Chapter 13

Interrogation Room 329

Sofia paused outside interrogation room 329, thinking. Over thinking. Why had Harry given her that key card? Had she been stupid to take it, failing some sort of test? Were the cavalry about to descend upon her in all of Harry's disappointment? Or had he fully intended her to take it, and to use it as he knew she would? Had it purely been out of guilt, not only for what Salko had one to her in the last few days but also for the eight years of torture she had suffered at his hands in Russia? Was Harry trying to make amends for the wrongs he had committed against her by extension in the last few years? Or was it more than that? Was he allowing her to do this for his own benefit? Was she allowing Harry Pearce to manipulate her?

She decided she didn't care.

Slipping the key card into the reader by the door she eased it open and padded softly into the room. A small, dark concrete prison, the muffled windows adding to the illusion that they were either underground or underwater, neither giving a very pleasant impression.

The only decoration in the barren room was the steel table in the centre with the slim man, hands and feet bound by loose chains, sitting at it, the picture of tranquillity. For now...

"Well hello my little slut." He purred silkily in Russian, leaning towards her, a cruel smile playing about his lips, "I wasn't expecting the pleasure of your company for a while."

"You shouldn't have been expecting my company at all. You didn't think they would let me question me given our recent and ancient past?"

"And yet here you are."

"And yet here I am. Despite the fact that in about four hours you will be officially interrogated by representatives of the British Security Services who will probably make up for their lack of personality in the social niceties of these situations that I could just never be bothered with. In the meantime, well, how shall I put it, officially this doesn't exist, unofficially...I'll try and leave something for them to work with."

"You don't have the balls for it. You talk a good game but that's it. All that time in Russia you swore that if you had your chance you wouldn't take it, I wasn't worth it."

"You weren't that much was true...Time's change Artem and really the word of a delusional half-dead woman in a Russian prison really shouldn't be taken at face value. I've told you a lot of things over the years and probably the only thing I've ever said that didn't contain at least a fragment of a lie was my name. That's how we communicate Artem, secrets and lies, the only thing we ever know are the truths hidden within them."

"The best lies are coated in truth to make them easier to swallow." He said, softly, watching her closely as she circled the outside of the room.

"Exactly, and the sugar-coating on my earlier lie is that I won't torture you for information, how dull, so, for now, let's sit down and have a conversation like the civilised beings that we are."

He watched with fascination that only she had ever been able to produce in him as she did indeed calmly settle herself in the chair opposite him, "You are a riddle wrapped inside a mystery inside an enigma." He told her softly, speaking as she made eye-contact with him.

This was also true. She had commanded in him a fascination that had never been acceptable in the first place that had mutated over time, eventually developing into the unhealthy obsession he now had for her. This was not fuelled by his desire for revenge and truth alone, far deeper and far more complex reasons existed to explain that. She had been something that he could connect with. Before he had used his intelligence and skills at reading people with an ease that meant they soon bored him. He exploited their pains and exhausted their secrets, they then became disposable tools with which he played simply to give himself something to do, they were a means to satisfy his sadistic cravings, nothing more.

She was different. She had presented a challenge, she was indeed, as he had put, a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, she held secrets deep within her that he had to work to extract. She was not like so many of the others that passed through the cold prison walls, transparent, as easy to read as the books in the expansive library whose halls he had frequently haunted. She had been capable of understanding what he said without having to use a dictionary to look up half of the words he quoted at her, could take the quotations he lovingly laid upon her ears and transform them into something even more beautiful by adding her own words.

She had given his life meaning. Not only did he finally have some kind of emotional investment in the secrets she held, a reason more powerful than money, to get the truth from her, she made him work for it. This had instantly drawn him to her, made her interesting, attractive desirable.

He no longer wanted her secrets, he needed her secrets. And they had to be hers; the same ones delivered by someone weak and undeserving would not satisfy his now insatiable hunger for her.

She smiled, recognising the quotation immediately also noticing the faint tangents that drew her back to their time in Russia "How appropriate. You never could figure me out could you Artem? You never thought we'd come to this because you didn't think I'd go through with it did you?"

"No I knew you would go through with it...I just would never know why."

"Speaking of why Artem, why are you here?" she said, smoothly deflecting the hidden question."

His eyes narrowed, sure she was tricking him as he spat, "You know why, you sent that blonde gorilla after me and gave her a gun so you could justify calling her human, she dragged me to you."

"Well, said well-armed gorilla had to find you first...Why did you make it so easy?"

"Animal magnetism." He purred with a cold smile, "We're drawn to each other Sofia, you can't deny it. I knew after you met with my initial demands they would think that you were suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, I thought differently but what I did know that there wasn't anything you wouldn't do in order to keep playing games with me. They should have wrapped you up like a glass doll, you couldn't let that happen, you chose to manipulate them in order to spend more time with me, no more contact, no more games, no more fun."

"You're right, no more fun, I'm tired of playing games with you Artem." She said, her face betraying nothing of her internal feelings that had gone into overdrive, trying to determine if he was right.

"Liar." He hissed, softly, "You live for this. You need this to remind you why you bother allowing yourself to wake up every morning. You've been existing for three years Sofia, you crave a worthy opponent in this chess game we call life. You stop playing games with me, you stop playing."

She watched him carefully. He was right. They would never be able to sit down and have a frank discussion over tea; they would be more open during a poker game. He had hit the nail on the head; she needed him, needed this just as much as he needed her. Her obsession for him was identical to the one he held for her. That put both of them in a potentially strong position, a position that only one of them could use to their advantage depending on how they played this.

If she was honest with herself, brutally honest, he was right. She loved this. She hungered for it just as much as he did; had looked forward to his visits more than the other senseless, brainless, sadistic prison guards. He had been brutal and had tortured her with more precision and to more devastating effect than the others but he had also connected with her.

He was also right in pointing out that, while Harry Pearce and whoever else decided to have a go at high school psychology and figure out the mental processes behind her relationship with Salko would inevitably arrive at the conclusion of Stockholm Syndrome, they would be wrong. This ran far deeper than a smiple bond forged between captor and victim from the mere infliction of pain. Their relationship, unstable as it was, was built on more than that.

She had found an equal in prison, not only on an intellectual level but on an intuitive one. He could read people, their motivations, processes, loves, hates, lives, as well as she could and that added an interesting dynamic to their relationship. It meant that they both had to work harder than studying the surface body language and words of their opponents, they now had to study what lay beneath the surface, the hidden meaning in everything said or done. It meant that their interrogations were never clear cut, simple, a game of cat and mouse, with more cloak and dagger than Ros Myers' wardrobe and more double bluffs than a poker match.

If she thought about it hard enough, it was a little too easy to say that he had given her a reason to live in prison. He had stopped her from taking her own life, and she in turn had done the same thing for him after the death of his sister. They were creatures created from the same test tube and had similar attributes, neither of them could bring themselves to take their own lives and leave behind an unsolved puzzle. They owed each other a debt, they needed each other, and neither of them had realised how much they had missed the games played in prison until they had stopped playing.

She considered him carefully before changing tact abruptly, realising that she may have revealed how much his words had unsettled her but deciding that she needed some way of getting back to the matter in hand and this was as good an opportunity as any, "The game we're playing seems to have me at a distinct disadvantage, we're playing by different rule...You know the history I share with Nicole, you know that I know something...I have nothing but your word to back up this attack."

"You trust my word Sofia, you slept with me based on it, you know I'm not lying."

She laughed softly "I didn't know I believed, there's a difference...I trusted you enough to give up my control to you, but never enough to give up my control over you. I know what this is worth Artem; I'm not giving it up on a hunch."

He considered this for a few moments before saying, "Russia found out about this attack a few weeks ago, they decided not to do anything about it, to let it play out. It may have been jeopardising their peace talks but they gained more from it than they lost. Politically, the American President is about as anti-Russian as you are, he risks plunging us back into the Cold War in order to indulge his own paranoia that's fanatic enough to rival Truman. He's managed to force the government into making some unpopular decisions in Russia, it's caused unrest with the people, the elections are coming up within a year, and the government can't afford to have him remaining in power for much longer, not if they want to. Just this once, they decided to turn a blind eye..."

"Keep talking." She growled as he fell silent.

"I'll continue when you start."

She shook her head, "That proves you know your Russian politics and why, if there was an attack, the Russians would ignore it, it explains how you could have come by this information but it doesn't prove you've actually come by anything. I want details. Proof."

"You must be joking."

"You must be concussed. You've fucked me that way once Salko, it's not happening again. You first or I swear to God I will put a bullet in my own skull, just for pleasure of the knowledge that you will never know what happened to her."

He watched her, he knew she was serious, but he also knew that she would not be so hasty as to kill either of them; he slowly shook his head, watching her for a reaction as he murmured,

"You cannot break me Sofia."

"I have no intention, but, as they say, it's not the winning that counts, it's the taking part so you'll forgive me for taking pleasure in trying." She said, getting to her feet and walking to the door.

"Where are you going?" he hissed, angrily, struggling against his bonds for the first time as he leaned towards her.

Turning to face him once more she said in a voice barely more than a whisper, "I would say I had hoped that it wouldn't come to this..." the lock slotted into place with a loud snap, with the finality of breaking bones, "But honestly...I think I'm going to enjoy this a little more than is healthy for our relationship."

A/N: This interrogation, both this chapter and next have been nigh on impossible to write, I could carpet my house with the crumpled bits of paper I've rejected in rewriting this so I hope it doesn't show and this is somewhat acceptable, for the sake of the rainforest, I hope it is :) I'm a little unsure about the digressions to explain the relationship between Sofia and Salko, particularly in prison, I'm hoping they made sense and seemed plausible but also hoped that they were woven into the interview in such a way that they felt somewhat natural and didn't just feel like padding. Anyway, enough of my ramblings, if I discuss everything that's bothered me with this your eyes will bleed so I'll leave it at that. Thank you all for the wonderful support! It pushes me to keep writing and sharing so my thanks to you all.