Day Zero

by Marc Cameron

  Both Carly and Mattie stood beside him watching intently as he knelt in front of the couch and spread everything out on the tan leather cushions. Natalie sacrificed her small digital camera to the cause. Carly commandeered a DVD of the movie Titanic from a passenger. There was a roll of clear packing tape from the first-class galley, two malleable wax earplugs from his Popeye-chinned seatmate, and a set of tiny screwdrivers another flight attendant used for repairing her eyeglasses. The most difficult thing to find had been a blade—an item Quinn was rarely without on the ground. He ended up making do with a case knife from the first-class galley that was at least sharp enough to carve the filet mignon.

  He pressed the power button on the camera, saw the battery was fully charged, and then turned it off again. Using the minuscule screwdriver, he removed the six screws that held the back in place and passed them to Mattie so they wouldn’t get lost—and so she would feel useful. The lens assembly was easy to find, but before he touched it, he located a blue insulated cylinder that resembled a stubby double-A battery. Two wires protruding from the base were soldered to a circuit board.

  Careful not to touch the wires, Quinn pried the top of the cylinder upward with the point of his screwdriver. He bent it back and forth against the solder until it broke free, leaving two quarter-inch leads attached. He took one of the wax earplugs and used it to cover the wires before handing it to Carly.

  “Careful,” he said. “That’s the flash capacitor.”

  She smiled. “Like Back to the Future?”

  “That’s a flux capacitor,” Mattie said, grinning that she’d gotten the joke.

  “No kidding,” Quinn said. “Be careful with it. It powers the camera’s flash. There’s enough electricity stored in there to knock you off your feet if you make contact with the wires. You now have what we call a field expedient stun gun.”

  Carly pinched the small metal cylinder by the insulated sides and held it away from her body. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “You don’t have to be that careful.” Quinn took it back and held it in the palm of his hand. “It won’t bite you unless you give it a shove and push the wires through the wax. Put it in your vest pocket. You might be glad you have a weapon if things get hairy.”

  Quinn checked his watch and then turned his attention back to the camera. Four more tiny screws allowed him to access the CCD, or charged coupled device, that was the brains of a digital camera. He lifted it out carefully to find what he was looking for.

  “Wow,” Mattie whispered as if she was in church.

  Quinn used the tip of the smallest screwdriver to lift the tiny square of glass far enough so he could get his fingers around it. He held it up to the light, turning it back and forth so it changed from green to shimmering purple, the colors of an oil slick on water.

  “What is that?” Mattie leaned in, peering at the jewel-like treasure.

  “It’s an infrared light filter,” Quinn said. He was never one to dumb down a conversation for his daughter’s sake. “It keeps the regular pictures from getting all hazy. When we take it out, the camera will let in light that we can’t see with our eyes.”

  He used the tip of his thumb to measure the size of the interior lens assembly, and then set the camera aside. Ripping a piece of the clear packing tape, he stuck it to the media side of the DVD and smoothed it with a tissue from the lavatory. He was careful to keep his fingerprints off it as best he could. Once he’d burnished the tape enough that he was satisfied there were no air bubbles underneath, he began to peel it back, a millimeter at a time. A metallic layer of gold-colored film from the back of the disk came up fixed to the sticky side of the tape. It took a few minutes with the case knife, but he was finally able to saw out a square of the material the size of the little IR filter.

  He used his thumbnail to rub off just enough of the foil backing along the edge of the tape that it stayed in place when he pressed it to the lens assembly.

  Natalie’s curiosity got the best of her and she craned her head to get a better look from her security post by the bulkhead. “How can you take a picture now?” she asked. She frowned as if she disapproved of this science project when there was a murderer on the plane. “Won’t the foil get in the way?”

  Quinn took the screws one at a time from Mattie and began to replace them as he explained. “With the filter gone, it will be too bright inside the plane to get a good image,” he said. “We need something to block out as much of the visible light as we can. They make special filters for this sort of thing, but we have to use what we have on board. The black ends of developed photographic film, the inside of an old computer floppy disk—”

  “That’s a funny word,” Mattie said. “What’s a ‘floppy disk’?”

  “Never mind,” Quinn said, tightening the last screw on the back of the camera. “You’ve heard of infrared light, but you don’t know what a floppy disk is.... It makes me feel old, but I guess they were before your time.” He held up the camera. “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got to get back to work. How about you go on and read some more of your book?”

  Mattie skulked to her seat. She stared out the window, thinking, no doubt, of building her own infrared camera. She was like that.

  Quinn walked back to the stairwell and turned on the camera. Thankfully, he hadn’t damaged the fragile lens mechanism during the process of his hack. The focal length had changed when he’d removed the glass IR filter so the focus was slightly off. But other than that, the device worked perfectly. The dark teakwood stairs showed up a ghostly gray in the LCD screen while the blood looked like pools of black ink around the body.

  Carly’s mouth hung open in amazement when he showed it to her.

  “That’s incredible,” she said. “How do you learn stuff like that?”

  “A misspent youth.” Quinn shrugged. “I learned the stun gun thing with my brother during a break from college.”

  Carly started to laugh, but her eyes locked on the dead body. The success with the camera had taken her mind off it for a moment, but the stark reality of death came flooding back.

  “What now?” she whispered.

  “Now?” Quinn said, holding up the camera. “Now we go hunting.”

  Chapter 53

  Maryland

  Virginia Ross stood naked and very much alone in the corner of the empty concrete room. She’d always envisioned cells as being smaller, but this one was cavernous—big enough to add to the heavy weight of insignificance brought with it. The echoing expanse of the place only made her feel more naked than she was. Closer walls would have been welcome friends.

  Apart from the institutional stainless-steel toilet with a water fountain and small sink at the top, there was nothing else in the room, not even a privacy screen that was common in modern prisons. No bed, no chair—even the table where Agent Walter had questioned her had been taken away, presumably because it gave her something to hide behind.

  Until she’d been dragged off to this secret hellhole, no man had seen Virginia Ross out of her clothes since her husband had died. She’d never been svelte, even in college, but the very thought of intimacy after her husband was nothing short of gruesome. She found it sobering how much emotional safety the thin layers of cloth had offered. Even the scant running shorts and clammy T-shirt had allowed her some sense of humanity. Now, even that was gone and the lily-white object of her self-doubt now glared at the cameras in full, uncovered glory.

  Of course, she’d read reports of the resistance training agents endured as part of specialized units. She was well aware of how instructors systematically broke them down by taking away anything that made them human. But reports could not come close to the abject terror of a fifty-four-year old woman when the three men marched into her freezing cell and ordered her to hand over the last few scraps that covered her body.

  Ross was a highly educated woman who held her own in debates with world leaders from some of the most misogynistic countries on the planet—but when those three men, har
dly older than college frat boys, backed her against the concrete wall and sneered at her nakedness, she’d babbled like an infant. A slap would have stunned her less.

  Ross read somewhere that the more civilized a person was, the harder they took certain forms of interrogation. It made logical sense, but logic flew out the window when dimpled nakedness was exposed to the stares of leering men. She’d lost control of her bladder, setting her captors to cackle at her predicament.

  She’d wanted to ask for a towel but, she, who just hours before had commanded the most powerful intelligence organization on earth, found it impossible to open her mouth and speak.

  The men had fanned out like wolves, ready to rush in and grab her. Ross could hear blood rushing in her ears. Tears poured down her cheeks. Her throat was so tight she was certain she might choke to death at any moment.

  The apparent leader of her tormentors, a pasty thing with greasy black curls and a gold chain on his neck, took a half step forward. He towered over her, using his bulk for intimidation.

  “Boo!” he said, his face just inches from hers.

  Ross recoiled as if she’d been punched. The men all shook their heads as if they were disgusted. They left her alone—shaking, naked, and vulnerable, but untouched.

  She was standing with a shoulder tucked in the corner, forehead leaning against the wall, when she heard the metallic click and whir of the cell door. Agent Walter walked in carrying a thick file folder tucked under his arm. He was wearing a different suit, brown but just as wrinkled as the gray one. Two men in gray coveralls followed him, carrying a rusted set of bedsprings. They set the springs inside the door and then ducked out for a moment, to return with two stainless-steel chairs. One chair had a padded seat. One did not. Both shone like mirrors under the bright light of the cell.

  Agent Walter said nothing of the rusty springs, leaving Ross’s imagination to run wild about their purpose. After checking to make sure there were no more instructions, the two helpers left Walter to his work.

  Ross tried to squeeze deeper into the corner when the heavy steel door slammed shut.

  “Looks like you found the only hidey-hole you could.” Walter chuckled, nodding toward her corner. His voice rattled around the room like a pebble in a tin can, grating on Virginia Ross’s nerves and making her want to scream. She bit her tongue, resolving not to give him that satisfaction.

  He shook his head when she didn’t answer, still laughing under his breath. “I’ll have to suggest we move to circular rooms. That way you people won’t have anywhere to run.” He flipped the padded chair around so he could sit looking across the back, staring at her as if she were an animal in a zoo.

  “I assume you’ve taken a polygraph before,” he said.

  Ross held her breath. She wanted to act indignant, but when one’s appendectomy scars were showing, haughtiness was a difficult thing to muster.

  Walter’s chin rested on his hands along the back of the chair, muffling his voice. “It’s a simple question, Virginia.”

  “Of course, I have,” she said. “Many times. I want to know why I can’t have my clothes.”

  “You’ll have to earn them back,” Walter said. He reached in his suit pocket and pulled out a small wad of white cloth. “But, as a sign of good faith, I brought you this.” He pitched the cloth on the ground like it was a treat and she was a dog he was trying to lure closer.

  She took a tentative step toward him, stooping quickly to snatch up the gauzy scrap. It turned out to be a robe like some women wore over their swimsuits on the beach. Several sizes too small and made of thin, nearly transparent cotton, it barely reached the middle of her thighs. She had to hold it closed in the front, but it was still a welcome gift.

  “Thank you,” she said, angry with herself the moment she’d uttered the words.

  All business, he nodded to the other chair, five feet in front of him. “Go ahead and sit,” he said.

  “I’d prefer to stand.”

  “It wasn’t a request,” Walter said, his voice dripping with contempt.

  Clutching the robe shut with both hands, one at her breasts, the other just below her bellybutton, Ross maneuvered herself into the chair so she didn’t have to face him directly. She shivered as her skin touched the cold metal.

  “Anyway,” he said, once she was seated. “About the polygraph. I have some questions we need to go over beforehand, you know, to make certain you are aware of what we’ll be asking you.”

  Agent Walter opened his manila folder. He began with a series of rapid-fire questions about her education, where she’d lived, her family, the date and cause of death for both her husband and her daughter. He touched on, but never delved deeply into, CIA operational issues. Everything he mentioned was already widely known and a matter of open source. The questions went on and on, more like some sort of word-association test than any quest for information.

  Ross sat with her legs crossed. The flimsy robe covered her as long as she held it shut, but added little to her modesty. Movement meant exposure and exposure meant Walter would win. So, she remained frozen in the same position, eyes locked on the agent’s dowdy flap of hair. Ten minutes into the conversation, her lower back screamed for relief. Five minutes later, her legs were numb from lack of circulation. It was hard to judge time in the windowless cell, but she’d always had a fairly accurate internal clock. As best she could tell, she’d been without sleep for at least a day and a half.

  Dizzy with fatigue, she burned a great deal of energy just trying to control her terror. It took Ross half an hour to realize she was sitting in a specially designed interrogation chair. Though nearly impossible to tell from looking at it, the front two legs were almost an inch shorter than the back ones. Unlike Agent Walter’s chair, this one had no padding and the seat had been polished to a high gloss. Even in the chilly cell, stress and fear induced great droplets of sweat to roll down Ross’s back and buttocks, adding to her embarrassment and slicking the stainless-steel chair. With her legs crossed, all her weight was on one foot against the floor in order to keep from sliding out of the seat.

  Forty minutes into the questioning, she couldn’t help herself and planted both feet on the ground. Hiding behind clenched eyes, she arched her back to relieve the pain. She jumped when she heard the door buzz open.

  The two men in coveralls had returned. Flanking the door, they stood at parade rest and waited for instructions.

  Agent Walter bent his neck from side to side, groaning as if he was the one in pain. He closed the folder and dropped it in his lap.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  She stared at him, fearing he was only going to toy with her again.

  “You’ve lost a considerable amount of weight, but I assume you still enjoy food.”

  “My stomach couldn’t handle anything right now,” she whispered, staring at the tiny hairs on her thighs. She, who would have tugged the hem of her skirt down if even an inch of her knees peeked out, was talking to this man while looking at the hair on her thighs. The world was a very strange place.

  The faint click of shoe leather on tile caused her to look up as the two men took up positions on either side of her.

  She followed Walter’s gaze to the rusty bedsprings against the wall. She’d wondered when he’d get around to them.

  “Are you familiar with the word parrilla?” he asked. He gave a cursory nod to the men, but they seemed to know already what to do.

  Ross began to hyperventilate as they grabbed her cruelly by each arm and dragged her on her heels to the springs. She’d never seen one in action, but could only imagine what the man had in mind for the metal frame. Time seemed to unhinge in her head. Oddly, she was more concerned that her robe had fallen open than she was about the rusted metal. She watched in horror as Walter rose from his chair and walked toward her. The men held her arms, but her legs were free. She wanted to kick out, to smash her heel into Walter’s smirking teeth, but her feet felt anchored to the concrete floor.

 
; “Parrilla is Spanish for grill,” Walter said. Methodically, he handcuffed her wrists to the rough corners of the bed as it leaned against the wall. Stepping back, he waited while the men did the same to her ankles. She turned her face away and shut her eyes, fighting the urge to scream.

  “Pinochet found grilling with electricity on a parrilla such as this to be quite effective in getting his point across,” Walter explained as though they were walking through a museum. “I believe agents of your own black ops department employ something similar from time to time—unofficially of course. Crude but very effective.”

  Ross caught her breath. “You haven’t asked me anything important.”

  Her eyes darted around the room, looking for an electrical outlet. The cell spun as she tried to make sense of what was about to happen.

  “I have a small generator when the time comes,” Agent Walter said, reading her mind. He reached inside the pocket of his suit jacket and produced a small syringe. It was white, with an orange cap like the ones used by diabetics for insulin. Ross turned her head as he brought it to wave under her nose. A tiny bit of amber fluid formed a drop at the end of the needle. She caught a whiff of vinegar.

  Heroin.

  Agent Walter sighed. “I made a little stop on Fourteenth Street on the way in to work today,” he said. His face was close enough now that she could smell the odor of cheese on his breath. “Did you know dealers give their product brand names?”

  Ross gagged.

  “The stuff I brought you is called White House, as a matter of fact. Funny, eh? Amazing what ten dollars buys you these days. They say it’s five percent pure. . . .”

  Ross struggled in vain against the metal cuffs, wrenching a knee and jerking at her arms until she thought they would rip out of their sockets. The men stood back and let her thrash, faces impassive as if they were waiting for a car to finish filling up with fuel.