Free Michael Vey 3 ~ Battle of the Ampere by Richard Paul Evans Page A

man said. “I just want to hear you say it.”
    “I’m not a toy,” she said. She turned her head away from him.
    “I don’t think you’re a toy. I’m just trying to develop a . . . rapport.”
    Taylor didn’t respond. The man looked at her for a moment, then said, “You’re not going to talk to me?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “Could you please tell me where you’re from?” He shifted in his chair. When Taylor didn’t answer he said, “From your accent I amguessing that you’re from the United States; perhaps somewhere in the west.”
    “Why do you keep asking me things you already know?”
    The man looked at her for a moment, then stood up and walked over to Taylor’s side and crouched down next to her. He spoke softly, just above a whisper. “You know that you’re being watched and recorded. I am not going to hurt you. But if you don’t cooperate with me, then they’ll just get someone else who will make you cooperate—someone with more . . . forceful methods. Perhaps one of the Elgen’s people.”
    Taylor still didn’t look at him. “So it’s the good cop, bad cop routine,” she said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “It’s on every cop show in America. One of you plays the nice cop who acts like he cares about me, while the other plays the bad cop who wants to bust my chops, so I confide to the good cop.”
    He nodded. “I see. Good cop, bad cop. I’ll have to remember that. But this is not an American TV show. The Elgen corporation is very influential, and they want you very badly. I’m not with them; I’m with the Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional. We are called SIN.”
    “You call yourself SIN? Is that supposed to make me trust you?”
    “I suppose in English that it is an unfortunate acronym. But we are like your CIA. We collect information about groups that are a threat to our country.”
    She looked at him incredulously. “You think we’re a threat to your country?”
    “You and your colleagues are a threat to my country,” he replied. “So you can talk to me, or you can talk to someone who is . . . not me.”
    Taylor just looked at him for a moment, then said, “What do you want to know?”
    He walked back to his seat and picked up his pen. “We’ll begin with your name. What is your name?”
    “Taylor.”
    “Taylor what?”
    “Taylor Swift.”
    He looked at her coolly. “Okay, Miss Swift. What state in the United States are you from?”
    “Utah.”
    “Utah,” he repeated. “Tall mountains. Who sent you here?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Who sent you to Peru? Someone wanted the power plant destroyed; who was it? A rival corporation? A foreign military power?”
    “It wasn’t anyone. We didn’t come down to destroy the power plant. We came down because the Elgen were keeping my friend’s mother captive.”
    “What friend?”
    Taylor looked down for a moment, then said, “Just a friend.”
    “Someone we have in captivity?”
    She looked at him. “Yes.”
    “Which one?”
    “Ostin,” she said.
    He wrote something on the pad.
    “How did you get to Peru?”
    “We flew.”
    “Are you sure?”
    She nodded.
    “Which airline?”
    Taylor swallowed. “Uh, Delta.”
    “We have checked the records of every airline that flies into Peru, and there is no record of you and your friends ever arriving.”
    “We drove,” Taylor said.
    “You drove to Peru?”
    Taylor nodded.
    “Are you sure?”
    She nodded again.
    “How long did it take you to drive from . . . Utah?”
    “A little over a week.”
    “Really?”
    She swallowed. “Give or take a few days.”
    “Where are the cars you drove?”
    “We sold them once we got down here.”
    He tapped his pad with his pen. “Are you sure?”
    “Yes.”
    “To whom?”
    “I don’t know who they were. Just some guys we met. I think they were probably drug dealers because they paid in cash. They didn’t want us to ask a lot of questions.”
    “And where are your passports?”
    “They took them from us.”
    “The . . . drug