I did not know how many there were or when they would be coming. I hadn’t been briefed, hadn’t been given any weapons. I was going in completely blind.
“They will come sealed and directly to you.”
“To me?” I had to make him repeat, because it didn’t make any sense. Generally, depending on the progress of the intervention, a team would stay behind and compare analysis, deciding the best course of action on a daily basis. Not give them directly to the interviewer.
“Who will I be in communication with?”
Michael shook his head. “No idea, Elly. It’s freaking weird.” Then he handed me the last bag and with a tight smile he wished me luck.
As I placed my bags on the rolling band to be scanned and passed through the metal detectors, I started making mental notes. It was hard to remember everything I had learnt, all the information I found in the books I kept checking out from the library and spent hours examining every chance I got.
The years of self-defence and combat training would kick in when danger was detected, so I did not worry about my own safety as much as I did about this new mission I knew nothing about.
All the notification said was today’s date, beginning of assignment and subject. I went ballistic as soon as I read it and marched into Milosh’s office, when I clearly should have been worrying about other things.
Better the devil you know, an inner voice whispered. The same one that urged me to keep going. To keep fighting. To not surrender and never shed tears in front of them. To live humiliation in my own time and keep my head high every time I stepped in public.
Today was just another one of those days. Where I had to keep my calm and face the situation rationally. If I was to receive direct orders, past Milosh and his band, it meant that they were coming from higher up.
That I had been spotted and observed by someone, somewhere, who decided to give me this, for better or worse. To make me the youngest major in the unit, at only twenty-nine. And a woman, above all that.
Someone, higher up, had answered my prayers.
“All cleared,” one of the security guards who passed my bags through the metal detector announced.
“All cleared,” the one who scanned every section of my body with a smaller metal detector replied.
“Ready to go, Harrow?” Milosh’s voice echoed through the empty room, the preparation room as we liked to refer to it. I had been there many times in the past three years, during my service for the Intelligence Office, but every time it adapted to the needs of the interrogation. Only the process remained the same, but there was no guarantee as to what I would find on the other side of that door.
Before I even started, I had to pass my final psychological evaluation, which the general in charge had to put his signature on. Hence Milosh looking at me with that disgusted grin I had come to love to hate at 11:55 pm, only five minutes from my start date.
“Move it, Harrow, I don’t have all night,” he grunted just as his ass fell on a chair.
Without another word, I moved to the table with two chairs, one already occupied by my annoyed superior and pulled it just enough to allow me space to take a seat.
“Sir,” I half-nodded, not as much in greeting but to tell him that I was ready to go.
“You already know the drill, so I’m not going to waste my time. Same rules as always, you can do whatever you need to, except kill the investigation. The use of blunt force is allowed in any measure you consider fit, however no objects that would lead to direct damage are to be stored in the room. And you are responsible for its nourishment. I don’t care what the fucker will eat, but this time, it’s on you.”
What in the four gods?
Why the fuck would I be responsible for its food?
It was a well-known fact that the individual’s nourishment was included in the mission allowance, and I had to fend for myself. So why did I now have to spendmymoney on the thing?Fucking hell.
Having no other choice and with a ticking clock at my back, I confirmed.
“Understood,” I spoke as soon as he finished the sentence, fully aware of all the boxes he had to check before letting me in.
“You will have at your disposal a fully equipped bedroom with the utilities you have mentioned in your initial interrogation trial request, which has been passed and approved 38 months ago.”
“Understood.” Another tick.
“You are granted leave every forty-eight hours for a duration no longer than ten percent of the time spent in the interrogation room. The time can be accrued to reach, but not exceed twenty-four hours of continuous leave.”
“Agreed.”
“The success of this appointment trial is the full subject cooperation and completion of various elements which will be numbered and announced to you after the start of the process. The orders are to come directly to you.”
