The Predator: The Official Movie Novelization

5

There were no windows, unless you counted the one-way mirror on the far wall, and McKenna didn’t. It amused him to think that anyone still bothered with such antiquated interview techniques. Anyone who’d seen a movie or television show in the past fifty years would know that someone lurked unseen beyond that reflective surface, watching in silence, evaluating both the person being interviewed and those doing the interviewing.

The floor and walls trembled, and McKenna could both hear and feel the rumble of thunder outside. The storm had already been going on when he’d been brought into this room, but in the past few minutes the thunder had grown much stronger. He couldn’t hear the rain or see the lightning, but he imagined they must both be ferocious. A shame. He loved to see lightning burning inside storm clouds, and to watch it lance down from the sky. As a boy, he’d fallen in love with mythology—tales from various pantheons—and when he heard thunder roll or saw lightning flash, he still thought of Zeus and Thor and Hephaestus and so many others.

But the room had no windows, so he had to focus on these assholes instead.

“Tell me about the mission,” said the man in the ugly tie, who sat across from him at the table.

McKenna, now wearing an orange jumpsuit, stared at him, and then glanced at the two other people in the room. One of them, he guessed, was a psychologist of some kind. The other was the polygraph tech, who had hooked McKenna up to the machine with the detachment of a gravedigger.

They’d already been through all the baseline questions, asking him his name and date of birth, that sort of thing, to establish what the machine would do when he lied versus when he told the truth. The tech reminded him of another tech, years earlier. McKenna’s wife had been sixteen weeks pregnant and he’d taken her for an ultrasound. They’d been debating whether they wanted to know the sex when the tech glanced up, face flat and emotionless, and said at the moment she was just looking for a heartbeat. The callous bitch hadn’t found one.

McKenna laced his hands together and leaned forward. “It was a rescue op. Couple of DEA agents had their covers blown. They were being taken to the head of the cartel.”

He couldn’t help feeling he was going through the motions here. He knew all of this would be in the file that these guys would have read before coming into the room. The US government had spent many hours and a vast amount of money trying to punch holes in the drug cartels, but had still never gotten serious enough to do any lasting damage. The cartels were like the legendary Hydra—cut off one head and two more would grow in its place. The truth was, too much money was on the table, and too much cash found its way into the pockets of government officials and corporate overlords in Mexico, the US, Central America, and South America for the problem to ever go away.

“I see,” Ugly Tie said primly. “You were instructed to kill him?”

McKenna controlled himself with an effort. “No, I was instructed to offer him a selection of donuts.”

The psychologist stared at him. Adjusted the ugly tie.

McKenna indicated the blood pressure cuff on his arm. “What’s with the polygraph? I thought this was a psych eval.”

“We need to know if you pose a threat.”

“I’m a sniper. Isn’t posing a threat kind of the fucking point?” He left off the word dumbass, but it was definitely implied.

“I meant to the general public… to yourself,” Ugly Tie replied.

McKenna sighed.

Behind the one-way glass, Traeger stood with his arms crossed. From the moment he’d confronted McKenna, he had known the guy was going to be a problem. Quinn McKenna had the same hardass quality that Traeger had seen in hundreds of military men, but the guy also had a brain. Not to say that the average soldier or sailor or Marine was a moron, but most of them had been trained to follow orders and that tended to carve grooves into their behavior patterns. They didn’t usually study the shadows or the angles too deeply.

McKenna, though… this son of a bitch was a born questioner of authority. How he had survived this long in the Rangers was a mystery. He’d done what he had been told for years, but his records showed several insubordination incidents, all of them minor. McKenna followed orders—that hadn’t ever been a problem—but he always wanted to understand why he was doing so.

In the darkness, the readout from the polygraph flickered on a screen. Traeger stood with his aide, Sapir, and studied the screen closely.

“He’s good,” Traeger said with a chuckle.

But the quiet laugh wasn’t amusement. It was irritation. Sapir sensed that and handed Traeger a bowl of Nicorette. Traeger had been chewing the damn things non-stop and he took one now, almost without thinking about it.

“He was tortured in Kandahar,” Sapir said. “Didn’t break once.”

“What does he want, a medal?” Traeger sneered.

“Actually, uh…”

“I know, I know. Silver Star. That’s why we have to tread lightly. We can’t just bury him behind the woodshed.”

He popped the nicotine gum into his mouth and started chewing.

“Uh, I think you’re supposed to park that in the corner of your—” Sapir began.

Traeger shot him a withering glance. “You say something?”

Sapir kept silent. Traeger kept chewing vigorously, waiting for the nicotine rush. He needed it.

McKenna was bored. He rolled his eyes. “Look, I get it,” he said. “Mexico. Someone doesn’t want any witnesses.”

Ugly Tie looked startled. “Excuse me?”

McKenna looked him in the eye, and then fixed each of the other guys in the room with a brief but meaningful stare. “You’re not here to find out if I’m crazy. You’re here to make sure the label sticks.”

Making an effort to regain control of the situation, Ugly Tie arched an eyebrow. “You think you’re being railroaded. Is that it?”

“I can see the tracks on the floor,” McKenna replied. The tone in the bastard’s voice confirmed it all. Sounding paranoid would only help their case if they wanted to discredit him. He sighed. “By the way, I don’t really see tracks on the floor. Relax. Jesus.”

Undeterred, the asshole went on. “You spend most of your time now in country. Estranged from your wife and son. Alone.”

Ugly Tie glanced at the polygraph. McKenna didn’t have to look to know the needle would be flickering now. He could feel his anger boiling.

“You feel like a stranger on your own planet, don’t you, Captain?”

McKenna tilted his head, studying the man. “Like an alien, you mean?”

It felt like every molecule in the room had stopped moving. Even the polygraph tech seemed to hold his breath.

“Is that what you wanted?” McKenna asked. “Do I get a cookie now?”

The psychologist stared at him half in triumph, half as if he was a wild beast that might spring forward at any second. McKenna didn’t think he’d be getting any cookies.