Shadow of Betrayal

The Dupuis woman was crying now. Tears poured down her cheeks as she wordlessly pleaded with Tucker’s boss to stop.

“Who have you told?”

She sobbed. Tucker could see she was trying to get words out, but nothing was coming. Mr. Rose nodded at him.

Tucker turned to one of his men, Linden. “Give her another.”

Linden touched the controller, and sent another jolt of electricity down the wires attached to the woman. She grew rigid as her muscles contracted, the restraints the only things keeping her from falling to the floor.

When the sequence ended, she slumped in the chair.

“Who have you told?” Mr. Rose asked again.

“Just Henrick Roos,” she said, naming her friend at the UN.

“Who else?”

“Noelle. Noelle Broussard in Côte d’Ivoire. That’s all.”

“I don’t believe you, Ms. Dupuis. Someone else knows. Someone else has been trying to help you. Who are they?”

She tried to look at him, her eyebrows furrowed. “I… I don’t know … who you mean. I’ve been alone. No one has …”

Her last words were lost as her head fell forward.

“Who have you told?” Mr. Rose said.

Her shoulders began moving up and down as her tears returned.

“More?” Tucker asked.

Mr. Rose stared at the woman. His face was scarred and wrinkled, his slicked-back hair pure white. On bad days his hands shook so much he had to drink from a straw. But his eyes were always like laser beams, cutting into whatever he was focused on. And his voice, that was the clincher. Strong, manipulative, and unrelenting.

“Who have you told?”

But Marion Dupuis seemed unable to respond.

The laser eyes turned to Tucker. “Again.”

The woman looked up, her eyes growing wide in fear.

“No. No. I’ll—” But the renewed current cut her off.

This time when the cycle ended, she fell forward against the restraints, unconscious.

“Goddammit,” Mr. Rose said.

Tucker moved in and checked the woman’s pulse. She still had one, which was almost a surprise. They’d been at this for a while now. He’d seen others who hadn’t lasted as long, needing to leave in a body bag instead of on their own feet.

And with all they’d given her, she hadn’t broken. Whoever the others at her house in Montreal had been, she wasn’t telling. The only ones she had given up were her two colleagues at the UN, people who had been easy to trace through other means so were no real revelation. Neither of them had lasted as long as Marion when Tucker had interrogated them.

It was the people in Montreal. If she did know who they were, Mr. Rose would find out. And if she didn’t, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Either result would end in her death. That was the only given here.

“You want me to wake her?” Tucker asked.

Mr. Rose looked at his watch. “Take her back to her room.”

Tucker nodded at Linden and his partner, Petersen. Both men stepped forward and picked the woman up.

As soon as they were gone, Mr. Rose said, “I need to get down to the lab to supervise the final preparations.”

“All right,” Tucker said. “When do you want her back here?”

“Walk with me.”

“Of course,” Tucker said.

Mr. Rose was one of those people who got annoyed if you didn’t read his mind, and got even more upset if he changed his mind about a task and you hadn’t anticipated it. Tucker didn’t like it, but he’d grown used to it. It was the pay that kept him around. Nothing else.

Tucker followed Mr. Rose out of the interrogation room, through a short maze of hallways, then back into the main corridor. The lab of the underground facility was one level below, so Mr. Rose turned left toward the elevator.

“These people you saw in Montreal, do you think there is any chance they might have followed you here?” Mr. Rose asked.

Tucker felt a little like the woman. It wasn’t the first time Mr. Rose had asked him the question. It wasn’t even the second or the third.

“No way.”

“They concern me.”

“We searched her. Everything she had, everything she was wearing. We even ran her through the scanner. Nothing. No tracking device. No hidden radio transmitter. Nothing.”

Mr. Rose thought about this for a moment. “You’re sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

When they reached the elevator, Tucker pressed the down button to call for a car.

“And the child?” Mr. Rose asked.

“What about her?”

“You did the same with her? Check her clothes? Scanned her?”

This was a new question, but the answer was the same.

“Yes.”

The elevator door opened and Mr. Rose stepped inside. As Tucker stepped in to join him, Mr. Rose said, “I can’t have a loose end like this.”

“I understand.”

Tucker reached out and pushed the button marked R3, the lab level.

“Do you? Do you really understand?” Mr. Rose’s laser eyes kept Tucker from answering. “It’s a loose end. A distraction. We don’t want or need distractions at this point.” He paused. “There are people who want to stop me. Your job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

“That woman,” Mr. Rose said, more to himself than to Tucker. “She could ruin everything. That… that bitch!”

Tucker tried to contain his surprise. He’d never seen Mr. Rose react like that before.