Page 96 of Sins of Arrogance

Shov­ing him into the brightly lit steel lined room of In­ter­ro­ga­tion 1, I say, “I’m be­gin­ning to think an­other mob sent you.”

There’s a flicker of con­fu­sion in his eyes that he quickly douses.

In­ter­est­ing.

Tas­ing him a sec­ond time, I strip him down to his skivvies and se­cure him while his neu­rons are still too scram­bled to make him a prob­lem.

I strap his wrists first. Tight. Leather-lined, steel-core re­straints that bite down like teeth. Then his an­kles. Then the chest har­ness. I leave the head brace off – for now.

Pain makes most men stupid. I pre­fer mine just smart enough to be use­ful.

The stub­born set of my cap­tive’s jaw now that he’s com­ing back to him­self says it’s go­ing to take more than pain to get any­thing out of him.

Sweat beads at his tem­ples but there’s no fear. No anger. Noth­ing to clue me into how to break him.

Non­ver­bal in­ter­ro­ga­tion first it is then. Let him sit in si­lence, the cuffs bit­ing into his wrists, mus­cles twitch­ing as the last of the taser sting fades from his sys­tem.

I crouch be­side the pile of his gear and start go­ing through it, slow and me­thod­i­cal. Feels like I’m cat­a­logu­ing items in a tradeshow dis­play ti­tled How Not to Die When You Pick the Wrong Bunker.

His shirt is black tac­ti­cal weave. Mil­i­tary is­sue, but not stan­dard U.S. Army. No tags. No lo­gos. Even the seams have been torched – de­lib­er­ately frayed to re­move iden­ti­fy­ing marks. Some­one taught him well.

I pull a ce­ramic dag­ger from the boot sheath, hold­ing it to the light. “You al­ways pack this pretty, Boy Scout?”

Barely used. Edge clean enough to split air mol­e­cules. The han­dle’s been re­wrapped in para­cord. Tight and sweat-stained, like he ac­tu­ally trains with it, not just wears it for the look.

“Cus­tom job. Not off the shelf,” I mut­ter to my­self, then glance over at him. “You make this your­self, or did Daddy’s Black Ops credit card cover it?”

And what the hell is a black ops trained sol­dier do­ing on my patch?

No an­swer. No twitch.

His pants yield a mi­croburner zip­pered be­hind a hid­den panel in the waist­band. The pocket is lined with fine mesh wire. A Fara­day cage. Smart.

“Don’t want any­one track­ing your porn his­tory?” I taunt.

Still noth­ing. I’d be dis­ap­pointed at this point if he re­acted.

I’m start­ing to like this guy.

I reach for his wrist­watch next, un­clip the strap and flip it over. Garmin Tac­tix Delta. The kind with GPS scrub. Nice, but the next gen is bet­ter.

My crew’s tac­ti­cal smart watches were de­signed by our black­gloves for su­pe­rior per­for­mance on ev­ery level.

Un­der the tongue of his boot, I’m not sur­prised to find a folded SERE patch with Kevlar cord, lock­pick set, hand­cuff shim, and a ra­zor edge barely the size of a fin­ger­nail.

He didn’t ex­pect to be caught, but if he was, he came pre­pared to dis­ap­pear. Or en­dure.

“A real prep­per, aren’t you, Ranger Rick?”

That gets a tiny twitch at the cor­ner of Ranger Rick’s eyes. Con­sid­er­ing his to­tal lack of re­ac­tion so far, it’s prac­ti­cally a scream­ing ad­mis­sion that I hit a nerve.

“Not a fan of that one?” I mock. “Tough. You look like the re­cruit­ing poster for the Army. Be all you can be.”

Noth­ing.

I al­most smile. “Keep that jaw clenched and right­eous long enough, it’s gonna crack.”

Stand­ing, I cross to him, and hold up the lam­i­nated card I pulled from his wal­let. It’s a prayer to St. Michael, the Archangel, the plas­tic edges worn. This isn’t tac­ti­cal gear and it’s the only per­sonal thing on Ranger Rick.