Saturday, 6:27pm
Knox watched Victor on one of the monitors in the observation room. The room had eight closed-circuit television cameras; one wide-angle camera at ceiling height at each of the four corners, two ordinary cameras six feet off of the floor on the wall opposite the seat occupied by Victor, arranged in such a way to provide full coverage of someone being questioned without being obscured by the head of the questioner, and two wide-angle cameras installed in the floor beneath the table in order to observe any action that the subject might attempt to conceal under the table.
None of these cameras were visible; they had been installed in such a way that made them extremely difficult to detect, even by someone who knew exactly where they were.
There were also two visible cameras, with very visible lights that indicated whether the cameras in the room were recording, but they were not attached to anything. They were simply let the subject know that he or she was being observed and possibly taped, but beyond that, they were expendable props. Violent subjects, if given the opportunity, often tried to break them, and so their purpose was best served by being cheap, rugged, and unnecessary.
Knox suspected that there were additional cameras that he didn’t know about, that were used to oversee interrogations and confirm that the rights of the prisoners were preserved. Knox wasn’t sure whether these cameras existed, or where they were, but he liked to think that they existed and that someone was watching, both for the sake of the subject and his own.
Knox watched Victor for a long minute. Victor was seated at the table, his arms folded on the table, pillowing his head. A faint and intermittent snoring could be heard through the monitor.
“Do you think he’s really asleep?” Knox asked the attendant on duty, whose job it was to closely watch over Victor.
“Don’t know. If so, it’s the first time I’ve seen anyone fall asleep in the room. Pass out, yes, I’ve seen that. But this is the first time I’ve seen someone take a nap.”
“How long has he been like that?”
“About five minutes. When he was brought in about fifteen minutes ago, he sat at the table. He didn’t pace. He looked all around the room, very slowly. Carefully. Methodical is the word. Then he whistled to himself for a few minutes, and then took a nap.”
“Nerves of steel?” Knox conjectured.
“No. No nerves at all. None of the usual stress body language. Just napping.”
“Well, he’s a strange one.”
“What’s he here for?”
Knox thought for a moment before answering.
“He flew a helicopter into restricted airspace, and he flew very recklessly. He doesn’t have a pilot’s license, at least none that’s valid here. And the helicopter was painted to look like a Coast Guard helicopter, which is illegal, although I don’t know whether he had anything to do with that, or whether it’s helicopter or whether he happened to ‘borrow’ a helicopter with that paint job. There’s also some other strange stuff, too.”
“Just took a helicopter out for a joy-ride, then?”
“No, not exactly. He was bringing a kid and her mother to Bellevue. The kid was hurt and needed to get to an emergency room right away.”
“Seems like overkill to hold him, then? I mean, if it was a mission of mercy?”
“There’s something more to it. A few really odd details. I don’t know if we’re going to charge him with anything serious, but I don’t want to let him just walk away without giving us some answers.”
“Odd details? C’mon. Like what?”
Knox decided to omit several of the details, because he hadn’t convinced himself that they were true. He decided to focus on the helicopter.
“OK, here are some odd details. First, the helicopter is strange. We don’t know what kind of helicopter it is. It is similar to a Coast Guard Dolphin, but the resemblance is mostly superficial. The dimensions are different, and a bunch of other things are different. We’ve got databases of this stuff, every model of helicopter that’s come off an assembly line for the past fifty years. Either this helicopter was intentionally modified–which raises the question of why someone would do that–or else this is a one-off that someone built on their own. It doesn’t make much sense; if someone wanted this helicopter to look more like a Dolphin, then they could have made it look more like a Dolphin. That wouldn’t have been hard.”
“Second, the controls on the helicopter were very odd. I don’t know that much about helicopters, but this is what I’ve been told. Nearly all modern helicopters have the same control layout, just like modern cars, which is why a driver who knows how to drive a Yugo can hop into a Porsche and drive it immediately without learning a new set of basic controls. This helicopter is totally different, and the controls don’t make much sense to any of the pilots we’ve asked.”
“Finally, the mystery of the strange controls might have something to do with this. I think that maybe this guy didn’t actually fly the helicopter at all, because thirty minutes after he landed, and after we’d brought him in for questioning, the helicopter took off and flew away. By itself. We know that there wasn’t anyone in it.”
“OK, that’s weird. But can’t you just track it and find out where it went?”
“One more thing, and this one’s the icing on the cake. We can’t track it. It has the radar cross-section of a frisbee, and we lost it when we lost visual. We called in other assets–some jets out of McGuire–but by the time they got here, it was gone. It went down the harbor, through the Narrows, and then it was gone.”
Knox paused for another moment. “We’ve got a custom-made, unidentifiable, remote-controlled stealth helicopter flying around somewhere masquerading as a Coast Guard patrol helicopter. And lots of questions that sleepy-head in there might be able to answer.”
“OK, I can see why he’s not going to be leaving any time soon.”
Victor rubbed the back of his head and then exhaled, puffing out his cheeks.
“You know, it’s a little funny,” remarked the attendant. “Usually it’s the subject that’s nervous, not us. But this guy doesn’t seem to have a care in the world, and we’re the ones who are acting worried.”
“Yes, I know. And that’s something that makes me even more worried.”
Knox turned, exited the attendants booth and walked down the short hall to the entrance to the interrogation room, and entered. As he crossed the room and sat down in his chair, Victor stirred, stretched, yawned, and then seemed fully alert. Victor sat up, with his hands in his lap.
“I apologize for falling asleep,” Victor began, “But this room provides little in the way of stimulation or amusement, and I have had an exhausting day.”
“I am Special Agent Artemus Knox, of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in case you have forgotten.”
“Yes, I remember from our earlier meeting.”
“As you expected earlier, I have many questions for you.”
“I understand completely. But first, Special Agent Artemus Knox, I hope that you will permit me to ask a small favor. Do you know whether Sally Brinta and her daughter Judy–the two ladies who accompanied me on the helicopter–reached the hospital? Will Judy be all right?”
“I know that they made it to the hospital, and that Judy received treatment. I apologize that I do not have more information at this time, but I find out what I can and let you know.”
“If I answer your questions.”
“No, Mr. Denebola, I will tell you what I can as soon as I can.”
“I shall be grateful.”
“Now, Mr. Denebola…”
“It is actually Doctor Denebola, or Professor Denebola, although if you prefer to address me without honorifics you may call be Victor, or Mister Denebola. Any of those is fine, although I thought I should mention my honorifics because it may help you in your and your colleague’s efforts to prepare my dossier.”
“Thank you, Professor Denebola. Now, I would like you to tell me, briefly….”
“I apologize for the interruption, Special Agent Artemus Knox, but before we begin, I wish to suggest that you move your chair over to the left by about ten inches. You are blocking one of the cameras.”
