Whistleblower (PALADIN Book 1)

I fight the anxious energy flooding through my veins as the door clicks shut behind me. This interrogation room is so bright—it’s agitating. I immediately feel uneasy in here, maybe that’s intentional. From what I’ve learned in my experience, people talk faster when they’re uncomfortable.

I was so convincing in front of Callen and Linc, I almost fooled myself into thinking I’m equipped for this. But I couldn’t just stand by. I know Linc was doing what he was ordered to, but when do we draw the line between what we’re told is right…and what’s actually right?

The man looks smaller in person than he did through the glass. His clothes are tattered and raggedy, his dark hair is greasy, and he smells like he’s due for a shower. But underneath the swelling in his cheek and the drying blood around his lip, this is just a normal young man. His dark, thick eyelashes give him more of a baby face, and where Callen and Linc see a criminal…I see a prisoner.

I’m so caught up on how I should break the silence that I’m taken aback when he speaks first.

“Please tell me you’re ‘Bad Cop,’” he sasses, “and that we’re about to get naughty.” He forces a laugh, but I recognize the false boldness—it’s called fear, and I’m all too familiar.

“I’m not a cop,” I say simply. “I’m the one who told the cops they can’t touch you anymore. I will make a very big scene if anyone in this compound lays another hand on you.”

“Is your scene supposed to save me?”

“I can be persuasive.” Especially when the big, bad wolf of PALADIN is sweet on me. “Do you want some Doritos?”

I begin to unpack my plastic bag remembering my mantra: free food builds trust. I never thought I’d apply it to an interrogation situation, but I’m trying to see this as a conversation more than anything else. Offering nourishment and a little civility seems like a good way to get him talking.

“What?” he asks, taken off guard by my question.

“Dor-ree-tos,” I sound out for him. I scrunch my face, mockingly. “Chips, man. I’ve got Nacho Cheese and Cool Ranch. I also have Goldfish, but they aren’t flavor blasted so they’re a waste of cracker space if you ask me.”

He wriggles his wrists against his handcuffs. “I can’t exactly eat at the moment.”

I twist the cap off of a water bottle and soak a couple of clean white napkins before I cross the room. I glance over my shoulder to see the silent flashing red light blinking. There’s Linc, warning me not to get too close. I continue my mission, ignoring his probably justified concern.

The man flinches when I reach out with the napkin. “Your lip is so swollen. It’s just water. You saw me pour it.” He stills and lets me press the wet napkin against his broken lip. “Humor me,” I say as I lightly pat against his mouth. “It feels a bit better, right?”

He nods, albeit reluctantly.

I head back over to the only table in the room to grab the bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos, remembering that Cool Ranch dust always stings a bit when I have a cut in my mouth. Opening the bag, I return and kneel in front of him. “Say, ‘ah.’” I open my mouth like I’m demonstrating for a toddler.

“You’re going to feed me?” I think he means to sound sarcastic but all that comes out is desperation.

“What’s your name?”

“Lady, you can play nightingale all you want, I’m not telling you a damn thing.”

“Give me a fake one if you must, I just need to call you something.”

“Hector,” he offers lazily.

“Okay, Hector. I’m—”

I stop myself, remembering Callen’s command. If I don’t play by his rules, he’ll probably yank me out of here and Linc will go right back to assaulting the man in front of me.

“Bambi. My name’s Bambi.”

“Bambi?” he asks before rolling his eyes.

“Well, come on, is Hector your real name?”

He laughs softly and I can already feel it—rapport. Slow and steady is how we have to play this. “Now say, ‘ah,’ Hector—real wide. This is a big chip and I don’t want to irritate your lip.” He does as I request and I shove an entire Dorito in his mouth. He chews so aggressively I have to tell him to slow down. After six more chips, his manic chomping slows.

“My dad was in a specialized military unit and he went through a lot in his career. He told me when he was in the most dire situations, the pain would go numb, but the hunger wouldn’t. He said the hunger pangs were the worst. Enough to make you crazy.”

I pop another chip into Hector’s mouth before offering him a drink of water. He takes a few greedy swallows. “Why are you being nice to me? Did they tell you who I work for?”

“No, I didn’t ask. It doesn’t matter who you work for.” I plop to my ass and scoot backward on the floor until my back hits the wall.

“Because all you want is info,” he says in a sing-song tone, mocking me. “That you’re not going to get from me. I’m loyal, lady.”

“Do you think they’re looking for you?” He narrows his eyes and glares at me, my words obviously striking a chord. “As loyal as you are to them, I hope they are to you as well.”

“I’m loyal to a cause,” he sneers. “So I make sacrifices.”

“What cause?”

He draws in a deep breath as he closes his eyes. “This country needs a wake-up call—a firm message delivered. People here are lawless ingrates who think because of freedom, they are allowed to be disgraceful. Someone needs to remind them that there are consequences for their sins.”

Wow. That’s a rehearsed speech if I’ve ever heard one, and Hector delivered the lines perfectly. I’m sure his leader masks violent radicalism as prophetic duty…beautifully. I bet he’s even good-looking. A charismatic and persuasive leader is the most dangerous weapon.

“Hector, freedom doesn’t make people evil. It just gives them an outlet to express the most shameless sides of themselves. Anger lives in all of us, and those who don’t have a proper outlet suppress their agony until the pressure builds so great, they end up hurting other people. Violence is a misguided outlet for pain.”

He takes a moment before answering, then finally asks, “Are you a shrink? Is that why they sent you in here?”

No. But maybe close. My doctoral dissertation was about the incredible power–and danger–of social media. If you want to see the true depravity of mankind, look at what people say under the blanket of online obscurity. I’ve seen starved coyotes act with more kindness and composure than young, bored, women with nothing but time on their hands and jealousy running through their veins. They are triggered by everything because they are content with nothing. Boredom, laziness, and anonymity mixed together is a concoction for cruelty.

“I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m just…sensitive, I suppose. Maybe I should see you as dangerous, but all I see you as is scared. But fear is a really good motivator, Hector. Did you know that?”

“Know what?” he asks, before opening his mouth wide. I scoot back over to him with the bag of chips and deposit another Dorito.

“People do the most incredible, and the most atrocious things when they are scared. Fear gives you adrenaline. It makes you stronger, helps you think more tactfully. Truly, it’s our body’s secret serum for survival.”

He snorts. “Fear makes you radioactive?”

I smile. “Something like that.”

He’s quiet for a few beats before he speaks again. “I couldn’t help you even if I wanted to, Bambi,” he admits. “Taking a beating and being imprisoned is far better than what they’ll do to me if I talk.”

“I get it.” I glance nervously at the two-way glass, then decide to chuck Callen’s commands right out the window. What choice do I have? “Being a snitch will destroy you.” He nods, hanging his head. “I should know,” I add.

His eyes snap to mine. “What?”

“Oh yes, I’m a snitch. Or, in professional terms, a whistleblower.” I bite my tongue. Oh, no. I sincerely hope my safe word is only applicable to sex with Linc. Otherwise, he’s about to barge in here to rescue me. After a few seconds, I determine the coast is clear. “I used to work for a company that created a social media organization system, if you will. It was like nothing else on the market. They secured over half a billion dollars in fundraising for this platform called Empress.”

“You’re in social media?” Hector asks, obviously confused as to why the hell I’m in this interrogation room with him.

“Me? Oh no, I actually don’t have social media. I have very pointed opinions on it—but that’s a conversation for another day. I was a leadership consultant at Empress. They went from twelve employees to over three hundred in the span of a year. It was stressful and chaotic. The leaders of the company needed a clear vision, so the very first thing I did was sit the executive team down and ask them to create a mission statement. What was Empress designed to do? What problem was Empress trying to solve?”

I pause, giving Hector the opportunity to say something. If he can follow me through this story, maybe…just maybe I have a chance. Finally, he prods me. “What’d they come up with?”

“Empress was trying to level the playing field. The developers believed that everyone deserved to have their voices heard—not just the lucky, or beautiful, or young, or quirky. Think of it this way—instead of having one mega Powerball lottery, their philosophy was to have thousands of winners, sharing the prize. Empress wanted to fight the social algorithms that were causing so much pain and making people feel so desperate, small, and insignificant. They were masters at it. Their tech was astonishingly good at grouping like-minded people. Basically, they were sorting people into the right buckets for societal approval.”

“Societal approval?”

“Have you ever used social media?”

He nods. “For a little while.”

Dumb it down, Eden. “Likes, Hector. Societal approval in the form of likes.”

“Why are you a snitch? Did you sell their tech to a competitor?”

“This next part is confidential. I could be put in jail for sharing this with you. But then again, this conversation is off the record because technically you shouldn’t be here, and my current organization doesn’t exist. And plus…I fed you Doritos, so…”

He half-smiles. “Secret’s safe with me.” He looks around the room. “Who would I tell?”

“I like what Empress stood for so much that I took a full-time role with them. The very first day I got executive access I came across a live bidding platform. I think they screwed up the permissions with my login credentials because I was dumped into this sort of online black market. What I eventually realized is that it was an information auction.”

“What information?”

“Anonymous avatars were buying groups of data for categories such as highly impressionable, prone to violence, open to conspiracy, racist, has a gun, committed petty crimes, violent felons, interested in radical behavior, politically outspoken, incentivized by money… Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“They were selling recruits to terrorists?”

Hector’s quicker to the truth than I was. I studied the database for hours before I understood what they were doing. The only thing scarier than people doing terrible things is people doing terrible things with an army of support behind them. Take the power of mob mentality—like cancel culture—and apply it to terrorism. What do you get? Civil war. Maybe even world war.

“We’d call them leads, but yes—same thing. They were buying personal information necessary to build what I can only assume were armies for their causes. They were targeting people…collecting people…all via social media.”

“Wow. Smart.” Hector attempts to stretch his legs, but he’s restricted by the rope around his ankles, binding him to the chair. “That’s not how I was recruited.”

“How?”

His stare lands on the floor. “My older cousin told me we were going to get beer from the gas station… Instead…we ended up at a meeting. They told me they’d kill me if I left.” He clears his throat. “So, you told on Empress?”

“I went to the exec team first and they denied everything. They fired me on the spot and cut off all my access. So, I went to the FBI.”

“I’m sure they gave you a medal.”

I let out a shrill cackle, like a villainess. “I got a half-assed ‘thank you.’ My real reward was debt up to my ears from legal fees trying to protect me from a company I helped build. I was basically in hiding during the trial. People threatened my life—they didn’t care if war was brewing, as long as they could keep their cushy Silicon Valley paychecks. I lost my job, my friends, my colleagues. I became a pariah. I lost everything and I still live in constant fear for my life. All because I told the truth and tried to prevent something truly evil.”

“But you’re okay now.”

“No…” I shake my head. “I’m not okay. I’ll never be okay again. I’m marked. Once a snitch, always a snitch. I’ll carry that title to my grave, but you know what I do to make me feel better sometimes?”

“What?” Hector lets out a dry cough. I return to him with the water bottle, offering him another sip. I level my eyes with his before I speak again.

“Lately, I’ll see a random person in a restaurant, or in my building, or sometimes just someone on the news, and I tell myself that maybe they get to live because of me. Maybe they won’t know true terror, or lose their loved ones to something as tragic as war because I was convicted enough to speak up. Maybe my life is ruined, but maybe theirs will be okay because of me. And for now, that’s enough.”

“You sacrificed everything for strangers?”

“Mhm,” I say. “The same way I’m pretty positive I just ruined, what could’ve been a very satisfying relationship, by coming in here to defend you—a criminal I’ve never met before because, sometimes, being a good person is just as senseless as being a bad one. But I’d rather see people alive and happy and think it’s because of me, than see people tortured and dead and know it’s because of me.” I raise my eyebrows right in Hector’s face. “The burden of information sucks. I wish I never saw that database. I wish I never knew. But do you know why God, or the universe, or whatever entity you believe in, chose me?”

He matches my gaze. “Why?”

“Because I was powerless not to do the right thing. The same reason you’re in this chair, Hector. You’re chosen too. And the only reason you’ve been listening to me talk all this time is because you want someone to tell you it’s worth it. Right? Or is it just because you want more chips?”

He chuckles, then his face sobers. “I never thought I’d be a person who could hurt somebody, I’m only nineteen.”

I knew he had a baby face. I nod. “Nineteen is young. You still have a lot of time left to atone for what you’ve done—to find a way to forgive yourself. You could start by looking at some of the strangers in this city and thinking maybe they’re okay because of you.”

“I won’t be in the city.” Hector nods toward the two-way glass. “They are going to lock me up.”

“Then serve your time and do better. Redemption is there for the ones who admit their mistakes and are courageous enough to make a change.”

I hold my breath hoping, praying. His eyes start to glisten and if it’s not now, it’s never. I’ve thrown every piece of wisdom I have at him…but it still might not be enough.

“Hector, please. What are they planning?”

“To hurt people,” he admits.

“How many people?”

His watering eyes meet mine. “As many as they can.”

“Hector,” I say, placing my palm on his cheek. “In hindsight, I’d do everything with Empress again, the exact same way.”

It feels like there’s silence for ages as I hold his cheek. The pulse of hope seems to flatline, but then, barely audible, he speaks.

“Huxley’s,” he whispers. “Huxley’s on 48th street. It’s an abandoned mechanic shop.” The tears begin to stream down his face and I mop them up with the back of my palm. “Chip,” he says with a shaky breath. I pop the final chip from the snack-sized bag in his mouth and he can barely chew. He begins to bumble hysterically. “I’m scared.”

“You’re going to be okay.” I use my most comforting voice. Jesus, he’s only nineteen. Still a kid. “You did a good thing, Hector. It’s all going to be okay. You will be protected.” I’ll make damn sure of it.

Suddenly the interrogation door opens and I see a brief flash of fear in Hector’s eyes, so I know who it is.

“We confirmed the location. Interview over,” Linc says at the door. I rise, feeling the ache in my thighs and calves from squatting for so long. There’s a jingling coming from Linc’s pocket as he walks over to us. Hector cowers, but Linc is unbothered. Making his way behind the chair, Linc unlocks Hector’s cuffs, his eyes on me the entire time. His expression is mixed with anger, fear, and relief. I’m not sure which of those is because of me. Maybe all of them.

“Do you understand what I’m capable of if you try to hurt her?” Linc asks coldly before he points to Hector’s bound feet.

Hector rubs his freed wrists, moaning in appreciation at the relief. “Calm down, you dick. Bambi might be my only friend in the world now.”

I roll my eyes and exhale deeply. Let’s not provoke the man who could kill you with his bare hands, hm? Regardless, Linc unties Hector’s feet and he quickly stands.

“You’ll stay here until transport tomorrow. You will be taken to a remote facility where you’ll await trial. Your arresting officer will read you your rights. We’ll make sure a certain amount of amnesty will be granted for your cooperation”—Linc glances at me—“and your discretion. Clear?”

Hector nods as he beats his fists against his thighs, trying to get the blood moving in his legs. “Is that all?”

“What do you want to eat? We’ll order something for you.” Linc asks like the words taste bad on his tongue.

“The fattest burger you can find. Extra cheese. Lots of fries. And I want a toothbrush and toothpaste.” He flashes Linc his teeth. “Please,” he adds sarcastically.

“Anything else?” Linc asks.

“I’ll let you know,” Hector says, pointing to the glass. “I’m assuming I’ll be watched?”

Linc nods before he holds his hand out to me. “Come on.” Relieved, I lace my fingers between his, feeling his warm bear paw wrap around my hand that feels child-sized in his.

“Bambi?” Hector calls out before I’m through the door. I turn around as Linc lets out an unsubtle exhale of exasperation. “My real name is Roman.”

“Thank you, Roman.” A warm smile crosses my face as I picture hope for this boy, a second chance for a better life, free from the tyrannical men whose evil plans are about to be foiled and who are about to face justice.

“What’s yours?”

“It’s Ed—Ah!”

Linc yanks me through the door, letting it slam behind me before I can say my name.