‘That’s the true skill,’ said Yokely. ‘Self-inflicted pain is the most effective.’
‘Self-inflicted?’
‘Spreadeagled against a wall. Standing on a stool for extended periods. Crouched. Any of those positions adopted for long periods causes pain, but the source of the pain is the guy’s own body. He can’t be angry with the interrogator because the interrogator isn’t causing the pain. But it takes time, and we don’t know how much we have.’
‘But why don’t you just use the torture that causes the maximum pain?’
‘Like what?’ asked the American with an amused smile.
‘I don’t know. Red-hot needles in the eyes. Something like that.’
Yokely chuckled again, and Button felt a flash of embarrassment. ‘Here’s the thing, Charlie. Intense pain, real, searing, life-threatening pain, is so crippling that the subject will say literally anything to stop it. You get an immediate false confession. Now, you can work through that but you’ll get a second fake confession. He might even tell you what you want to hear just because he wants an end to the pain. And each time he tells you a lie you have to stop and check it. During the checking, he has time to regain his strength and think up a better lie. Intense pain slows down the process.’
‘So, less pain is better?’
‘It’s the anticipation of greater pain that does the damage,’ said Yokely. He put his hand to his headset and frowned. Then he smiled. ‘Let me know as soon as you have the satellite link,’ he said. He flashed Button a thumbs-up. ‘We have a cousin,’ he said. ‘I need you back in there.’
Button placed her mug on the table and clipped her Bluetooth headset over her ear.
The train slowed as it emerged from the tunnel into Maida Vale station. There were fewer than a dozen passengers scattered along the platform. Jimmy Sharpe was the only one to get into Shepherd’s carriage. He had his hands in his coat pockets and kept them there as he sat opposite Shepherd. Shepherd looked to his left, then at the floor. Sharpe cleared his throat, face impassive. Hagerman was staring at an advertisement on the carriage wall, his hands on his suitcase.
The doors closed and the train accelerated into the tunnel.
Broken Nose untied the webbing straps and hauled the Saudi into a sitting position. ‘Stand up!’ he screamed, then dragged him to his feet. ‘Stand to attention!’ The Saudi tried to comply but he could barely move. Broken Nose grabbed him by the hair and pushed him face-first against the wall.
Button shuddered. She was sitting at the table, trying to appear calm, as if she watched men being tortured regularly. ‘Tell us what you know and this will end, Mr Ahmed,’ she said.
The Saudi said nothing. His left leg buckled beneath him. Broken Nose pushed him upright again.
‘Do you know what waterboarding is, Mr Ahmed?’
Broken Nose spun the Saudi so that he was facing her. Scarred Lip grabbed his left arm to help keep him vertical.
‘I said, do you know what waterboarding is?’
The Saudi stared at the floor.
‘I’m told it’s in common use in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and in US prisons in Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan. It’s a form of controlled drowning. If you don’t tell us what you know, these men are authorised to use the technique on you. I’m told it’s incredibly painful.’
The Saudi refused to look at her.
‘What have you been doing in London?’ she asked.
The Saudi said nothing, eyes on the floor.
Button could see that he had no intention of answering any questions. Obviously he knew that silence was the best defence in any interrogation. To be able to tell if someone was lying, one had to know how they behaved when they were telling the truth. That required conversation. It didn’t matter what the subject was, as long as Button could observe the man’s mannerisms. Then when he lied, hopefully she’d spot the telltale signs: the breaking of eye-contact, lip-biting, a hand moving up to the mouth or nose, a change in the blinking pattern, eyes moving up and to the right as the brain created images. There were numerous signs that a suspect was lying, but none came into play if they refused to speak.
‘What was the purpose of your visit to the UK?’
The Saudi sighed.
Button nodded at the two men and they half carried, half dragged the Saudi to the door. She followed them out of the room and down the corridor to another room. A square-jawed marine stood to attention beside the door, an M16 carbine cradled in his arms.
Inside, a plank of wood lay on a metal support – like a seesaw except for the webbing straps at one end. It was next to a child’s plastic paddling pool illustrated with Disney cartoon characters and filled with water. Two CCTV cameras covered the windowless room.
Button watched as Broken Nose and Scarred Lip laid the Saudi on his back on the plank and fastened him down with the webbing straps. Then she went back along the corridor to the observation room. Yokely was sitting at the table, watching a small flat-screen monitor that showed what was going on in the room down the corridor.
‘You’re allowed to do this?’ she asked as she sat down next to the American.
‘It’s been approved by the Defense Department,’ said Yokely.
‘Will it work?’ she asked.
‘It’s painful, no doubt about that,’ said Yokely. ‘But wait until they start the pumping. That really hurts.’
‘Pumping?’
‘They’ll use a garden hose to pump water into his stomach. “ Tormento de toca ”, as they used to call it in the Inquisition. It’s reckoned to be the most agonising pain that visceral tissue can experience. And the beauty is that it doesn’t leave marks.’ He grinned. ‘Not that that’s an issue here.’
‘It doesn’t worry you?’ asked Button, pacing up and down as the American stared intently at the monitor.
‘In what way?’
Broken Nose and Scarred Lip slowly lowered the plank so that the Saudi’s head dipped into the paddling pool. He shook his head from side to side as his hair went under the water. The two men toyed with him, letting the water play over his face.
‘It’s torture, pure and simple.’
‘It’s robust interrogation,’ said Yokely. ‘He comes from a society where torture is used routinely. We haven’t done anything yet that wouldn’t have been done to him in his own country. They stone women to death for adultery, Charlie.’
‘Just because they behave like savages doesn’t mean we should fall to their level.’
‘Al-Qaeda wrote and published a manual to tell their people how to deal with interrogation if they got caught. It detailed the torture they could expect if they were captured in Middle Eastern countries sympathetic to the US. And then there was a section on GTMO.’ He smiled. ‘That’s what we call Guantan amo Bay. Anyway, the thrust of the al-Qaeda manual was that in GTMO all they had to do was ride it out. The Americans were not warriors and the interrogators were not allowed to inflict harm. They could lie or they could stay silent, because other than keeping them incarcerated and feeding them three meals a day, there was nothing the Americans could do.’ Yokely’s smile widened. ‘We’ve moved on since then, I can tell you.’ He stared at the monitor. ‘What’s happening now is about control as much as pain,’ he said. ‘He has to learn that his life is in our hands. Whether he lives or dies is up to us. We decide when he breathes and when he doesn’t.’
‘Where did you learn this stuff, Richard?’ asked Button.
The American grinned. ‘That’s classified,’ he said. ‘I could tell you…’
‘But you’d have to kill me. Yeah, it’s an old joke.’
‘I got started in South America where there are fewer concerns about human rights than there are here. But I was there as an observer. I cut my teeth in Afghanistan. The hunt for bin Laden. We had to get intelligence and we needed it quickly.’
‘Forgive me, but aren’t we still looking for bin Laden?’ said Button.
‘We got close,’ said Yokely, ‘and we got a lot of hi
s people. And that was as a direct result of the information obtained by the coercive techniques we employed. Then I was in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for a while.’ He smiled. ‘Incidentally, there are no interrogators in Abu Ghraib. They’re all human-intelligence collectors now.’
‘A rose by any other name?’ said Button, drily.
‘Exactly,’ said Yokely.
Button stepped closer to the monitor. Broken Nose had moved to stand by the paddling pool while Scarred Lip let the plank drop so that the Saudi’s head dipped under the water. His feet drummed on the plank and his shoulders and chest strained against the webbing straps. His cheeks were puffed and his eyes bulged as he fought to hold his breath. It wasn’t a battle he could win. Broken Nose was peering at him, waiting for the moment when the Saudi had to give in.
Button was appalled. The Saudi’s chest heaved. Then there was an explosion of bubbles from his mouth and his head thrashed as he breathed water.
Broken Nose made a chopping motion with his right hand and Scarred Lip put all his weight on the raised end of the plank. The Saudi’s head and shoulders burst out of the water and he coughed.
Broken Nose nodded and Scarred Lip let the plank fall back. The Saudi’s head disappeared under the water again.
‘And this works?’ asked Button.
‘It’s part of the process,’ said the American. ‘Under normal circumstances we wouldn’t be under so much time pressure so we wouldn’t get to this stage until we were well down the line. We’d start with disorientation and sleep deprivation. Then we’d move on to standing.’ He grinned. ‘You’d be surprised how effective that is.’
‘Just standing?’
‘On a stool. Or a brick. For hours on end. It’s painful, but it’s the pain of the body working against itself. The Gestapo perfected the technique. They had cells built just big enough to hold a standing man. Like an upturned coffin. A week was enough to drive a man mad. I tell you, forced standing is one of the most effective tortures there is. But, like I said, it takes time.’
The Saudi was bucking and kicking and Scarred Lip lifted him out of the water. He spat out water and groaned.
‘Can’t we use drugs or something?’ asked Button.
‘There’s no such thing as a truth serum,’ said Yokely. ‘People can lie as easily when they’re doped as they can when they’re sober. Trust me, Charlie, I know what I’m doing.’
Scarred Lip let go of the plank and the Saudi fell back into the water.
‘You should go back in there,’ said Yokely. ‘Keep the pressure on him.’
Button sighed.
‘You’re okay, yeah?’ asked Yokely.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You look a bit pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ repeated Button.
‘We need you in there.’
‘I’m going.’
Yokely turned back to the monitor and watched the Saudi drown again.
The train slowed as it approached Paddington. Shepherd was standing by the carriage door. He’d go first, get ahead of Hagerman, and Sharpe would bring up the rear. Then they’d play it by ear. If Hagerman was heading for the airport they’d board the Heathrow Express with him. If he got on to another train, it might be more complicated, but they’d be above ground and could be in phone contact with Bingham and the back-up teams.
The train juddered to a halt and the doors clattered open. Shepherd glanced to his left. Hagerman hadn’t moved. He was still sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped on his suitcase as if he was in prayer. Shepherd looked at Sharpe, who shrugged almost imperceptibly. Their quarry was staying on the train.
Shepherd stepped off and walked down the platform, away from Hagerman. He passed one carriage, then got into the next and sat down.
The train lurched off and, within seconds, was roaring into the tunnel once more. There was a map of the Tube network above the door. Marylebone station was on the Bakerloo Line. So were Charing Cross and Waterloo. Liverpool Street, King’s Cross and Victoria were on the Circle Line, so Hagerman would have changed at Paddington if he’d been heading for any of them. But if he was only making a rail journey, why the rush to pick up a passport from the Uddins? Shepherd studied the map. Waterloo. The Eurostar. Hagerman was leaving the country, but he wasn’t flying. He was going by train.
He counted the stations between Paddington and Waterloo. Eight. At about two minutes between stations, it would be sixteen minutes at least before they could phone Bingham. And depending on where the back-up had got to, there might not be enough time for them to get to Waterloo before Hagerman boarded the Eurostar.
Shepherd’s eyes flicked across the stations on the Bakerloo Line. The line was one of the deepest on the underground system. He wouldn’t get a mobile signal until they arrived at Waterloo. On the bright side, if Hagerman was aiming to travel on the Eurostar, he’d be a lot easier to tail. There was only one way in and one way out. Europol would have plenty of time to mount a surveillance operation at their end. Shepherd started to relax. From where he was sitting he couldn’t see Hagerman but he had Sharpe in vision and he didn’t have to move until Sharpe did.
The train rattled south. Oxford Circus was the busiest station and so many shoppers crowded on that Shepherd gave up his seat so that he could stand and see through the connecting door. He made brief eye-contact with Sharpe, and then his view was blocked by a housewife struggling with half a dozen Debenhams’ carrier-bags.
By the time the train reached Embankment the carriage was half empty and Shepherd was back in his seat. There was only the dip under the Thames and then they’d be at Waterloo.
The train left Embankment and snaked through the tunnel. There was no sense of what was above them, or even how far below the ground they were. Shepherd disliked all forms of public transport: trains, buses, planes, even taxis. It wasn’t because he was worried about safety – he knew that he was a thousand times safer in the Tube than he was at the wheel of his CRV – it was a matter of control. And he didn’t mind admitting, to Kathy Gift or anyone else, that he preferred to be in control.
As the train slowed on its approach to Waterloo, Shepherd pushed himself out of his seat and stood by the door. He looked to his left and saw Sharpe get up, which meant that Hagerman must be preparing to leave the train.
The train stopped, the doors opened, and Shepherd stepped out onto the platform. He strode confidently towards the exit, following the signs for Eurostar, his coat slung over his shoulder. Sharpe would follow Hagerman, while Shepherd got above ground fast to make contact with their back-up.
He hurried up the escalator, snatched a glance over his shoulder as he reached the top and saw Hagerman. He pushed his ticket into the slot in the barrier, retrieved it and walked through. He took out his phone. Still no signal.
He followed the Eurostar signs to a second escalator that opened out into a coffee shop full of suited businessmen drinking cappuccinos and barking into mobile phones. As he walked into the main Eurostar departure area, the signal returned to his mobile. He called Charlotte Button and went straight through to voicemail. He left a brief message, then phoned Bingham. He sighed with relief when the man answered. At least someone was taking calls. ‘David, it’s Shepherd.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Waterloo. Bear with me a few minutes.’
‘You’re following Hagerman?’
‘He’s right behind me, I hope. I’m at the Eurostar terminal.’
‘He’s on the train?’
‘I’m pretty sure that’s where he’s heading. Wait a minute and I’ll know for certain.’
Shepherd saw Hagerman emerge from the Underground, still carrying the suitcase.
‘Yeah, he’s going on the Eurostar. That’s definite. I have eyeball now.’
‘I’ll phone Europol. Do you know which train?’
Shepherd turned to the departure board. The next train was the 16.39 to Brussels, the one after it the 17.09 to Paris and the next the 17.42 also to Paris. Nex
t to the departure board a huge clock with a yellow hand sweeping off the seconds. There was still thirty minutes before the Brussels train was due to leave. ‘It looks like Brussels, the sixteen thirty-nine, but we won’t know until he’s passed through check-in.’ Sharpe walked out on to the concourse. He’d picked up a newspaper from somewhere and was swishing it as he walked, a businessman in a hurry. ‘As soon as we know for sure we’ll call you.’
‘We? Is Sharpe with you?’
‘Yes. He’s got his warrant card so we’ll be able to get on to the train.’
‘There’s no doubt about this, Dan?’ Shepherd could hear the uncertainty in Bingham’s voice.
Hagerman walked towards the check-in desks.
‘He’s getting ready to board now,’ said Shepherd.
Sharpe went across the concourse, away from Check-in.
‘So this is a straightforward surveillance operation?’ said Bingham. ‘He’s not behaving suspiciously? There’s nothing we should be worried about?’
‘He seems tense, but that might be because of the passport. He doesn’t seem to be concerned about tails, other than the odd glance over his shoulder.’
‘Good work. You and Sharpe follow him over. Stay in touch. The mobiles are only inoperative for the twenty minutes or so that you’re under the Channel. The rest of the time you’ll be able to reach me.’
‘But not Button?’
‘She’s still uncontactable. Sorry.’
‘Yeah, well, “sorry” doesn’t cut it. But that’s for later.’
‘Agreed,’ said Bingham. ‘It’s between you and the boss.’
‘Your boss,’ said Shepherd. ‘Not mine. I’ve got to go.’
Shepherd put away his phone and hurried to the side entrance of the departure area, where Sharpe was talking to two uniformed British Transport Police officers.
‘Everything okay?’ asked Shepherd.
‘This is DC Shepherd,’ said Sharpe. ‘Don’t bother asking for his warrant card because he’s undercover.’
The two uniforms nodded at Shepherd, unsmiling. One was in his late thirties and might have been in the army. The younger man was scrawny with a rash of acne across his forehead.
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