Chapter 14: A Man Who Will Not Be Turned
(Thursday, 31 July, 2003. 1030 hours.)
Steve paced nervously outside the small interview room. He wasn't sure how far underground they were, but on the elevator ride down, it had felt like several floors. As far as he was concerned, hell itself wasn't deep enough to bury the people he was here to see.
Steve had been surprised early that morning when Dane Travis, of all people, had walked into his cell and asked him if he still wanted to speak with Alejo and Elena Mateo. If his father, the Chief, and Jesse hadn't been standing in the hall behind him, all three of them dressed for travel, Steve might have been suspicious, but as it was, he only hesitated a moment before saying yes. Not knowing where he was going or how long he'd be gone, he'd put on his jacket, grabbed the unopened carton of milk and the banana from his breakfast tray, and headed out the door.
As shocked as he had been to see Dane that morning, it was nothing compared to the realization that the helicopter was taking them all to Cedar Lake Military Reservation, the place where he'd found Jesse's wallet when Quinn Trask had kidnapped him. They'd been met by the same older Asian man who had questioned Steve and tried (almost successfully) to intimidate him when he'd been caught climbing the perimeter fence. Steve was getting a better idea of who Elena and Alejo Mateo were by the minute, and it made him wonder just what in the hell the Chief had done before he became a cop that had kept these people pissed off at him for forty years.
"Son, they've only given you thirty minutes," his dad said gently. "Are you sure you're ready for this?"
Steve looked at Dane and considered asking him if he could postpone the confrontation for a few days. As if reading his mind, Dane shook his head and said, "I won't be able to get us in here again. I pulled a lot of strings for this one trip. It's now or never."
Steve crossed the room to the door, took hold of the knob, and entered the interview room.
(Thursday, 31 July, 2003. 1030 hours.)
Steve couldn't help but feel relieved that the two other people in the room were in full restraints, and not just because he'd spent far too many days bound like an animal on their account. He needed to know that they could be restrained, that despite what they had done to him, they could be stopped. Strangely, he took no pleasure in seeing them in chains.
"Elaine," he greeted the woman first, "or should I say Elena?"
"Pfft," she hissed at him. "Suit yourself."
Turning to the man, he said, "and you must be Alejo Mateo. I understand you knew my boss some years ago."
"Oh, don't let him kid you, Lieutenant," Mateo said congenially, and that familiar, suave, cultured voice made Steve's stomach fill with acid. "To say we 'knew' each other is a terrible understatement. The giardia in the water coolers that kept your dad and friends from going away with you that weekend, it was his idea. We tried it for the first time at a mental hospital in East Germany back in the sixties. There was a scientist wanting to defect, and we were sent in to bring him out. Jack and I were closer than brothers until he stole from me the one thing I would not have freely given him."
Steve could only take so much of that voice at any one time, and, as he was just beginning to appreciate the Chief as more than just a competent leader, he really didn't want to know what dark secrets lay in the older man's past. He turned to Elena instead. "I thought we had some good times together. Was there ever anything there, or was it just my imagination?"
She gave him a derisive snort. "Get over yourself. It wasn't even your imagination, it was my acting. You were an asset to be used, a means to an end, nothing more, nothing less."
Steve took a deep breath to forestall any comments he would regret later. Then he asked the question that had been on his mind since his ordeal began. "Why did you decide to use me?"
"You were an easy target," she said, "a little insecure and oh, so needy, though you don't even realize it. You need to be needed so bad. I'd heard about your disastrous love life. Do you know some of your own colleagues still call you the unluckiest bachelor in LA behind your back? I knew you'd be the one the day we met. You carried those file boxes for me, all three at once, stacked up one on top of the other, so proud to show off your big muscles and your good manners. You reeked of desperation."
"Some people call that common decency," Steve said, reigning in his temper. Surprisingly, Elena's insults didn't hurt. It was the oblique reference to Lily that infuriated him. Somehow, to hear this vile creature mention anything to do with that beautiful young woman seemed an attempt to sully her memory, and Elena and her father had soiled quite enough of his memories as it was.
"I thought you'd be strong enough to do what you had to do to protect your friends and family," she said snidely, "but I guess I was wrong. I'm so disappointed."
"You were wrong, Elena," Steve heard a dangerous, whispery voice behind him, and he nearly jumped. Turning, he saw the Chief standing at the door. Surprised that he'd never heard him come in, Steve just stood aside slightly to make room for him to fully enter.
Looking at Alejo, the Chief continued. "You still are wrong about him, as a matter of fact. You see Lieutenant Sloan is really much stronger than either of you gave him credit for. He was able to find a way to tip us off about what you had done to him. Your plan didn't fail because he was too weak to kill me. It failed because he was too strong to let you make him do it."
Looking at Steve, Masters said, "Lieutenant, they're asking us to leave now."
Steve just nodded, too stunned by the compliment to say anything more. He'd gotten the answers he needed, even though he hadn't been able to ask all the questions. As he walked out of the interview room, he heard Mateo laugh, "Jack, if I'd had another twenty-four hours with him, you'd be dead, and so would he."
Steve felt a chill run down his spine and wondered if it had really been that close.
"Don't kid yourself, Alejo, I haven't forgotten the programming protocols," the Chief said, and Steve knew there was definitely more in the man's background than he wanted to find out about, "forty-eight hours or seventy-two, it makes no difference. You could have had all the time in the world, and it wouldn't have worked. Sloan is a man who will not be turned."
Steve heard a sinister laugh as the door creaked shut.
(Thursday, 31 July, 2003. 1100 hours.)
"Kat?" Steve said in shock as he stepped out of the elevator back in the sunlight at Cedar Lake Military Reservation. "What in the world are you doing here?" He couldn't hide the happy grin that seeing her brought on. He felt like she might be the one person who would understand how he was feeling now that he had confronted Elena and her father about what they had done to him.
"I, uh, I've come to see you off, Steve."
Dane, Jesse, his dad, and the Chief continued walking toward the helicopter while Steve lingered to talk. Frowning, he said, "See me off? I don't understand. How did you get here?"
She smiled sweetly. "After all you've been through, you can still be so naïve." She caressed his face. "Don't ever lose that innocence, Steve, I think it's what protected you from Mateo."
"Kat, what are you talking about?" He put his arms around her. It wasn't so unusual, she'd given him the occasional hug when he'd needed it and no one else was around.
"Steve, undoing what Mateo did to you required specialized knowledge and a lot of pharmaceuticals that are not commercially available," she said, "knowledge that Jesse doesn't have, and drugs he's never heard of."
Steve looked around and sighed. "You work here, don't you?"
She nodded. "I'm sorry, Steve."
"Will I ever see you again?"
"Oh, Steve," she said sadly, "a guy like you doesn't want to know someone who does what I do for a living."
"But, Kat, you help people."
She pushed him away slightly. "Steve, treating patients, helping people, is a rare privilege for me. Usually, I just extract information. I'm very good at it. Hell, I invented some of the drugs Mateo used on you."
As the implication of what she had just said sank in, Steve drew further away. "I see," was all he could say, and he did see, all too clearly. He couldn't suppress a shiver of revulsion.
"Don't look down on me, Steve," she said. "Don't you dare look down on me for what I do!"
"How can I not?" he asked, "After all I've been through, how can I not?"
"By remembering this. The world needs people like me."
"I'm sure it does," he said sarcastically.
"Oh, it does, all right," she insisted. "In the past three years, I have collected information that has allowed our covert operations teams to find three nuclear weapons and a cache of chemical agents all in the hands of terrorist groups planning strikes against our country. It's people like me, hiding away in the dark little places that nobody else even wants to think about, that make the world safe for people like you to live your lives."
Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath. What Kat had said was exactly how he viewed his own job as a homicide detective. She was doing a job nobody else wanted and most people couldn't handle. And she was doing it for the benefit of some of the same people who would hate her for it.
"You're right," he said, "I can't look down on you. But I don't want to know you anymore, either. Thank you for helping me." He took a step back, swallowed the lump in his throat, and said, "Goodbye."
Steve walked to the helicopter and climbed in without ever looking back. He didn't see Kat wipe away her tears as the motor started, and he didn't see her waving to him as they took off. He was done with her, and he hoped she was through with him, too.