by Marc Cameron
The telltale hiss of a running shower came through the flimsy wood door and drew Quinn back to reality. He tapped the Sig Sauer pistol beneath his robe, taking a breath of solace in the fact it was there, then drew another item from the folds of his robe. This wasn’t the time for pistol work. Quinn put a hand on the door and took a deep breath, thinking one last time of his daughter before pressing her from his mind while he worked. He knew he should feel guilty about his absence, about the fact that he put his work even above those he loved the most—but he’d save the guilt for later. That’s what made him so good.
* * *
Quinn surprised Ghazan with a snap kick to the groin as he stepped from the shower. Water dripped from the mat of black hair that thatched the Iraqi’s body like a thick rug. The big man roared in alarm, attempting a kick of his own. The wet tile and newfound pain proved too much for his brain to handle and he hit the ground like a hairy sack of bricks.
Wasting no time, Quinn brought up the Taser X26, aiming the red laser dot at the center of Ghazan’s chest. There was a static crackle as twin darts, barbed like straightened fish hooks, unspooled on hairlike wires to strike their target just below the right nipple and above the left knee. The Iraqi’s body went taut and the muscles of his face pulled back in a grimace as fifty thousand volts of electricity arced between the two probes. He tried to cry out from the searing pain, but the best he could muster was a gurgle.
Traditional Tasers carried by law enforcement emitted a five-second burst of energy for each pull of the trigger. Quinn had taken the ride himself, along with his entire class of basic OSI agents. He found it to be like having a five-second full-body cramp, while completely engulfed in molten lava and stabbed in the back with an ice pick. It was something he hoped he’d never have to endure again.
The Taser he carried now had been modified to deliver four times that, completely immobilizing the target with pain and loss of neuromuscular control.
Ghazan’s first twenty-second ride complete, Quinn pulled the trigger a second time. The muscles in the side of the Iraqi’s neck tensed like thick cables, his glistening body arched up, bridging on shoulders and heels. Quinn took the opportunity to stick a small adhesive pad under each of Ghazan’s ears. It was remarkably easy to find a vein and inject the contents of a plastic syringe, then secure his wrists and ankles with heavy plastic zip cuffs. The shock took the path of least resistance, which happened to be between the darts in the Iraqi’s body, so Quinn felt nothing but a mild tingle as he completed his job.
Ghazan fell slack. He gave a pitiful groan and his head lolled to one side. Quinn slapped the man’s cheeks, gaining his attention. He’d be no good if he passed out. The high-dosage scopolamine patches under his ears were already beginning to have the desired effect. His eyes fluttered, but he remained conscious.
“What . . . What do . . . you want?” The big man’s words were a slurred mess, as if he had a mouth full of marbles. “You . . . you will suffer. . . greatly for this. . . .”
“The American soldiers you kidnapped,” Quinn spat in Arabic as he hauled the slippery body upright, propping him against the rough tile wall.
Ghazan gave a rattling chuckle, blinked in an effort to clear his vision. The drugs and fatigue from the two bouts of electric-shock muscle cramping had exhausted him as surely as if he’d run a marathon. “You will die . . . for this insult. . . .” Ghazan swallowed. He smiled dopily. “I am thirsty, my friend. . . .”
Quinn grabbed a bit of the man’s skin on the back of his upper arm, giving it a pinching twist.
Startled as if from another sudden shock, Ghazan yowled. “They will die tonight. . . .” he gasped.
“Where are they?” Quinn leaned forward.
The scopolamine began to combine with the drug Quinn had injected—a derivative of sodium pentathol developed by the Soviets called SP17. Together they induced a state of relaxed euphoria and, if all went well, would turn Ghazan into an Arab version of Chatty Cathy.
“What do you want with the American dogs? Fool! Farooq will kill you.”
“Farooq?”
“You know of the sheikh, yes?” Ghazan stammered. “He is a powerful man . . . with many friends. Get me some water . . . and perhaps I will let you live. . . .”
Another pinch brought a scream and a renewed sense of focus. Quinn kept his voice low, a menacing whisper, slipping seamlessly into English. “I need you to tell me about the Americans. They are my friends.”
“Your friends . . .” Sick realization crept over the big Iraqi’s face. “You are American?”
Quinn nodded slowly. “I am.”
“Impossible,” Ghazan sneered, momentarily coherent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Quinn drew a long, slender blade from the back of his belt and held it before the Arab’s face.
Ghazan blinked sagging eyes. He gave a tight chuckle, trying to convince himself. “Put that thing away. It does not frighten me. You Americans . . . you have told the world. You are disgusted by the mere idea of torture.”
“We are disgusted by it,” Quinn said, nodding slightly. “I am sickened by the act.” He pressed the point of his blade up Ghazan’s flared nostril until a trickle of blood flowed down his twitching lip. “And yet, I find myself needing the information inside your head.” Quinn shrugged, drawing a fresh trickle of blood. “I am disgusted not for what it does to scum like you, but for what it does to the one inflicting the pain. Such violence does irreparable emotional harm to the torturer. . . .” The tip of his knife remained motionless, now more than an inch inside the big Iraqi’s nose. “Some say it damages them beyond repair.”
Quinn leaned in, almost touching the sweating man’s face with his forehead, close enough to smell the odor of spiced chickpeas he’d eaten for supper. “The bad news for you,” he whispered, “is that I’m already damaged. . . .”
* * *
Ghazan wept like a baby, but in the end, the drugs and the threat of a man even more cruel than himself loosened his mind and his tongue. He gave up an address in a bombed-over suburb outside Fallujah where American hostages were supposedly being kept. In his panic he offered information that some of the hostages were to be killed that very night as a show of insurgent solidarity.
The contents of a second syringe sent the Iraqi’s head lolling against the wet concrete, snoring. Quinn stared at him for a long moment, thinking of the innocent people the terrorist was responsible for killing. He held the knife in his clenched fist and considered all the events that had brought him up to this point. He was not yet thirty-five, a government agent, Fulbright scholar, father, PTA volunteer. . . and an extremely talented killer. The world was a very strange place.
It seemed such a simple thing to slide the razor-sharp blade between Ghazan’s hairy ribs and scramble his black heart like an egg. . . .
Instead, Quinn wiped the knife clean and reached inside the folds of his dishdasha for his secure radio, wondering just how damaged he was.
“This is Copper Three-Zero,” he said. “I have high value target Juliet for immediate pickup. . . .”
* * *
Quinn dialed his encrypted cell phone on the way back to his stashed motorcycle.
Sadiq answered, “Assalaamu alaikum, Jericho. I am so pleased that you have remained alive to pay me.”
Quinn returned the greeting and repeated the address Ghazan had provided.
“Mean anything to you?” he said.
“Nothing,” Sadiq said. “But that neighborhood is a Sunni stronghold, very dangerous.”
Quinn laughed to himself. All of Fallujah was a Sunni stronghold. “Ghazan mentioned a man named Farooq. Have you heard of him?”
The line was silent.
“Sadiq?”
“I know of this man. Most simply call him the sheikh. It is said that this man was behind the bombing of your Colorado shopping mall. He has vowed to bring the Great Satan to its knees. Your Fifth Sunday Bombing, it is said, is just the beginning. He plan
s something far worse. . . .”
“In the United States?” Quinn held the phone against his ear with his shoulder as he pushed the motorcycle from the shadows behind the stinking pile of cans, rotting fruit, and pungent diapers.
“Most definitely in the United States,” Sadiq said, preoccupied. “He wants to punish the Great Satan on American soil.... Jericho, these hostages, they are to be killed?”
“So says Ghazan al Ghazi.”
“In that case,” Sadiq said. “Be very careful you do not get killed yourself. Remember, I have yet to receive payment.”
“Thanks for your concern.” Quinn couldn’t help but shake his head at his informant’s abrupt manner. The kid was right though, lives ended in the blink of an eye in this part of the world. “I’ll see that you are rewarded, no matter what happens to me.” He ended the call and sped into the darkness as fast as the rattling little Kaweseki would carry him.
Intelligence was a perishable substance and if he intended to save the American prisoners, he had to move fast. Worse, he’d have to enlist the help of a man he despised.
A native of Texas, Marc Cameron has spent over twenty-nine years in law enforcement. His assignments have taken him from rural Alaska to Manhattan, from Canada to Mexico, and points in between. A second-degree black belt in jujitsu, he often teaches defensive tactics to law enforcement agencies and civilian groups. Cameron presently lives in Alaska with his wife and his BMW motorcycle.