condensed master

The Reluctant Agent
A Compelling Story of Espionage
movements which gave him a menacing appearance. Will having been brought up
in the country, had no difficulty in putting this man into his own visual category. He
looked just like a ferret and in the absence of a name, to Will he would be "the
ferret man."
The room had by now fallen into silence. Will began to feel the scrutiny of four
pairs of eyes from the other end of the table. He was feeling very uneasy, his
muscles had become tense, and the palms of his hands were beginning to sweat.
The silence became more compelling by the second and after what seemed an
eternity, he just had to break out of it's grip.
"Why have I been asked to come here?" The ferret man responded like
lightning, shouting in a shrill aggressive voice.
"You will answer questions, not ask them!" Will was taken by surprise at his
attitude, but he had no time to respond as they all in turn started to ask a barrage
of questions, punctuated by periods of silence.
As more and more questions followed, Will's mind began to deteriorate to the
point where he had completely lost track of events that were taking place. It
seemed hours since he had first come into the room. His mouth was dry, and his
voice was beginning to get hoarse.
The questioning had now developed into a full blown interrogation, and voices
were raised in a frightening way, causing Will to make contradictions in his
answers. When his memory could not recall what they required, the ferret man
would resort to bullying in an attempt to extract a response. The others were mild
in comparison, especially one of the officers, who was constantly trying to tone
down the verbal attacks.
"You can see that the man is trying to do his best, back off and let him
answer," he would say, but the ferret man would not give up, confirming that Will's
original assessment of him had not been wrong. The vicious killing nature of the
ferret was now beginning to surface.
Will's fear of him was now giving way to resentment and anger. Projecting his
voice directly towards him he shouted the words as loud as his failing voice would
allow. "I refuse to answer any more of your questions until I know why I am here!"
It was as though his words had triggered a bomb. The ferret man leaped to his
feet, his chair spinning round with the force of his movement, and in a split second
he was crouching in front of Will looking down at him, his twisted face pressed so
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