Omega The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,60
rhetorical question was asked, “but this is simply a choice. I know you had high hopes that they would step aside after we wiped out their human agents.” He let a smile split his lips. “No, you know I didn’t agree with that operation, and clearly it did not bear the fruit that your advisors told you it would. Because they do not know Erich Winter, his stubborn resolution.”
There was a pause in the conversation. “Erich Winter lives up to his name. His coldly analytical nature, his refusal to budge, like a frosted hinge...you were never going to receive the results you were looking for by simply doing things the way they told you to. Anyone who was close to the situation would have said so...and this is the problem with your advisors...they are too young, too unfamiliar with the old ways to deal with the old ones, who are more myth and legend to them than real.”
There was a flat pause and the old man looked up at the greying sky, at the impending approach of winter itself, of the trees, now nearly naked on either side of the boulevard he was driving on. “Stanchion is mine, my operation. I will show you. Tomorrow, we move. Tomorrow, everything falls into place. I will call you after it is done, and we will talk. I will fix this intractable mess that your young minds have created for you.
“And after that, Erich Winter will no longer be a problem.”
16.
Sienna
“So this is Eleanor Madigan,” Old Man Winter said in a low, rumbling tone, the glass between her in the interrogation room and the eight of us watching feeling far too thin for a woman who could cast lightning. She sat on a metal chair, her legs and those of the chair resting in a children’s wading pool filled halfway with water.
“I wouldn’t advise using ice on her.” I said, “I don’t think it would end well for you, more like an AC/DC song.”
“Her talents do not concern me,” Old Man Winter said. “Keeping her in a pool of water should nullify her powers.”
“Is that an old trick for dealing with Thor-types, sir?” Bastian asked.
“No,” Old Man Winter replied, a glint of amusement in his eyes. “I saw it on an episode of Heroes.” There was a pause, as though someone had thrown a grenade in the middle of us and we were all waiting for it to explode.
“Oh, wow,” I said into the tension. “Was that a joke?”
Old Man Winter’s voice scratched as he replied. “Yes. Do none of you recognize one when you hear it?”
I looked around; taking the temperature of the room, I felt one thing and one thing only—discomfort. “From you, no.”
“What’s to stop her from turning the chair over?” Bastian asked.
“Clary will assist in the interrogation,” Old Man Winter said; whether he was ignoring Bastian or simply felt that was answer enough was anyone’s guess. “While he and I are speaking with Madigan, Parks and Bastian will again have a conversation with Bjorn, and Sienna and Eve will speak to Fries.” Old Man Winter turned from facing Madigan to look at all of us, a wintery glow of blue in his frosty eyes. “They will be moving soon. I will have names. I will have times, locations...whatever they know, I want it.”
“Did Bjorn talk?” I asked as Old Man Winter began to turn away. “After you broke his arm off, and whatever else you did to him?”
There was a pause, and I got the sense everyone else was waiting, the same as I was, to see if he answered. “No,” he said finally. “But that does not mean he will not say more now.” He walked out the door, Clary at his heels, and a moment later we saw him enter the chamber that held Madigan.
“He thinks the clock is winding down,” Ariadne said after Old Man Winter had begun to speak to Eleanor. “He thinks they’ll be getting cocky now, that some unstoppable hammerblow is about to rain down on our heads.”
“We’ve captured three of them now,” Eve said, a certain lazy, I-don’t-care-ness to her tone. “You’d think they’d be losing some of that arrogance.”
I thought for a moment about Eleanor, when we were talking during the fight in the hotel. “Hmm,” I said aloud, drawing Reed’s eye, and then Ariadne’s.
“What?” Ariadne asked.
“When I fought Eleanor,” I said, “she didn’t seem all that concerned about being