Chapter 10

The Judge came out of a side room just as my escort and I arrived at the two-way mirror that separated us from Samantha. He looked like he'd been up all night, and I knew I was the one at fault for that, so I wisely kept my observations to myself. He jerked his head at the prisoner and said, "It took almost ten hours but she finally broke down and confessed.

"Kevin, your tip to the President saved his life. Samantha was feeding details about his movements to the people who were behind Renee Carson. She talked her way into the White House using her affair with John Gray as her reference and qualifying experience.

The President was so shaken up by John Gray's assassination that he simply accepted her without a second thought.

"You saved his life. To keep anyone from knowing his exact schedule, everything has been dramatically altered.

"That one," he indicated Samantha, "is almost done spilling her guts, but we wanted you to hear this next part, because you made it possible, and it concerns you."

He turned to the aide at his elbow and nodded. She reentered the room he came out of, and beckoned me to follow. I found myself in a very comfortable viewing lounge, complete with reclining chairs, snacks, and all kinds of electronic gear. There were four others operating the electronics, and the Judge's aide ushered me to a chair to witness the next phase of Samantha's undoing.

We were not kept waiting.

Two interrogators entered the room from opposite doors at the same time, disorienting Samantha, who jerked upright and tried to figure out what was happening. The team, one male, the other female, gave her no time to think, but launched into a loud, demanding, almost violent series of questions. They came so fast, that they never left her time to answer. Clearly the strategy was to get her so off balance she would speak the truth out of confusion.

It worked pretty darn well.

"Who approached you to betray President Dryden?

"What did they demand of you, and what did they offer you in exchange?"

"Why didn't you immediately turn this information over to the Secret Service?"

"How were you paid?"

What did you do with the money?"

What was your next assignment?"

Why should we believe you?"

Bam, Bam, Bam. They kept hitting her with question after question, giving her no time to even frame an answer before hitting her with the nest, and the next.

Samantha finally cracked.

The tears streamed down her face as she screamed and cursed her questioners. The fire was back in her eyes, and she tried to give as good a she was getting.

It was a fair performance. Not good, but fair.

Her little rally died aborning, and the real interrogation began.

"They told me they would leave me alone if I gave them the president's schedule every Thursday evening, after it was finalized. I was to take it into the ladies wash room and photograph it with my iPhone, then text it to a number that changed every week, then erase it and the text from my memory."

"How often did you comply with their demands?" This from the man who was playing the good cop.

"Every week..." she whispered.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY??" the female interrogator screamed, almost in her face. She was a very convincing bad cop. "SPEAK LOUD, AND CLEAR, or you will be on your way to GITMO this afternoon, and never heard from again!"

Samantha wept. Something about the way she cried hit me, and I said, "She's acting," before I got control of myself.

My escort grabbed my hand and asked, "Why do you say that?" She really did want to know.

"I've met her before, and she's as phony as a three dollar bill. Whenever she pretended to be concerned or sincere, she would make her lower lip do that folding thing, then scrunch her eyes together to seem tearful. I think the lip and scrunching thing put just enough pressure behind her eyelids to make one or both eyes water." I said it all without even thinking about who I was talking with, and what they might make of my revelation.

And then I got scared about what I'd just disclosed about myself.

The electronics guys said something that was heard in the earpieces of the interrogation team, because they stopped abusing Samantha with their questions and waited for new orders. Samantha, thinking she was putting one over on everybody, kept up her act, but this time the electronics guys were comparing video of earlier in the session, and finding that Samantha did have that odd giveaway habit. The two closest to the big desk looked at me with curiosity, combined with respect, and motioned me over.

When I got to their station the one closest said, "Is this what you are talking about," and ran a clip that wasn't at all what I meant.

"I'm sorry. That's not at all what I meant. Can you bring up the last few questions?" He did, and I stopped him when she did the lip thing, followed immediately with the scrunching around the eye thing. "That's what she did when I met her in the White House. At the time I thought, 'What a jerk. She actually thinks pretending to tear up gives her some kind of street cred. When she did it just now, it was EXACTLY what she did when I met the President in the Oval Office."

They shrugged and dismissed me, but continued to spin through videotape.

Eventually they called me over again. "How about these three instances?" The first one was classic Samantha. She used that look several times to get one over me at the Governor's Mansion in Topeka. The second was more like she had done earlier, and the third one I couldn't begin to make heads or tales of and told them that the second one was what I was thinking of when I spoke out earlier.

They catalogued everything I said. This was one of the most serious interrogations they would ever be part of. When someone conspires to kill the President, that's as bad a crime as you can commit in America, and they were about to start charging Samantha with treason.