Linda arched an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Make us pay?” She chuckled. “You have no idea who we are, so how are you going to make us pay? You don’t get it yet. We own you, body and soul. We can do anything we want with total impunity. You no longer have free will. We took that from you the moment we picked you up, and the sooner you understand that the quicker all this is going to end.”

Susan Donleavy had no reply to that.

“How’s this? Tell me what Dan Singer has planned and I will make sure you are turned over to Swiss authorities on accessory to kidnapping charges. I will convince Geoffrey Merrick to forgo an attempted murder rap.” Linda had been hitting her with the stick, now it was time to show her the carrot. “You don’t even need to tell me where he is, all right? Just lay out the bare outline of what he intends to do and your life is going to be unimaginably easier.”

Linda made a hand gesture like an out-of-balance scale and said, “Two or three years in a Swiss prison or decades rotting in a Third World jail. Come on, Susan, make it easier on yourself. Tell me what he’s planning.”

As part of her technique Linda kept hammering home the point about how easy it would be, how Susan had everything to gain and nothing to lose by telling her. Had Juan not wanted the information so quickly Linda would have chosen a different question, one that really had no consequences, just to get the dialogue open. Still, she was making progress. The defiance that had hardened Susan Donleavy’s features moments before was giving way to uncertainty.

“No one will ever know,” Linda persisted. “Tell me what he wants to do. I assume it’s going to be a demonstration of some kind, something he wants Merrick to witness. Is that it, Susan? Just nod your head if I’m right.”

Susan’s head remained immobile but her eyes dipped slightly.

“See, that wasn’t so hard,” Linda cooed, as if to a child who’d just swallowed her medicine. “What kind of demonstration? We know it has something to do with warming the Benguela Current.”

A look of shock ran across Susan’s face and her mouth gaped.

“That’s right. We found the wave-powered generators and the undersea heaters. They were shut down some time ago. Part of Singer’s plan has already unraveled but that isn’t important right now. All that’s important is you tell me the rest.”