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“Ah,” he said at last, and withdrew his hand

The transderital watch Kovac held it up so that Max, staring goggle-eyed, could see it The Serb then dropped it to the floor and s remained but bits of plastic and ruined electronics

He then slid a hypoder, “I could have waited for this drug to take effect, but where is the fun in that?”

It was the last thing Max re awake

He had no idea where he was or how long he’d been held captive He wanted to , but he was sure he was being watched, and he doubted there would be that much play in his manacles There wasn’t anyone in the rooh to hear or sense them, even with his eyes closed That didn’t mean cameras weren’t mounted on walls andas possible before alerting his captors to his consciousness and use that time to let more of the narcotics work their way out of his syste, he needed to be as fresh as possible

An hour passed—or it ht have been ten minutes—Max wasn’t sure He had lost all concept of time He knew that time deprivation, the inability to set the body’s internal clock, was an essential tool in the interrogator’s arsenal, so he purposefully forced hie A prisoner could be driven over the edge trying to deter away that natural need Max took away his captor’s ability to torture him with it

That had never been a problees and boxes they kept hih to always allow at least a sliver of light to enter But Max kept apprised of interrogation techniques as part of his job, and he knew time deprivation was effective only if the captors let it re

As for whatever else they had in store, he would just have to wait and see

A heavy lock was opened nearby Max hadn’t heard anyone approach, so he knew the door had to be thick The rooned as a jail cell and not so temporary that had been converted to hold him That the Responsivists had such a cell, ready and w

aiting, did not bode well

The door creaked open with a screech of rusted es weren’t often used or the cell was located in a huround He didn’t move a muscle, as he listened to the sound of two separate and distinct pairs of feet approaching the bed One had a heavier tread than the other, but the latter was definitely male Kovac and an accomplice?

“He should have come around by now,” Zelimir Kovac said

“He’s a big reed He had an American accent “But everyone is different”

Kovac lightly slapped Max’s cheek Maxsound, as if he were dimly aware of the contact but was too far under to care

“It has been twenty-four hours,” the Serbian killer said “If he doesn’t wake in an hour, I will inject him with a stimulant”