He didn't ask any questions, didn't say anything, didn't give her time to explain. The guard crossed the room in three quick steps and jabbed a hand out hard enough to spin her around and pin her against Velez's mesh cage in one motion. Then he leaned close behind her to catch her other arm and twist it painfully up behind her back. While he was there he leaned close enough to her ear to whisper a half-hearted, "Sorry."
He didn't back off the pressure on her arm, though. He grabbed her other shoulder in a vicelike grip and heaved her back into the room, throwing her around like she was a cloth doll.
She didn't resist. He was strong, and she wasn't certain she could have fought him anyway, but she was in enough trouble she didn't even want to try. She went along as compliantly as she could, stepping quick to match his angry pace as he marched her back down the long hall, past all the empty interrogation rooms, through the foyer and straight up to Brandeis's office. Then Benson threw her forward so violently she fell to her knees before his boss, barely missing the edge of the desk with her head.
Brandeis sat behind his desk, watching the violence with an impassive expression. Katie forced herself to calm, to control, and gracefully pushed herself to her feet. She couldn't help testing her left arm, though, to make sure it wasn't dislocated. She grimaced at the pain and caught a flicker of satisfaction in Brandeis's eyes.
"Very good, Benson," he said, his eyes daring her to object to the praise. "You may go."
It was Benson who objected. "Sir, I'd really rather stay—"
"Go!" He answered sharply, and still Benson hesitated for a moment. Katie didn't turn, but she could feel his presence behind her. Three heartbeats passed, and then he withdrew, pulling the door closed behind him with a little too much force.
Then, she realized, she was alone. This place was as isolated as Velez's secret lair had been, more cut off even than the cells below, where at least the prisoners were monitored by guards. Here she was all alone, forgotten, invisible to everyone but the man who hated her so much. She had finally given him reason, too. She was in trouble.
She pushed those thoughts from her mind and raised her chin. "You wanted to see me?"
He smiled, and it was cold.
"Agent Katie Pratt," he said, biting off every syllable with a cruel precision. "What are you doing in my prison?"
"Conducting a federal murder investigation," she said, full of fight, but he cut her short with a loud rap on his desktop. The monitor sprang to life, and it was filled end-to-end with Katie's personal profile.
On the top left corner she saw a frozen HaRRE rendering of her conversation with Marshall on the pier. Behind that scrolled her location history, her performance reports, her investigation by the Government Accountability Office, with the name of the treacherous Martin Door figuring prominently throughout.
And there on the right, taking up half the desk, was a frozen image from the prison's security cameras—Katie skulking in the hallway, her back against the wall, trying to make herself small, and perfectly visible through the clear door was Velez in his little cage. His eyes were fixed on the camera, and his lips curled up in just the hint of a smile. She felt her stomach sink.
Behind the desk, Brandeis just watched her. He waited through ten seconds—brutal seconds—before he dropped an accusing finger on the incriminating image. "Let me ask one more time. What are you doing in my prison?"
"I'm trying to find justice," she hissed fiercely. "In spite of everything you're doing to stop me."
"Justice?" He barked a sarcastic laugh. "Justice? You're seeking revenge." His other hand came down hard on the left half of the screen, and she realized the performance report he had open concerned her imprisonment by Velez. "This is personal, Miss Pratt, and don't try to tell me otherwise."
She straightened her back and met his eyes. "No," she said, her voice surer than she really felt. "No, you're wrong. You've made things personal, with your little power plays, but I'm only here to do my job. This little stone-age prison of yours makes that exceptionally hard—"
"This prison is necessary because of people like you," he said. Before she could object, he continued, "It was the reporting officer from Tortino's extortion conviction who allowed him to order four hits from within Sing Sing. All the DA's clever lexical scrubbing stumbled over assumptions of intent when his accuser stopped by for interrogations. That's the least of my convicts, and he's responsible for more murders than most states see in a year. Now here you come, asking to talk with Jesus Velez—"
"Someone has to talk with him," she said. "He knows things, Brandeis. Dangerous or not, he holds knowledge no one else has access to, and we can't let that information die, forgotten, in a steel cage just because the man who possesses it deserves to."
Brandeis considered her for some time before he answered. Then he shook his head slowly, "I would think you of all people...." He let that thought trail away, and then started again on a different tack. "Do you know what it is I do?"
A thousand angry, sarcastic answers sprang to the tip of her tongue, but she clenched her jaw tight against them. She couldn't stop the raised eyebrow, though, and it communicated her feelings clearly enough. He frowned.
"No, then. You don't. Miss Pratt, I protect people."
"I protect people," she countered. "You babysit bad guys."
"Hardly." He pushed away from his desk, turned his back on her. "There are lawbreakers," he said. "People who, for one reason or another, find themselves choosing personal need over the common good. Sometimes they get away with it; sometimes they get caught. And then there are criminals—villains who never consider the common good, whose only life is the pursuit of self. They're the ones who keep cops employed. And prison wardens, too, when it comes to it."
He turned back, fixing her with his gaze. "And then there are monsters," he said. "There are creatures so far outside of human society that human society cannot even appropriately shut them out. Society is weak where they are strong, and the very systems we've built to protect us just make these monsters all the stronger. These are the terrorists. These are the sociopaths. These are the heads of crime syndicates so powerful that governments have fallen trying to shut them down. These, Miss Pratt, are my charges."
She had to wonder if he practiced that speech in front of the mirror, but she elected not to say as much out loud. He seemed disappointed that she gave no reaction at all, but after a moment he went on.
"This is my everyday life," he said. "And don't fool yourself into thinking you're the first one who has challenged me on this. I never stop being challenged. I must convince Congress to renew my license twice a year. Twice a year. You know what that does to long-term business planning? Can you imagine the nightmare it creates for HR, not knowing if I'll have any work for my employees as of the day after Christmas?"
Her sarcasm finally got the better of her. Katie rolled her eyes and said, "My sympathy goes out to all your hard-working—"
"Stop it!" he screamed, his fist banging down loudly on his desktop. "This is not a joke! This is not a game! This is more serious business than you could possibly imagine. You're all riled up about Velez, your personal crusade, and you honestly believe that entitles you to circumvent my security, to slip your escort, and to deceive my floor wardens. These are some of the cleverest, most conniving bastards in the world, and you walk in oh-so-casual and start throwing kinks in my security!"
"None of that would have been necessary if you'd been reasonable—"
"Reasonable?" He shook his head, and she could imagine froth at the corners of his mouth. His eyes blazed. "If any of them knew what was going on, the games you were playing with my men, there could have been trouble. Real trouble. One of these men escaping could mean countless deaths. And that would be on my head. Not yours—dear God, woman, I'm doing everything in my power to make you take responsibility for your actions, but in the end it would be on me. Why? Because I'm the money-grubbing businessman with the private prison. I'm the corporate shill who built a super prison in his own back yard. You could go back to Washington DC and write up a truly depressing report, Miss Pratt, but I would be left with ruthless killers outside my door. Don't try to tell me what's reasonable."
His long speeches gave Katie a chance to think, and now she answered him in a more even tone. "You're right," she said, spreading her hands. "You're right to be upset that I went around your security measures, and...I have to admit, I didn't entirely consider the larger picture, with my focus on my case. But—"
He pretended not to hear that last word, nodding aggressively. "Oh, I am right, Miss Pratt. And I was right two days ago when I said the same thing, and you decided to steamroll right over me. See, back then I buckled under your threat because of that little thing I mentioned earlier about Senate oversight. That is a constant threat hanging over me. But you know what? You made yourself a bigger threat. Right now, you pose a more substantial risk to my safety and the safety of people I care about than a short-sighted Congress shutting this place down altogether. So I'm putting an end to you."
"Don't," she said, feeling her temper flare again too soon. "Don't be rash, Mr. Brandeis. You've made some good points, and I'm prepared to work with you—"
"Hah!" He jabbed a finger at her. "You want to work with me? You're lucky I don't have you behind bars already."
"You're insane," she said, and realized it was barely short of a shout. "You're directly, deliberately interfering with my case, and you think you can—"
"Oh, fuck your case!" he shouted back. "A man is dead. One pretentious, small-minded, putz of a man gets himself killed, and you want me to what, cooperate as you turn the tigers out of their cages? This is so much bigger than you, and you totally refuse to see that."
He was raving, and Katie realized all of a sudden that he was a real threat to her. He saw her as the enemy, and a man in his position was accustomed to dealing with enemies swiftly and surely. She took a step back. "I'm leaving," she said, trying to keep her tone businesslike. "I clearly need to speak with my superior, and that's impossible within this place. If you want to file a complaint, I'm sure you've got the number."
She turned, and found the door already open. Benson was there, filling the doorway, and he made no move to back away. She turned back to Brandeis, suddenly mute.
He stared at her for a moment. Then he came around the desk to stand face-to-face with her and spoke in a surprisingly level voice. "Perhaps I've given you too much credit, Miss Pratt. Perhaps I assumed you understood things that you do not, in fact, understand." He looked down at his fingernails. "I am responsible for the safety of this community. And, given the nature of my prisoners, 'this community' can be as large a place as you would care to name. The nation, certainly. The world, if you asked me to defend it. I am not just a businessman, Miss Pratt. I'm a defender of the public good. And with that role comes responsibility."
He took a deep breath. He frowned at his fingernails. "That," he said, "is where you and I differ. I understand my responsibility to the people. My responsibility is to keep this prison secure. A prison runs on order. On stability. I am very good at maintaining stability within these walls. I built a prison with unsurpassed stability, and I maintain it through rigorous policy and constant attention. Through control, Miss Pratt. Through restraint." He shook his head, tsked like an irritated schoolmarm. "You, however, have shown no restraint."
He met her eyes, and his were filled with hatred. "From the moment you set foot in my prison, you have caused nothing but disruption. Every action you have taken here has directly impacted the security of this facility. Every heartbeat I allow you to roam within these walls is a failure of my duty to the public good. Benson!"
He spoke the name like an order, and the guard responded. He stepped up behind Katie and grabbed her with strong fists around her upper arms, but she ripped free. Her motion brought her nose-to-nose with Brandeis, and she hissed in his face, "You're wrong!"
"Am I?" A cruel smile tugged at his lips as Benson grabbed Katie again, and this time the guard was able to easily pull her away in spite of her struggles. Brandeis straightened his shirt, then stepped up to Katie again. "Am I wrong?" Without warning he lashed out one hand, and dug into the left pocket of her jeans. She was too astonished to react, and a moment later he pulled out a clumsily wrapped cardboard box.
"What's this?" he said. He ripped the paper off it, destroying the delicately folded note that bore her name, and dropped it like so much trash to the floor. Then he held up the box within, her present from Marshall, so she could see the front of it. "What's this?" he said again.
"It was a gift." She barely got the words out, her mouth was so dry. She felt a real terror, hammering in her chest.
"You can't be that big a fool," he said. He ripped the box in half, tearing the cardboard and plastic shrink-wrap as easily as he had the wrapping paper and let the litter fall to the floor. He held onto the little plastic device like it was a weapon, and after a moment he jabbed it in her face. "You cannot convince me you brought a digital voice recorder into a facility designed to rob these people of their digital voices by accident!" He hurled it down, disgusted, and it smacked the ground with a heart-rending crack. He towered over her. "Do you have any idea how many orders this violates? How many laws? I'm not going to be filing a complaint, Miss Pratt. I'm going to be filing charges. If I have my way you'll be sharing a cell with Velez before you know what hit you."
She winced at that, all pretense of power gone, and half expected Benson to make good on the threat then and there.
He didn't. Brandeis watched her for a moment, clearly reveling in her defeated silence, and then he nodded to the guard, and Benson let her go. She caught a ragged breath and looked up at Brandeis with a pitiful expression. He sneered.
"Get out," he said. "Get out of my prison. If I catch you within a hundred yards of these walls again, you'll be leaving in handcuffs. Do you understand that?" She didn't answer. She just stooped to retrieve her discarded present, fighting tears, and he grunted in disgust. "Fine! Take that trash with you, too. I swear, if your hand had so much as brushed your pocket while you were talking to Velez, I'd have you in chains already." He turned his back, but his displeasure still radiated from his posture. "Benson, get her out of here."
She felt him lurching forward to grab her again, and once again she surrendered herself to the guard's control as he latched a hand around her arm and dragged her backward out of the room. He let her right herself out in the hall, then faked a shove between her shoulder blades for the sake of the cameras. She fell into a trot to complete the illusion, and went before him down the stairs. She didn't feel any gratitude to him, though. Her thoughts were all on Brandeis. She clenched her fists, fought against her racing pulse, and focused on her breathing. She just had to get out of there. She just had to escape this place alive.
Benson escorted her to the outer gate, never dropping his mask of cruelty. She cast one look back to him as she passed through the gates and saw something in his eyes—disappointment or sorrow. She tried to express some small amount of gratitude and understanding, but she had no idea how much of it really showed in her eyes. She kept it brief, anyway, and turned away.
There was no car waiting for her. She strained her gaze left and right searching for a parking area the car might have gotten to, but it was gone. Katie felt a shiver chase down her spine, and her gaze pulled back toward the imposing bulk of the stone fortress behind her. She turned away again, set her shoulders, and started on foot down the shadowy lane.
It was Phillips's private car, after all. He'd lent it to her, but he'd never expected her to come out here. He'd said something about "camping out" at the courthouse, but perhaps she'd stretched his generosity too far. She fought down another wave of fear, stopped herself looking back over her shoulder, and pressed on.
Three paces out, she activated her headset. First she called for a car. Then she called Reed, but he was in hearings. Then she called Phillips. He answered on the second ring, and he sounded furious.
"Katie, where the hell have you been?"
"Shadow Mountain," she said. "Didn't you see it on my location history? It's only been half an hour."
"But why'd you send the car away?" he demanded, and then he said, "Oh. Right."
Katie frowned. "What?"
"It's my car," he said. "I assigned it to you so it would have waited around just like any old rental. It would've been fine if you'd sent it all over town. Or stopped at the hotel."
"Uh huh," Katie said.
"But when you went into Shadow Mountain."
She stopped walking. After a moment she said, "Oh."
"Yeah," Phillips said. "Once it lost track of you, it came straight back to me."
"And you found it empty," Katie said. Katie felt the sudden sharp pang of guilt. "You must have worried."
Phillips grunted. He meant it to sound dismissive. It sounded more like she'd punched him in the stomach. He was silent for a moment, then he asked, "So what happened? Apparently they let you in."
She told him. He was furious before she'd gotten the second sentence out.
As soon as she stopped for a breath he said, "I'm coming to get you." It came out a snarl. Phillips was ready for a fight.
Katie shook her head. "Don't," she said. "I've already called for a car, and it will be here a lot sooner than you could."
"We're not letting them get away with this!"
"No," she said, with more confidence than she felt. "No, but right now I think the most important thing to do is to let everyone calm down, let tempers settle, and get in touch with Reed."
Phillips snorted. "Reed's way too smart a guy to make the right decision here. This situation calls for some seriously poor decision-making."
She laughed at that. "I've done enough for both of us," she said, and after a moment her smile turned down. "Everything's going to be all right, okay, Phillips? I just needed to talk to someone. I...I think I need to go."
"Maybe you should stay on the line, at least until your car shows up?"
"That's not a bad thought," she said. "But I need to check in with Ghoster." She had the beginnings of a suspicion—just an angry rumble in her gut, when she thought about the man, but she needed to track it down. "Keep an eye on my vitals, would you? That should be good enough."
She didn't listen to his objection. She cut the connection and called Ghoster. He waited a moment before answering, and when he did he sounded far too innocent.
"Hello?"
"Cut the crap," Katie said. In an instant her bare suspicion was a furious certainty. "You sold me out."
"I did nothing of the sort. I assure you, Katie, that as soon as I have any shares of you to sell, I intend to hoard them selfishly against a very rainy day."
"This is not a joke, Ghoster. I almost got killed back there—"
"No," he said, suddenly serious. "No, it would not have come to that. Brandeis's office is monitored, and he knows it. He's not above putting the fear of God into a person, but there's no way he would have actually hurt you."
"How do you know?" she said.
He hesitated a moment before answering. "His office is monitored," he said, patronizingly slowly. "I just said that."
"And you were watching it? Just now?"
"Of course I was, Katie! I'm not going to let anything happen to you."
She stopped in the middle of the road, still in sight of the guards at the prison gate. She'd forgotten all about them, though—about the danger she'd felt a moment before, about the humiliation of being kicked out. Her attention was all on Ghoster now.
"It was you," she said, remembering the call Brandeis had taken when she first showed up. "You weren't just monitoring me, you were here—"
"I was," he said, and continued quickly. "And if I hadn't been—or, worse, if I'd come with you like you suggested, you never would have gotten in the gate."
"After all his accusations," she said bitterly, "you're the one playing games."
"I'm hardly the only one," he laughed. "I'm just the one who's winning. That was a stupid move going after Velez like that!"
"Don't change the subject," she said. "You were here. You had him scared. I saw that. You could have protected me!" The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. They made her feel small. Right then, though, it was what she wanted.
"I couldn't have," Ghoster said right away, and she heard the regret in his voice. It didn't really help. "I couldn't have protected you, just like I couldn't have gotten you in the gate. I did it exactly the way it had to be done."
"How's that?" she said. "Calling him up and threatening...what? Threatening to unghost LeClerc?"
"It's not about LeClerc, Katie. It's about Shadow Mountain. It's about the job LeClerc couldn't do. Brandeis needs me to get his contract renewed, but you heard what he said back there. Right now, he considers you a bigger threat than termination. If he knew I was working with you—"
"You pulled Benson, didn't you?" He didn't answer, but she knew it had to be. "You just called me stupid for going after Velez, but you made it possible."
"I...hmm. No. I'd like to take credit for that, but no. I was on the line with Brandeis. I had assumed you said something to distract him." He gave a sad little sigh. "Either way, we both wasted our efforts. I really expected you to learn more from Velez than you did."
"I may have gotten more than you realize. I don't know, but I feel like—" She stopped. She forced herself to take a deep breath, and then pushed it out. She did it again. She still didn't feel any better. "Ghoster..." she said, drawing the name out.
His voice was amazingly neutral when he answered. "Yes, Katie?"
"Why did you tell Brandeis about the voice recorder?"
It was a long time before he answered. While Katie was still waiting, her car arrived. She climbed in, gave the driver directions, and then sank back with her hands over her face. She was just about to repeat her question, to double-check that he was still on the line, when Ghoster finally answered.
"I had to," he said. "I'm sorry, Katie. I had to. To buy his trust. You set me up well, with that show of anger when you caught me in the conference room, but when I contacted him the moment you showed up yoday, then picked another fight just as you were speaking with the floor wardens, I could tell he thought something was up. I had to give him something."
"I could lose my job for that," she said. "I could go to prison. I can't believe I was so stupid as to forget about it. I can't believe you told him!"
"I'm sorry," he said, but not as softly as she would have liked. "I'm sorry, Katie, but I did what I had to do. Face it, the moment you slipped away to talk with Velez, you burned your last opportunity to get in Shadow Mountain. There's not a court order in this world that will get you past Brandeis now. Yes. Yes. I sold you out. But I only did it to protect our case. Now I can still get in, at least, and that's something."
"That's profit for you," she said. "What do you mean 'our case'?"
"I mean just what I said!" He sounded offended. "You think you're the only one who cares? We work well together, you and me, and I want to see this one through to the end. We'll have to give it a day or two, you can do your research, I can do mine, and when we know what we're looking for, I can go back in there and ask all the questions you need answers to. It's a stroke of genius, really—"
"It'll do," Katie said. "If I'm not in lockup downtown, anyway."
"Oh, knock that off," Ghoster said. "You don't do a very good mopey. You and I both know I'm not going to let you go to prison."
"Don't you ghost me, Ghoster. I've got nothing to hide from Hathor. I'll face whatever justice I deserve."
He snorted in answer to that. For a little while Katie rode in silence, but he never broke the line.
Finally Katie said, "I'm so exhausted, Ghoster. You have no idea."
He chuckled. "I can guess," he said. "Why don't you take the evening off? Go have some fun with Phillips. Lord knows he's not going to land a real lady. Kick back, relax...."
Whatever else he was saying, Katie missed it, because her headset buzzed briefly, alerting her of an incoming message. When she saw who it was from, she completely tuned out the voice in her ear.
It was a text message from Dimms. It said, "Good thinking. Got remote access to the handheld and found what we needed. Digging through the garbage for relevant data, but there's a big chunk attached. Enjoy." Sure enough, the message came with a pointer to a large document, and when she opened it up she found a draft manuscript of LeClerc's report.
The title was, "Sociography of Silence: A Case Study in Cruelty," and page one started with a description of Inmate X07, an unfortunate caught in the cogs of the system. The researcher certainly sounded sympathetic to the inmate's plight, just as Velez had described him. Katie scrolled through the document, scanning, and saw page after page of notes. It was a goldmine.
"You know," she said, cutting Ghoster off mid-sentence. "I think I'll just take the night off. I'd kind of like to just stay in and do some reading." She broke the connection, then, and settled back to learn everything she could about LeClerc's convicts.