Free The Silent Army by James Knapp Page A

sleep. Most people didn’t even need to be totally under for me to get them to tell me what I wanted to know, and it was less obvious that way.
    “Just take it easy, Mr. Reese,” I said.
    I eased the colors back into a cold, calm blue, and watched his face relax.
    “I just have a few questions. Will you cooperate?”
    “Sure,” he breathed, settling back into the wheelchair.
    I risked a glance back toward the glass panel that separated the rooms. It was a one-way mirror, so I couldn’t actually see the people on the other side, but I could sense them to the point that I knew where they were standing. Vesco and his friend were together, back toward the far wall. The woman, Alice, was standing directly in front of the glass, watching me. Her mind was calm and interested, but not suspicious. I looked back to Nico’s list.
    “Did you smuggle in the twelve devices?” I asked. The paper didn’t say what kind of devices they were.
    “Yes.”
    “Was Holst your original contact?”
    “No,” he said, “but the guy who set up the deal and the one who did the pickup were supposed to be two different people. I knew that.”
    “So you were expecting Holst?”
    “I didn’t know who I was expecting. The guy who set it up supplied a cipher. The pickup man provided the key. They also had the money. Everything was in order.”
    “So nothing seemed strange about the deal?”
    Reese’s brow twitched. “One thing,” he said.
    “Tell me.”
    “The buyer wanted the revivors too.The two that came to make the pickup didn’t say anything about that.”
    “No?”
    “No. That blond bitch, especially. She looked put off by the whole thing. Next thing I know, the goddamn Feds are busting down the doors, so I figured it was a sting; the bitch and her pervert friend were undercover. I go downstairs to take care of her, and she starts shooting.”
    “You didn’t see where the case ended up?”
    That actually seemed to excite him a little. An electric white began to course under the cool blue that surrounded him.
    “I thought you had it,” he said. He didn’t know.
    “Did the buyer say what the targets were?” I asked.
    “Just that they were big.”
    “Big?”
    “At least three large-scale urban targets,” he said. It took me a minute to realize what it was that he was saying.
    “They’re going to blow something up?” I asked.
    “What the hell else do you do with a nu—”
    “The nature of the case’s contents is classified,” a voice snapped over the intercom, loud enough to cut the man off, but it was too late. I knew what he was going to say. He had a weird look on his face, a sort of excitement in his eyes, even despite being under. Whatever was going to happen, he wanted it to happen.
    The city is going to burn. That’s what the dead woman said. Was this what she meant?
    “Okay,” I said weakly. My heart had started to pound. “That’s all.”
    “You can’t stop it now,” he said. “Change is coming, and you can’t—”
    “Shut up,” I said, and he did.
    I looked at the bottom of the paper Nico had given me, and it seemed to be turning in a slow circle in front of me. There were a few more questions he wanted asked that I was not expecting. Normally I think I would have chickened out, but I was still reeling from what I’d heard. I barely thought about it when I called back into the next room.
    “Agent Vesco, can you come in here for a second?” I called back. “The rest of you can go if you want. I’m done with him for now.”
    The door opened and Vesco came in. He looked at me like I was an idiot.
    “He’s lying, Ott,” he said. “If interrogation was that easy, anyone could do it. That case is worth millions; he knows where it is. They would have had a route set up to carry it back underground in the event they got busted.”
    “He’s not lying.”
    “So you ask him a question, and just accept the first thing that comes out of his mouth? He’s a black market- arms dealer sitting