Echoes of the Storm

Chapter 17

Noah Payntz screamed when icy water struck his battered body. He would've toppled over, but the chair had restraints around his chest and legs. His hands were tied, rubbed raw and bleeding and shackled to the wall above his head.

Berg watched the interrogation, glad he wasn't on the other end of it. Two weeks, and their prime suspect—their only suspect—in Tic Ford's escape from the MedCenter hadn't uttered one word. Hadn't been broken.

Talk, damn you. Or die. Either way, the suffering will end.

Seated beside Berg, Costarossa stared through the one-way glass. Berg didn't have to guess she was thinking the same thing. He swallowed a gulp of lukewarm coffee and made a face.

The interrogator tapped his digipad. A charge snaked through the chest straps holding Payntz, riddling his half-naked body with energy jolts. Payntz screamed again.

Costarossa clenched her fist and rapped the table, thoroughly disgusted. When the interrogator struck Paytnz with an electro-cudgel, viciously and repeatedly, she closed her eyes.

Payntz went quiet. His head lolled forward. He didn't so much as twitch when the interrogator sent another jolt through the straps.

"That's the end of that," Berg said.

Costarossa's eyes flew open. "Did they kill him?"

"He's unconscious."

"Idiots," Costarossa said.

Berg agreed with her, but scowled. The sergeant should know better than to insult their comrades.

"Is he done for?" Densiger had come in quietly.

That sums it up nicely, Berg thought. The questioning of Noah Payntz had ended. Would he regain consciousness? And when? He might never speak.

And Ford was still on the loose.

Colonists, his head ached. It didn't help having a team who couldn't keep their mouths closed. They were asking for trouble.

"Haven't I told the two of you to keep your opinions to yourselves?" Berg asked, his focus on the other room where a guard removed Payntz' restraints. "Let's try to keep our jobs...and our heads."

"What do you think Norse will say, Chief?" Costarossa asked.

"Maybe we should hightail it to the hills," Densiger offered, only half-kidding. "I don't know if I want to be anywhere within a hundred clicks of HQ when Norse hears we've got nothing."

Berg topped off his coffee from the brew station. You could never have enough coffee on hand while monitoring an interrogation or prepping for a meeting with Norse.

"It's not all bad news." He sipped the drink and watched two medics arrive with a stretcher to remove Payntz' battered body. At least he had one positive to take to his meeting with Norse. "We don't have Ford, but we did find the tunnels beneath the MedCenter. That part of the underground's operation is shut down for good."

Densiger cleared his throat. "The underground shut themselves down."

"True," Berg agreed, still looking for ways to put a positive spin on the situation, "but that was a vital link in their organization, and now it's gone."

"Still, Norse may not take this well," Densiger replied.

"With any luck, his attention will be on a much bigger problem. Jack Gamble hasn't shown up yet," Berg told them. "The way Norse has talked, he seemed certain Gamble would've shown his face by now. And that one's completely beyond our control."