spread around and there’s nothing easier in life than getting politicians to follow the money.”
“Do you have any direct evidence that President Bartlett was fully aware of all of these operations?”
“Only insinuations in conversations with Weingold.”
“What about President Johnson?”
“Same answer, except in his case in conversations with Attorney General Jamail Tibbs.”
“Was CIS’ solution ever a legitimate attempt to sell secure voting systems?” asked Will.
“In the beginning. But Tibbs really pressed to find a back door. In fact, our big test was Johnson’s re-election. That outcome was also manipulated.”
Beard and Will turned and looked at each other again, shaking their heads.
“Roll that battery charger over here closer,” said Will.
“I’ve been cooperating with you people. What the hell? Please!”
“These are your most important questions of the day,” announced Will.
“Who paid Volkov and how much?”
“Volkov has been paid several million dollars. Most of it has come from CIS or your CIA.”
“Damn it,” said Will as he looked in another direction.
“How much were you directly involved with paying Volkov?”
“I’ve personally funneled over $3 million to him.”
“Where did the money go?”
“Various offshore banks, with strict privacy laws, laundered under a host of different entities.”
“Where is Volkov?”
“I swear I don’t know.”
“Last time I’m going to ask you. Where is Volkov?”
“Last thing I heard, he was flying from Houston to Paris after the Dallas shooting, but under some other passport.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. If he knew or finds out I’m telling you any of this, I’m as good as dead. None of you can protect me from him. What are you going to do now? If you pursue any of this information or it comes out I’ve talked to you, I’m a dead man anyway.”
“Where is Volkov?”
“You can ask me that a hundred times and you’ll get the same answer. Volkov is not going to tell me where he is. He never has and he never will.”
“How did you meet Volkov?”
“It was arranged by Weingold and a contact at CIA.”
“Our own government introduced you to Volkov?” pressed Beard.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Where is Volkov right now?”
“Same answer again. I don’t know.”
Will stared at Ottosson.
“Clamp them on him.”
“What? Why? No! Please, I don’t know!” screamed Ottosson.
The team put the battery booster clamps back onto Ottosson’s scrotum.
“Where is Volkov?”
“I don’t know! I swear on my mother’s life, I don’t know! Please!”
“Three seconds! Hit it now!” ordered Will.
“Noooo! Ahhhh! No! Damn you!”
“I’ll ask you again. Where is Volkov?”
“He doesn’t tell me. I told you so! No! Please, no!”
“Five seconds! Hit him again!”
“God damn you! Ahhhhh! Stop! Please stop!” Ottosson contorted and writhed around in the chair.
“Where do you think Volkov is?”
Crying and in immense pain, Ottosson said, “Probably Russia or Chechnya. I don’t know! Please stop!”
“Take the cables off. We’ve got what we need for today.”
The team removed the booster cables. “You son of a bitch, I bet you’ve never had anything that hot between your legs!” said one of the operatives.
“Please, please just let me be. Please,” begged Ottosson.
“Today’s your lucky day, Ottosson. Really. You’ve given us enough information to keep you alive for one more day. Now this gentleman here is going to take you through a series of questions about your operations, your encryption methods, devices and security. I’m going to go eat my lunch. If I get interrupted because they tell me you aren’t cooperating, we will replay these last five minutes with your friend over there.” Will pointed to the roll-away battery booster.
Ottosson couldn’t talk any more.
“Get him some water and some bandages for his balls.”
Beard and Will walked into the next room and removed their ski masks.
“Wow! Who would believe any of this? I can’t wait for this to get out. So much for those who think the Deep State is a conspiracy theory,” Beard remarked to Will.
“I’m not sure if this is fixable, Beard. Our constitutional republic is dead as we know it. The Republic of Texas is sure looking like the only real option. At least we can use this to get Zach out of jail.”
“What’s our next step?”
“Keep interrogating him for the technical information you need,” replied Will.
“What are you going to do now?” asked Beard.
“I’m going to try to reach Pops Younger.”