“When are you ever bad cop?” They continued onto the door. “I’ve given up askin’ if you want to be bad cop.”
“Hah.” Dory nodded to his men, and they opened the cell door for them and stepped into the room. Gunnar followed him in and took two steps to one side. He placed his back to the wall covering the window. This was his comfort zone; fromhere he could see every inch of the cell and could catalogue every movement from the prisoner as Dory questioned him.
Dory pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the table to the prisoner and sat down. He dropped a file on the table and leaned back to place one foot on the opposite knee. “Do you know who I am?”
The prisoner just stared at him, not answering. Gunnar hadn’t expected any less.
Dory steepled his fingers together. “Do you know who he is?” he asked.
Again, the prisoner didn’t respond. Not a single body part twitched or moved. Gunnar decided if he wasn’t so pissed off, he might even be impressed, especially as the prisoner hadn’t even glanced in his direction when asked who he was.
Dory sighed heavily and flipped open the file. “Cernugelj, Nedjad, born in Dobrova, August 10, 1989.” Dory started listing the information Remi had provided last night. Yet still the prisoner didn’t flinch, and Dory raised his eyebrows. “Maybe we should start over. Nice to meet you, I’m Commadore Petrusek…” Dory paused. “Tell me, Tristan van Dodewaard from Flagstaff, South Africa, why is it you want to murder my friend?”
Tristan who? Huh?
This time it was Gunnar who worked to keep his body language impassive. The prisoner on the other hand visibly flinched, his eyes widening in surprise for a split second before he remembered to blank his expression. Clearly, he was as caught off guard at the change of name as Gunnar was.
Remi must have found more intel. Hell yeah!
“Maybe I should have my people check on your mother?” Dory asked him. “Just to make sure she doesn’t need anything while you are out of town…”
The man’s jaw ticked, but still he said nothing. Gunnar pulled the apple out of his pocket and his knife from the sheath on his belt. He proceeded to peel and slice off pieces off the apple, popping them into his mouth and chewing while maintaining eye contact with the prisoner as Dory questioned him and received no answers.
Once Gunnar finished his apple, he tossed the core into a trash can in the corner. “Enough, Petrusek. Get the fuck out. My turn.”
“Now, Gunnar…” Dory spun on his chair with his eyes wide. “Don’t…”
“Out.” Gunnar knocked on the cell door and held it open with it unlocked. “Now. He doesn’t want to answer your nice questions…” He glared at Dory. “Now he gets to answer mine.”
Dory got to his feet, and shrugged as if in sympathy with the prisoner. “I’m sorry. I tried to save you. I’ll make sure your mother knows what happened.”
“Out, now!” Gunnar bellowed as he let his knife fly. It buried itself into the wooden table between the prisoner’s cuffed hands. This right here was why Gunnar had insisted this interrogation room have metal hand slots in front of the cuffs. He didn’t want some lucky dude getting cut when he threw his knife.
“I—wait,” the prisoner spoke for the first time and Dory turned back.
“Nope, you had your turn,” Gunnar reminded him. “Now it’s mine. That tattoo on his arm is earmarked for the empty frame over my dining room table.”
“That’s not our deal,” Dory argued. “If they talk, they are mine. You only get to do the skinning if they refuse.”
Gunnar opened his mouth to argue but snapped it shut again when Dory kept right on talking.
“Grizzly, your claws stay off him while he is talking. That is the deal which keeps you out of prison, how copy?”
“Copy.” Gunnar stepped around Dory and left the cell, grumbling and muttering under his breath until the door closed behind them.
“Did it work?” Mojo asked.
“Does it ever not?” Gunnar grinned at Dory’s second in command. “These tangos need to start growing bigger balls. One little mention of skinning them and they cave. I never get to have any fun.”
“Hah.”
He could see Dolan eyeing them curiously. “Good cop, bad cop,” Gunnar said softly. “If you make them think bad cop is their worst nightmare, then good cop and answering questions seems a more reliable option.” He didn’t want their new recruits thinking he really did condone war crimes. “We’ve never had one not choose the easy cop route after five minutes of psychological warfare from bad cop.”
“Want me to move so you can watch through the window?” Dolan asked.
“Hell no, not yet.” Gunnar tapped the side of his head, letting him know he was listening to everything which happened inside the room. “The second he stops talking, I’m going back in.”
“Roger that, Sir.”
