“Information,” Saren replied. “Tell me what you know about Sidon.” “We were hired to take out the base,” the crippled man admitted.

“By who?”

“I don’t know. I only dealt with a go-between. I never saw him, never heard a name.”

Saren sighed and knelt down on the floor beside Groto. There were many exotic methods of interrogation, a million ways to inflict pain and punishment on a victim. But turians were a practical people, and he personally preferred the brutal effectiveness of simple, basic techniques. Grabbing the man’s dangling left arm by the wrist, he took a firm grip on one of his fingers and began to bend it backwards.

“No!” the batarian screamed. “No! Please… it’s the truth! That’s all I know! You have to believe me!” He stuck to the story even after three of the fingers on his hand were broken at the middle knuckle,

convincing Saren he was telling the truth.

“How did you get inside the base?” Saren asked, changing his line of questioning.

“The man who hired us,” Groto muttered, his voice raw and raspy from the fresh round of screaming that had torn up his throat. “He had someone on the inside.”

“Give me a name.”

“Please,” he begged in high-pitched, mewling whine. “I don’t know. I wasn’t even there.” Saren grabbed another finger, and the words began to pour out.

“Wait! I don’t know the inside man! But… but I can tell you other stuff. After the attack we brought in an outsider. A freelance bounty hunter. A big krogan named Skarr.”

“Good,” Saren said, releasing his hold on the uninjured digit. “Keep going.”

“Something went wrong at Sidon. Someone survived the attack. A loose end. Skarr was hired to hunt her

“What else? Why were you hired to attack the base?”

“I don’t know,” Groto whispered fearfully. “We weren’t given any details. The moneyman was afraid someone would talk. He didn’t want… he didn’t want the Spectres to find out.”

Saren broke two more of his fingers just to be sure.

“Please,” the batarian sobbed once he’d stopped screaming. “It’s not me you want. There was a meeting at the warehouse with Skarr and the man who hired us. Talk to someone who was there.”

The turian wasn’t surprised his victim was offering up someone else. It was a common reaction in most subjects. Typically it was a sign the interrogation was nearing an end; once the subject realized they were running out of useful information to surrender, betraying their allies became their only chance of avoiding further torture.

“Where can I find someone from the warehouse?” the Spectre demanded.

“I… I don’t know,” Groto admitted, his voice trembling. “They’re with the moneyman. He hired them on as his personal bodyguards.”

“Guess I’m stuck with you then,” Saren replied.

“That’s all I know,” the batarian protested weakly, his voice completely devoid of guile, subterfuge, or hope. “Even if you break every bone in my body, I can’t tell you anything else.”

“We’ll see,” Saren promised.

It was a long night for Saren. The batarian went into shock and passed out three more times during the interrogation. Each time it happened Saren would have to sit down and wait for him to regain consciousness — there was no point in torturing an unresponsive subject.

In the end, it turned out Groto had been telling the truth. Saren didn’t get anything more out of him. He’d suspected as much, but he had needed to be absolutely sure. There was too much at stake.

Someone had hired the Blue Suns. Someone with enough wealth and power to secure their exclusive loyalty. Someone who had taken extra precautions to make sure the Spectres wouldn’t find out what was going on. Saren needed to know who had ordered the attack on Sidon and why. Billions of lives could be

at stake, and he was more than willing to torture a single merc for hours on end if there was even the smallest chance he could learn something that might help him break the case.

Not that there weren’t consequences to his actions. The soundproof room had amplified the piercing shrieks and keening wails of his victim. The screams had physically hurt Saren’s ears, and now he had a pounding headache.

Next time, he thought as he rubbed his temples, I’ll bring earplugs.

He had lifted the batarian up onto the bed partway through the interrogation; it was easier to work on him there than to constantly bend down to reach him on the floor. Now Groto was just lying motionless on his back, breathing softly in a deep sleep brought on by utter mental and physical exhaustion.

There wasn’t much to go on, but Saren had a solid lead to follow. He knew Skarr by reputation, and he knew the bounty hunter was headed to Elysium. It shouldn’t be hard to pick up his trail there.

First, though, he had to clean up this mess. Arresting Groto wasn’t an option; it would draw attention and alert whoever had hired the Blue Suns that a Spectre was on the case. It was easier — and safer — to just dispose of the body.

Saren gently placed a hand on either side of the batarian’s head, then gave a savage twist at an awkward angle, breaking his elongated neck. A quick and painless death.

After all, he wasn’t a monster.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Anderson disembarked on Elysium with the three hundred other passengers who had booked a seat on the public-transport shuttle from the Citadel.

The landing port teemed with people. The densely packed crowd was a mix of every known species in the galaxy; some arriving, some leaving, most waiting in the long, winding lines to clear customs and border stations. Security had always been tight on Elysium, but with the attack on the nearby Sidon base things had been elevated to a level Anderson had never seen before.

Not that he disapproved. Ideally located near the nexus of several primary and secondary relays, Elysium was a major hub for travel and commerce that the Alliance could not afford to expose to possible terrorist attacks. The colony was only five years old, but already it was one of the busiest trade ports in the Verge. The population had exploded; recently passing one million, if you included all the various and varied resident aliens who accounted for nearly half the total inhabitants. Unfortunately, that also meant a disproportionately high number of visitors to Elysium were nonhuman, and subject to heightened screening procedures.

The extra security made arrivals and departures a long and cumbersome experience for most travelers. Even humans were subjected to major delays; the staff taken away to help process the alien visitors meant fewer people left behind to deal with the Alliance citizens.

Fortunately for Anderson, his military ID gave him the luxury of bypassing the long lines. The guard at the Alliance station scanned his thumbprint and studied his identification for a few seconds before saluting and waving him through.

Officially, Anderson wasn’t here in any authorized capacity. He was just an Alliance marine taking shore leave, a believable enough cover story to avoid drawing any unwanted attention and hide the true purpose of his visit.

Jon Grissom was Kahlee Sanders’s father. It was pretty obvious they were estranged, but there was still

a good chance Grissom knew something that could help Anderson’s investigation. Sidon was only a few hours away from Elysium. There were records of Sanders booking a passage here when she went UA. And even though it looked like Grissom hadn’t communicated with his daughter in at least ten years, it

was public knowledge that the Alliance’s most recognizable soldier had taken early retirement and become a recluse on humanity’s largest colony in the Verge.

Anderson still couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that Sanders was a traitor. The pieces just didn’t add up. But he knew she was involved somehow; her sudden disappearance had to be more than coincidence. Maybe she had gotten in over her head and panicked when things got out of control. He could imagine her arriving on Elysium: scared, alone, not knowing who to trust. Estranged or not, her father was the most likely person she’d turn to for help.