“The hell you say! Who the hell are you, anyway?” she demanded to know.
“I’m the IPD lead for the Interrogations Special Team, here on Carolina,” he said. “You can call me Officer Banks.”
“Interrogations?” Urban all but snorted in scorn. “And just what do you think you’re going to get out of me?”
“Anything we want to,” Banks said. “You’ve been taken custody for suspicion of coordinating attacks against the very Throne of Sintar. The Emperor Trajan wants to know what you know.”
Urban felt the blood rush from her head. She wasn’t old, by any means, but she wasn’t a twenty-something, either; it had been a long time since she had had the specialized espionage training the DP had provided, and she wondered if she was up to a full interrogation without breaking.
“Torture?” she managed to get out.
“Oh, no,” Banks said with a shrug. “That would be inhumane. No, we’ll simply drug you if you won’t cooperate.”
Oh, Urban thought in some relief. That won’t be so bad. I can handle that. Besides, it’s illegal, according to their own laws. I can raise a major stink in the media if they try that.
“You and I both know you can’t do that,” she told Banks. “Your own laws forbid it.”
“I didn’t say I’d be the one doing it,” Banks said, as another man entered the room. The new person wore an Imperial Marines uniform with some sort of decorative shoulder braid.
“No, I will be doing it, Ms. Urban,” the new entry said. “My name is Major Andrew Watanabe, and I’m with the Imperial Guard, on detached duty with the Marines. I have instructions under Imperial header to interrogate you. In effect, I am here as the representative for the Throne itself, acting with all due authority.” He nodded to Banks, who rose and exited the room, along with one of the other officers; the other two took up guard positions flanking the door. Watanabe nodded at a blank window in the wall. “Officer Banks is right over there, along with a technician. The chair you’re sitting in is a lie detector, and we will be able to tell if you are telling the truth or not.”
“The hell you say,” Urban said, incensed. “You can’t tell me this stupid office chair can do all that.”
“Oh? Tell me something you know is untrue, but pretend it’s the truth. Make it something I wouldn’t know. Put it in with about half a dozen other things that are true. Keep it simple.”
“Mmm,” Urban thought, “I work for the DP consul on Carolina… My name is Carol Sue Urban… I’ve been married twice… I’m currently single… um, that’s, uh, four… I’m from Oz City, on Esmeralda… I’m thirty-eight.”
Without hesitation, Watanabe declared, “You haven’t been married twice.” He paused, grinned, then added, “You’re not from Oz City, and you’re not thirty-eight, either.”
Urban gaped at him in shocked horror. Oh shit, she thought.
“Now, Ms. Urban,” Watanabe said in a pleasant tone, “we can play this several different ways. You can cooperate, and the Emperor might decide to go easy on you. You see, you’ve already been positively identified as the leader of a spy ring on Sintar, in Imperial City, so technically your life is already forfeit. But if you have been coerced, or if you’re in a situation where you feel there is no escape, then the Emperor may take pity and provide some alternative.”
“Or?” she asked.
“Or,” he answered, “we will dose you with sequentially stronger pharmaceuticals until we have overcome your willpower, at which time you will tell us everything we ask of you. Be aware that the results of the strongest drugs are unpleasant, and that it is likely you will go insane, or suffer a cerebral hemorrhage, rupture the blood vessels in your eyes, your nose, your lungs, your kidneys. You could experience an aortic dissection and bleed out internally. Any and all of these are possible, depending upon how long you wish – or are able – to keep fighting. At the end, if you are still alive when we have finished interrogating you, we will administer a lethal injection, and you will die within seconds.”
Unless I can convince them of my innocence – that I was coerced, or the like – I’m not walking away from this one, she realized. Well, what the hell. Let’s give it a shot.
“The thing you have to realize is that I was blackmailed,” she began.
“EEERT!” Watanabe said with a smirk, perfectly mimicking the sound of a raucous warning buzzer. “She lies. Try again.”
Urban still refused to cooperate, claiming innocence, so the IPD staff physician entered and administered a yellow-labeled ampoule into her arm via pulse injector. Urban felt it hit as her head spun and her body flushed all over, and she exclaimed, “Oh damn!”
“Felt that one, did you?” Watanabe wondered. “Let’s see, then. What is your full name?”
Urban tried to fight, but it turned out that her personal biochemistry had no resistance to this particular drug; her training had not included such an efficient combination of truth drugs and full-body lie detector. So she answered.
“Carol Sue Urban.”
“Where are you from?”
“Verdure, on Esmeralda.”
“In the Democracy of Planets?”
“Yes.”
“What district?”
“Earth District.”
“Do you run a spy ring on Sintar?”
“N-n- ye-yes.”
“Yes, you run a spy ring on Sintar?”
“Yes.”
“Who is your point of contact on Sintar?”
“Franz Gerber.”
“What name does he go by on Sintar?”
“Frank Garb.”
“Did you work for the DP government?”
“Yes.”
“Who do you work for in what’s left of the DP now?”
“A-ah!” Urban broke off, panting hard. Instinctively she strained against the straps, but could not pull away from the chair.
“Who do you work for in what’s left of the
