Chapter 1
Helix
Damien wasn’t meant to be here.
‘Forty minutes,’ the border control officer said. ‘Usually, you’d be talking by now.’
The name tag on his uniform read Ionada. His portly midsection pressed against his local Guatemalan uniform.
Damien was sitting in an interview room, although he used the term loosely since his wrists were duct taped to the chair’s plastic armrests. Cable ties were fastened over the tape just to be sure. They’d even removed the shoelaces from his sneakers.
That was never a good sign.
Ionada sat behind a table, directly under a sprinkler head fixed to the ceiling. On the table there was a single sheet of paper, face down. Between Damien and Ionada, the linoleum floor smelled of ammonia, searing his nostrils. Vents blew cool air; the room temperat
