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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

City of Kórinthos

Planet Odysseus

Bellerophon System

Free Worlds Alliance

January 15, 2553


Governor Ramsay’s wheelchair bumped over something, and something else brushed solidly against her shoulder. The hood over her head kept the air around her face stuffy and warm. She hadn’t brushed her teeth in days and smelled their foulness on her breath.

The hood came off. Bright light stung her eyes, and her stomach tightened—in fear, not surprise—as she recognized the brilliant cone of light and the darkness beyond it.

“Hello, again, Governor.”

Alaimo laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, and she shrank away while disgust surged in her throat. He only smiled and bent at the waist to look her in the face.

“Ready to tell me where Xeneas is hiding?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I didn’t know yesterday. I don’t know today.”

“Wrong answer.” Alaimo flicked a fingertip against the tip of her nose. “But if that’s your decision, we’ll play the game your way.”

“You’re the one doing this!” She pulled against her restraints. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. Don’t make anyone else suffer for something I can’t give you!”

Alaimo hooked his thumbs into his belt. He wore fatigue pants and a T-shirt, and his body was sweaty, as if he’d just finished a workout. That was her first thought. Then she noticed the raw knuckles on both his hands.

“Well, considering how much trouble I went to to find someone so close to you, we can’t let this opportunity go to waste, can we?” he said brightly, then raised a hand and waggled two fingers together.

A holo display appeared. At least this time it was only a single cell, not dozens of them. That was Ramsay’s first thought. But then she recognized who was in that cell. Erasmia Samarili, President Xeneas’s personal aide, was lashed down to a bodyboard. Her feet were slightly higher than her head, and a wide repair patch covered her right forearm.

Ramsay gasped, then looked quickly away. Not that it would do any good. She knew her body language had betrayed her.

“My intelligence officers did a thorough search of the planetary databases, and we found a wedding registry for a future Mr. and Mrs. Faben.” Alaimo tapped an index finger against his bottom lip. “They had gifts from the whole who’s who of Bellerophon, so, obviously, they were important. But we had the hardest time figuring out who these ‘Fabens’ were. Until we cross-referenced delivery addresses, that is. When we did, it turned out that Mr. Faben is your son Derek, and the soon to be Mrs. Faben is…”

He waved a graceful hand at the holo display.

“The Five Hundred do enjoy their little social games with weddings and whatnot.”

“Please, she’s just Xeneas’s secretary!” Ramsay lied desperately. “She was only in charge of his calendar, for God’s sake!”

“Oh, I think she was a bit more than that,” Alaimo said with a smile.

“She was his secretary!” Ramsay repeated, her heart a lump of ice as terror for the future daughter-in-law she loved crashed through her. “Yes, his personal secretary, but she didn’t have anything to do with policy decisions! That’s why he left her home, to keep her out of the line of fire! She doesn’t know where—”

“She’ll talk,” Alaimo interrupted. “Had to medicate her out of shock from her capture, but she’s lucid enough for what comes next.”

“But nobody told her where the planetary government’s dispersal sites were, either! She wasn’t going with Xeneas, so she was never cleared for that information!”

“I’m afraid you really can’t expect me to take the word of a proven traitor for something like that,” Alaimo chided. Then he slapped his hands together. “Same rules as our last game.”

He took a spoon from his back pocket and slid it between Ramsay’s fingers.

“General, please.” Ramsay fought back tears. “I’m telling you, she doesn’t know anything! And I don’t—”

Alaimo clamped a hand over her mouth, driving fingertips into her cheeks painfully, and shook his head.

“I find serial lying extremely annoying, Governor,” he said. “You may not have any plans, but my time’s too valuable to waste on this kind of nonsense.”

The tears Ramsay had fought blurred her vision, and he shook his head again.

“Have you ever watched a waterboarding?” he asked. “It’s really something else.”

He slid his hand off her face as he moved behind her and began massaging her neck and shoulders as two men stepped into the cell with Samarili. Each of them carried a bucket in each hand.

Samarili whimpered and wiggled against her restraints, and Alaimo raised his voice slightly.

“Microphone, Volkov,” he said.

“Live now, Sir,” Volkov’s voice replied out of the darkness, and Alaimo smiled down at Ramsay.

“Don’t worry, Governor, we won’t miss hearing anything, but I’m afraid my voice is the only one coded to go through to them.”

Ramsay stared up at him, her eyes filled with sick hatred, and he chuckled. Then raised his voice.

“Mr. Grant, please begin,” he said.

One of the men in Samarili’s cell set down his buckets and plucked a small towel from his back pocket. He shook it out, then laid it over Samarili’s face and held it taut. He said something to her, and the young woman screamed as the cloth covered her entire face.

The other man lifted a bucket and poured a steady, heavy stream of water onto the towel. Chunks of ice bounced off Samarili’s covered face as her scream ended in a gurgle. She bucked against her restraints, her head thrashing from side to side. It seemed to go on forever before Grant slid the soaking towel off her face and let her suck in a breath.

“Please,” she gagged. “Please stop! I can’t help you!”

Alaimo chuckled.

“They’re always so precious when they’re just starting out,” he told Ramsay, then raised his voice. “More, please, Mr. Grant.”

The towel went back over Samarili’s face and another bucket’s water flooded over it. It was poured more slowly this time, and she jerked frantically.

“It’s a funny thing.” Alaimo patted Ramsay’s cheek. “The human body and mind react to waterboarding exactly as if they were actually drowning. Same panic. Same pain through the entire body from oxygen deprivation. You know what that’s like? Being unable to breathe when your lungs still work? Sucking down that ice cold water—”

“Stop!” Ramsay screamed. “Please stop!”

Alaimo snapped his fingers and another bucket flooded down. This time, Grant stepped back, leaving the wet towel on Samarili’s face. Her struggles became even more frantic, then slowed as she began to pass out from lack of oxygen.

Grant plucked the towel away and slapped Samarili across the face to wake her up. It took quite a few slaps. Finally, she coughed up the water and started sucking in deep, ragged breaths.

The other interrogator left…and returned a moment later with more buckets of water.

“This goes on as long as you want it to,” Alaimo said to Ramsay. “Grant and his assistant are well-versed in this. They almost never cause lasting brain damage, although sometimes—”

“You’re going to burn in hell!” Ramsay shouted.

“Ehhh…Continue, Mr. Grant.”

Alaimo mussed Ramsay’s filthy, unwashed hair. Grant poured cold water directly onto Samarili’s face; she gagged and spat a mouthful of water at him.

“Derek!” she wailed. “Derek!”

Ramsay dropped the spoon.

“Hold,” Alaimo said over the microphone, then picked the utensil up and waggled it beneath the lights. “Give me something actionable right now, Governor. You won’t like the penalty phase of our little game if you don’t.”

“Xeneas…he trusts me.” Ramsay’s mouth went dry. “Have—have me meet with him. Just let me go, and he’ll have me brought to him. Everyone on Odysseus knows me, and it’ll take no more than a few hours before—”

“Oh, that’s not what I’m asking for.” Alaimo shook his head. “I’m afraid you’ve committed a foul. Pick a city.”

“Put a tracker on me! Implant a bomb in me! I’ll do anything—”

“Anything but tell the truth, it seems. Don’t drop this again.”

Alaimo slid the handle of the spoon back into her hand and tapped his personal comm.

“Central, K-strike authorized on…Chios, that sounds appropriate,” he said. “Authorization Kilo Alpha Three-Seven-Three-Seven.”

Ramsay’s heart twisted. Over forty thousand Odyssians called the city of Chios home.

“Now, where were we? Where were we?” Alaimo mused. “Ah, yes! Resume, Mr. Grant.”

The waterboarding began again, and Ramsay squeezed her eyes shut and forced her chin down to her chest. A moment later, cold metal touched her jawline. Alaimo pressed the edge of the knife against her skin hard enough for her to feel its razor sharpness but not—quite—hard enough to draw blood.

“You chose this,” he told her. “You have to watch.”

“I don’t. She’s not part of this. Please, I’m begging you,” Ramsay pleaded.

“There’s a comm net!” Samarili gasped. “I…I don’t know where the President is—I swear I don’t! But I know where one of the emergency comm nodes is!”

“That’s progress.” Alaimo pulled the knife away, nicking Ramsay’s chin. “But I’m not incredibly pleased with you, Governor. I try and I try, and I can’t quite seem to find the motivator to recall you to your sense of duty as someone who was once the official and appointed representative of the Federation here in Bellerophon.”

He shook his head sadly, then smiled.

“Actually, you know,” he said, “maybe there is someone who could supply the right motivation. Unfortunately, we don’t have him in custody at the moment. But I’ll bet that with that nice piece of bait right there, we can reel in young Mr. Faben with minimal effort. And once we do, I’m sure he can convince you to see reason.”

Ramsay’s heart seemed to stop. She stared at him, then dropped the spoon.

“You…you win,” she said softly. “I’ll tell you what you want.”

Her voice was barely above a whisper, and Alaimo leaned in closer to listen.

Her mouth opened—and she lunged forward to the full scope of her bonds. Her head darted out, her teeth snapped shut on the lobe of his ear, and she bit down savagely. He jerked back, she saw his fist swing, and then the world vanished in a bright flash of light as he punched her squarely in the face. Her head snapped back, then rebounded forward, and blood ran from a broken nose over split lips.

“Rude. Very rude, Madame Governor.” Alaimo pulled out a handkerchief, holding it to his bleeding earlobe while he shook the hand that had punched her, and her heart sank as she realized she’d failed. She was still alive.

“It seems I’ve been too merciful,” he continued. “Your future daughter-in-law could have gotten through all this with no lasting physical harm. But now I’m going to let my personal security detail…enjoy her charms. And you get to watch before—”

“Um, Sir?” Volkov’s voice interrupted. “There’s been a…development you need to know about.”

Alaimo scowled at the interruption. For just a moment, the vileness of his soul showed in his eyes, but then the genial mask snapped back into place.

“It would seem duty calls,” he said, still holding the handkerchief to his mutilated ear. “But it wouldn’t do to leave you unrewarded for your efforts, Governor.”

“Grant?” He raised his voice, turning back toward the holo. “Get Ms. Samarili’s statement and move her back to holding. Then swap in the good Governor.”

Grant nodded, and Alaimo patted Ramsay’s shoulder with a broad smile.

He left, and Ramsay watched as Samarili was rolled away on her bodyboard. She knew what was about to happen, and yet she smiled. At least the young woman she loved would be spared for a bit.

It was the only gift Ramsay could give her, and pathetic as it was, a sense of gratitude flowed through her.

Grant came for her a few minutes later.



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Framed