Notes: In chapter six, I had a specialist call Tim "sir". I have fixed it so that he's calling Tim "Sarge" since it was pointed out to me that an enlisted soldier would not refer to another enlisted as "sir." As always, sorry for typos, and I hope you enjoy :-)

To guest reviewer: Hold yer horses ;-) But I like your enthusiasm!

Interrogation is a delicate, tricky thing. Lamb chops and other torturously repetitive children's songs aside, Lena doesn't hold with torture. Not that she bears any love or particular sympathy for those she has cause and opportunity to interrogate, and in her line of work ritual self-disembowelment can be easier than mustering any scrap of sympathy for her subjects. Most importantly it doesn't yield good results. Even in the absence of torture the too-strenuous insistence upon a particular course of events can render questioning useless as the subject shuts down, willing to say anything to bring an end to the ordeal and latching on too readily to what has already been fed him. Sure, now and then you'll get useful information, but generally there's also an important piece of the story that is withheld, often to the detriment of your own people. In such cases torture is a betrayal of your cause and allies because you were impatient and could have done far better.

Interrogation, Lena has been taught – lessons she has never had cause to question – hinges just as much upon the time you don't spend questioning a subject. She doesn't see Hadid for three days. For three days he is given water and some bread, increasingly stale. The water probably tastes odd. That would be the caffeine. No meat, no vegetables. The air circulation around his cell is impeded, making the air hot and stuffy and heavy. Miscellaneous noises that, to a terrified man, might sound natural to a prison can be heard day and night. Sometimes low, constant annoyances, and every now and then, just to make sure he stays awake, and lest he forget when ANA soldiers came to kill him, a flashbang – useful little things – is tossed in the neighboring cell or outside his door. Usually they have the interpreters do it, always chatting casually in Pashto outside his door before setting it off.

For three days Clarence asks him questions. He is never remotely on time. The sarcastic wit and charm are gone. Despite his penchant for paying people off he can be hard too. Clarence sits at a table with a water bottle in an ice bucket and a crisp salad all for himself. Hadid stands shackled ankles to wrists for hours, no water, no food. The shackles have been rubbed with capsaicin, and his skin is raw from the irritation and the scratching. The clanging and clinking of the metal chains as he squirms is near constant. Clarence asks all sorts of questions, some productive, some a colossal waste of time, some simply because he's bored. It doesn't matter; he's not there to get any information out of him. If Hadid spills his guts then wonderful, but if not then Lena is not worried, not yet.

Hadid is a soft man, a low-level bureaucrat, normally one who could be easily broken or paid off. But he is scared, scared enough that he is so far rather useless. She will find out of whom he is so petrified. Hadid tells them things they already know, desperate to be useful (sometimes the noises he hears outside his cell resemble a firing squad). One useful piece of information Clarence is able to confirm is that his terror of the Afghan government outweighs that of the American military. It is hinted to Hadid that Afghan officials have an interest in his testimony as well. He slips, suddenly interested and asks which ones. Clarence does not answer.

On the fourth day Clarence is gone. In his place sits Lena, clean white shirt, buttoned to her collar and wearing a hijab. It fully covers her hair, not carelessly resting halfway off her head. There are two plastic cups on the table, each sweating from the refreshingly ice-cold water that fills them to the brim, and there are two chairs at the table. A video camera rests discretely in the corner. Hadid's shackles are not pre-treated with capsaicin, and he wears them only around his wrists. Lena asks the guards quietly but audibly why his wrists are so raw.

She begins by asking easy questions, some that he has already answered for Clarence and only ones that they have already been able to corroborate with truth. Lena bids him drink after each correct answer, handing him a fresh water bottle once the cup is drained. She does not open it for him. After these questions she asks new ones, seemingly inconsequential, yet leading. She is not so much gentle as business-like and non-threatening. This in itself puts him on edge. It must be a trick. She asks the important questions: who did he give the security tapes to and where are they now, who was on them, and who stole the hotel vans? But he does not answer, feigning ignorance and innocence. Then why was he holed up in a grape hut and shooting at Americans? He was watching his cousin's land for him while he was on a trip, and the AK-47's were for his protection. He was confused in the ambush and would never have shot at American soldiers. Their governments are working together, and they are on the same side! She pushes, firmly and knowingly but without meanness or threats. After only three hours, she claims hunger and business elsewhere. Before standing, with a meaningful and mildly concerned glance at his capsaicin-chaffed wrists, she asks if he is being treated well. He nods vigorously, not yet trusting of what she would do with his opinions.

The fifth day goes much the same, as does the sixth; however, on the sixth, instead of feigning ignorance he pleads for her to understand his silence, that he has a family and can't risk them. She asks about all of his coworkers and his superiors, general questions about what they are like, carefully noting his reaction to each name. She asks him about his family, what they do. He has a brother who used to be in the ANA as a translator, and a cousin who recently joined, but he is in Kandahar, far to the south. She asks if he has any other connections to the ANA. He shakes his head instead of saying no, leaning back slightly and asks for more water. She passes him a water bottle and accepts the lie, that no, he does not know anyone else in the ANA. Lena asks after his treatment. This time there is hesitation when he says everything is fine.

After two more days and a visit from Clarence, he tells her that he is very tired. She promises to see what she can do. There is noise during the day, but during the night, there are no more flashbangs or firing weapons. The next day, he says perhaps, maybe, if it is possible, he might like something besides bread. He is given milk and lamb meat with his bread. Still he does not tell her about the tapes. The day after she informs with professional detachment that the ANA would like to question him, so if he has nothing further to tell her, then he will be moved.

That day he tells her the tapes have been destroyed, burned in the kitchen of the hotel the day of the suicide bombing. He begs for her protection and she trades it for three names.

o.O.o

Tim knows she's in her office before he even gets within fifty feet of it. How her neighbors are tolerating the loud, pounding base is a mystery he'll let them worry about though. The sound multiplies tenfold when he opens the door, something rhythmic and electric. Lena has her back to him, bouncing energetically between sections of a massive corkboard. She tacks up pictures and notes, pausing occasionally to uncap the pen she holds in her mouth to write more notes or draw lines between nodes. The music is too loud and she's too focused on her work, so he leans in the doorway, momentarily happy about her lack of situational awareness. The music may not be his style, but the way she moves to it is. Her hips dip and twist, fluid motions that catch the eye and don't let go. It crosses his mind that if she were to be a stripper in their post-deployment destination Lena would be an instant favorite. The uncomfortable thought of other men enjoying the same show shuts down that line of thinking.

She turns around to check her computer, and his eyes snap up to an appropriate target. Lena pulls the pen out of her mouth. He sees rather than hears her exclaim, "Tim!" Flustered looks good on her.

He smirks, eyebrows raised teasingly, smug at catching her out. "You're wearing boots."

Lena gestures for him hold on and turns down the music. "What did you say?"

He points to her feet, "I see you've finally come to your senses."

"Yes, in deference to your delicate and finicky sensibilities I am wearing 'appropriate,'" an eye roll accompanies the air quotes, "footwear."

"Your want a gold star or something? Now let's go. I got a mission briefing in an hour and we still have to get you earpro and eyepro."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Ranger Man sir." She's quick to follow him out the door, no dawdling.

"So you've really never shot a gun before?"

"Only thing I've shot at a target is darts."

"Darts?"

"Yeah, all that time in bars is what got me through school. Does shooting a gun also get easier when you've had a lot of beer?"

"I dunno. You could always just shoot yourself in the foot now and find out."

"Hard pass."

o.O.o

Lena lets the pistol drop to her side in defeat. This is so much more entertaining than he thought it would be. It's even better than watching a boot lieutenant trying to find his dick in the woods with a compass.

"That was better." Better being a very relative term in this case.

"What?" Listening to all that loud music earlier means she's having a harder time hearing him through the headphones, and he keeps having to repeat shit.

Tim raises his voice. "I said that was better."

"Oh yeah. Right." Lena pushes the headphones aside. "Did you see that? I hit the bleeding wall. Over there." She points six feet to the right of the target. "How is this so hard? You point and you shoot. I mean how do you screw that up?"

"Well I ain't the one screwin' it up." Her mouth pulls down at the corners, and he feels a twinge of sympathy at the shame that covers her face again. "Hey, you do realize that's why they make us spend years training, right? Also, pistols are harder than a normal rifle."

"Oh yeah, that's why everyone's a sniper."

"I said normal rifles."

She eyes him, clearly suspicious of being placated, but accepts it, or at least doesn't argue the point further. "Well then why am I starting out with the hard stuff? Shouldn't I be starting easy and work up?"

"Nope, you can't be carrying around an M4, so you need to learn to shoot somethin' you can carry on you."

"Fine. Fair enough." He thinks he hears her mutter 'sadist' under her breath as she pulls the headphones back into place and brings up the pistol again, taking a deep breath that does fuck all to get rid of the frustrated tension.

"Your finger's too far in on the trigger again," he yells, "Middle of the pad!"

Despite rising temper and frustration, this isn't quite the misery Tim expected it to be. Watching Miss-I-wake-up-half-an-hour-early-so-I-can-do-my-eyeliner-when-I-live-on-a-military-base-Carlan continuously fuck up at something that comes as naturally to him as breathing provides a deeply satisfying sense of schadenfreude. And in all fairness she is trying. The only complaints Lena makes are about herself, not the gun or the sound or the smell. The target might have three holes in it instead of twenty, and they might be far from center, but she's trying. Every three shots Lena stops and looks to him for criticism, and when he gives her advice she does her best to take it. It usually goes to hell the moment she pulls the trigger; every time she fires it's like there's a small cannon trying to jump out of her hands. It might have been more than a little bit unfair to start her off with a Colt .45, but he gave her the big gun to see if she's serious. If she doesn't quit, she can have a 9 mil next time.

"Stop squinting."

"I'm not squinting, I'm looking through my left eye."

"Why didn't you say you shoot left?"

"I'm right handed!"

"Left is what eye you use." It's fun being the calm one in the face of her exasperation.

"Well, if you'd told me that…" Lena grumbles, switching hands and shuffling her feet around. "You're enjoying this."

"Would you rather I not?"

"Yes."

"Fine, then I'll leave."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

"Stop bitching at me and take the shot. Keep both eyes open."

"I'm not bitching!" The shot goes wider than the last one. "That doesn't help! My eyes cross when I do that."

"Pick the image you see in your left eye. You're doing this for something besides target practice, so you gotta get used to both eyes being open. You have to see the surroundings as well as focus on your target. Stop rushing yourself."

"Maybe I should just shoot myself in the foot."

"Take those boots off first." She gives him a withering look, and Tim can't help the shit-eating grin that spreads uncontrollably across his face. She's cute when she's mad, like a little bird ruffling its feathers in a sudden downpour. He'd never say it though. There's a three in twenty chance he'd end up with a bullet hole in him.

"You –"

"Oy! Gutterson!" Carter is jogging towards them. At least when Lena turns around to look, she keeps the barrel pointed down range instead of swinging it around with her.

"Fuu…great, more audience for my failure."

"You're here to learn, not impress people."

"Easy for you to say, you're actually good at this."

Carter reaches them and says to Tim, "Hey dude, captain said to have your gear ready before the briefing." He turns to Lena, catching sight of the target in the process.

"Shit man. First time?"

"Yes." It's directed more at the ground.

Tim waves her back to the line. "Three more shots."

When she's out of hearing range, Carter leans over. "Bro, did you give her a .45 for her first time?"

"Yeah, I know right?" he says grinning, happy to have someone else to share the joke with.

"You're a dick. That's like giving a virgin surprise anal."

"Oh god." Tim tries to spit out the image. "Dude."

Carter just laughs and elbows him in the side, and Tim is thankful Lena can't hear them.

She was already frustrated, a condition made worse by another observer, and all three bullets go wide.

"At least," Carter says with feigned gravity, clapping a hand on her shoulder, "you have a steady day job." Her shoulder jerks back reflexively at the contact, and she sidesteps neatly out of arm's reach before recovering with a smile that's mostly friendly.

"I am holding a gun you know."

"Yeah, Carter, she'll cap you."

"I'll go stand by that target then, where it's safe."

Tim turns to Lena, "You gonna take that?"

True to his word, Carter saunters downrange to stand in front of the target.

"Oh Christ. Screw it all. Today is done." Lena flicks on the safety, ejects the clip, and pulls the slide to make sure the chamber is empty. Carter laughs and jogs back over.

"You givin' up on me, ma'am?" Tim asks.

"Fuck you. You're not getting out of this so easily," she says, handing the weapon back to him.

"Oh shit, an F-bomb." But he can't help being pleased.

"I'm pissed. Besides, I was never good with hard and fast rules anyways."

"Tim, come on." Carter snaps his fingers.

"Yeah, yeah." Then to Lena, "Captain's waitin'."

The annoyance evaporates. "Be safe ok?"

"You say that like I want to be hit by bullets or something."

She purses her lips at him. "Just deal with it."

He tips his hat, "Ma'am."