Chapter 40

Liam and his crew were in full body armor, so I stood back and let them take the room. I just watched them overpower him and put him in the back of an SUV. I stayed behind to check the motel parking lot for his truck with the Kayaks. It was parked in a far corner of the parking lot. I hadn't know where it would be, but I did know it would be there. Coincidence time was past.

When I got back to the compound, I was met by Colonel Martin. "Well Sylvia you did good. I expected no less. The sun is barely down and we have a man who was instrumental in our losing my Tobias something or other. I never paid much attention to those names."

"Do you want to take over now?" I asked.

"No, not at all, this is what I wanted to talk to you about. You know we contract lots of things out there these days. I want you to set up an investigative service. One with which I can make a contract. This just proves to me you are the right person." he said.

"Let's leave that whole thing till I talk to whoever we have in the dark house." I said.

I walked into the night and over to a cabin away from all the others. I went inside and there in a straight chair sat a man with a black hood over his head. He was from the former soviet union. He was for sale now, but he had once been filled with idealism. I made enough noise so he knew someone had sat down.

"Hello," he said with no fear in his voice. "Well are you going to speak to me or just kill me?"

"To be perfectly honest I'm trying to decide," I said. "You don't strike me as gangsters, and I have no current intelligence of any value to anyone. You are wasting your time and mine."

"You are the only one with a shortage of time," I said. I got out of my chair and walked to the door.

"Your government would not allow you to kill me," he said. "It's the beauty of due process and your bill of rights."

"Then you are a citizen of the United States?" I asked. "Because if you are not, those right and protections are not guaranteed to you." I looked at the hooded figure and said, "Even if you are, I don't give a shit. See the beauty of this job is we tell the people we are homeland security and give them a phony piece of paper to sign and they never report what happened to anyone. Then you just disappear."

At that point I felt pretty sure I had his attention. So I got up and left the room.

"I'm going to bed," I told the guard on the door. "Make sure he doesn't sleep tonight."

I went back to the cabin I had been assigned while babysitting. It had eight bunks and there were two of the female agents staying there. The Colonel did not want Osborn on the loose so he had her move in as well.

"I'm going to stink, if I don't get some clean clothes," she said.

"You can borrow some of mine tomorrow," I suggested

"No offense Boss, but I couldn't fine in yours with a hundred years of stretching," she said.

"Here," one the Mosad agents said. "Keep them they come in a large pack from your Walmart."

"Thanks," Osborn said. "What's your name?"

The Israeli looked at me and said, "Jewish Chick." then she walked away.

"You don't want to get to know anyone here Oz. We are all just nicknames here. It makes the whole thing less real." I said.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Skinny Blond chic to the rabble," I said.

"So who will I be?" she asked.

"Big tit blond chic," I said. "Now go to sleep Oz. This may be your last chance before you get your cherry popped."

"I'm no virgin," she said.

"There are all kinds of virgins honey. Tomorrow you will see what I mean," I replied.

"At 5AM I ran for an hour. Since we didn't have the chef from the swamp, the food sucked. They served me the usual powdered eggs and burned bacon. Some of the soldiers from the middle east refused to eat the bacon. I had no problem with it burned or not. I certainly had no religious aversions to it. I went from breakfast to the dark cabin, where it was always dead of night.

I started the conversation with the half asleep man, as if it never stopped the night before just to further disorient him. "Now let me explain what is going to happen next. I am going to ask you some questions. Then I am going to assess whether or not you are telling the truth. There will be a punishment for lying. I am afraid there is only one reward for telling the truth, you stay alive a little longer. Maybe, if I am satisfied with your answers, you can eventually walk out of here on your own two feet. First of all before we begin did you know this was a Swamp Dog facility?" I asked.

"What is a Swamp Dog?" he asked. The chair he was sitting in was metal and wired. The table was also metal and grounded. He was in fact naked in an electric chair, and had been all night.

"Beep wrong answer," I hit the charge at 175 volts. It was just enough to get his attention. "Now we will do this again. Did you know you were up against the Swamp Dog?" I asked.

"I told you, I had no idea who you were, and I don't know what Swamp Dog is," he said bravely.

I hit him with the juice again. "At some point this is going to fry your brain. I really do feel bad for you. You either talk or you die from the questioning. In case you die, you will get chopped up and go into the lake to feed the fish. It really is a very efficient system. "Who did you think you were helping your friend escape from?" I asked.