Mahoganys Dream | Page 6

Department," Dunleavy finally answered for
him.
"That's not an operating unit," Brian squawked. "That's just a support
unit." He said the word "support" with a dismissive tone, as if it
somehow didn't count.
Dunleavy looked at him as if he were a dunce failing an easy quiz.
"So the boiler room in your basement is not a part of your house?"
While Brian pondered that, Dunleavy ordered another round of beers

for the two of them.
"So you really tell people you work for the I.T. department," Brian
said.
"Or the INS," Dunleavy said with a sly smile. "Depends on the
situation. In general, I don't tell anybody anything. But if some nosey
prick presses me, then yeah, I tell em' that I buy printers for secretaries
and that I don't even know how to use a gun."
"Huh," Brian said. "So you're telling me that your job is basically to fly
around the country smacking people while letting everybody believe
you pick the lowest priced ink cartridges." The beers were beginning to
affect him.
"My job," Dunleavy said, slightly bemused, "is to obtain information
after incompetent people like you allow classified data to be
compromised. That little smack I laid on Tsang was just my personal
twist. Physical assault is not necessary to conduct a transparent
interrogation. In fact, it's officially discouraged. But I've found that it
tends to put my interview subjects in the right frame of mind for my
Unsatisfactory Answer speech."
Brian was incredulous. This guy couldn't be serious. He would've
blamed the nonsensical words he was hearing on the alcohol, but
Dunleavy had barely touched any of the beer bottles now crowding
their table.
"Transparent interrogation?" Brian asked. If nothing else, Dunleavy
was chock full of entertaining little phrases he'd never heard before. "Is
that I.T. jargon or spy jargon?" Brian asked between giggles.
He was beginning to feel ever so tipsy.
Dunleavy didn't laugh. "That's how we refer to our principal
information gathering technique. It's called transparent because, if done
properly, it produces no physically detectable evidence that the subject
was interrogated at all."

"Like a smack instead of a punch," Brian said.
"Exactly," Dunleavy said. "The first thing they teach you in I.I.D.
training is that The Three Steps are superior to two fists."
Brian raised his eyebrows, gesturing his companion to keep talking.
"There are three steps to an effective debriefing: humiliation,
intimidation and interpretation. The first two steps involve interrelated
types of psychological manipulation. The last step has to do with
making sense of all the information you hear when the subject starts
spilling his guts after the first two steps."
Dunleavy grabbed a handful of beer nuts and tossed it into his mouth.
"If everything is so cut and dry," Brian asked, "then why do you need a
station officer to observe?"
"Technical requirement of the Geneva Convention," Dunleavy warbled,
his mouth full of nuts. "You can't detain foreign nationals without the
presence of an outside observer."
"But you told Tsang the Geneva Convention didn't exist in that room!"
Dunleavy just kept chewing.
"Let me guess," Brian said, "step two: intimidation."
"Right," Dunleavy said again. "But that's not all there is to it. My job is
to obtain information. Your job is to take care of everything else.
You know, anything that might distract me from focusing on my job."
"Like what?"
"Like making sure the subject stays alive. Food. Water. That type of
thing."

"What?" Brian exclaimed. "When were you planning to let me know
that, after Tsang dies from malnutrition?"
Dunleavy looked down at his watch. "Well Sport, if you take him
something to eat now, he'll be okay." He glanced back up at Brian.
"And you still should have plenty of time to make it to the Bernallilo
Center."
"Oh shit," Brian said as he looked at his own watch. "I have to go."
He bid a hasty goodbye to Dunleavy and then headed over to the bar
and ordered a cold platter to go for Tsang. He paid for the platter and
the beers with his debit card and then rushed out the door.
Dunleavy sat at the table smiling. Before walking back to his hotel, he
stopped by the bar.
_________
The next morning, day two of the debriefing, Dunleavy arrived at the
Base to find small groups of white-coated researchers milling about
aimlessly. With the Data Room shut down, they simply had nothing to
do. Some of them whispered and pointed accusingly as he passed by.
He paid them no mind. He would have cared only if they hadn't acted
that way.
Upon his arrival the day before, he'd told Dr. Stitz that he was an
auditor from the Inspector General's office sent there to perform a spot
check on the lab's data security procedures. This cover,