Dead in Damascus: A Special Operations Group Short Story ([#0] Special Operations Group) Read Online Free PDF

stop in the pit near where Hannah sat. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
    “Young is running out of time and—”
    “You can’t rush progress,” Gator interrupted.
    Chris stared hard at him, and tension filled his voice. “We’re out of time.”
    Gator leaned forward. “My interrogation was working until you interrupted.”
    Chris stood his ground. “Maybe you can update me on the intel you already extracted.”
    With his index finger, Gator poked Chris in the chest. “You need to chill.”
    “I am chill.” Chris pushed the finger away from his chest.
    “You don’t seem chill to me.”
    “Maybe I can persuade Mordet to talk.”
    Gator leaned in even closer so Chris could feel the heat and smell the bunghole-stink of his breath. “Maybe you don’t understand who’s in charge here.”
    “I’m not asking to take over,” Chris said. “You can take credit for any intel I acquire. I’m just asking for a shot at Mordet.”
    “You hot-shits think you can do anything you want because everyone’s scared of you. Well, I’m not scared of you.”
    “I’m not trying to scare you. I just want to find Young.”
    “So does everyone else, but I’m the one who knows about interrogation, and you need to get authorization before you interrogate the prisoner!”
    “Are you saying you have no authority here?”
    “I have authority!”
    Chris tried to remain calm. “I only know that I was waterboarded in SERE school. And I’ve worked with some of the best gators in the business. And you’re not one of them.”
    Hannah, still sitting in her chair in front of the live video monitor, chuckled.
    Chris turned to her and said, “Tell those guys in the booth to stop screwing around and prepare the prisoner for interrogation.”
    She left the pit and headed to the booth.
    “You can’t do this,” Gator said.
    Chris moved in so close that he was toe-to-toe with Gator. “Saving Young is deadly important to me,” Chris said quietly. “How important is it to you?”
    The veins in Gator’s neck bulged as if they were about to pop.
    Chris prepared to flip his inner switch from chill to bone-burning conflagration.
    “Your commanding officer will hear about this!”
    Chris didn’t know whether Gator was smart for not fighting or cowardly for backing off. Maybe he was both. “I’m sure he will.”
    Gator kicked a trash bucket across the room on his way out.
    “Does anyone know where I can get a good bottle of wine ASAP?” Chris shouted out to the others in the gator pit.
    A man in civilian clothes hesitantly raised his hand.
    “I need it for the interrogation. How fast can you get it here?” Chris asked.
    “Right away.” The man left his desk and rushed out of the room.
    “If Mordet likes wine and my ear, I’ll give him what he wants.” Chris borrowed Hannah’s phone, called the surgeon, and asked for his ear in a small cooler.
    He observed the monitor of the interrogation booth. Gator’s henchman cleared out the waterboarding equipment, handcuffed Mordet’s hands behind his back, chained his feet together, and sat him in a chair.
    Minutes later, when the cooler and wine arrived, Chris left the gator pit. After the henchman stepped out of the booth, Chris stepped inside. He closed the door behind him and set his cooler down beside the door. Then he took a seat on the plastic chair in front of a table between himself and Mordet.
    It’s time we have a little chat, my friend.

2
    T he booth, like other interrogation rooms, was kept cold to make the prisoner uncomfortable. Chris exhaled, purging any anger or anxiety from his system—neither would help him succeed in the interrogation.
    Mordet gazed at the bandage on Chris’s ear. “I gather that we have already made each other’s acquaintance, but my doctorate is in philosophy, not medicine.”
    Chris felt the same giant, dark hand pressing down on him that he’d experienced at Mordet’s estate. “You gather correctly, Professor.” Chris poured a