The Devil's Keeper - Blackhill

Chapter 17 - I Have Loved The Stars Too Fondly To Be Fearful Of The Night

[April 28th, 2007 – Helicarrier, location classified]

Sharon had been in the same room, with the same Red Room agent on the other side of the desk, ever since Maria and Natasha had brought him in. Right after she made sure there was no secret suicide devices, pills, or any other contraption hidden anywhere on him, she had started questioning him.

They were at an impasse.

Mainly because Sharon had been slowly giving away all the knowledge she had, and the man had revealed nothing in return.

They'd dug up his family information - all relatives were dead. Previous employments held nothing unexpected. He had a criminal record, not really surprising either.

Sharon tried every line of questioning. She tried to get even the tiniest bit of information out of him, but nothing gave. Only when Maria and Natasha came back after taking her father back to Chicago was the mystery solved.

"He won't talk. He thinks the Red Room will kill him if he does." Natasha made her opinion very clear.

"Why would he think that?" Sharon sighed.

"Because the Red Room will kill him if he does."

"They can't reach him here. We can protect him, we can-"

"He thinks they will find a way." Natasha explained.

"Why is that?" Sharon started to sound exasperated.

"Because they will find a way."

"This isn't helping." Maria stated, side-eyeing Natasha. "I'll take the other we brought in, maybe I'll have better luck."

"Luck has no part in this." Natasha merely stated. "I can help if you let me."

"No, I won't let you expose yourself more than you already have. None of their agents made it back, as far as they know, you're our prisoner. I won't have you walk into an interrogation room to talk to one of them. What if one escapes?"

"We're inside an impenetrable fort suspended in the air, Maria. They're not going anywhere. Let me help with this."

Maria held her gaze, then shook her head. "You stay outside. I'll signal you through the glass if I need you in."

Natasha knew protesting again wouldn't get her anywhere so she did as she was ordered and watched as one of the agents was brought in another interrogation room. Maria entered after he was handcuffed to the table, his file in hand.

"State your name." she said firmly almost as soon as she was seated. Predictably, she was met with silence. She opened the file. It contained pages amongst pages, all of them blank except for the one on top, with a picture of him on it and some basic information they got simply by using facial recognition on men with criminal records in Russia. "Sergej Andreevic."

He looked slightly surprised, but immediately hid it.

Maria sighed, closing the file, knowing it had nothing inside. "I can read this to you, everything we have on you, on your organization, but this won't help you. What will help you is cooperating with us and telling us something we might not know. You do that and we'll keep you in a safe, nice, comfortable jail all your life."

He snorted and smiled smugly.

"Doesn't sound appealing, does it? So don't help us." Maria shrugged. "I'll put you in a minimal security cell in the middle of New York City. Sounds good? I'll even go on national television and tell everybody how lucky we were to have captured the one nice Red Room agent who helped us with our investigation. How long do you think it will take them to get to you? With the bureaucracy we have nowadays, this might be quicker than a death sentence."