“Once Cardinal Anderson knew of the Caliphate’s new strategic reach, the information was disseminated to Centauri, Sirius, the Union of Independent Worlds—”
“Why?” Yousef snapped, forgetting his professionalism for a moment.
“You always knew I served my own master. Your surprise does not become you. I couldn’t betray you. I was never your servant in the first place.”
He pulled his hands from the console and breathed deeply, reining in his emotions. She knew, somehow she knew he was here, and exactly how he was reacting to her revelations. Somehow he had failed in the basics of the interrogation; he had allowed the prisoner to take control.
He needed to leave now, delegate the questioning. Even if it would reveal his own embarrassing connections to this intelligence fiasco, he couldn’t trust himself to continue.
“Yousef, you haven’t asked what you really want to know.”
She was prodding him. He almost reached over to start the automated interrogation, the painful and irreversible stripping of her mind. His hand hesitated over the console.
Could she have allowed him to capture her on purpose?
“Yousef, you want to know who I work for. Why don’t you ask?”
He needed to regain control of the questioning. He moved his hand to the more pedestrian “incentive” controls. He could manufacture any level of pain he needed, nondestructively. He couldn’t allow her to provide him information as a means of control.
He switched on a minor burning sensation across her right arm, strong and prolonged enough to show her who was controlling the situation.
Her biometric readings, heart rate, brain activity, blood pressure, none of it changed.
“Why don’t you ask me?” she prompted, still smiling.
He upped the level and incorporated all her limbs. No change. He turned it up until her whole body should have felt as if she was trapped in a bonfire that never completely consumed her flesh.
Not so much as a tensed muscle.
He wasn’t a technical person, but he called up the diagnostics for his equipment and his connection to the prison cell. He couldn’t see anything wrong. His controls appeared responsive, but nothing he did showed any effect in the feedback from the prisoner.
“Poor Yousef,” she said. “So predictable in your devotion, your assumptions, your confusion. Do you remember, you asked me once if I believed in God.”
He looked up at the holo display and realized something was wrong with the image.
Her lips weren’t moving.
“I told you I did, but not the same as yours.”
Her voice came from the system, but the prisoner on the holo wasn’t speaking. He touched the controls for lighting, sedation, rotating the table . . .
Nothing.
“Ask me who I work for, Yousef.”
He shut off all the monitors and the audio feed.
“What is this?” he whispered. The console and the displays were dark and silent in front of him. Scenarios
