* * * * * It took two dozen more interviews over the next couple of days to find the other two members she wanted for Team Azrael. Odeon had conducted the interviews with both; she promised herself she'd have a private talk with each of them later, when they were less pushed for time. One was Lt. David Bain, demolitions expert and the backup Inquisitor she'd hoped to find, a tall blue-eyed brunet with an easy grin; the other was Lt. Anthony Degas, a quiet, self-contained small-arms expert who could have been the model for Michelangelo's David. She could have had more--some teams had over a dozen--but she and Odeon wanted to keep Team Azrael small and mobile enough to respond quickly. With the team complete, Cortin had them begin training together every morning. She herself started the day with Mass for the Detention Center Inquisitors and their guests, as she'd promised, losing herself in the ceremony and coming back to mundane reality only when it was over and she removed the stole. After breakfast was the team training, then lunch, followed by individual work or study. For her, that meant interrogations--and she decided quickly to allow Bain to do the preliminary stages, concentrating her own attention on the stubborner subjects. With a limited, if uncertain, time before they had to be ready, she had to get Odeon past his squeamishness as quickly as possible so she could start training him as her assistant. It was Saturday before he managed to get through a session without throwing up, and she didn't think it proper to conduct interrogations on Sunday except in an emergency, so it was Monday when she started teaching him. The subject was a young Brother that Bain evaluated as having no useful information, but as being strong enough to survive up to a week of teaching sessions. Cortin preferred to go after something specific, make it a contest between her and her subject, even though it was a contest she was almost certain to win. But teaching was as valid a function as extracting information, and it would insure that the Brother served at least one useful function in his life while paying for his crimes against the Kingdoms. Their subject was waiting when they entered the interrogation suite's third-stage room, prepared as usual: naked, with some bruising, spreadeagled between ceiling chains and floor eyebolts. Cortin gestured at him, speaking to Odeon. "You've already noticed I keep our methods simple, Captain; the reason is that almost all our work will be done in the field, so I think it best to practice with equipment we can either take or adapt there. This method of securing a subject is an example; you can almost always find trees and ropes, while you'll seldom if ever find a surgical table. The same principle goes for drugs; we use ones like algetin or eroticine that are effective, simple to administer, and can easily be replaced at a shelter or detention center. Any questions so far?"