Chapter 29: Opening

Author's Note: The next couple of chapters are going to come kind of slow-I did a lot of research on counterintelligence tactics and training back when I wrote SERE, the novel where I introduced Cam Arlington, that was-gosh, can't believe it was about three years ago. But I had to dig all of that research out, pull out all of the counterintelligence manuals I found, dust it all off and reread all of it so I could write Warrant Officer Carter believably. Thanks for your patience!

"I don't haveta talk to you. I got rights. All I gotta do is wait for my Dad."

Lionel traded glances with Fin Tutuola. The other man had the same frustration in his eyes that Lionel knew was in his. Since they'd gotten Steve Wood here to the SVU's interrogation room at the One-Six, Steve had been stubbornly refusing to talk to them. Or rather, he'd been talking but it had basically been repeated requests for his father. Based on the boy's arrogant attitude and disregard for the consequences of what he'd done, the two men weren't expecting much cooperation from Mr. Wood. Although there had been a few parent-child combinations over the years who'd surprised the detectives, those 'exceptions' basically just enforced the 'rule' that you only had to see the son in order to know what the father was like.

Lionel rose from the table. "Come on, Fin. Let's let him stew. Benson and Carter are on their way back from the hospital now; I'll bet Carter can get what we need out of him. After all, her son is Lia's boyfriend, and I know she likes the girl. And with her military skills…he'll be singin' like a bird by the time she's done with him."

"Uh…military?" Steve's façade cracked a little.

"Oh, you didn't know?' Lionel said with mock casualnesss. "Oh, Fin, he didn't know."

Fin looked at Steve with an unpleasant smile on his face. "Yep, that's right, he doesn't know. That's okay. This poor fool will never know what hit him."

"You—you're just trying to scare me." Steve leaned back in his chair with a grin.

Lionel leaned forward, hands flat on the table. "Detective Carter is ex-Army. You know what she did while she was in? She was a military interrogator. Did a tour in Iraq, has a Purple Heart to show for it." He leaned in, dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "I've seen what she does to guys in the interrogation room. It's not pretty. They never knew what hit them." He straightened up, and his voice returned to its normal tone. "I tell you, you'd be a heck of a lot better off talkin' to Fin and me than her, but hey, if you wanna play hardball…no one plays hardball like Joss Carter."

"We're guys. We understand when we get them sudden urges, you know, you gotta relieve it somehow," Fin said laconically, standing up from his chair. "Women, they don't understand this guy stuff. But hey, if you wanna go ahead and face Joss Carter in the interrogation room, you go right on ahead. At least it'll be entertaining." He and Lionel left without further words, although as they exited they saw the unsure look on Steve Wood's face in the one-way interrogation room mirror.

Kylie Whistler was sitting sullenly in her chair staring at the floor when Lionel and Fin came in. Wordlessly, Lionel handed her an ice pack wrapped in a towel; she took it, similarly wordlessly, and held it gingerly against the dusky bruise standing out against the fair porcelain of her cheek. Under the harsh lighting in the interrogation room, she looked washed-out and pale; the only color was the dark-brown roots of her hair under the bottle-blond curls.

"Are my parents here yet?" She finally asked when a few minutes had gone by with no conversation. Fin and Lionel exchanged grins. It was an old trick, let an uncomfortable silence drag on for too long, and inevitably the suspect would be the first to break the silence.

Fin spoke first. "Not yet. We're still tryin' to reach them. But my Captain, Olivia Benson, is on her way back from the hospital with Detective Carter after making sure Lia was okay, and they'll be here momentarily. We're just waiting for them."

Lionel added, "Your boyfriend Steve decided he'd rather wait and talk to Detective Carter instead of us. That's okay." He leaned back in his chair. "Told him he'd be better off facing us than a pissed off Joss Carter, but he decided he'd rather get worked over by a military interrogator than us, so if that's his choice…" he shrugged. "Lia is Taylor's girlfriend. Joss really likes her. So Steve's gonna have a heck of a time explaining to her why he did what he did."

"Yeah, but she'll get the truth out of him," Fin leaned back in his chair. "She might be out of the service but that doesn't mean she's lost her interrogatin' skills."

"Interrogation?" The look on Kylie's face said she wasn't quite sure she believed the two men or not.

Lionel grinned nastily. "She used to be known as Warrant Officer Joss Carter, Military Intelligence Specialist. Might just be Detective Joss Carter now, but she hasn't lost those skills that earned her a Purple Heart. No one can get a confession like she can. It's a pleasure watching her work."

Fin's phone buzzed, and he looked down. "Benson and Carter are done at the hospital. They say they'll be here in a few. Come on. Let's leave these two to Joss when she and Benson come in." They pretended not to notice Kylie's suddenly nervous look as they left the room.

"Are Steve and Kylie still here?" were the first words out of Benson's mouth as she and Joss entered the SVU squadroom at the One Six.

"Yep. Had a little trouble reaching their parents. Kylie's mom's voicemail was full and we ended up just leaving a message on Steve's parents' phone. They'll be on their way when they get the message. In the meantime," Fin's grin grew faintly malicious as he turned to Joss. "Dropped some hints 'bout you havin' been in the service as a military interrogator. They didn't look so sure of themselves then."

"So we're going to try the good-cop-bad-cop routine." Benson nodded.

Joss's grim smile didn't bode well for Steve and Kylie. "I'll be happy to play the bad cop." She turned to Fin. "But first I wanna see the video."

"I got it off the phone and into a computer as video evidence," Amanda Rollins piped in now, standing from where she sat at her computer. "Come and take a look…but I warn you, it's pretty ugly."

Benson, Fin, Joss, and Lionel walked over to Amanda's computer, stood behind her as she cued up the downloaded cellphone video. At first it swung wildly, unfocused, as Kylie apparently tried to get it working, then the picture steadied and cleared.

And the first thing they saw clearly was Lia, clearly incapable of coordinating movement, clearly incapacitated, lying barely conscious on the front lawn of the frat house. "Give me her dress and her backpack and just get out of here. You did your part. Thanks. Glad to see your loyalty to me still holds." There was a slight pause; the look on Trinity Cross's face was one of indecision, conflict, as she looked at Lia lying unconscious on the grass; then she shrugged, grabbed Lia's backpack and prom dress out of the front passenger side of her car, and put them down on the curb. Then she got in and pulled away.

"Do we know who that is?" Benson said quietly as they watched this bit of video.

"Girl at Taylor and Lia's school named Trinity Cross. She's been getting closer to Lia these past couple months since the Valentine's dance—that's another story for another time—and Lia just asked Taylor if I would mind if she went shopping for a dress for junior prom with her new 'friend' Trinity instead of with me." Very softly, Joss finished, "If I'd known that Kylie told Trinity to make friends with Lia just to set her up, I would have insisted on taking her like we agreed."

"There was no way you could have known this was going to happen," Benson said reasonably.

"Known? No. But guessed, maybe...Sam saw Lia's danger. She's been trying to make friends with Lia, even following us one night when John and I were Taking Taylor and Lia to an Italian restaurant to teach them polite table manners in a fine dining setting."

Lionel choked. "Wait a minute. Wonderboy is teaching Taylor table manners? Does he even have any?"

Joss swatted him, her mood lightening momentarily. "Stop. John has very good table manners. Impeccable manners for just about any setting. We ran into Paul—my ex—a couple months ago escorting his new girlfriend to a formal business mixer and John pointed out that Paul didn't know how to act or behave and he was embarrassing his new girlfriend. Said he didn't want Taylor to feel like he was embarrassing his girlfriends so he wanted to teach Taylor how to behave in polite society. Said there are just some things he needs to learn from a man."

Olivia smiled. "So...you're going to invite us to the wedding, right?"

Joss flushed. "There isn't going to be a wedding."

"You don't love him? He doesn't love you? Coulda fooled me." Fin was grinning at Joss, who just flushed a deeper pink.

"It's not that. It's..." she tried to find words, failed. "It's complicated. His life isn't his own to do with as he pleases, and that kind of renders the whole question of whether we love each other that much sort of moot." She switched topics. "We're going to need to have a talk with Trinity Cross, too. She looks sort of reluctant there, for just a moment; if there is some sort of conspiracy going on to put Lia in danger, she might be the weakest link there." She refocused on the video.

Steve, in the meantime, had grabbed one of Lia's arms. Kylie grabbed the other, still keeping the camera aimed at Lia, and they both dragged her over the grass into the house. As soon as the frat boys present there saw Lia on the floor, they cheered.

"Sick freaks," Fin snarled.

Joss nodded agreement but kept watching. Two guys stepped up to look at Lia, one bending over her and unbuttoning her shirt. Lionel made an inarticulate sound of disgust as they took her blouse off, unzipped her jeans, and then Steve held Lia's arms while these two guys wrestled her jeans off.

"Nice figure," one said approvingly. "Is she a virgin?"

"Probably. She never goes anywhere or does anything, so yeah, she's probably never been with a guy before." Then, "I know the routine. Setup, blackmail, then farm her out. Steve, take her upstairs and break her in."

Steve came forward, grabbed Lia's wrists; another young man in a purple letter jacket, who looked so much like Steve he had to be Steve's older brother, grabbed Lia's ankles; with her literally hanging in the air between them, they carried her up the stairs, Kylie following with the camera still aimed at Lia's unconscious figure.

Up the stairs, then top the first door on the right, into the room that Sam had found Lia in. They dropped her on the bed, and then Kylie ordered Steve to take off her panties. Lia seemed to wake up a little, then, as he tore her panties off, leaving her nude; she thrashed a little, flailed. Steve's brother grabbed her ankles, pinning them down to the bed as Steve grabbed her arms. Kylie apparently put the phone down on a nightable or some flat surface by the bed, because the next thing they saw was her bending over Lia. "Come on, be a good girl and drink this. Just a little more so I can make sure you don't remember this when you wake up." She grabbed Lia's chin and tried to force Lia's mouth open, to pour another small cup of what looked like punch but that Joss suspected was more of the Ten Scope-laced drink.

Lia was choking, yanking frantically against the hands that held her, almost convulsing. Struggling to breathe. Her eyes were glazed and unfocused but even on a low-quality cellphone video Joss could see dull panic in her unseeing eyes. "Sam was right," she breathed. "Anaphylaxis. She had an allergic reaction to the drug and they didn't understand what they were seeing—or they ignored it." She sucked in a harsh breath.

Lia's struggling was making it hard for Kylie to aim the Ten Scope into her mouth; frustrated, she snapped at Steve, "Hold her still, will you?"

"Trying," Steve muttered. "Not easy. She's pretty strong for such a nerd."

Kylie pulled her hand back and slapped Lia hard. Lia froze in her struggles momentarily, giving Kylie enough time to pour the rest of the Ten Scope into her mouth, then toss aside the cup and clamp her hand over Lia's mouth, preventing Lia from spitting the stuff out; then she pinched Lia's nose closed with her other hand until the girl was forced to swallow. She released Lia's nose, but kept her hand over the girl's mouth even as Lia went through another round of struggling and trying to breathe.

"Twice. They made her drink the stuff twice. She had an allergic reaction to that damn drug twice and they didn't care." Joss spun on her heel and marched off toward the interrogation rooms.

The closest room to her held Steve Wood. And at the sight of him, slouched insouciantly in his chair with his head resting on folded arms atop the table, apparently napping, infuriated Joss. He was sitting here cozy and comfortable while Lia lay in the hospital connected to tube and monitors, and when she finally went home...Joss was under no illusions that Lia's aunt and Uncle would have any sympathy whatsoever—their attitude when they'd found out what happened to her was pretty telling.

She knew the fury was showing on her face, and she didn't care, as she crossed the interrogation room in two quick steps, grabbed the back of the chair behind Steve Wood before he even really processed she was there, and yanked it out from under him, dumping him on the floor. "Get up," she snarled at him as she shoved the chair behind her, toward the back corner of the room, out of Steve's reach. "Get up. You don't deserve to be comfortable. Get up."

Steve blinked stupidly at her. He had been taking a nap. Her fury sharpened her voice as she said again, in that flat, hard tone that had made radical insurgents quail before Warrant Officer Joss Carter, "Get. Up."

He climbed to his feet, but now there was fear in his eyes. Good. Step one of an interrogation was done—the opening. The successful interrogator exercises the powers of an all-powerful parent, determining when the source will be sent to bed, when and what he will eat, whether he will be rewarded for good behavior or punished for being bad. The interrogator can and does make the subject's world not only unlike the world to which he has been accustomed but also strange in and of itself. He can shift the environment abruptly. The interrogator also chooses the emotional key or keys in which the interrogation or any part of it will be played.

She remembered the words from her counterintelligence interrogation training manual even as Steve climbed to his feet. And now he was showing the signs that she also remembered from her training, training that had become second nature to her, that had simply sharpened her own natural tendencies of observation—those same tendencies that had led the Army to recruit her into their highly-classified Human Resource Exploitation unit. A cold sweat is a strong sign of fear or shock. A pale face indicates fear and usually shows that the interrogator is hitting close to the mark. Emotional strain or tension may cause n increased pumping of the heart which becomes visible in the pulse and throat. In Steve, it was particularly noticeable—she'd seen his nervousness and fear when John had been holding the boy's chin back at the frat house; the boy's artery had been visibly pulsing. She'd keep an eye on that artery as she was questioning him—it would be particularly useful. And she'd let Olivia know to keep an eye on that artery too.

So. Shift the environment—which she'd done, albeit in a dramatic fashion, by yanking the chair out from under him. Now to establish the 'all-powerful parent' character, with an order he couldn't disobey; get up. And to her satisfaction, he was doing so. Not that much of a difference between a spoiled child and the radicals she'd learned and sharpened these interrogation tools from. And from watching the video, where he'd been following Kylie's orders, she was pretty sure she had his 'type' pegged; he was the greedy, demanding subject outlined in her counterintelligence training manual, dependent and passive, counting on someone else to give him orders, tell him what to do, or defend him—hence his repeated demands for his father. For subjects with his type of personality, becoming and understanding, sympathetic figure was the best way to gain his confidence in order to persuade him that Kylie had made the entire incident seem like his idea, this hanging him out to take the fall for what Joss was sure, from having seen the video, was almost entirely Kylie's scheme. Steve was just too passive, too much of a follower, to come up with this on his own.

But that was going to be Benson's job. And Joss knew Liv was perfectly capable of doing this; she'd seen the other woman in interrogations before, and also knew that Liv had gotten some tips from Clayton, since she employed many of the same techniques that Joss herself had used. Different women, different settings, same purpose. She might have made a kick-ass intelligence analyst if she'd gone into the military, came the stray thought, then Joss refocused on the boy in front of her, who was now on his feet. If she was going to set Liv up as the understanding, sympathetic character, then she'd have to present herself as the exact opposite; hard, uncaring, unwilling to hear Steve's explanation of his own actions—not that Joss really wanted to, either; there was no way to explain away what he'd done, no excuse he could rattle off that would make what he (and Kylie) had done any less reprehensible. "Mind telling me what you thought you were doing?" she hissed, letting her anger show on her face. A pause; now a nervous subject would try to fill in that uncomfortable pause. And then, true to her assessment of his subject type, Steve opened his mouth to talk.

She cut him off. "Never mind. Nothing you can say that would make any difference at all. Whatever your reasons were for doing this, it's not an excuse." Then, as he opened his mouth again, she read the protest in his eyes and snapped, "Save it. Kylie told us everything. How you manipulated her into setting Lia up just so you could satisfy your own desires." Come to think of it, Fin might be a better one to involve as the sympathetic character; the simple fact that he was male might establish a connective rapport...

And as if her thoughts had been read, Fin came into the interrogation room. "Cool it, Joss. He's a boy, he's still very young and he didn't know what he was doing. Why don't you go take a walk and cool off." She saw Steve's relieved look, smiled inwardly. Yes, Fin was perfect.

"Sure he knew what he was doing," she snapped at Fin, but that was her cue to exit, and she stormed out of the interrogation room.