Don Pendleton - Assassin's Tripwire

The public would go apoplectic if people knew that a “black prison” was operating right in Wonderland, a cab ride away from the Capitol. Still, sites like these were necessary. As much as Brognola hated to skirt the Constitution, he was forced to do so on a regular basis. The nation’s enemies didn’t follow the rules, nor could he afford to have his hands bound by idealism. There were times when it was necessary to go the black-bag route.

Today, for instance, there was the ugly business of interrogating the man who’d tried to kill the President.

Brognola carried in his hands the complete dossier Intelligence had compiled on the man, who’d given only one name: Eidra. Calling it that—complete—oversold the case. They knew very little on Eidra himself. His prints weren’t in the database, and while they could run his DNA, it would take weeks to get a match. Interpol had nothing on him, nor did the Farm’s supersecret compiled files. The worst part was that every time Brognola stared at the man, he felt as if he was missing something. It was a nagging feeling at the back of his mind, as if he’d walked into a room to get something and then forgotten what he’d come to find.

The guards walked him down several long corridors, which switched back on themselves and were, he swore, deliberately designed to be confusing. The halls were a uniform battleship gray, the doors steel with barred, inset windows. The bars protected bullet-resistant Plexiglas. Specifically, they prevented prisoners from kicking the square and popping the pane of high-tech Plexi straight out of the door. Each window was coated with a translucent film that prevented prisoners from seeing out and observers from seeing in…unless they wore a pair of specially coated sunglasses that somehow defeated the film. Brognola had been briefed on how the tricky little optics effect worked and had concluded he did not care. The guards with him were wearing those shades, which looked like the type of thing a snowboarder might wear. It didn’t make them seem any friendlier.

Brognola drew a deep breath and wished he hadn’t more or less given up actually smoking cigars. These days he chewed them more often than not…when he wasn’t chewing antacids to counteract the stress of his job. Today was worse than usual, because he had to steel himself for some of the most brutal work a man in his position was likely to supervise.

It wasn’t called torture.

And, honestly, it wasn’t torture, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t intensely uncomfortable for the subject. Brognola didn’t like it and didn’t enjoy watching it, but again, some things were necessary.

And once more, there was that nasty little voice nagging at him. What was it? What was he missing? He looked at the file again as he walked, shuffling through the photos of Eidra, the description of his arrest and the appended analysis of the security flaw that had allowed him to get so close to the President.

In theory, security at the meet and greet with Hahmir had been as tight as Wonderland got. There should have been no way for a random national to penetrate the concentric rings of the security cordon, but Eidra did. He’d posed as a member of the press. When it came time for the dog-and-pony show after the President and Hahmir had done a lot of talking for the television cameras, Eidra had stepped forward.

On the table next to the media dais had been a cup of those stupid pens politicians used to sign bills one letter at a time. One of the Man’s people had scheduled a ceremony to sign some piece of legislation or other after the main diplomatic fanfare was over. Eidra had moved up to the microphone cluster, sidestepped as if he’d tripped and then dived for the pens, coming up with one in his fist like some kind of dagger.

He’d been within three steps of the podium on which the President stood. Eidra had covered that distance in fractions of a second, diving for the Man as if he would bury that pen in his neck.

Hahmir had stepped in front of the President.

The Syrian leader had taken a stab to the shoulder before the Secret Service tackled Eidra. Still more operatives hustled all the dignitaries to separate armored safe rooms. The place had been utter chaos for the next hour, as the finger pointing and speculation began. That was when the talk of Hahmir-as-hero had started. The idea stuck, and by the time the President and Hahmir had called their joint press conference later that day, the two of them were pretty chummy.

Hahmir’s wound was superficial and, as part of covering up the whole incident in the press, the Syrian leader had agreed not to speak of it. Much as the media loved a hero story, it would be far too ugly if word got out that an unauthorized individual had gotten so close to the President and visiting foreign dignitaries. It was that much worse that it all happened on White House property. And while the President was not stupid, he very much wanted to believe that Hahmir’s good faith was genuine.

Which left only the mystery of Eidra.

A lone nut sneaking into the media pool was not so far-fetched. Eidra need not be anything or anyone more sinister than a crazy person. After all, there was no shortage of nuts who wanted to take a poke at the President.

But Eidra, at least at first glance, appeared anything but nuts…and their attempts to investigate his background had met with enough obstacles that Brognola was becoming very suspicious. Eidra was a ghost. Someone didn’t disappear that effectively unless a skilled cybertechnology team was backing him up, and that meant the involvement of some government or terrorist organization.

Except for speaking his name, Eidra had not uttered another word. He’d given them nothing to go on. They didn’t know his nationality and they weren’t sure of the derivation of Eidra itself. So far, while imprisoned, he had eaten mechanically when food was put in front of him, slept when he was allowed to sleep, and made absolutely no comment, protest or action of any kind with regard to his incarceration.

It wasn’t natural. Brognola was no stranger to conducting interviews and interrogations from within the deepest, darkest government holes imaginable. When a man dropped off the world and into a place like this, he went through predictable phases. Sure, those phases didn’t happen in the same order with everyone, and they weren’t always of the same duration, but you could count on some degree of defiance, bargaining, despair… There were a few other shifts, but what they all had in common was that the prisoners reacted. They made noise. They demanded to see someone in authority, perhaps to speak with their own governments. They pleaded. Sometimes they cried. To just sit, stand or eat without making any comment at all… It wasn’t natural.

It all added up to a picture Brognola didn’t like. That was why he’d come here today. He wanted answers. He wouldn’t be able to sleep until he got them. The President seemed to think the matter was over, with Eidra imprisoned and the Syrians now nominal allies. But the moment the weapons shipment had gone missing, Brognola knew there was more to it all than this simple narrative.

Finally, they arrived at the door to Eidra’s cell. They were on the lowest level of the black site here. That was fitting, Brognola supposed. No one had ever escaped from this place. No one ever would. That was because the men who guarded it would kill Eidra, Brognola and even themselves if that was what it took to keep Wonderland secure from the monsters lurking behind these locked doors.

“Open it,” said the man from Justice.

The guards nodded. At Brognola’s order, they opened Eidra’s cell door. The interior was much like any cell in any prison across America, with one exception: this one had a cot, a stainless-steel toilet with no seat and a steel table with two steel chairs. The table and chairs were cemented to the floor. No amount of time and effort would set them free, not without power tools. The reason the cell boasted a table and chairs was because here, in the black prison, every cell was also an interrogation room.