Scorpion by Christian Cantrell (best english novels for beginners txt) 📗

be charitable enough to hand her a direct hit, it is possible she could get a partial match off an aunt or an uncle who did not count on having a serial-killing nephew when they agreed to genetic sequencing to see if they were at risk for early-onset Alzheimer’s. Anything to narrow the data set down to the size of the resources she has at her disposal—to adjust the ratio of warm bodies to cold.

For the very first time in her life, Quinn understands how people justify torture. It occurs to her that, even with all the data she has access to, and all the tools with which she can sort, filter, group, join, visualize, query, and pivot, she cannot reach into the one place where all the answers to all the world’s greatest mysteries perpetually lie. Every single killer currently at large, every kidnapper, every rapist, and every terrorist is known by somebody out there. Enough knowledge exists to rain retribution down on the entire planet like a sublime golden solar storm, if only she could access and synthesize and index the contents of everyone’s minds.

Like her colleagues, Quinn spent a fair amount of time studying the “enhanced interrogation techniques” liberally employed throughout the United States’ morally ambiguous history. She imagines Tariq in an orange jumpsuit, being pinned down beside the in-floor drain of his black-site cell inside the belly of a U.S. Navy Island-class landing ship in the Baltic Sea, just off the coast of Poland, kicking and twisting and pissing himself, coughing and sputtering through a towel saturated by a seemingly endless stream of cold water. Or shackled to a wall for two days in an artful, twisted pose designed to place all of his weight on a single quadriceps and hamstring and calf muscle until all three simultaneously seize and spasm and light up nerve endings in a way that rivals childbirth, and that reduces men to quivering, tearful, barely audible pleas to whoever their gods are, but that inflicts no lasting damage that can be used as evidence before an international tribunal. Or kneeling, bent over, with hands zip-tied behind him and his—

She stops herself there. Quinn knows all she would get out of him is every insult he has ever heard, every obscenity arranged in every possible combination, and every lie he hopes will just make it stop. And she knows that even if she were to save a hypothetical life, it would be at the expense of her own humanity. That she would become a walking fatality. Quinn knows that torture is the ultimate expression of frustration, impotence, and defeat—and she recognizes that those are exactly the things she is feeling right now.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a way to reach Tariq—this man who, on the surface, is just the manager of a luxury hotel, but who is clearly entrusted with so much more. Nobody is just anything. Everyone you meet, everyone you see around you—whether you’re rubbing elbows at a black-tie gala or eating Chick-fil-A waffle fries in a suburban food court—everyone is endlessly complex. Everyone, no matter how seemingly guarded, has a rich and personal and meaningful story to tell. You just need to know how to ask.

Quinn turns on her handset, logs into the CIA’s encrypted virtual private network, swivels the throat mic down from her metaspecs, and begins subvocalizing queries like the desperately murmured prayers of the tortured.

—

“Good afternoon,” Tariq says with none of the ooze of the manager back in L.A. Without bothering to ask permission, he hitches his steel-gray trousers just above the knees and seats himself on the edge of the white divan across from Quinn. This is his hotel, and he will sit when and where he damn well pleases. “The concierge said you wished to see me.”

Quinn relocates her specs to the top of her head. She is trying to suppress the fact that, up close, she finds the manager of the Al Hujra—the man she was fantasizing about waterboarding just thirty-five minutes ago—unexpectedly attractive. Usually, curly hair doesn’t do much for her, but there’s something about the way it blends with his salt-and-pepper stubble and complements his dark complexion that she finds distinguished.

Although she’s doing her best to stay on script, Quinn can’t help but be momentarily derailed by wondering if she looks as disgusting as she feels. All the travel, combined with the unfamiliar Omani food (and, if she’s being honest, the two mini bottles of chardonnay she paid for out-of-pocket on the plane) is not doing her stomach any favors.

“Mr. Hashem,” she says. He did not offer a hand, so she decides not to offer hers. Instead, she removes her ID from the inside pocket of her blazer and unfolds it for Tariq to verify. “My name is Quinn Mitchell. I work for the CIA.”

“Call me Tariq,” the manager says, though not especially warmly. A curt nod indicates that he is satisfied with her credentials, and Quinn tucks them away.

“Thank you for making time to see me.”

“You’re welcome.”

There is an economy to this man that is making her feel rushed. It doesn’t help that he glances down at what looks to her like a very high-end Chinese timepiece strapped to the inside of his wrist by the skin of what was probably once an exotic, endangered reptile. Quinn hopes that the sleeve of her blazer is covering her own plastic Timex Ironman.

“Do you know this man?”

Quinn’s handset is configured so that the back is mirroring what’s on the front, and she and Tariq are both looking at one of the renderings of her suspect from L.A.

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“You’ve never seen this man before in your life?”

“No.”

“You don’t recognize this man as a guest of this hotel?”

“I do not.”

“And you’re certain of that?”

“I am.”

Tariq al-Fasi Hashem is considerably less exotic and attractive when he is obstructing justice. The unfamiliar fragrance he brought with him that only moments ago Quinn found not entirely off-putting she now finds a little douchey.

“Mr. Hashem—Tariq—I’m here in