Argylle - The last chance

Chapter XVII

"Okay dokay," Aidan said with a heavy Texan accent wiping his hands with a towel. Rachel looked up from her book and Tam put away her phone and took out her headphones.
It was several hours after the abduction of the man whose name turned out to be Mason Fisher. They had driven back home, put him on a chair in a room in the basement, which was empty except for one table in the corner of the room, gave him water and some bread and left him to wake up.
While the three agents were working upstairs - Aidan was in a videochat with Alfie to help him research stuff about former agents, Rachel worked on the next book by Elly Conway, and Tam did some schoolwork -, the abducted man woke up and saw the food on the table in the room. But since he was tied to a chair, he couldn't get to it. But as smart as the agents had expected Mason to be, he tried to move his chair towards the table. Once they had heard the chair scraping over the floor, Aidan said goodbye to Alfie and walked downstairs. He stayed in the basement for about two and a half hours and every once in a while, there was a silent scream to be heard, which is why Tam had put headphones on. She couldn't bear the sound of suffering people.
"What did you find out, Cowboy?" Rachel asked, referring to his faked accent.
He went to the sink in the kitchen and washed the blood off his hands.
"Not as much as I hoped to find out..." he admitted, now changing back to his normal accent. "I don't think he's lying, though. He seemed pretty honest after I showed him the axe and the thirteen different sized knifes."
Tam's eyes widened. "What did you do to him?!"
"Not having sympathy for the bastard, have you?" Aidan asked and snorted.
"Depends on what you did to him!" she snapped.
"Don't worry, he's still alive. And he'll be fine. I didn't even use the axe! Or the thirteen different knifes," and after a short pause he added, "Only three of them."
"Aidan!" Tam exclaimed.
"What?!" he shouted back. "Did you expect me to find out about 'the Division' by asking nicely? Well, spoiler alert, Tam: That's not how it works!"
"I know that it's not how it works! Here's some information for you: Usually I am the bastard sitting on the chair in the basement being tortured with the axe and the thirteen different sized knifes, Agent Wylde."
"Woah, slowly now, tiger," he said and raised his hands, "It's not you down there. It's the guy who beat you up about a week ago. He's one of the bad guys, okay?"
"By torturing him are we any better than them?!"
"By torturing one man we are still better than them who are willing to torture thousands of people!" he sighed, obviously trying to keep his cool, "Listen, I know what I am doing. I don't like torturing people I don't enjoy it. But in doing so, by doing it myself and not paying professionals, I at least can guarantee that he will survive without any further restrictions. He won't suffer any permanent damage. I know it's not the best way to handle things, but-"
"Not the best way?! It's illegal! Damn it that he'll survive! I survived this shit, too!" her voice cracked as he screamed at him.
"But you are not him!" he bellowed, "And it's not the first illegal thing I've done in my life, so what? Would you describe me as the bad guy?"
"Well, until five minutes ago I probably wouldn't have, but now? I don't know, Aidan, are you the bad guy?"
"Hey!" Rachel stopped the fight. "Will you two please calm down!"
The siblings looked at her as if she was asking them to wear a "We are getting along well"-Shirt.
"Tam, I know this is probably a lot to deal with for you at the moment, but Aidan is right. We can't expect to get information if we are not ready to make some sacrifices. But rest assured, we'll get him to a hospital so that he'll survive, right, honey?"
"Yes, of course," he grumbled.
"Okay, Tam?"
She didn't answer and only stared at her brother.
"Tamara." Rachel's voice had a tone that warned Tam to better not disobey.
"Yeah, okay," she groused.
"Will you say sorry, please. Both of you."
"But-" Aidan wanted to contradict, but his girlfriend interrupted him: "No, Aidan! You'll apologize, too. Tam was unnecessarily bitchy, but you were unnecessarily rude, although you know damn well how emotionally damaged and unstable she is!"
Both siblings mumbled something incomprehensible, before looking at each other.
"I'm sorry, Tam, I shouldn't have been this rude. I know you're going through a lot and this situation might have awakened old traumas," Aidan was the first one to apologize.
"I'm sorry, too. I shouldn't have been this bitchy. You're only doing your job and apparently, you're doing it quite good."
"See, that wasn't that hard," Rachel smiled. "Great, now that we talked about this," she turned to her boyfriend, "Aidan, what did you find out?"
"Okay, so," the agent sighed, "Mason couldn't tell me a lot about the organization of 'the Division'. Neither could he say anything about the head or other authorities. They all just call the head "The Big Boss" and there are not really other authorities. He said that more experienced people have a higher rank, but there are no titles or something.
Apparently, there is no headquarters right now, because the big boss is too scared that the FBI will find it and blow it up. Uhm... furthermore, he couldn't tell any names because they all work with aliases."
"So... all in all, you didn't find out anything useful?" Tam asked.
"No, actually, my dear sister, I did find out something of use. I found out where these people get their recruits."