Maddie narrowed her eyes then. How had they achieved so much if they were simply chancers? How had they known so much about her? Why had they even involved her out of everyone? And those photos too, where had they got them from?
“Did you apprehend any of them?” Maddie asked.
“Most of them are dead. One is refusing to talk the other is in a coma so we have to wait to see if he even makes it.” Cole stated and she sighed then. She wanted answers, she wanted to storm right back into the interrogation room and start punching the guy until he started talking, until he started giving them what they wanted.
“Do we know who they are though? Any connections, any links?” Maddie said.
“There’s nothing. They’re all essentially lone wolves, no connections, no history that identifies them as belonging to any particular group. We can’t link them to anything.” Brandon stated.
“So essentially we’re no further along than we were.” Douglas said.
She looked around at them all and winced slightly as a thought came to her. She got up, not saying a word and walked out of the room coming back with the photo in her hand. Everyone was watching her then. Cole especially.
“In the interests of transparency you should probably know what this photo actually is.” She said putting it down but not looking at it. “It’s from the cave. From the Ali case.” She half muttered and then sat down.
She saw Cole and Brandon exchange glances.
“You lied?” Brandon stated and she could hear the sudden tone in his voice.
“Yes.” She said.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” She replied quietly. She knew Douglas and Becky didn’t know about it, about what they’d done, about the heroin and she sure as hell wasn’t going to say it now.
Cole looked down at the photo as if then understanding exactly what it showed and gave her a look she couldn’t read. She looked down at her hands, not ashamed at what she’d done, not really regretting it either, but ashamed that they knew. That both of them knew about it.
“We should relist and remap it with the others.” Becky said sensing there was something unspoken between the three of them and not wanting to delve into it. The others nodded.
“I want you all to go back through everything, in light of what we now know about the target maybe there’s something we didn’t see, something we overlooked.” Brandon stated. They all nodded and got up to go.
“Maddie stay a minute.” Brandon said and Maddie swallowed before sitting back down with a sinking feeling.
“We need to discuss how we’re going to manage this.” Brandon said once it was just the three of them.
“Manage what?” She replied.
“Your addiction.”
She shook her head. “It’s fine. It’s in hand. It’s not a problem.”
“Sorry Maddie but that’s not good enough.” Brandon stated and she looked from him to Cole.
“What are you saying?” She asked.
“You’re not the only one at BlackWater, we have other agents with issues. I want you to see a sponsor, I want you to go to meetings. We’re going to manage this the same as we would anyone else.”
“But it’s not the same.” Maddie said through gritted teeth. “I didn’t choose this, I have at no point made a conscious decision to put that stuff in me…”
“We know that.”
“Then don’t treat me like I’m the same.” She said.
Brandon shook his head.
“How do you think it’ll work?” Maddie said. “Me going to AA meetings or whatever the hell the drug versions are, hearing everyone else talk about their problems, their issues, about how they got themselves down that path when I didn’t. And then to have a sponsor, to have to talk to someone else, to have to tell them? Do you seriously think that’s going to help? You can drug test me if you want, every damn week if that’s what it takes but I’m not doing it, I’m not sitting in a room with people who chose to do what was forced on me.”
She glanced at Cole then and somehow the look on his face reassured her. She looked back at Brandon and could see he was thinking it over but he clearly wasn’t as convinced.
“You lied Maddie.” He stated. “That photo, that was the perfect opportunity for you to tell us. You could have come to me or to Cole and told us what it was really about but you didn’t.”
Her heart was racing fast and she was fighting back the urge to just start shouting. She needed to be calm, she knew that but she felt suddenly like she was backed into a corner, forced to defend herself.
“You really expect me to just keep bearing all my secrets to you. To have just knocked on your door and told you that that photo showed one of the worst moments of my life, that that was the cave, that they had pumped me full of heroin, tortured me, violated me…” She shut her eyes and fell silent as if she’d run out of energy, as if remembering that moment had someone extinguished even the fight in her now.
“What did you just say?” Cole asked and she shook her head sighing.
“Come on. I was the only girl in a team of nine. What do you think they do to women they take hostage?” She muttered meeting his gaze and he scowled.
“For fucksake Maddie.” He growled. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Like I said, I can’t keep bearing all my secrets for you all.” Maddie replied meeting his shocked look with a hard stare. Tough Maddie was back he realised. The walls were firmly back up.
“Okay this is what we’re going to do.” Brandon said. “We are going to drug test you, monthly, not because I think you’re an addict and not because I think you’re using but to cover your arse as well as ours. I agree meetings and a sponsor aren’t really going to work but I want you to see a therapist.”
“What?” Maddie snapped.
“Maddie you have some serious demons, if Homewell were any good they should have made you see someone when you got back from China.”
“I really doubt talking to someone about my feelings is going to make any it better.” She retorted.
“Why not try it and see?” He said and she sighed hearing the tone of his voice and knowing there was no way the man was going to back down on this one. “We’re going to take care of you, if you let us that is.”
“Fine. I’ll do it.” She sighed. “Can I get back to work now?”
“Yes you can go.” Brandon said and she got up and left without glancing back at either of them.