<strong>Prisoner Kate Bartlett<br/>Carl's Lab/Personal Quarters</strong><br/><br/><br/>Kate felt her body stiffen as the door opened. Part of her wondered whether it was going to be Popov, but the man who walked into the room was someone new. If Popov gave the impression that he was solid, Kate knew immediately that this alleged ‘researcher’ so much more so. He was shorter than Popov but significantly broader and even under the lab coat, Kate knew that physically this was a powerful man. The way Popov had responded, from the moment he had talked to the female guard maybe 20-30 minutes earlier, also told her that the man who was now walking across the lab was perhaps powerful in terms of his position in this facility.<br/><br/>She watched him as he walked to another, virtually hidden doorway. How could she not have noticed that before? She really was going to have to start being a damn sight more observant - in here that might be the difference between life and death. She saw the man indicate that he was waiting for her to move into the adjoining room and when she walked through, trying not to show her nervousness as she walked past the man, she couldn't believe how completely different it was. After every room she had seen or been in since arriving, this was... it didn't belong. Whilst everywhere else was sterile and bleak and antisceptic, this was warm, inviting, almost homely but in a very masculine way. Functional and comfortable. Her gaze followed the direction of his finger and following his instructions she moved silently over to the couch and slowly sat down on the edge of the seat.<br/><br/>Kate watched him as he moved behind the large desk and sat down, watched him as he picked up a brown folder and started to flick through the pages within it. She flinched a little as he emphasised his problem by pointing at her. What the hell had she done to cause this man a problem? she wondered to herself. What the hell was he talking about. She hadn't done anything. She felt her spirits rise a little when he said that she shouldn't be here. Maybe that was it. Maybe he had realized someone had set her up, that she was innocent and that's what created the problem for him. He now had to deal with that and get her released, give her her life back. Wait a minute, he was speaking to quickly, moving from one subject to another... Sinclair... Jack Sinclair had nothing to do with her being here... well beyond the fact that she had been trying to defend the company from accusations made by Gen-Tech about improper activity... and somebody was going to kill her... why would anyone need to kill her? Kate struggled to keep track of the statements which the man through out across the vast desk in her direction; she struggled to join one up with another so that it made sense. As she watched him stand up and walk around the desk to the counch, she was aware that she was breathing a little heavier. As he sat down next to her on the counch, she kept her gaze on him, her jaw clenched firm, and she swallowed hard. Only when he held out the pen and paper did her gaze shift from him, to them and then back to him. Tentatively, she reached out and took them both. And then the man told her what he wanted to write. And suddenly things started to make sense. Suddenly the statements he had been making now joined up. He thought she knew key information about Sinclair's activities, their pending patents and contracts. She knew it was Gen-Tech that had set her up, and she knew that primarily it was simply to get her out of the way and ruin her reputation in the process. Now it was obvious why they hadn't just killed her. They wanted information. But who was the man sat next to her on the couch? She felt she knew him. She knew she had never met him but wasn't quite as sure that she had never seen him... or at least his picture. She was rifling through her memories of old newspaper stories, rumours around the court room halls, gossip amongst members of the groups she sometimes helped out with legal advice. Something about plagiarism of reseach data; stealing the work of others and representing it as his own. Kate couldn’t help a small smile appear on her mouth but the smile disappeared as the next memory was about the rumours of unscientific unethical research. If this was who she thought it was... she just couldn't pull out the name... Craig Dodd... Chris Dodd....no, that wasn't it...<br/><br/>She looked down again at the pen and paper... and then slowly handed them back. She shook her head a little.<br/><br/>“I'm sorry. IF... IF I had that kind of information, which I don't, it would be covered by attorney-client privilege. But... I don't know anything about ... drugs... or..... or military projects." She shook her head again. "I'm a trial lawyer. I worked for Sinclair to get bogus criminal charges laid against the company dismissed. I don't know the kind of information you want." She swallowed hard. "And... and putting me on that table out there.... isn't going to change that fact." She looked at the man sat next to her trying to see some indication that he believed her. "You're just going to have to tell your father that I can't help." She swallowed hard again. Should she have let on that she knew who he was? Was there any chance at all that he would believe that she didn't know anything?<br/><br/>