In her time at the Agency, Jenn had sat in on more enhanced interrogations than she cared to remember. No matter how hard you thought you were, you carried each one with you. That she had believed in their necessity did nothing to help her sleep at night. The subjects had been men of principle and faith. Principles she despised. Principles that had led to unforgivable crimes. But principles nonetheless, and on some base level she could respect their devotion. Interrogating such men took time. It took time to break a devout man of his beliefs, and it was a terrible thing to witness. Worse still to be the one responsible.

Kirby Tate, on the other hand, believed only in his need. No principles other than his own ghoulish desires. A man like this was already broken. She did not expect to be here long. How much steel could there be in a man so weak he preyed on children?

She yawned and stretched. It had been a long night. She looked enviously toward Hendricks, asleep on the cot in the corner. She’d wake him in another two hours, and they’d go back to work on Tate.

Tate was a career criminal. In addition to the botched Trish Casper abduction, he had a lengthy record and had been in and out of lockup since he was fifteen. A child of the system, he would think he knew how it worked. Its rules. She’d known he would be confident about his ability to play it to his advantage. So after they had grabbed Tate at his house, they’d built the illusion in his mind that he was no longer in the United States. Leading him to believe that he was far, far from home and that no one was coming to rescue him. He had to learn early on that his concept of legality didn’t apply here—no lawyers, no Miranda rights, no bargains to be struck. Only answers or pain. Answers or pain.

Creating the illusion had involved driving Tate to a little-used airstrip, boarding him onto a plane, and strapping him into a seat. Of course, the plane never left the hangar, but in Tate’s mind they had flown halfway around the world.

Hendricks was a remarkably accomplished audio technician. He’d conjured an entire cockpit crew running through a preflight checklist. She and Hendricks had staged a prisoner transfer, manhandling Tate and barking instructions at him. Tate struggled and moaned under his hood but couldn’t speak through the gag. Hendricks had rapped him across the head and told him to be a good boy.