Page 13 of The Damage Man

Evan takes out his RoamZone, zooms in on Ivan’s driver’s-license photo, and clicks a shot. With an augmented-reality app, he generates depth maps of Ivan’s face. Another click converts the image into a three-dimensional hologram. His RoamZone features scattering-assisted dynamic holography, allowing it to project high-resolution images.

Within seconds, Ivan’s head is floating three-dimensionally in the air above the polyether-thiourea screen of Evan’s RoamZone. Pale and dour with pronounced cheekbones, Ivan’s is not a pretty face.

Evan holds Ivan’s cell phone up to face the holograph, clicks facial recognition, and gains access to the phone.

A few minutes of scrolling unearths a treasure trove of incriminating evidence. Texts and bank wires, addresses and drop spots, directives from someone named BLACKFISH. The photo roll is rife with gruesome proof-of-enforcement imagery—a man bound to a chair with an eye gouged out, a closeup of torso bruises with a baseball bat in frame, a body in a car trunk.

Evan changes the password to 000000.

Sets the phone down.

Leaning over, he unlaces his boots and peels off his socks. He lines the boots up parallel and sets the socks side by side on the teak bench.

Then he cuffs his cargo pants up to the knees.

When released, the massive door latch gives a low boom that echoes endlessly in the cramped space. Ivan is zoned out on his back naked, arms spread, a floating snow angel. Orange plugs stop up his ears.

As Evan steps inside, Ivan sits up, tugging the earplugs free. “What’s going on?”

Slightly stooped, Evan swings the door shut. Suction tugs at his eardrums as the soundproof tank seals. The blackness is absolute, the only sound sloshing water and Ivan’s rapid breaths.

Evan stomps on his chest, smashing him to the fiberglass floor, feeling a rib crack. Ivan’s hands flutter up, grabbing at Evan’s leg, and Evan uses the opportunity to break one wrist and then the other. They are encased in this space together, sweat and breath, wrapped in the shell of the tank.

Ivan bucks up, choking and mewling. Bracing against the ceiling, Evan repositions his bare foot higher on his chest, feeling for the clavicle, and stomps again.

The collarbone gives with a snap.

The water rocks violently and Ivan sputters, trying to draw breath. Evan crouches over him and grabs his skull like a bowling ball, two fingers in the eyes, thumb hooked under his chin where the halves of the mandible meet at the midline.

He slams Ivan’s head against the hatch but not hard enough to knock him out. His other hand clenches Ivan’s windpipe, dug around the thyroid cartilage on either side.

“Ivan,” he says softly. “If you give me the slightest reason, I will gouge out your eyes and crush your trachea. Nod if you understand.”

The moist face jerks up and down.

“You’re the damage man for Blackfish. Is that correct?”

Another quivering nod.

“You are a professional. So you recognize that I am too. You will have one chance to answer my questions. If you don’t, you will be blind and mute for the rest of your life. Nod if you understand.”

He feels another nod in the perfect blackness.

“Who is Blackfish?”

The hoarse rush of air cannot shape itself into words. Evan relaxes his grip on Ivan’s throat by 15 percent.

“Jonathan … Hay.”

“Where is he?”

“Office … Century City.”

“Tell me everything about his operation. Including security.”

“Can you … let go … throat?”

Evan gives him another 10 percent.