by T. S. O'Neil
The man grabbed at Jimmy’s feet, but he sidestepped the attempt and kicked the man as hard as he could directly in the side of his head. Prison work boots impacted on the man’s face with a horrific thud. The man was momentarily stunned, but not out. He reached for his sidearm, but was again kicked in the face. Jimmy reached down and pulled the pistol from the holster and pointed it at the man’s face.
“Cut me loose, “he ordered the man.
The driver heard the struggle and had maneuvered the huge vehicle to the side of the highway and stopped hard, causing Jimmy to lose his footing.
The driver spun around in the white leather Captain’s Chair and pointed a pistol directly at Jimmy. “Drop the weapon,” he ordered.
Jimmy noticed the cellular phone on the other man’s hip, fired the pistol in the general direction of the driver, grabbed the phone, and ran towards the back of the vehicle and into the bathroom. The driver was right on his heels and tried to shoulder his way into the room.
Jimmy slammed the whole weight of his body into the door and forced it closed. He quickly locked the door and frantically looked for something to cut the zip cuffed wrists. Finding nothing, he smashed his fists into the mirror and shattered it. The door lock exploded and flew off the back of the door, no doubt from the impact of rounds being fired. Jimmy slammed the door shut with his back, hoping that they would value his life enough not to shoot through it.
Shit, there wasn’t time, he thought grasping the cell phone. He had used one once before; he borrowed his attorney’s phone to call Char. It took him a while to figure it out, but Char always conveyed his cellphone number on every postcard he sent Jimmy. He would disguise it in the bogus return address; the street number would serve as the area code and the zip and additional digits corresponded to the actual number. Jimmy had managed to see a sign for State Route 52 when he grabbed the cellphone and convey that to Char. He figured they were headed south on the Interstate, but were still north of Tampa.
It was an important number to remember, so he repeated it often and even considered tattooing it to his forearm if his memory began to fade. He dialed the number and waited while the driver tried to force his way into the room.
Jimmy considered slicing the man’s throat with a piece of broken mirror, but decided against it. He waited for the full weight of the man to be on the door and pulled it open-the first man fell into the room and Jimmy thought he might still get away when he was hit across the top of his head with something heavy being wielded by the guy he had hit with the meatloaf.
After getting pistol wiped with a very heavy pistol, Jimmy passed out. This time when he awoke, he was tied tightly to a table or a board reclined at an angle so that his head was lower than his feet. A black muslin cloth was wrapped around his eyes. Jimmy immediately sensed the seriousness of the situation had increased exponentially.
His heart raced as felt the men enter the room. “Jimmy, you can make this as hard or as easy as you want to make it.” The voice had a slight accent that Jimmy couldn’t quite place; slightly Slavic perhaps, but he was unsure.
The voice continued, “Step One,” the man recited: “Restrain the interrogation subject on a board. Incline the board about twenty-five degrees so that the feet are above the head. Step two; either put a damp cloth over the face to keep the water clinging to the face, which is the Khmer Rouge technique, or alternately, put plastic wrap over the mouth to prevent water from escaping the throat and sinuses, which is the method preferred by the CIA. Guess which step I prefer?”
Jimmy said nothing and the man continued. “Now, the most important step,” the unseen man continued, “pour water onto the inclined face so that the water runs into the upturned mouth and nose. The water stays in the head, filling the throat, mouth, and sinuses with water. The lungs don't fill up with water so your prisoner doesn't asphyxiate, but they do feel their entire upper respiratory system from sinuses to trachea filled with water, simulating drowning.”
Jimmy felt a man grab his face, force his mouth open and he managed to bite the man’s finger, but felt him wedge something between his teeth to keep Jimmy’s mouth open. He felt a deluge of cold water hit his face and flow into his mouth and nose. Plastic wrap was then wrapped tightly around his nose and mouth until he couldn’t breathe.
Jimmy began coughing and choking. He panicked, shaking his head back and forth, his eyes bulging from their sockets. The man continued speaking as if instructing a class, you’re drowning the subject from the inside, filling the head larynx and trachea with water. The lungs stay out of the water, keeping oxygen in the blood and prolonging the experience. His sufferings must be that of a man who is drowning, but cannot drown. Does that seem about right Jimmy?”
Jimmy tried to scream, but could not. He felt himself dying and yet, he was still conscious, unable to will the suffering to stop.
The man began reciting again: “The main principles of this enhanced interrogation technique are as follows: One: keep the chest elevated above the head and neck to keep the lungs above the waterline. Two: Incline the head, both to keep the throat open and to present the nostrils for easier filling. Three: Force the mouth open so that water can be poured into both the nose and mouth. Saran wrap, damp cloth, or any facial covering is not essential, but sometimes used as a force multiplier. Eventually you end up with collapsed, empty lungs, no ability to inhale more air, a throat, mouth, and nose that's still full of water, and no capacity to get the water out since you're already fully exhaled.”
The man visibly inhaled, perhaps winded from reciting the memorized instructions. “How am I doing so far Jimmy? Are you ready to tell us the information we want to know?”
Jimmy nodded his head up and down vigorously; at this point he felt that he would kill his own mother to stop this intolerable torture from continuing. Quite suddenly, the plastic wrap was removed from around his face and he was allowed to cough the water from his throat and nose. They bent him over backwards to further allow the water to escape and he continued coughing with so much force that he felt for sure that he would tear a hole in his throat.
“Twenty seconds, not too shabby.” Someone pulled off the blindfold and mopped his face with a towel. Jimmy simply felt happy to be alive. "CIA officers who subjected themselves to the water boarding technique lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in, said the torturer. I know, because I was the one who taught them the technique.”
“That’s enough, go grab a smoke or something,” Jimmy heard the same familiar voice say. Thompson had paid off the other guys involved in the prison break and kidnapping; Red Sawyer and Peters, the guy Jimmy hit with the meatloaf. He made sure they knew as little as possible about the gold, but Boris would be another story. The Russian was as greedy as he was sadistic and he knew too much. Thompson would probably have to put some lead between his eyes to get rid of him.
“Sorry I had to subject you to that, Jimmy, said Thompson with feigned sincerity. “Hell, some of the guys on our side are worse than guys you probably encounter on the inside. I met Boris, that’s what we called him anyways, when we were doing snatch and grabs
of suspected Al Qaida terrorists in Iraq. He was a contractor with the C.I.A. and was the best in the business—I think he told me he learned it first hand when he was imprisoned by the Khmer Rouge while working for the agency many years ago, before that he worked for the East Germans. Since then he has proven himself to be one of the few masters of the enhanced interrogations process.”
Jimmy was too shocked at the maliciousness of the torture and the discovery that his own attorney was behind it to offer much of a verbal response.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why, and I will be happy to tell you,” continued Thompson. “I didn’t so much as inherit an empire, as inherit a giant sinkhole of debt. My old man was a hell of a lawyer, but lousy with investments and now the old codger is too sick to even pretend to work. So, I decided that in one fell swoop, I could put the firm back in the black, give him some decent med
ical care for the last years of his life and maybe buy me a yacht, he added as an afterthought. So, Jimmy, why not tell your old attorney where you hid all that gold so many years ago, before I change my mind and see if you can break your own record for water boarding?”
“Yeah, I do that and then I am a dead man, right?” said Jimmy finally.
“You’re a dead man either way Jimmy, but it’s now down to whether you choose to go quick and painless or long, drawn out and full of suffering. You decide.”
***
I-75 runs north to south and hits Tampa like a giant four way intersection. You can exit into Tampa on 275—turn left towards Orlando on Route 4 or continue south. Char and Michael had taken up residence in a trailer park off Gandy Boulevard in Pinellas Pines with an entrance ramp to I-275, less than a mile away.
Jimmy had used the few seconds of freedom he had to tell Char what exit they were passing on I-75 south and offered the make of the RV.
Char had guessed correctly and caught an RV with Louisiana plates headed across the bridge that spanned Tampa Bay. It wasn’t exactly dumb luck; everyone knew that the gold had to be hidden somewhere on or near Fort Desoto, and that was in St. Pete. Michael pulled a U-turn like they had taught him in a high performance driving school recon and they were able to track the RV to an industrial park off Route 19 south of Clearwater.
They sat his Ford Pick-up about one hundred meters down the street from the warehouse trying to decide what to do. They were parked on the street as it provided an unobstructed view of the building, but they realized they would be easily spotted should anyone be looking for them.
They watched Boris exit the warehouse and Michael cursed under his breath. “I thought that asshole was dead!” He had heard Boris was doing the same thing for the C.I.A. in Afghanistan when a supposed confidential information blew him up with a suicide vest in a targeted assassination attempt.
“If he is here, Jimmy’s shit is in the wind, we have to move fast,” said Michael.
In Michael’s mind, if Boris was here, that also meant that Thompson was probably involved. Tell the truth, he had never trusted Thompson—it wasn’t just intra-service rivalry between aviators and grunts, the former being used to the easy life in air conditioned trailers and crew rest requirements that mandated at least seven hours of sleep before flying while Michael and his mates lived in the hot muck, dust and filth. In Thompson’s case, it was something much more nefarious—he had served with Thompson on a task force that spirited suspected Iraqi terrorists to other countries, in this case, they flew them to Jordan and Kuwait, where extraordinary means were normally employed and the terrorists were executed when no longer deemed viable.
Michael treated all the C.I.A. contract interrogators with caution and suspicion. They did dirty work; terrorizing, degrading and executing unarmed captives— he was satisfied with just shooting the armed ones—as they were trying to do the same to him. So much for morality in war, he thought sadly.
Thompson was a little too much into the rendition mission— becoming friends and drinking buddies with some of the more notorious members of the contract interrogators and Boris was one of the most notorious as he really seemed to enjoy his work— breaking men down, forcing them to talk and then dispatching them with a bullet in the back of the head. Michael heard Thompson even participated in a few water boarding sessions.
At the time, he just figured Thompson was buddying up with Boris and his fellow torturers to get access to booze and get an extra dose of freedom from regulation. Now he knew that Thompson was corrupt and had abducted Jimmy to get to the gold.
Michael still had the spring loaded baton he took from the hood a few days ago. It was early Sunday evening and the industrial area was all but deserted. Boris stood leisurely smoking and slowly walking back and forth in front of the roll-up garage door in the front of the warehouse. He would be hard to approach from the front, but sneaking up behind him would be no problem, if he was distracted. “Give me two minutes and then drive up and ask him for directions,” Michael instructed his father.
Char, sporting a bewildered expression drove over to where the man stood finishing his cigarette.
“Hi friend,” he started, but could tell by the look on Boris’s face, that Char was being viewed with a high level of suspicion.
“What do you want?” replied Boris.
“I’m looking for a strip club, by the name of the Landing Strip,” he winked, “Ever heard of it?”
“No, now go away from here,” replied Boris.
“You sure? ‘Cuz, in my opinion, going to a strip club would be the only way an ugly son of a bitch like you could get any action!”
Boris never got a chance to reply as Michael smacked him across the top of the head with the spring loaded baton from behind—Boris crumpled to the ground like his skeleton had suddenly disappeared.
“Shit, I think you killed him!”
“No, trust me this Russian has got a thick skull. Now help me throw him in the back of the truck before someone sees us,” said Michael. They quickly wrestled the burly Russian into the covered back of the pick-up and locked the tailgate.
Michael was in full combat mode. He walked into the warehouse with a .45 caliber Glock in one hand and a baton in the other. Char followed close behind with a Mossberg pump twelve gauge, loaded with Double-ought buck shot.
The RV sat unoccupied in the front portion of the warehouse, which had once been an auto body shop. Jimmy was being held in the paint room, to the back of the shop. They heard murmured voices and followed the sound.
“Hello counselor, what a surprise to see you here!” deadpanned Michael as he leveled the Glock at Thompson. If Thompson was surprised, it was only for a moment; he quickly withdrew a Smith & Wesson 9 millimeter from the small of his back and pointed it at Jimmy.
“Shoot me and Jimmy gets one in the head; no one gets to find the gold, but if we partner up, we can split it,” said the attorney.
“OK, Gus, don’t do anything foolish, we can talk about this,” responded Michael.
“Sure, put down the weapons and we will talk. Otherwise, Jimmy takes his secrets to the grave.”
Michael knew enough about Thompson to figure he wasn’t bluffing—that if they didn’t do as he instructed, he would kill Jimmy. More likely still would be that once he and his dad were disarmed, Thompson would eliminate the threat and kill them both, leaving Jimmy to be dispatched later after he had shown Thompson the location of the gold.
Michael said nothing; he raised the pistol with rapid, but measured alacrity and fired twice, both rounds striking Thompson in the chest. He was dead before he hit the floor. “That was my counter offer,” said Michael as Thompson’s body was thrown back against the wall of the warehouse by the linear force of round’s impact. Michael walked to the body and out of force of habit, shot him once more in the forehead.
Char ran to his old friend and running buddy and quickly untied him. “You okay, Jimmy?” He asked with real concern in his voice.
“Yeah, fine. Now, where is that bastard who tortured me?”
“In the back of my truck,” replied Michael.
Jimmy nodded, “give me a piece, I got some rendition of my own to do!”
“Come on Jimmy, we don’t need this,” pleaded Char.
“No old buddy, you don’t have to do anything, but keep breathing. This I do on my own. I would have killed a pig better than those two assholes did me and you don’t exactly want to leave that guy around to come after us again, do you?”
For a man who had been so merciless with his captives, Boris died in sobbing cowardice. He fell to his knees crying, lost his
command of English and pissed himself before Jimmy put one round in his gut and another in his forehead.
“What about the RV?” asked Jimmy.
“Well, I don’t think any of these guys need it, but you shouldn’t take it without the owner’s permission” said Char.
Jimmy asked “Guys, mind if we take your
nice brand new RV?” He waited a moment and said with an evil grin, “I didn’t hear anything, you?”
“Nothing at all” answered Char.
They were all hungry and decided that Jimmy’s sudden freedom was worth celebrating. Char found the keys in Boris’ pocket and drove the behemoth to the trailer park while Michael went to Publix for some steaks and seafood.
Char grilled steaks while they sipped Blanton’s whiskey liberated from their new R.V. liquor cabinet. They ate steak and lobster tail washed down with a few bottles of a good Napa Valley Cabernet. Jimmy slept his first night outside prison walls in over thirty five years. He tried to stay awake to contemplate that, but the events of the last two days had taken their toll and he was soon fast asleep in the King Bed of his newly acquired RV.
Chapter 26 - Dos Stiffs
It was Tuesday morning at eight twelve when a salvage crew hired by the building’s owner came by to start the laborious process of clearing out the auto body shop equipment so it could be sold at auction. The two laborers entered the building and immediately noticed the sickly sweet odor of rotting meat. Both men were from El Salvador and had served in the army during the civil war, one of them with the Parachute Battalion (Batallon de Paracaidistas) and had seen more than his share of combat, so they were accustomed to the smell of decomposing bodies.
They discovered the bodies in the paint room and one of the crew remarked to the other “dos stiffs;” he was still learning English and often spoken in a mix of both languages. “Si, jefe, dos muertos,” replied his companion.
Eddie was on the way to work when he got a call from the Sheriff Waller, his regular homicide detective was on vacation and other detective was very junior, having just been transferred from Patrol a few weeks previous.