Page 72 of Cooper

Okay, good.

I know Natalia is with Casey, Erik’s in his office with Jonas watching all the entry points to that floor, and Xander, Daniil, and Marcus are all off-site today at Parliament House.

Not knowing is driving me crazy, but I don’t dare leave my post monitoring everything. I can see what’s happening and everything seems calm.

“We got him!” I hear Sandor grunt into my earpiece.

There’s a shuffling sound and then it goes quiet.

“Let’s get him inside.” That’s Joe’s voice.

I realize my heart is beating triple time.

I really fucking hate not being in the action.

All I can do now is wait.

And hope they’ve got it handled.

* * *

“You want to watch the interrogation?”

The sound of Joe’s voice twenty minutes later jolts me to my feet. “Yes. Fuck yes.”

“Come on. We’ll monitor everything remotely on my laptop from the dungeon.”

“Is it really a dungeon?” I ask curiously.

He chuckles. “This place has been around since 1167. The dungeon, though reinforced by modern architecture, is still mostly original. Sandor left it that way on purpose. It scares the crap out of people when they see the medieval items of torture on the walls. We don’t use them—we stick to contemporary methods of interrogation—but it’s fun to freak them out.”

I grimace. “Jesus.”

We go down what has to be four flights of stairs and he’s not kidding about medieval torture devices. There are things on the walls I’ve only seen in pictures, and a handful I can’t even name.

I’m not easily scared, but I’d definitely be nervous if someone brought me down here. It makes me a little grateful I’d only been tortured by words and fists.

I push my own past to the back of my mind as we enter a small anteroom. There’s two-way glass so we can see into the chamber, but our captive—and ostensibly Sandor, who’s in there with him—can’t see us.

“What happened?” Erik demands, coming in a few seconds later.

Joe nods in my direction. “Our Protector-wannabe spotted something in the woods. He let Lennox know and the guards caught the guy.”

“What do we know?” I ask.

“Nothing yet.” Joe shakes his head. “Only that he seems to speak Arabic. Sandor and I speak a little, but not enough to have a real interrogation.”

“My Arabic is rusty,” Erik admits.

“I only recognize a handful of words,” I say. “Mostly curse words and food.”

“We’ve got translation apps on our phones,” Joe says. “One way or another, we’ll find out why he’s here.”

“What if he won’t talk?” I ask quietly. “What’s the protocol?”

“I don’t believe inthatkind of torture,” Erik says, “but he’ll go to a prison where we’ll throw away the key. After a month or two in that kind of hell, he’ll wish we’d killed him. At that point, they’re usually begging to talk. It’s not expedient, but almost always effective.”

I stare into the room, taking in the man now shackled to a metal chair.

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