Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9) by Allan Leverone (phonics reading books .txt) 📕

The door closed behind her with an authoritative clunk. Sitting up in bed, surrounded by three fluffed-up pillows, left hand cuffed to the aluminum bed rail, was a tall, mild-looking man Tracie guessed to be in his early thirties. A brilliant white wrap encircled the man’s head, presumably to hold the top of his skull on following his surgery.

Stallings had given Tracie a slim file containing all the intel the agency had been able to assemble on Limington, which hadn’t amounted to much. The man suspected of selling out his country for money had no criminal record beyond a few speeding citations, none of which had been written in the last five years.

Tracie stood at the doorway for a moment and locked eyes with Limington. Waited patiently until he dropped his gaze first. Then she crossed the room and slapped her manila file onto a small bedside table before sliding a chair next to the bed.

She didn’t sit yet, instead standing with her hands on the back of the chair, making a show of looking the man up and down. She took her time, letting Limington know the interrogation would proceed at her pace. He appeared nervous and his eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well, or perhaps had recently been crying.

Or maybe both.

“My name is Candice Clayburgh,” she said. “I’m with the FBI, and you’re in a lot of trouble, Mr. Limington.” She flashed her fake ID.

He barely glanced at it before answering. “You think I don’t know that? Believe me, I’m well aware just exactly how screwed I am.”

“I’m a little surprised you didn’t request your attorney’s presence for this interview.”

“I don’t have an attorney,” Limington said.

Tracie blinked in genuine surprise. “No attorney?”

“No attorney.”

“You mean you decided not to have him here today.”

“No, I mean I decided I don’t want a lawyer. At all. Period.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing to misunderstand. I know what I did, I regret what I did, and I’m willing to accept whatever punishment is coming my way for what I did. My life is ruined, anyway, no matter what happens from here on out, so what the hell difference does it make? All I want is for that backstabbing Russian fuck who screwed me out of fifteen grand, and then shot me for good measure, to get what’s coming to him as well. If that happens I’ll be satisfied.”

Tracie was shocked, not just by the fact the accused man was refusing legal representation, but by the soliloquy he’d just offered. She’d expected to have to deal with a recalcitrant suspect, maybe one who would refuse to speak at all. This was an unexpected development, albeit a positive one.

She sat without speaking for a moment, this time not in an attempt to intimidate the man but rather in an effort to reconsider her approach. She’d planned to hard-ass the guy, play good-cop/bad-cop without the good cop. But now it seemed that might not be the best strategy. Maybe Limington was bullshitting her, but if so, she couldn’t imagine to what end.

“Do you mean what you just said, Mr. Limington?”

“You don’t see a lawyer sitting here with me, do you? I mean it. Ask me whatever you want to know. I’ll answer to the best of my ability, although I don’t know what more I can add beyond what I’ve already told the police and your FBI buddies.”

Tracie nodded. “I understand. You’re probably already tired of telling your story. But sometimes going over events multiple times will cause something to shake loose in your mind, something you may have forgotten.” She had no idea whether that was true or not, especially given the fact that until today the only interrogations she’d ever conducted were the illegal kind, more often resembling torture than law enforcement information-gathering.

“Fine,” Limington said with a shrug. “Ask away. I’ve certainly got no place to be.”

“The police found five thousand dollars in cash when they searched your apartment, but you just said the Russian screwed you out of fifteen grand. You were supposed to be paid twenty?”

“That’s what we agreed upon, and I was stupid enough to think he was playing straight with me.”

Welcome to the world of international espionage, Tracie thought, where no one plays straight with anyone.

Instead of saying that, she settled on, “How did you expect to get away with selling a classified military prototype communication device? Didn’t you realize you were all but certain to be caught once your co-workers discovered the device missing? Wasn’t it only a matter of time?”

“The device wasn’t ever supposed to be missing,” Limington said, his voice shaking. Tracie thought he might be about to start crying, or maybe even suffer some kind of breakdown. He seemed truly miserable. She had to remind herself this meek, miserable man had apparently sold out his country to the Soviets.

“How can you say it wasn’t supposed to be missing? You agreed to sell this thing for twenty thousand dollars but you never thought he would actually take possession of it? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I never agreed to sell it to him.”

“I don’t understand. Make me understand, Mr. Limington.”

“He told me all he wanted to do was take photographs of it. I thought I would bring it to him, he’d snap a few dozen pictures of it, then he’d hand it back to be and I would return it to Marine Technix and no one would ever be the wiser.”

“Except the Soviets,” Tracie said sarcastically. “They would be the wiser.”

“Not really,” Limington said. “Even if he’d dismantled the outer case to take his pictures, the wiring and electronics are far too complicated to be deciphered simply by looking at photos.”

“So you thought you’d take advantage of your contact’s lack of knowledge about the subject matter to make some easy