Free Exile Hunter by Preston Fleming

his
ears for sounds from the corridor. Nothing. That did not surprise
him, as this was not some Hollywood dungeon or third-world fingernail
factory, where the screams of torture victims echoed through the
corridors to terrorize would-be enemies of the state. This was a
temporary holding facility of thoroughly modern design, an isolation
ward of sorts designed to preserve detainees and their information
for orderly intelligence exploitation. If Patricia, her daughter, her
father, and her husband were here, each would be kept apart from the
other and interrogated one by one.
    Linder’s thoughts
turned next to the words he would use if and when he saw Patricia
again, whether now, at Philip Eaton’s trial, or after sentencing.
The DSS would expect him to testify against her father and Roger, to
be sure. If he refused, it could be the end of him. Yet if he took
the witness stand and sent them to the camps, it would destroy his
last shred of self-respect. Linder raised his hands and covered his
eyes with his cupped palms. Of all the rebel exiles to be sent after,
why did they have to sic him on Philip Eaton?
    Overwhelmed by a rush
of conflicting emotions, Linder lay back on the cot to clear his
mind. A few minutes later, he heard footsteps outside and then the
grating of a key in a lock.
    The door opened. It was
Neil Denniston, wearing a crisply pressed beige suit and a cheerful
smile. Was it morning already or were they trying to disorient him?
Behind Denniston stood a brawny pair of Marine Security Guards in
desert camouflage fatigues, each armed with a truncheon containing a
built-in canister of pepper spray.
    “May I come in?”
Denniston asked.
    “I’d rather come
out,” Linder replied.
    “Sorry. Can’t do
that. If you’ll step back, I’ll come inside and explain.”
    “You do that. And
you’d better make it a damned good one.”
    Denniston walked past
Linder and nodded to the Marines, who stepped back and rolled the
sliding door shut.
    “Where am I?”
    “At the Embassy,”
Denniston replied.
    “Why the cell?”
    “Listen, I can
imagine what you must be thinking,” Denniston answered, observing
Linder carefully. “You must have a million questions. If you’ll
be patient, I’m sure we can work things out. But for the moment, I
think it will be better if you stay here with the other detainees.”
    Linder remained silent.
    “The problem is,”
Denniston went on, “we couldn’t tell you about our backup plan
before you met with Kendall because we didn’t want that knowledge
to color your approach to him. And, right now, despite whatever
suspicions he and Eaton may have about you after being taken into
custody, we want it to look like you’re in just as much trouble as
they are.”
    “Are they all here in
the Embassy?”
    “All four, including
the two females,” Denniston answered.
    “But why? Eaton was
ready to turn himself in, for God’s sake. All he wanted from us was
to leave his family alone.”
    “Yeah, we heard what
he told you,” Denniston replied coolly. “We’ve played back the
audio a dozen times. But Eaton’s no fool. If we had let him out of
sight for even a minute, the whole gang would have slipped the noose.
Once it was clear that your cover was blown, we had to move in.”
    “But what for?”
Linder persisted. “Eaton’s money is nearly gone. He was ready to
retire.”
    “You don’t really
believe that, do you?”
    But Linder did. In his
decade of undercover work among foreign terrorists and domestic
insurgents, he had developed a finely tuned sense of whom to believe
and when. This was difficult to accept among the deskbound staff
wallahs at Headquarters and do-nothing drones in the larger DSS bases
abroad, for whom the only good insurgent was a dead one. But, as he
should have known from the outset, the country’s bedrock
presumption of innocence had died the moment the DSS was born.
    So why, he asked
himself, had he assured the old man that he would go to bat for