Part 15: The Interrogation
Part 15: The Interrogation
The forest held its breath as I stood over the lead mercenary, Vane. He was no longer the arrogant hunter who had entered these woods with a smirk; he was a man tethered to a pine tree, his tactical vest discarded, his communications array a shattered heap of plastic and circuitry at my feet. The shadows of the twilight were long, stretching across the clearing like reaching fingers, but they didn’t intimidate me. They were my allies now.
I walked a slow, rhythmic circle around him, the dry leaves crunching under my boots. I didn't need to shout. I didn't need to threaten him with anything other than the truth. I simply waited. Silence is a weapon of the military—it forces the target to fill the void, to talk to satisfy the nervous tension that builds in the chest.
"Who authorized the tracking order?" I asked, my voice as cold and steady as the mountain air. I held my sidearm loosely at my side, a visual reminder that his life was a variable I could solve or delete at will.
Vane looked at me, his eyes bloodshot, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. "You don't know who you're dealing with," he rasped, trying to summon a shred of his former bravado. "The Prescotts have eyes everywhere. You think you’re hidden out here? You’re just delaying the inevitable. When they find you—and they will find you—they won’t just kill you. They’ll erase you."
I stepped into his personal space, my gaze locking onto his with the clinical intensity of an interrogator. I saw the tremor in his hands, the way his pupils dilated with the cocktail of adrenaline and terror. He was a professional, yes, but he was a professional who had been trained for combat, not for the psychological dismantling he was currently experiencing.
"Let’s clarify your current reality, Vane," I said, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous register. "Your tactical assets are in pieces. Your team is wandering somewhere on the other side of the ridge, blind and demoralized. The Prescott empire is currently being hollowed out by the Justice Department. Their bank accounts are being frozen, their board members are turning states' evidence, and their 'eyes everywhere' are currently focused on saving their own skins. You are not a soldier; you are a liability. And in the world you choose to live in, liabilities are usually discarded."
I took out my phone—the secure, untraceable unit I had prepared—and held it up. I clicked a button, and the audio recording of his own team’s frantic, disorganized communications from the ambush began to play back. He heard his own voice, desperate and pleading, echoing through the trees.
He blanched. "It was Halloway," he whispered, the sound barely escaping his throat. "General Halloway. He contacted our firm directly. He gave us the green light to use any means necessary to secure the drive. He said you were a rogue element, that you were in possession of intelligence that could compromise national security. He promised us total immunity, total state-level protection."
I didn't react, but inside, a dark fire ignited. A General. A man I had shared a mess hall with, a man who had worn the same eagle on his shoulder that I had. The betrayal was total, absolute, and unforgivable.
"Did he provide the authorization in writing?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"No," Vane said, his head hanging low. "Encrypted digital handshake. Direct-to-client protocols. He’s the one pulling the strings, Colonel. He wants that drive because it contains the names of the high-ranking officers he’s been funneling kickbacks to. It’s not about you, and it’s not about the Prescott family. It’s about protecting the pension and the legacy of half the Pentagon."
I checked my recording device. I had it all. The link between the corporate crime of the Prescotts and the institutional rot of the military. I had the name of the General, the motive, and the proof of the conspiracy. I stepped back, holstering my sidearm.
"You are going to walk out of these woods," I told him, cutting the zip-ties with a sharp flick of my blade. "You are going to find your team. You are going to tell Halloway exactly what you saw here. Tell him that the Colonel is finished playing by the rules. Tell him that every move he makes against us is being logged, tracked, and uploaded to a server that is timed to trigger a full-scale federal investigation the moment my heartbeat stops. If he wants a war, he is going to get a war that will consume everything he has built."
He scrambled to his feet, rubbing his raw wrists, not daring to look me in the eye. He looked like a man who had stared into the abyss and realized the abyss was looking back with a very familiar, very focused intensity.
"Why let me go?" he asked, his voice shaking.
May you like
"Because I need you to be the messenger," I said, turning my back on him. "I need you to tell them that the ghost they’re hunting is coming for them. Go."
He didn't wait. He bolted, crashing through the brush like a wounded animal. I stood there for a long time, watching the darkness swallow his silhouette. I had the leverage, I had the truth, and I had the focus of a woman who had finally found her target. The hunt wasn't just on; it had reached a point of no return. As the forest grew quiet, I felt a strange, cold comfort. The war had moved from the abstract to the personal, and I was exactly where I needed to be.
