Tricks and Traps (Gray Spear Society Book 7) (17 page)

"I'm glad."

"You must be excited about tomorrow. The grand opening at last. Your wildly ambitious vision is fulfilled. It seems like only yesterday we were breaking ground."

"I'm sure you're even more excited," Cantrell said. "I'll finally start paying back some of the loans you gave me."

"It's the bank's money, not mine, so I don't have personal feelings about it, but two hundred million dollars is a lot. My superiors are eager to see those payments."

"Don't worry. Once those doors open, I'll have more cash on hand than the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. You'll get every penny you're owed."

Robert smiled. "Good."

"Are you going to visit the casino after we open? You'll get VIP treatment, of course."

"I'm not much of a gambler. I'd rather just collect interest."

"Spoken like a true banker," Cantrell said.

A tall man with very broad shoulders hurried over. His chest was so big, he couldn't button his suit properly. A sculpted beard was the only hair on his pale head.

"Sir," he said quietly in a Russian accent, "you have an urgent call."

He handed a phone to Cantrell.

Cantrell frowned and walked to a quiet corner of the patio. "Yes?"

"This is Konstantin. There is trouble at the factory." His accent was so thick, it was hard to understand him.

"What kind of trouble?"

"Two of my men disappeared," Konstantin said. "Three were killed. The intruders probably saw the basement. There was also a car fire."

"How is this possible? Your soldiers are supposed to be the toughest, nastiest sons of bitches in the world. That's why I pay you so much fucking money to protect my interests." Cantrell's head was throbbing with anger.

"We are even more upset and embarrassed than you. This month's bill will be reduced as our way of apologizing. What should we do about the factory?"

Cantrell rolled his head back and looked up at the sky. Haze in the air made it hard to see the stars.

"Hello?" Konstantin said.

"Burn it to the ground. Destroy every bit of evidence. I'll build my machines here in my new casino."

"What about the workers?"

"Burn them, too," Cantrell said. "No loose ends. For all we know, one of them could be an informant. This smells like an inside job."

"It will be taken care of immediately. Good night."

Cantrell ended the call. He glared at the crowd of partiers as he contemplated this disturbing news. It seemed a very dangerous enemy had joined the game. The worst part was that he had no clue who it might be.

He dialed another number.

A man with a familiar voice answered, "Hello?" His name was Sterling Ford.

"This is Neville," Cantrell said.

"What's wrong?"

"I had some trouble tonight."

"What kind?" Ford said.

"The violent kind."

"Oh."

"You're supposed to be my early warning system," Cantrell said. "What have you heard?"

"Nothing. Not a peep."

"I was hit by professionals who made my professionals look like chumps."

"They weren't from the agency," Ford said. "I know that for a fact. I'll make some quiet inquiries though."

"Very quiet."

"Of course. It would help if you gave me some specific details."

"You don't need to know details," Cantrell said.

"Then I guess we're done talking. Bye."

Cantrell threw the phone against the ground, shattering it.

* * *

Smythe returned from his phone call.

"What did the boss say?" Tawni said.

"He was pissed," Smythe said. "Tonight's assignment was surveillance, not mayhem. He'll chew us out when we get back. In the meantime, he wants us to interrogate this prisoner. Then we'll go back to the factory and continue to observe."

She nodded. "Are you doing the interrogation?"

"No, you are."

"Me?"

"You're Aaron's protégé," he said, "his beautiful, black demon. Inflicting pain comes naturally to you."

Tawni drew back. "Is that how you think of me?"

"He's very proud of you."

She pondered that statement. She wasn't aware of special treatment, but she didn't have any reference points. Before Aaron, she had never had a strong, male figure in her life.

"What about Norbert?" Tawni said.

Smythe shook his head. "He doesn't have the right kind of savagery in him. I heal. Norbert protects. You destroy. You're a natural interrogator."

She turned to Norbert.

"It's true," he said quietly. "You're just like Aaron."

She raised her eyebrows in surprise. These revelations were new to her, but on reflection, they seemed accurate. She and Aaron had a special bond which couldn't be expressed in words.

Tawni turned her attention back to Mikhail. "Are you going to cooperate?"

He spat in her face.

She wiped it off. "Let's move him to a place where nobody will hear him scream."

Chapter Nine

"Do you want a couple of pieces of advice?" Norbert said.

"Sure," Tawni replied in an uncertain tone.

"Don't inflict critical injuries. You need him alive and awake until he talks, and that could take a while. Maybe all night. Excessive bleeding is a problem."

"Makes sense." She nodded. "What else?"

"Interrogation is a battle of wills. If the subject thinks you're weak, he'll be strong. The nastier you are, the quicker this will go. Be a total bitch."

She took a deep breath and walked over to Mikhail. The prisoner was lying on his back. His hands were tied to one tree, and his feet were tied to another. The taut ropes stretched his body and made him completely vulnerable. He was also naked. He had tried to escape earlier, and as a result, his face was bruised and two ribs were broken.

The interrogation was taking place in a golf course near Muncie. The manicured greens looked like black velvet in the night. Mikhail was in the rough, and tall, stiff grass was poking him in the back.

Tawni wasn't sure how to begin. Aaron hadn't given her any training in interrogation techniques.

A wave of tingling pain swept through her body, and she recognized it as God's anger. It hurt much worse than ever before. The burn settled in her muscles and bones, consuming weakness and giving back strength. She wanted to cry out in agony and moan with pleasure at the same time. The blood in her veins felt like liquid fire.

She looked at her hands. Shadows were clinging to her skin like sheets of smoke. They rippled and swirled. She didn't know what it meant, but she liked it.

Tawni drew a sharp knife from a sheath on her belt.
I know how to be a total bitch.

She knelt over Mikhail. "I'm not going to ask you any questions. You already know what you need to tell me. When you're ready, you'll talk freely."

"Who are you?" he said in a deep Russian accent.

"That's not important. What matters is what I'll do to you."

She used the tip of her knife to dig a tiny piece of skin out of his stomach. He gasped but didn't speak. A drop of blood oozed out of the injury.

"When I was a child," she said, "my mother told me about God."

She extracted another bit of flesh. He clenched his jaw and his cheek twitched.

Tawni continued, "She said God is omnipotent. That means He can do anything he wants. There are no limits to His power. But it's not true. Sometimes things don't go His way."

She continued to nibble away at Mikhail with her knife. She barely punctured the skin each time. A line of tiny wounds was forming on his bare stomach.

"Why are you telling me this?" he said in a tense voice.

"So you understand. God is like us in some ways. He gets frustrated, disappointed, and angry. Do you know what happens then?" She sliced away a little piece of his shoulder.

"No."

She leaned down and whispered in his ear, "God makes monsters like me."

He looked into her eyes. His bravado vanished in an instant.

"My mother told me something else," she said. "She believed God was pure good. Everything He does is fair and kind. That's not true either. He created this universe and put plenty of evil in it."

She playfully sliced off the tip of his nose. His eyes watered, and he squirmed.

"So," she said, "even though I serve God with all my heart, that doesn't mean I'm a nice person."

The tendons in his arms were taut as he strained against the ropes. She sawed with her knife until she cut one of the biceps tendons. The muscle bunched into a lumpy ball. The bleeding was worse than she wanted, and she told herself to slow down.

He groaned.

"I'm not nice at all," she said softly.

She cut off a chunk of his lip. He screamed a little, which made her smile. She was making progress.

"You can't break me," he said through his teeth.

"I disagree."

"I have survived the frozen wastelands of Siberia and the back alleys of Chechnya. I have ripped out the guts of my enemies with my bare hands. There is no fear in me."

"It sounds like you're a soldier," she said.

"The best."

"That's interesting. I'm a soldier, too."

He spat. "A woman?"

"Yes." Tawni sliced off a piece of his ear.

The shadows were slithering around her hands like snakes. They seemed eager to participate, and she began to understand what God wanted her to do. This was a special night.

Mikhail tried to move his head away from her knife. "Go back to your babies."

"The difference between us is I accept fear. It serves a purpose. It tells me when I could be making a mistake. For example, you're making a mistake right now." She held up her hand, and it was sheathed in flowing darkness.

His eyes widened.

She whispered, "There are much worse things than the frozen wastelands of Siberia and the back alleys of Chechnya. Feel God's rage."

She covered his mouth with her hand. The shadows instantly slipped down his throat. Every muscle in his body locked up, and his eyes bulged. He was trying to scream, but no sound came out.

She watched him suffer for a little while, and the only noise was the insects buzzing. The feeling of power made her giddy. For the first time, she truly felt like one of God's elite warriors.

Finally, she withdrew her shadows. He gasped and coughed so hard his whole body shook.

"Fearful, yet?" she murmured.

He yanked on the ropes with desperate strength. She caressed his cheek, and he screeched in fear.

"What the hell are you?!"

"Just a woman who needs information," she said. "Talk to me."

She passed her hand across his face and left a trail of murky darkness which slowly dissipated.

"I don't know anything!" he yelled.

"Who do you work for?"

He clamped his mouth shut.

She covered his eyes with her hand, and her shadows went into his eyeballs.

He screamed loudly enough to startle her. "Stop!" he cried. "Please! It burns!"

She took her hand away.

"I can't see anything." He looked left and right frantically. "It's all black. I'm blind!"

"Who do you work for?"

Tears were running down his cheeks. "Shkotovo Company."

"Who is that?" she said.

"Mercenaries."

"And what are Russian mercenaries doing in Indiana?"

"It's a job," he sobbed.

"Tell me about the monkey machines."

"I can't! I just guard the factory."

She sent some shadows up his nose. He shook his head violently and tried to blow them out, but it was no use. The darkness was destroying his mucus membranes.

"You were saying?"

"They tell me nothing," he whimpered. "I'm paid to follow orders, and that's all."

She believed him. "When you meet God, tell him I said thank you for the gift." She filled his lungs with shadows which oozed like tar.

He died of suffocation while she watched.

She turned to Smythe and Norbert.

"I have to admit," Smythe said quietly, "that was quite frightening."

Norbert nodded slowly with wide eyes.

God's anger faded from Tawni's body. She suddenly felt cold and spent, and she considered lying down on the grass. The most intense experience of her life was over.

"How are you feeling?" Smythe said.

"Tired," she said.

She drew a circle in the air with her finger. The streak of darkness she left behind evaporated after a few seconds. It was like painting with greasy smoke.

"You can't rest," Smythe said. "We have to get back to the factory and continue to observe."

"Yes, sir." She straightened up.

* * *

Tawni looked out the window of the minivan as it passed the pinball machine factory. A fire had reduced the structure to a burned out shell. Fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars were in the parking lot, but the emergency personnel were just standing around. Apparently, the excitement was over. Red and blue lights dazzled her eyes.

Smythe was driving, and he continued without slowing down. Norbert ducked his head away from the window.

"This blood is on our hands," Smythe said in a soft voice. "We fucked up tonight. We were sloppy."

"I'll tell Aaron," Tawni said.

She took out her phone and made the call.

Aaron answered immediately, "Report."

"The factory is destroyed, sir. They set fire to it. There is nothing left."

"That's upsetting news. We will have a full debriefing when you get back. How did the interrogation go?"

"The guards are Russian mercenaries," she said, "something called the Shkotovo Company. They're real soldiers. That's all I could get out of him."

"You performed the interrogation?" He sounded surprised.

"Smythe wanted me to. I had trouble at first, but then I got a gift. It was easy after that."

"A gift? That's tremendous! Congratulations."

"Thank you. I'll show you when I get back."

"I'm eager to see it. The three of you might as well go home. We'll have a meeting first thing in the morning."

"But, sir," she said, "we may not get back to Chicago until dawn. We'll be exhausted."

"Part of the job."