by E L Russell
Robert steered his team through the central cube of nine to Granger's room where they transferred him to a hospital bed. Once they had him in place, they hooked up his monitors and rechecked his PIC line. Meret touched a wall button by the mirror to make it transparent revealing the interrogation room they’d passed through. “Although Granger can witness what we are doing to Katya, she will be unaware of him because her window is currently set to function as her giant mirror.”
After he dismissed the rest of the personnel, Robert adjusted one of the reclining leather lounge close to Granger’s bed chairs and sat on one near the empty chair. “I've got the first six-hour shift before another nurse relieves me.” He gestured to a nearby recliner. “Join us?”
Meret held Granger’s hand for long moments. He looked pale and helpless and so still she shook his hand to get him to move. When he groaned, her breath hitched. He was alive and responsive. She disengaged her hand and stepped away from his bed.
“He’s resting well. I think I’ll go check on my other patient.”
Rushing through the central interrogation area toward Katya's room, she couldn’t catch her breath. Her heart hammered so hard, she put both hands on her chest as if to slow it down. Panic overwhelmed her, suffocating her like a wet blanket that was too heavy to remove.
What if Ganger died? What if they couldn’t get Katya to talk? What if the President, vice president, and all of congress has already died? What if it was all her fault? She needed to get away.
She fled the room and headed for the company restaurant on the ground floor, a ride ‘up.’ from the secret white rooms. One more thing to wrap her mind around. Maybe the CIA was not for her. Fighting bad guys, racing time, watching people die, it was too much. With her fist tight against her chest, she took deep breaths on the elevator’s short ride to the ‘top.’
After taking coffee and bagels from the short buffet, she’d carried her small tray to corner table and place a call her assistant. “Poppy. It’s so damn freaking good to hear your voice.”
“G’day, Meret. It’s been an age. You okay? You sound all breathy.”
“It’s been hairy. I’ve got three hours to kill before anyone can tell me about how Granger really is and when I can get started on Katya’s interrogation. Once I have anything definitive, I’ll fill you in. Right I’m in limbo and in truth it’s all pretty overwhelming. Tell me what you and Zhen are doing.”
“Yeah, well, you’re doing all the serious shit. Is Steve there?”
“Yes and he’s been great, so out with it. I feel so fucking cut off from the team.”
“Righto. We just dispatched upgrades to the CIA for the Beetle and SuperFly bots. Zhen has some property he wants you to see that would make perfect lab sites. He and Ling Chang put together a virtual company of upstream South East Asian manufacturers who are prepared to assist our efforts by playing their role in the creation of interesting mash-ups of biochemistry and nano-technology. They bought into the concept of contributing isolated components to ‘unknown’ projects.”
“Ah. That sounds useful. If they see too much they’ll re-engineer the whole thing and claim it as their own”
“You know how Zhen can be, he thinks he’s playing. But he’s really a man who needs to be kept busy. Whenever I ask him about his current project, his hands keep engaged on it but his mind is telling me of the ‘next thing’. We’ve about exhausted our ability to provide substantial upgrades to the bots and when I suggested he continue with his development of new tools for our genomic engineering toolbox, he ran with it. That mash-up of biochemistry and nano-technology is more than interesting - it could well be our future.”
Poppy’s voice dropped as though concerned someone might overhear what she was about to say. “You’re the one trying to get deep in thought about the future. What gives?”
Meret played along and whispered. “Remember how sudden the fracas on nanotechnology suddenly stopped a few years ago? Ever wonder why?”
“Sure, Right. We had no tools to engineer at the nano level. We’re talking atomic aren’t we?”
Meret said, “Damn right. The last time I had a sit-down with Zhen he raised the idea we should develop proteins to build nano structures.”
“You mean program proteins to cut, fold, and join pieces of nano-bits?”
Meret nodded with a tight lipped grin like the two of them had just discovered they won the lottery. “Damn right. After all proteins are programmed to build our bodies en utero and continue doing so after birth.”
“Ahh,” Poppy replied dropping all pretense of playing secrets. “Proteins programed to engineer atomic particles. That’s taking the CRISPR solutions at the molecular level up, or down a notch. So we’re going to build a nano tool box. Hmmm.”
Meret sighed. “ Good thinking, Poppy. Right after Granger recovers and we put his pending Genecaust of our leaders behind us.”
Poppy liked being productively busy as much as Zhen and could not wait for her formal education to end so she had more time to think. She’d picked a great crew and knew the three of them made an excellent team and with the addition of Ling’s enthusiasm for engineering atomic particles brought them an unexpected bonanza.
“Oh, one more item of interest.” Poppy seemed to hesitate. “Your grand father checked into the Zalea for a few weeks.”
“Grandfather Elias? What for?”
“Don’t know but he’s not alone.”
“Meaning?”
“I think he’s got a gaggle of accounts,”
“Oh?”
“It's all hush-hush. I can't get close to him. He keeps guards on his suite’s door.”
She whispered. “Use a bot.”
Poppy blurted out, “Spy on your grandfather? Why is that a good idea? You can’t be serious?”
“Deadly.”
Poppy's voice turned into a middle-schooler's squeal. “Oh, my god, Meret, you're serious.”
“Well, only if you have the time.”
“Holy shit. I’m on it.”
* * *
Meret thought the elevator returning to the sub-basement would take forever. Once inside the complex, she turned left and headed straight for Granger's room. She needed to be with him.
When his door clicked open to admit her, Robert, was standing by the bed. “Good news. Granger opened his eyes and lifted his head a bit and asked for water. Hasn't said much more than that. He seems comfortable, but staying awake is a struggle for him.”
Joy bubbled in Meret and she stepped toward the bed, only to be blocked by the nurse. He gently touched the back of her hand. “Let him see you from a distance. We'll proceed based on his reaction.”
Meret stood with her arms at her side and studied Granger. His eyes were open but he seemed to have difficulty focusing.
Robert gestured her to approach with caution.
When she reached the foot of Granger’s bed, he smiled. “Meret . . . Meret.”
His eyes closed yet his smile remained.
Robert spoke so only she could hear him. “You see the apparent need for sleeping. I suggest another neurological consult just to be sure he doesn’t have any physical damage Do you agree?”
She nodded. “That should tell us more. How long will it take to set that up?”
“About an hour.”
“Do you want a break? I’ll stay.”
“Thanks, but I want to be here to learn what the neurologist has to say.”
“Me too, but I’ll take a few minutes to check in on Katya.”
Meret walked quickly through the interrogation room toward Katya’s room. As before, she waited for the monitor to unlock the door so she could enter.
She almost backed out again.
A woman stood in the room with her back to the door. She had long, straight, black hair. A rush of air filled Meret’s lungs. The woman, wearing a white starched lab Jacket and clutching a clipboard tight to her chest, pivoted on black pumps frumpy stiletto heels. and slowly removed black-rimmed gl
asses.
Meret stepped back against the closed door.
Holy shit. Katya?
71
Interrogation
October D.C. Black Site - A new member of the team
After giving Meret a thorough once over, the attractive woman, who was not Katya, removed her thick black glasses. "Doctor Mather? I'm Dr. Nancy Buchanan, a psychiatrist. I've worked Black Sites for Director Davies for several years, including Guantanamo. I must say I've never encountered a monster like this bitch."
A kindred spirit.
Although still stunned by her resemblance to Katya, Meret immediately liked the woman. On closer inspection, the similarity in looks was superficial due to the props the woman wore, the glasses and lab coat, with the hanging black hair. Even as they talked, Nancy withdrew a scrunchy from her pocket and pulled her hair back in a casual ponytail.
Meret got down to business. ”Do you have an assessment already?”
"Not yet.” She raised a finger and shook it at Meret. “But you're on the right track. I modified the prep you ordered only a tad. I added a note to leave her back teeth in. We’ve never had a prisoner successfully suicide with only molars.” She raised her eyebrows and wiggled them. “As for my appearance, I like your idea to diminish Katya's sense of ‘self’ and I thought with drugs, relentless conditioning, and in mimicking her image I could get her to ‘lose’ herself in me faster. We need to discuss this, but I think in her confusion, we stand a chance of getting her to reveal what you need to know if, a big ‘if,’ but ‘if’ we can distance her from her real self, we have an honest shot at success.”
Meret liked it. “By forcing her to see herself outside of herself, seeing you are dressed as you now, we’ll be inducing a large dose of cognitive dissonance.”
“Yes. Exactly. You should dress as I am, too.”
A plan. Meret liked it. and meanwhile, part of the ‘prep’ was the removal of all Katya’s hair, along with her fingernails, toenails and most of her teeth. Meret was itching to begin. She wanted this ugly redesign of Katya’s appearance and her awareness of her profound loss of power to be behind them. Katya will experience pain, discomfort, and irrational fear, but as soon as they get the information they need, all that could end. “I can induce full consciousness almost immediately without restoring her ability to speak clearly. I'll set a drip in her IV.”
Nodding with approval, Nancy rubbed her hands together. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
“The drugs work fast so let's get into character. You begin to insert her belief she no longer has power over anyone. I'll stand on the other side of the one-way mirror looking in, and when you think you’ve sown sufficient doubt, pinch your chin and I'll set the window to clear so she can see me. Katya is a hard nut and it will take several sessions to put even a small chink in her will.”
“Right,” Nancy said. “We can’t consider this a traditional brainwash. It’s only the first step to getting her on the slippery path to our control. Too bad we aren’t as good at it as she is. We'll be improvising. If the conversation doesn't go our way, You or I can turn off the drip to put her back to sleep. If we inject some of the PKZip she’ll lose her ability to reconstruct what just happened and we can simply start over.”
“Good. Another tool in our arsenal. We’ll chip away pieces of her memory by shutting down the brains ability to grow the new neurons needed to reconstruct her memories. I like it." She thought for a second. “Have you thought of actually altering her memory by using drugs that increase neurogenesis?”
“Umph. You mean like actually altering her memories?” Nancy fiddled with the black glasses. “After a fashion. The problem is it assumes we know the timing of the brain’s effort to restore a memory at the moment it is in the process of making a new copy of the recent memory. We’re in synch here, right?
Meret nodded. “We are. I’ve been following the progress of the research at Amsterdam University to treat victims of PTSD.”
“I think that’s irontic.”
Meret could see that Nancy caught on to the direction of her thinking.
“For Granger?”
“Yes. The Amsterdam research team demonstrated that a given memory is recalled from different parts of the brain. It is then re-assembled and remembered. Once remembered, it is then fragmented into bits and pieces and disbursed throughout the brain. It also must be rebuilt using new neurons within a specific amount of time or the total memory is lost forever. It is at that brief instant in time, after the memory has been used and then breaks up to hopefully be recalled, that a trained therapist, through suggestion, reinforced by drugs, can introduce a spin on the growth and development of the nerve tissue, thereby changing the memory.”
Nancy grinned with obvious pleasure. So the neurogenesis, the process by which new neurons are formed, is changed.” Her grin turned into a full-fledged laugh. Would you believe it is an over-the-counter pill for stomach distress?”
They laughed quietly until Meret turned her attention to Katya. “The bitch is coming around.”
Both women watched Katya struggle against her restraints. Her head rolled from side to side in a futile attempt to dislodge the blindfold and her words sounded like she’s swallowed marbles or had a bad soft palette injury. Of one thing Meret was sure of, with all the drooling and slurring her voice could no longer be effective as a weapon.
Not willing to admit defeat, Katya cursed to the best of her ability. She moaned, spit, and struggled against her straps.
The time had come. Meret waved her hand at Nancy to say it was time for her to step out of the room and get behind the mirrored window for their first crack at Katya.
But first, Meret stepped closer to her patient. “What’s that you say? I don’t understand you, Katya.” Meret’s anger was iced with spite and she removed Katya’s blindfold to watch the frustration build as Katya fully realized her situation. Her vitriol was so strong Meret involuntarily stepped back.
Recovering, she liberated her feelings. “Did you sleep well, Katya?" Oh yes, sarcasm and spite saturated the question, but Meret refused to feel repentant. The horrors the woman had perpetrated earned the dose pain Meret had long planed to serve up.
Katya’s face twisted into a snarl and she shot out mangled expletives like a machine gun.
Meret smiled in gratification as her prisoner yanked at her restraining straps until her wrists bled. “Yes, you’re in deep shit, you bitch. You deserve everything you are going to get.” By concentrating hard, Meret understood most of what Katya said and had and in truth, been vastly relieved. She’d had a niggling concern she wouldn’t be able to comprehend any of the woman’s grunting and slurring. Then they’d all be in deep shit. She left the room.
Nancy pinched her chin, giving her the signal to make the mirror a transparent window. Meret would reveal Nancy to Katya as Katya.
At twenty feet Nancy’s disguise could pass for Katya in a room of friends. She snorted. That is if the bitch had any friends. A fact Meret seriously doubted.
“Trakhat’ tebya, you gadam slu—. Le me woose.”
Katya swore in Russian and English and Meret clucked her tongue. "Now, now, don’t wear yourself out. Your words sound like you’re talking with a mouthful of marbles. No let me rephrase that. More like a mouthful of horseshit. You do realize you’ve lost all your powers to persuade, right? Hmm. You don’t even look like yourself.’ She switched the window to a mirror on Katya’s side and the woman howled.
Meret entered Katya’s room as Nancy backed away keeping out of Katya’s sight. She ran the back of her hand over Katya's bald head. "I'm truly sorry. Where has all that shiny black hair gone? Never mind, it will grow back. At least that’s what my mother always told me. Hmm. I wonder.”
Katya hissed at Meret, who backed up fast. "You can't even bite me, you bitch. Your fucking teeth are in a jar on my desk. Oh, and look, your nails are gone too. A pity."
Katya shrieked and fought anew to free herself.
Meret wat
ched with satisfaction, knowing her rage only created more pain. It didn’t begin to equal the agony and suffering of the fifteen hundred women and girls on Socotra who died under her management. It was time for Katya to be introduced to Dr. Nancy Buchanan.
Marshaling the anger in her voice, Meret smiled and made a statement intended to enrage her prisoner. "Katya, I removed all your tools to manipulate people’s souls for your pleasure. Look here. She pointed to the mirror. I gave them to someone else. Would you like to meet this person?"
When Katya snarled something unINTELligible and then shrieked, Meret knew she had gotten under her skin. And while she was tempted to continue provoking her captive for her own personal satisfaction, she schooled herself to the purpose at hand. Pointing at the large mirror that filled most of one wall, she said, “Have a look.” The mirror cleared to become a large picture window showing the central interrogation area and its completed dentist chair. Behind the glass, Katya saw a woman who was the very essence of her herself. The long dark hair falling over the woman’s shoulder was a contrast to the starched white lab coat. Blood-red nails adorned the hand that reached up to remove black-rimmed glasses. A sultry smile finished the charade.
"Unless you tell us what we want to know, you’ll never be that person again.”
Katya’s silent stare turned into shrieks of rage. She struggled in her straps and Meret figured she mangled to swear every word she knew. Meret didn’t understand a word of her trade but assumed Katya made every effort to curse her to kingdom come. Katya didn’t stop until the lingering affects of the drugs took over and she slept.
“That went well,” Nancy said, coming in from the other room.
“Yes, I agree. Except for the no-speech drug, let’s lighten up on the medications. We want her head clear when she wakes. We also need to record her answers. Dr. Mather and Dr. Buchanan waited until Katya no longer had the energy to scream before they departed.