by D. J. Molles
“Was there another way?” he would shout into the darkness.
“No!” he would shout back. “There was no other way!”
He had been dragged from his cell a total of six times. Twice he had been waterboarded. Once he’d been beaten and made to stand outside in the cold. Three times they had hooked the electrodes to his testicles, because he seemed to cave a little more on that one.
The last time, as the electrodes spiked pain into him through his groin, he remembered thinking that the pain was so bad and that it was never going to stop and that he had to say something, just had to say something, just make it stop…
And when the current gave out, Abe found his breath and shouted at Carl. “I left President Briggs! I fucking left him. I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t do the shit he was asking me to do so I left. I was a major, and now I’m fucking nothing!”
Carl tilted his head, his gaze impassive. “And where are you going?”
“To a friend.”
“Who is your friend?”
“Another soldier. Not loyal to Briggs.”
“What’s his name?”
Abe stared at the ground, eyes beginning to well up.
“Where is he?”
Abe shook his head.
“What is the little black electronic device you had?”
“Something that belongs to him,” Abe answered, his voice a bare wisp.
“What does it do?”
Again, Abe chose to remain silent.
Carl regarded a yellow legal pad that was across his lap and scrawled down some notes.
Abe could not help himself. He felt stripped and empty. Cracking around the substructure of his humanity, of everything he thought he was. It was disheartening and infuriating all at once. If he could have he would have ripped himself from his bindings, and he would have thrown himself at Carl and ripped the man’s throat out with his teeth. He hated the man desperately in that moment.
Carl had eventually nodded to the men that Abe knew were standing behind him. “Get him out of here.”
Then came the black sack again. They ripped off the tape that bound him to the chair for his electrocution session. They pulled his underwear back up. Bound his wrists behind his back again. Abe wanted to struggle, but his energy ebbed and flowed, carried now only by panic and rage. And now he felt nothing, so he let his body become limp.
They threw him in his cell and he fumbled around in the dark for the clothing they had stripped from him. That was how he always knew whether they were going to use the electrodes or not—they would strip him down to his filthy skivvies. He found his pants and his shirt, still damp, and he slid into them. At first they were icy cold, but eventually his body heat warmed them.
He felt marginally warmer. But still shivered.
He tried to sleep. Woke up, coughing wetly. He was beginning to feel feverish. He touched his forehead and found it hot, while cold chills racked him. He was curled into a ball on the floor, trying to be warm, trying to be as comfortable as his body would allow. But no matter how he was positioned, the cold cement floor was pressing against a bruise or a sore muscle.
He squirmed to a corner of the room, finding his way there by touch.
I’m going to have to escape. I don’t think it matters what I say to these people, I think they won’t ever let me out of here alive. I think I have no more options left. It’s either stay here miserable, tell them what they want, and die, or keep feeding them half-truths long enough to find a weakness and get the hell out.
What about Lucas?
In the darkness, Abe bared his teeth and set his burning forehead against the cold wall.
Lucas, Lucas, Lucas…
Is he even still alive? I don’t know if he’s even alive. And if I knew that he was, there would be no telling where he was. I could always try to pry, try to get the truth out of them, but right now they think that I’m under their power. They think they have me completely broken. If I start asking too many questions, will it raise suspicions? Will they start guarding me closer? Will I lose my opportunity to escape?
Abe found the corner he’d been looking for. The one to the left of the door. He rummaged through the darkness and felt the little bundle stuffed there. He felt elation like a fire in his chest. The fatigue and the pain were making his emotions raw and they barely hid themselves under the surface of his face. Just finding this small victory almost brought him to tears.
“Yes. Yes,” he said fiercely.
Here was a weakness that he might exploit.
Though they were rough with him, they still fed him. The door would open suddenly when he was slipping through strange nightmares, and a plate of food would be thrust in at him. It was always cold and it was always some starch or carbohydrate—never meat. They certainly didn’t feed him a lot, but it was better than nothing. And it was enough that he could have some, and sock a small portion away.
He pulled the little cloth bundle from the corner. The interior of the pants he wore had a pocket to hold integrated knee pads, if the wearer chose. Abe had ripped these out to provide himself with some cloth to wrap things in. He pulled one of the pieces of cloth up. He couldn’t see in the dark, but his fingers lightly touched a chunk of stale bread and some crackers. There were a lot of crackers—saltine-type crackers—because that was a large portion of whatever they served him. It was ideal for him because they kept well and didn’t really molder. They just went stale. And stale didn’t matter.
Energy mattered. Calories mattered.
And here were two victories in one: First, the bundle in the corner full of squirreled-away food proved that the guards did not toss his cell when he was being questioned. Second, it meant that he would have a good meal when the time came to give himself some extra strength.
As much as he would have liked to stuff everything into his mouth right then and there—even with the fever and sickness coming on, he was starving—he covered the bundle again and shoved it into the corner, where he hoped it would remain hidden. What else could be hidden there? A weapon perhaps?
Abe scuttled to the other side of the room. He put his ragged thumb to his lips, feeling the sharp edges where little bits of his cuticle had been nibbled away. He tried to think about what he came into contact throughout the day. Was there anything that he could possibly use as a weapon? Anything that he might be able to steal from them without them knowing it? Something that could be turned into a shiv? He racked his brain, but his thoughts were constantly interrupted by the fact that he felt horrible.
I’m getting sick. It’s pneumonia. I fucking know it is.
He’d never had it before, but with the waterboarding getting fluids into his lungs, the wet cough, and the constant cold and damp that he was subjected to, it seemed the most likely culprit. He sat his back against the wall of the cell and brought his knees up close to his chest, trying to capitalize on his own body heat.
He stewed for a time. He thought his days through. Thought of anything he might use to give himself an advantage. Eventually, despite the cold and the pain, exhaustion took its toll and he nodded off into more half dreams and waking nightmares. He couldn’t remember any of it, except that his heart kept pounding, startling himself awake only to drift off moments later.
He might’ve been asleep for a day or twenty minutes when the door came bursting open again. Abe heard it, recognized it, but didn’t move. He sat across from the open doorway and stared at it. Usually they came in quick and pulled the burlap sack over his head, but it seemed that the last few times their reaction had been slower. He had never told them his background. They didn’t know enough to be afraid of him, and perhaps they were beginning to view him as some already-beaten armchair commando. Maybe they thought that he was too broke to fight.
Whatever their reasoning, they didn’t rush in this time. They stood at the door. Beyond, it was bright. For the first time, they stood there long enough for Abe’s eyes to adjust to the light pouring in and for him to see their
faces. He’d had impressions before—big men, square faces, thick beards—but they were usually behind him and then the shit-smelling sack was over his head, blinding him.
Even through the grogginess of his own fatigue, some part of him was still pulling the strings, still cataloging the information that his eyes were receiving and filing it where it needed to go. The first man was older and somewhat burlier than the other. His beard looked reddish blond and he had a fierce aspect about him that spoke of a wild Norseman. The second man was younger, darker-skinned, with curly black hair and a patchy beard that hung low on his jawline. He looked strong, but in a more wiry way than his counterpart.
They stood there, looking down at Abe for a moment and for the first time, Abe thought he saw something in their faces besides a desire to hurt him. Perhaps pity? Maybe some remorse? Had the things he had said in his previous interrogation led them to believe that Abe Darabie was on their side?
Or perhaps they knew what Carl had in store for him.
Abe didn’t move. He kept his arms wrapped around his knees. His voice came out ragged and weak. “What the fuck does he want now? It’s only been… what? An hour?”
The big Norseman just shook his head marginally, but he didn’t respond to Abe’s subtle attempt to try to figure the time. The lack of sunlight, not having any concept of how long you’d been held captive or what time of day it was… it was very disorienting.
“Come with us,” the Norseman said. His voice was cold and hard, just like Abe had thought it would be.
Abe waited for some further explanation, or for the violence that he was sure was just around the corner. But after a moment had passed and the two men still stood in the doorway, not making a move to him, Abe slowly leaned himself forward and struggled to his feet.
They did bind him, which was no surprise. But this time they bound his wrists in the front and the sack they put over his head didn’t smell like shit. They held him by the arms, but their grips were not rough like they’d been every other time. And all of this only began to make Abe suspicious.
I know this trick, he thought.
He’d learned this along with every other trick in the book. Beat your captive down and then act nice. It puts the prisoner off their game. Softens them up. And then you smack them down again, harder than before. It makes it even worse and has a more damaging psychological aspect.
What’s worse than waterboarding and electrodes on my testicles?
Abe felt his stomach flip-flopping.
I’m sure they can think of something. Things that cause permanent damage.
In Siberian gulags, the Soviets would beat the prisoners’ feet with rubber hoses, disfiguring them for life. They’d shove glass thermometers up their penises and break them with a rubber mallet. There was no end to the cruelty that the human brain can think up. Cruelty was a sickness that just compounded on itself.
He had the feeling Carl was military, or some sort of government. He handled these interrogations with a practiced hand and a coldness that could only come from years of experience. People didn’t like to believe that the United States government had employed people like him, but not believing in something didn’t make it untrue. During his tours Abe remembered several incidents where the jihadist they had just captured was scooped up by some anonymous men—men very similar to Carl—and whisked away to be “debriefed.” Hours or days later, those men would come back with valuable intel and no explanation of how they’d gotten it.
Not by asking nicely, that’s for damn sure.
Blind, he was led through halls that felt marginally familiar. He had been down them six times so far and had done his best to memorize the pattern: left out of his cell, through a locked door, down a long hall that felt colder than the rest of the rooms, through another locked door, and finally a right turn into the room where the black sack would be removed from his head and Carl would be waiting for him.
This time, though, things went a little differently.
They went through the last door, where they usually turned him right into the room where his interrogation would take place, but then they kept going straight. He could hear a slight echo. He could also hear voices. Other men being interrogated? Maybe. He couldn’t be sure. They were muffled.
There was another door, one that he had never been through, and then he was being guided up a flight of stairs. The stairs turned to his left at a landing, and then continued up to another floor. At the top, another door. A right-hand turn down what seemed like a hallway. Then they stopped. Someone knocked on a wooden door.
“Come on,” said a voice from beyond the door.
Carl’s voice.
What is this? Where have they taken me? What are they going to do to me?
His mind buzzed, but he knew better than to speak. To speak would likely only get him a violent response, and it would communicate that he felt fear. And he did not want them to know that he was afraid. It was fine to make them think that he was compliant, but if he showed fear…
The door opened and they stepped through.
It was warm inside.
They sat him in a chair that had a cushion on it. Not what he was accustomed to.
They left him bound, but they did not duct-tape him to the chair like they’d done in the previous interrogations. Then the hood came off.
He was in a small room. Something like an office. A space heater sat to one side and glowed, spilling warmth onto Abe’s legs. He could feel it on his face like sunshine and for a moment he thought it was the most wonderful thing he had ever felt, until that other part of his mind spoke up: It’s all a trick. Don’t relax.
Carl was sitting on the other side of a table.
There was food. Hot food. What looked like Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes.
The two men that had come to get Abe from his cell stood silently behind him. Carl regarded him from across the table, looking impassive as usual. If he had meant to set Abe at ease, he wasn’t making any attempt at acting any differently. Abe wasn’t sure what that meant or how it made him feel. Confused, mostly.
Carl pointed to the plate of food. “Eat,” he said.
Abe regarded the food with some suspicion, though his mouth was watering.
Carl observed his hesitation. “I promise you the food isn’t tainted.”
“Or drugged?” Abe said, his voice raw. He coughed.
Carl smiled without humor. He pulled a pill bottle from his pocket, then unscrewed the cap and tapped out four pink oval pills. He leaned across the table and dropped them near the plate of food. “You seem to be developing a little bit of a respiratory infection, Mr. Darabie. Those are antibiotics. You should take them with food.”
Abe didn’t move. Just stared at the food. At the pills. He swallowed.
Carl scratched his beard. “If I wanted to drug you, I’d strap you to a chair like every other time and I’d inject you. It’s a lot quicker and requires no trickery on my part.”
“Why are you doing this?” Abe asked.
Carl clasped his hands together and sighed. “This is not easy for me, Mr. Darabie. Treating every person that comes to us like a goddamned terrorist. Like traitors. Spies. But unfortunately these are very dangerous times that we’re living in. Caution is required if I intend to keep me and my people safe. I did what I did to you because I wanted to know where you stood. It’s harsh, but it’s the only way.”
Abe almost laughed. “So, what? Are we friends now?”
“Hardly.” Carl’s face was blank. “But there is a possibility that we’re not enemies. When you talk to me, when you give me the truth—or at least the bits of it that you see fit to give me—then I can begin to give you some truth back. And that is how trust is established.”
“Trust?”
“You claim that you were a major. I suspect you still consider yourself one, but also wish to devalue yourself as a captive. That’s smart. I get it.” Carl paused for a breath. “You tell me that you left the acting president, implying
that the two of you are no longer allies. I still don’t know whether this is true or not, so now I’m left with some considerations of my own.”
Carl rapped the pill bottle on the tabletop, causing it to rattle. “If you were sent by the acting president, either as a spy, or as an assassin, then I suspect you already know where my allegiance lies. In which case there’s no reason for me to keep it secret. However, considering how long it took to get that information from you, I suspect you were leery about whose side I was on. So either you already know what I’m about, or you don’t but are on the same side regardless. In either case, there’s no point in me keeping it a secret any longer, is there?”
Abe’s mind bounced around everything that Carl had just said, trying to find the weak point, trying to spot the lie, trying to see what Carl’s endgame was in this. But if this was some new form of manipulation, he couldn’t see it just yet. “You’re saying that you’re opposed to President Briggs?”
Carl’s eyes narrowed. “Acting president, I prefer.”
Abe shifted in his seat. His bindings were cutting into his wrists, but at least they were in the front so he wasn’t sitting on them. “Who are you?”
Carl’s face looked briefly angry and he rose from his seat. “We’re what’s left of the 82nd Airborne and Special Operations Command after Briggs bled us dry with his little coup.” He walked around the table and for a moment, Abe thought that the man was going to strike him for some reason, but Carl was looking at the two men that were standing behind him. “When he’s finished, take him to a better room.”
Then he looked at Abe. “I’m sure you won’t mind if we get rid of your little sack of saltines. Take your pills and eat your food before it gets cold. I’ve got some other things that need to be taken care of.”
Tomlin waited, bound and blindfolded and on his knees. The drive had not been as long as he had expected, but it had still been wet and cold and uncomfortable with his captor’s knee in his back and a hand smashing his face into the bed of the pickup truck.