Active Shooter Read Online Free PDF Page B

wanted to talk,” I said, hearing my
voice echo off the smooth whitewashed walls of what doubled as a
conference room or interrogation room. “That’s what you wanted me
to do, isn’t it? Talk to her?”
    “Why did you choose a location where we
couldn't hear you?”
    “She insisted.”
    “You mean Ms. Suarez.”
    “Who else are we talking about here?” I
asked.
    My interrogator, a man in his twenties with a
salt and pepper goatee, sighed and leaned back in his chair. He
kept staring at me, as if his glare alone could break me. His
partner, standing a few feet away with arms folded, gave me a
similar look.
    So intimidating, I wanted to say, but didn't.
Had they already forgotten how the trained me to survive much worse
than this?
    When he satisfied himself he'd impressed me
enough, he said to his side-kick, “What do you think, Jim? This guy
playing us?”
    “Of course he is.”
    “Of course I am,” I said. “I can't do
otherwise.” I pointed to the half-inch thick folder on the table,
the one they'd dropped there with a clap and not touched since.
“I'm sure it says so right in there.”
    They both stared at me now. The room was
cold. They'd brought me in here wearing nothing but a T-shirt while
they wore ties and jackets. Given the blowing air-conditioning, I
should have been shivering from the inside out. But I wasn't.
    “What's your game?” the lead interrogator
said.
    “No longer in the game. You guys kicked me
out, remember? No longer fit to play.”
    “Did she tell you anything about her
source?”
    “What did I say the first time you asked me
that question? And the second time?”
    “You tell us.”
    “Why should I? You're obviously not paying
attention to anything I say. But then there’s the video recording.
Go hit replay. No need for me to waste my saliva.”
    “You like that one. Saying you're wasting
your saliva.”
    If I answered that, I would be wasting more
of it, so I didn't. Instead, knowing they would realize what I was
doing, I closed my eyes and started counting. A thousand-one, a
thousand-two, a thousand-three, and so on, until I got to twenty,
then all over again. I kept doing that through their shouting,
through their banging on the table, through their pushing me until
I almost fell off my chair, and until they walked out of the
room.
    A couple of minutes later, I heard the door
click open. When I opened my eyes, I saw Walter, leaning against
the wall, arms crossed.
    “I didn't take you for a praying man,” he
said with a wry smile.
    “But it worked.” I stretched out my hands and
arms to him. “You said you'd come when I needed you, and here you
are.”
    “What's going on, Andre?”
    “What you wanted to go on. Me playing
counter-intel with Bridget, just like you asked. The other thing
that's going is you guys going all spastic on me.”
    He unfolded his arms and pushed off the wall.
Still smiling, he came toward me and took a seat across the table.
“Some people get nervous when they can't keep tap on things.”
    “But not you, obviously.”
    “No, it unsettles me, too. You of all people
should understand why.”
    “Yeah, but that's why you have me there,
isn't it? Some things can't be monitored with your toys. They
require a human touch.”
    “What did you and Bridget talk about?”
    “How she wants me to tell her about my past
life.”
    “Which she somehow knows about.”
    “No thanks to me.”
    “Did you ask her how she came into that
information?”
    “I did.”
    “And?”
    “She did her clam impersonation. Something
about journalistic integrity and protecting her sources, which she
then turned into a pitch for how she'd do the same for me.”
    “What sort of details did she give you? About
your past, I mean.”
    “Same thing she fed me at the restaurant.
Song and dance about TechOps.”
    “Anything more specific?”
    I looked up at the ceiling for a couple of
seconds, then back down. “Nope. Drawing a blank.”
    He cupped his hands behind his neck