She helped Mark to the car, and took his weight, and let him hop slowly, telling him everything would be all right. She told him that, the way she always told people, soothing and calm. And Sameh watched, looking upset and uncomfortable, the way she always watched, and then she suddenly began worrying about operational details. The way she always did when Ellie’s kindness unsettled her.
Sameh began glancing around, looking at the other houses, half-raising her sidearm.
“Hurry up,” she said to Ellie.
Ellie glanced around too. The street was still quiet.
“Everything’s fine,” Ellie said. “No-one’s around.”
Sameh opened the back door of the SUV, and took a cable-tie off her belt. “Hands,” she said to Mark, who suddenly looked scared again.
“It’s fine,” Ellie said to him. “Let her cuff you. It’s just while we drive.”
Mark looked at Ellie a little desperately.
“Go on,” Ellie said. “Put your arms out.”
He did. He did it without too much of a fuss because now he trusted Ellie. And because she was standing there, smiling and encouraging, and she was the one who was going to keep him safe from Sameh, who scared him more.
Ellie kept smiling while Sameh cable-tied Mark’s wrists, then she said to him, “Get in.”
He started to, clumsily, but Sameh got impatient and just pushed. She shoved him into the SUV, and slammed the door closed.
“Fucking idiot,” she said. She always got a little scornful to the targets who Ellie’s kindness worked on.
Ellie grinned, and kissed her, just to show her everything was fine, and that even though they disagreed about how to make arrests, they were still them, and strong, and together.
Sameh understood. She kissed back, but she still seemed a little unsettled.
“Come on,” Ellie said, and squeezed her hand. “Let’s go.”
Sameh nodded, went around the other side of the SUV, and got in the other back door, beside Mark. Ellie kept watching the street until Sameh was inside, then opened the front door, and got in herself.
“Done,” she said to Joe. “Let’s move.”
Chapter 9
They found an empty factory. There seemed to be a lot of them around. Ellie looked at a satellite image of the area on her tablet, and found a large building with weeds growing in the carparks around it, then told Joe where to go.
It might have been something agricultural, once, she decided. There were what looked like grain silos out the back, and a lot of plastic sacks lying about. The gate was closed, but someone had cut the chain years ago. So long ago that the cut end had rusted and crumbled, she noticed, as she opened the gate.
They drove in, right inside through a loading dock, and then all got out the SUV. Ellie pulled Mark out too, and made him kneel.
Kneel, because then he’d be scared, and more co-operative.
She needed him scared. Scared and confused, rather than angry. He’d had time to think, and to worry, but he’d also had time to remember he was a big bad tough guy and in a militia and everything. And Ellie being kind to him at his house might encourage him to make trouble now, too. Her kindness, and then nothing awful happening to him as they drove around, that might make him think he was safe.
Ellie needed him not to feel safe. She needed to scare him all over again.
So she did.
She pulled him out the car, and kicked his leg out from under him so he fell to his knees. She held his collar so he didn’t actually fall over and hit his face on the ground and knock himself out, or anything silly like that.
Then she looked at him for a moment, thinking.
Mark was sniffing, which was a good sign. He’d been sobbing earlier, too, but a little before that he’d been angry and kicking the back of Ellie’s seat, so she wasn’t sure what state of mind he was in right now. The sniffing might only be because he was having to breathe through his nose, she supposed. But the abandoned factory was fairly creepy, and he had to know being brought here, away from people, and not to a debt-recovery authority base was a very bad sign.
She let him look around for a moment, and work that out, and then she reached down, and pulled the tape away from his face, and pulled his gag out, too. Then she held out her tablet, and showed Mark a photo of the missing kid.
“Do you know him?” Ellie said.
He looked at her, thinking. He was trying to think, trying to work out what to do. He tried, but he didn’t seem to be thinking the right things. Instead of being sensibly scared, and helping them, and then being let go, he seemed to have decided he was going to be difficult.
Difficult really wasn’t what Ellie needed right now.
She drew her sidearm, and pointed it at his face. “Don’t be an asshole,” she said. “Just answer.”
He swallowed, and started to rethink being difficult.
“Hey,” Sameh said. She had climbed out of the SUV after Mark, through the same door. She was behind him. She slapped the top of his head, hard enough it made a dull thud sound. He jumped, and looked around at her.
“Hi,” Sameh said. “I’m here too, remember. Really don’t be an asshole.”
“Do you know this kid?” Ellie asked again.
Mark swallowed, and changed his mind. He changed it quite suddenly. That was what being scared and uncertain did to people.
“Please don’t hurt me,” he said.
“We won’t,” Ellie said. “It’s fine. Just answer.”
She sounded reasonable. Reasonable enough that Mark could still hope she was his friend, unlike Sameh.
He decided to answer. He was scared, so he didn’t think. People never thought, Ellie had noticed. She sounded reasonable, so Mark didn’t wonder why Ellie would kidnap him and take him off into the middle of nowhere and ask him who someone was. He didn’t wonder why she would go to all this trouble, just to ask a question, or what she might do if he didn’t help. Or what he might gain by keeping quiet.
Ellie would have paid him. She would have a done a deal on behalf of the company. She didn’t care how she found out what she needed to know. She would have paid a lot, but she didn’t need to.
Instead, she just stood there while Mark talked at her.
He opened his mouth, and said things, and gave away far more than he probably meant to.
He gave away enough.
“Maybe I know him,” he said. “But fuck, you didn’t need to get so rough. I…”
“Maybe you know him?” Ellie said.
“Yeah, maybe, but…”
Ellie nodded. That was all she needed. The maybe was enough. Everything from here would just be scaring Mark and hurting him until he told her what she wanted to know.
“Where is he?” she asked.
He looked at her. He had blood on his face, and blood in his mouth. Pushing gags into people’s mouths cut up their gums, and his had to be sore. He was dirty and muddy and his knee was injured, and probably starting to hurt.
“I don’t know,” he said, all the same.
Ellie couldn’t quite believe it. He seemed to suddenly be trying to negotiate. Now, after he’d already pretty much told her that he knew something useful.
“You’d better know,” she said, coldly.
“Maybe I do,” he said.
“For fuck’s sake,” she said. “You asshole. Just answer me. Do you know anything?”
“Let me,” Sameh said.
“No,” Ellie said. “Not yet.”
Torturing people worked, but only if done the right way. Ellie didn’t want information just beaten out of Mark because it might not be the truth, or entirely the truth. She wanted him just scared enough, just unsure enough of the right answers, that he had no choice but to be honest.
“Have you seen this kid?” she asked him again, trying to make herself stay calm. “Do you know where he is?”
Her voice was calm. Ellie was calm, and reasonable, and Mark’s friend. And Sameh terrified him. So he ought to be starting t
o realize that he was in trouble, and his best option was to do exactly what Ellie wanted him to do. Or so Ellie was hoping.
Mark didn’t seem to quite think so, though.
“Why do you care?” he said, still trying to bargain.
“Just answer,” she said, getting irritated.
“Will you let me go?”
Ellie just stood there, and didn’t say a word, and suddenly Mark was scared again.
As Ellie had hoped.
For some reason people were often more scared if you refused to say you wouldn’t harm them, rather than if you told them that you would. Ellie had never completely understood why. It seemed to her that most people half-believed that kidnappers and interrogators never lied. Perhaps because the interrogators were demanding they not lie, or perhaps because the situation they were in was unthinkably worse if they couldn’t believe their captors. Whatever the reason, Ellie had always found that simply refusing to answer a question like that was one of the most terrifying things she could do. A drawn-out silence when such a question was asked, and a clear refusal to say someone wouldn’t be hurt or killed, that was more frightening than any number of threats.
It usually worked, she had found, at least on people who weren’t desperately committed to a cause, and it worked now.
Mark gave up. He gave up right away.
“Oh fuck,” he said. “Please let me go.”
Ellie looked at him for a moment, making him feel worse on purpose. Then she said, “Maybe. We’ll see.”
“Please,” he said, desperate.
“Maybe,” she said. “But answer me first. Have you seen this kid?”
“Yeah,” he said, suddenly cooperative again. “Yes, I’ve seen him.”
“When?”
“A week ago.”
“You’re sure? A week ago?”
He nodded, looking unsure. “Yeah.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
Mark shook his head.
“Where did you see him?” Ellie asked.
He hesitated. “At a place I know…”
“Your militia’s compound?”
He seemed reluctant, but nodded.
“Is he still there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is he probably still there?”
“I think so.”
Ellie pushed the cloth back into Mark’s mouth, and put the tape back. More tape, now, but taking care she didn’t cover his nose.
She was done. She didn’t need to talk any more, at least for now. She didn’t need to do anything else but finish this.
She had to decide whether to kill Mark. She didn’t dislike him especially, and part of her understood this wasn’t his fault. She didn’t wish him ill, like she didn’t wish the hajjis she hurt ill.
She just needed to work out whether leaving him alive was a risk, or a threat to her.
She stood there, looking at him, trying to decide. She looked around, and listened. The night was still. They were out in the countryside. No-one was around.
“What are we doing with him?” Sameh said.
Ellie wasn’t sure herself.
Mark was looking at them, worried. Ellie couldn’t see very much of his expression, past the tape on his face, but it was enough to see he was worried.
“We should kill him,” Sameh said. “It’s safer. I’ll do it if you like.”
Mark made a noise. He started to panic. Sameh just prodded him with her foot and said, “Quiet,” and then to Ellie, “Do you want to or should I?”
Ellie didn’t answer. She stood there thinking.
She didn’t try to stop Sameh talking like that, even though Mark could hear her, and even though it was cruel to let him hear. She hadn’t yet decided whether she would kill him, and if she didn’t, she wanted Sameh to be a nightmare he had for the rest of his life, so he did exactly as she told him next, and didn’t breathe a word of this to another soul.
If she didn’t kill him.
She thought about it. It might be better that way. It would certainly be simpler, tidying up loose ends. Simpler, but maybe not necessary. Not if Mark posed very little risk. She tried to decide whether he did. She made herself think. To see him as a problem, rather than a person. Just a problem she needed to solve, something she needed to deal with, and nothing more than that.
She stood there looking at Mark, thinking.
Mark seemed to get worried, by her silence and her stare. He tipped himself onto his side, onto the bare concrete floor, and tried to crawl and slide away from Ellie, scrabbling and moving himself a little. She didn’t bother going after him. He wasn’t moving very much, only inches with a kilometer of open space around them. He couldn’t go far enough for it to matter.
She should decide, though, she thought. She shouldn’t make this unpleasant for him if she was going to kill him. She shouldn’t let him worry and suffer. She should just shoot him. Or put tape over his nose and let him suffocate. One or the other. But she shouldn’t drag it out.
All the same, she felt oddly reluctant to decide.
After a moment, Sameh seemed to realize.
She had been waiting, but now she became impatient. Impatient, yet she also seemed to understand what Ellie was feeling. This had happened before, Ellie’s hesitation about executions.
Sameh sighed, and went over to Mark. She stood over him, looking down at him, and reached for her sidearm.
“No,” Ellie said, glancing around. “The noise.”
Sameh nodded, and shifted her hand. She had a knife on the back of her belt. Ellie knew it was there, because it always was. She saw Sameh’s hand move towards it.
“Wait,” Ellie said.
“No,” Sameh said. “You wait.”
Sameh took out the knife, but hid it from Mark. She knelt, on his chest, and leaned close to him.
“Wait,” Ellie said again. She stepped sideways a little, so she could see past Sameh’s body. Sameh was holding onto Mark’s neck with one hand, and still hiding the knife in her other hand.
“Just let me,” Sameh said. “Stop worrying about it.”
“Wait,” Ellie said again. “I haven’t decided.”
Mark made a desperate gasp noise through his nose, and looked at Ellie frantically.
“Just give me a moment,” Sameh said. “Then it won’t matter.”
Ellie almost let her, because it was simpler, but then she changed her mind.
She shouldn’t let Sameh decide this. She should let Sameh kill Mark so casually. She probably shouldn’t have even let her start. Not Sameh. Not like this.
Sameh was different. She was a monster, something that came from a world of secret police cells and civil wars, and what was normal for her was excessive anywhere else. She was doing what seemed reasonable to her, but it wasn’t really reasonable at all. Sameh was always too quick to start killing people, and Ellie should know that by now.
Ellie should know that, and she should stop Sameh. She should, even though thinking it made Ellie a little sad. Sameh was doing this for love. Sameh was doing what she thought would help Ellie, because she loved Ellie. Like someone else would scatter roses around a house on an anniversary.
Ellie loved Sameh and wasn’t going to judge her, or condemn her, or tell her not to be herself, monster and all. But she also wasn’t going to let Sameh kill Mark for no real reason. Not if he wasn’t a threat to their operation.
And he wasn’t a threat, Ellie thought. He wouldn’t be, not now. Mark had been beaten and scared and hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Ellie was fairly sure he’d behave. He was unlikely to tell anyone what had happened if Ellie asked him not to.
Ellie was almost certain of that.
“Hold on,” she said. “Wait a moment.”
Sameh looked up.
“Let him go,” Ellie said, quite firmly. Firmly, so Sameh understood she meant it, and wasn’t simply pretending to soothe her conscience. So that Sameh listened, and nothing unpleasant happened to Mark as she stood up.
Sameh understood. She glanced at Ellie, then let go of Mark, and stood up, looking almost disappointed. He started rolling to the side, trying to get away from her.
Sameh put her foot on his chest. “Stop,” she said, and he went still.
Ellie went over. “Can you hear me?” she asked Mark. “Are you still awake?”
People sometimes fainted with fear and shock at moments like this.
“His eyes are open,” Sameh said, helpfully.
Ellie glared at her, and then looked at Mark again. She leaned closer, trying to tell. His eyes were open. He was conscious, and watching her, she thought. He seemed dazed.
“Can you hear me?” she said. “Nod if you understand.”
He nodded.
“We’re not going to hurt you any more,” she said. “We’re not going to kill you.”
Sameh said, “For fuck’s sake…” under her breath, but she might have been pretending, for Mark’s sake.
He said something into the gag, possibly thank you. Then he nodded again, a lot.
“We’re going to leave you here,” Ellie said. “You can walk back to town.”
He nodded again.
“But if you tell anyone about this,” she said. “If you warn anyone, or tell anyone about us, it’ll be very bad for you. She’ll come back.” Ellie used her foot to push Mark’s chin sideways, to turn his head toward Sameh. “She’ll come back and find you and do horrible things. Do you understand?”
He nodded.
“Good,” Ellie said. “Remember that.”
Mark nodded again and said something. That he’d do as he was told, Ellie assumed.
She hesitated, thinking. She thought a final time, trying to second-guess herself, to convince herself she was doing the right thing. She wasn’t actually completely sure, but she also wasn’t sure Mark should die, so it seemed only fair to give him the benefit of the doubt. If she couldn’t be sure he needed to die, then he probably ought to live. At least for the time being. He was terrified. He probably wouldn’t cause trouble. And even if he tried to, there wasn’t very much he could actually do to harm their mission.
“We’re letting you go,” she said. “But only just. So stay out of our way, all right?”
The Debt Collectors War Page 13
