Meet and Greet
Men were going from dark room to dark room; whenever they found a sleeping person they quickly drugged her with a shot from a needle, until they found the man they were looking for. Outside the house no sound or light gave warning to any neighbors. The estate was relatively large, and it took them a while to search every room of both floors.
Marcus was nervous and started pacing back and forth in the dark kitchen. It was a nice big kitchen—he was dealing with a successful District 12 businessman. He knew that what he was trying to do here was very hard to get right. The correct way to interrogate people involved a long process of questions and cross-verifying facts, but he'd only have a couple of hours at best. Scared people can freeze up and say nothing, they can just sit there and scream, or they can just make up whatever they think you want to hear; he needed to manage it carefully. What he needed was to make the interrogation more about surprise than fear.
He moved a chair to the middle of the kitchen and put a spotlight on the ceiling to make sure the prisoner wouldn't be able to see anything when he placed him in the chair. Soon one of the soldiers came down with a man all tied up and gagged. Marcus compared the prisoner's face to his picture and pointed to the chair. One large man took position behind the prisoner once he sat.
Marcus took off his hood and got down so he was looking up at the prisoner. He was staring at a face rather chubby for that district, with blond hair and wild, scared darting eyes. Marcus knew he needed to calm him down before getting started.
"Before we talk," he began, "I want you to know we mean you and your family no harm. When we leave later we plan to have you, your wife, and daughters all safe. Right now the girls are all in a heavy drug-induced sleep, but perfectly safe. We are not interested in anything you own and have no association with the government. We don't plan on ever telling you who we are. All we want is some information. If you agree, I will have my friend remove your gag and we can get this over with." The scared man nodded. "Your name is Opal Nod, you're forty-seven years old, you have a wife Mary, two daughters Sarah and Jan, and you run a funeral home out of this house. Is that all true?"
The man behind Opal removed the gag, and for a second it looked like he might scream. Then he uttered, "Yes. Who are you people? What do you want?"
Marcus stood up slowly. "We have covered that already. Here, I will pour you a glass of wine, and then we will get started."
He grabbed a wine bottle and a glass from the cabinets and poured a large glass of the drink. He and his whole crew watched Opal down the wine with one large single swig. "Do you know Jac Samuel?"
Opal looked very confused. Marcus could see that he expected another question and would give a year's salary to know what that question was. "Yes. . . . Last year he was one of the tributes. We buried him."
Marcus started a slow pace in front of Opal. "Good. Now I want you to explain what you did for him after he returned."
"Well, we prepared the body, then—" Nod continued.
"Excuse me," Marcus interrupted. "Talk about the body first: In what condition was the body—how was it delivered?"
With some more confusion, Nod said, "Like every year, he came back in a wooden crate. We removed the body—"
Again Marcus interrupted, "Excuse me, did you or the Capitol embalm him?"
Nod was visibility upset. "He came embalmed. Then we cleaned the body, dressed it, applied makeup, and just made him presentable."
"Good. Then what?"
"We placed him in a coffin and did the viewing."
"Good."
"After the viewing we buried him and put up a gravestone."
Marcus stopped his pace and smiled at Nod. "Great. You are doing great. You're feeling better, aren't you? Now, who paid for all this?"
"For tributes the district always pays for the funeral."
Marcus nodded to one of the soldiers in the dark, who opened a bag and threw out a body. The body looked horrible, but it was the smell that hit everyone first—the smell of rotten meat! Its skin was falling off the body in sheets. It must have been a young, skinny girl with long, dark hair at one time.
The soldier grabbed Opal's mouth so he couldn't scream. The half decomposed head of the girl landed in his lap, and then slid down to lay against his legs. The smell was overwhelming, and everyone but Opal and Marcus already had nose plugs. Marcus planned this to keep Opal from being able to think enough to lie, but right now found it hard keep his stomach down.
"Okay, Opal, do you recognize this girl?!" Marcus yelled.
Opal was trying hard to scream, but the man's grip on his mouth didn't move, so he just shook his head.
Almost disinterestedly, Marcus said, "Please, take a moment and look. I think you know this girl."
Gradually, the man behind Opal loosened his grip, and Opal said, "She's Katniss."
Again Marcus got down to look up at Opal's face. "Why is she not embalmed?"
"I don't know. That's the way the Capitol sent her." Opal was shaking, visibly confused and scared.
"Have they ever sent a body not embalmed before?"
"No. I don't know anything."
Marcus picked up the girl's hand to show her long, manicured nails to Opal. "Who is this girl?"
When he received no reply, Marcus nodded to one of the other soldiers in the dark kitchen. Grunting his disapproval, the soldier picked up the girl and pushed her head right next to Opal's; he opened her mouth to show the gold tooth inside.
"I am going to ask one more time," Marcus said firmly. "Who is this girl?"
Opal closed his eyes and yelled, "Please take her away! I didn't do anything—this is the body they sent to me!"
Marcus repeated furiously, "Is this Katniss?"
"No, I don't know who she is!"
Marcus signaled the soldier with the body bag, and the body was removed and placed back in its case.
Noticeably relieved at the body's removal, Marcus probed, "So they sent you an unembalmed body of some other girl? So you called them about their mistake—it was just a simple mix-up of bodies, right?"
Opal's head hanged; he knew he had been caught in a lie. "No, I didn't say anything to the Capitol."
"Tell me why."
"When we got the body, there was a letter inside. It said they had saved Katniss and begged whoever got the body to cover for them."
"What else did it say?"
"It had a section for Caroline, Katniss' mom. It said Katniss must never return to the district and she would never see her again, but maybe someday it might be possible to get a message through."
"So that is why Katniss' body didn't have a viewing?"
"Yes."
"Good, you are doing well. Did you show the letter to Caroline?"
"No, I destroyed it right after I read it."
"So you and who else know that Katniss is alive now?"
"No one."
Marcus looked tired as he said, "I will forgive you for that lie. I bet anything that at least your wife knows, but that is not important. You must believe I am not your enemy. I don't want anything bad to happen to you or your family. For that reason I suggest that you not tell anyone else about Katniss or us."
Opal nodded. The soldier behind him stabbed him with a needle, and he fell instantly asleep.
"Okay, people, you did great, but we need to clean up the whole house and get this girl back in the ground before sunrise, so get moving," Marcus instructed as everyone started running around, removing the body and cleaning up everything.
Remu removed his hood and handed Marcus one hundred credits. "Well, you won again. So Katniss is alive—now what?"
Marcus smiled with pride; he had proven himself again. "So now we find her! She must have an InterDoc to endure the poison. Right now, just like Peeta, she is discovering what she can do, and we need to be watching her."
"Why do you suppose they sent back Peeta but not Katniss?"
"I don't know, but the people who have her are obviously not with the government. Maybe they're one of the groups we are already working with, and this will be easy, or maybe not," Marcus said.
"Do you think Peeta knows? Do you think all this grieving about is an act?"
That stopped Marcus; he paused to think and then said, "Now that you mention it, I have to admit, I do believe he is in mourning—our agent reports clearly indicates it is so. But that doesn't make sense—they both are Banshees, so they can talk to each other via their psychic powers. It was his talking to her that convinced me that she was alive and we should dig up the grave. But if he is talking to her, how can he be in mourning?"
"You're just mad because he fooled you. For the first time in your life, someone faked you out," Remu said bluntly.
"Maybe. But I doubt it. It's as if she didn't tell him she is alive, like she was fooling him."
Remu got a big joking smile. "Or maybe she doesn't know she is alive."
"You're right, I am overthinking this. Once we find her, it will all be clear."
ns 15.158.61.41da2
