A Billion Ways to Die

by Chris Knopf

  With no data upon which to estimate the odds, I decided they were fifty-fifty. Better than zero, less than a sure thing. Why not, I thought.

  I took a few more deep breaths, composed myself and visualized the sequence of moves. My moves and the moves of others, impossible to predict.

  I’m not a strong man, but I’m in reasonably good shape, and I know something about the destructive power of sudden, concentrated jolts, and the behavior of malleable material under uneven stress.

  Or at least I convinced myself I did, as I grabbed the weak end of the handle, wrenched it free of the rivet, stood up with the bucket dangling by its good end, took two steps over to the bench and dragged it away from the wall. Then with as much force as I could gather, stood on the butcher-block slab and drove the crimped end of the bucket handle directly into the middle of the sprinkler head.

  The miniature camera lens died with a little pop and the lightest spray of glass dusted the back of my hand. I stepped down off the bench, tossed the bucket into the corner, kicked the bench against the wall and sat back down.

  “And fuck you,” I told whoever was at the other end of the hidden mics, undoubtedly still operating somewhere in the room, though for how long was now an open question.

  CHAPTER 2

  I didn’t have long to wait. Within minutes I heard the latches unlatch and saw the door swing open. An average-sized white man of early middle age, in a khaki shirt with the sleeves rolled up over thick biceps, olive drab slacks and hiking shoes, stepped over the raised threshold and into the little room.

  His jaw was oversized, causing his lower bite to extend beyond his front teeth. With a high forehead and ski-jump nose, and buzz-cut brown hair, his face looked like a stern remark.

  He was carrying a folding chair, which he flipped open so he could sit facing me. He pulled a small notebook out of his back pocket, held it for a moment as if considering what to do with it, then stuck it in his shirt.

  “Touché,” he said. “Very clever.”

  I said nothing.

  He took the notebook back out, along with a pen, which he uncapped with his mouth, holding it there like a tiny cigar.

  “I have a replacement for the camera, and now you’ll have to piss down the drain,” he said.

  He jotted something in his notebook.

  “Thirsty?” he asked, looking up.

  I didn’t answer.

  “You are. You haven’t had anything to drink for over twenty-four hours. You’d be amazed how quickly you can die of thirst. Food, no big deal. People go weeks without eating. But we need water. You lose a little vapor with every breath.”

  He waited for me to speak. When I didn’t, he said, “I know you can talk because I heard you tell me to go fuck myself.”

  “No I didn’t. I said ‘fuck you.’ ”

  “A distinction without a difference. Are you thirsty?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked down at his notebook again. Then still clutching it, folded his arms and looked me in the eyes.

  “You never asked the men why you were being carried off. That’s an odd lack of curiosity,” he said.

  “I’m curious about the volcanism that formed the Caribbean archipelago, but I don’t bother interviewing the rocks.”

  “Rocks don’t speak?”

  “They may speak, but they probably don’t know.”

  “You’re referring to our Special Forces.”

  “They aren’t Special Forces.”

  He tilted his head.

  “Sez who?”

  “They might have been at one time. Today they’re mercenaries.”

  He smiled more through me than at me, as if recalling a private joke.

  “And you know this?” he said.

  “Their night vision equipment is a type commonly available, and more advanced than army issue, though it hasn’t achieved Mil Spec due to unsatisfactory failure rate and per unit cost. Okay for a civilian hunter, no good for supply officers dispensing thousands in remote parts of the world.”

  He took out his pen and tapped it on his knee.

  “But we did capture you. That should tell you something,” he said.

  “It does, but not enough. That’s why I brought you here.”

  “You didn’t bring,” he started to say, then realized I had, in fact, brought him there.

  “The camera was the only way to monitor what was going on inside this room,” I said. “For all you knew, I was about to slash my wrists with the bucket handle. Somebody had to show up, and since it would take awhile to rig a new camera, you thought, what the heck, I’ll start the interrogation now. A little ahead of schedule, I’m guessing, since I’m not yet dying of hunger and thirst or hallucinating from lack of sleep. Which tells me you’re in a bit of a hurry.”

  His face was blank, though a stream of thought ran behind his eyes.

  “Ready for that water now?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  He left through the open door and returned seconds later holding a large bottle of water. I’d seen the brand in grocery stores around the Caribbean. French.

  It wasn’t until the cool water hit my lips that I realized how thirsty I really was. I drank half the bottle, then almost immediately had to pee.

  “You’re curious about your girlfriend, I imagine,” he said.

  “Very.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “What’s mine?” I asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t know what you know. This is the game. Meter out little bits and pieces of information over a long period of time. Deprive me of sleep and basic necessities in order to wear me down, mentally and physically. Keep me guessing as long as possible in the hope I’ll betray myself through sheer confusion. Keep me isolated and then win my trust by appealing to the instinctive need for human contact. Flatter me, frighten me, maybe drug and torture me. All to extract something I might eagerly provide if you simply ask.”

  He nodded, almost in disappointment, then referred to his notebook. The way he flicked randomly through the pages made me feel it was more of a prop than a legitimate tool.

  “Her name is Natsumi Fitzgerald,” he said. “There’s a federal warrant out on her in connection with terrorist activities in the United States, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. She operates with a male Caucasian who goes by a series of aliases, among them David Reinhart, Alex Rimes, Kirk Tazman, and my favorite, El Timador. All these aliases, with the exception of El Timador, come complete with passports, driver’s licenses, e-mail addresses, credit cards, bank accounts and so on, all acquired through identity theft. We have a video clip of this man, who happens to look a lot like you. How am I doing?”

  I didn’t answer. We waited each other out for about five minutes, then he spoke.

  “We have your fingerprints and DNA. Ergo, we know who you really are.”

  “Not yet. If you’d identified the prints and DNA, you’d tell me.”

  “It’s only a matter of time,” he said.

  “Time won’t help. If it’s not there now it’ll never be there.”

  “Quite the philosopher.”

  “Empiricist.”

  “Then you can see your situation is hopeless, empirically speaking.”

  “Nothing of the sort, though it is confusing. It would help if you told me what you wanted.”

  “You know what I want,” he said, returning to his notebook and pen, as if ready to jot down my answer.

  “No I don’t. You’re either giving me too much credit, or not enough. I can’t tell.”

  “Where did you get the scar?” he asked, pointing toward my head with the butt of his pen.

  “Car accident.”

  “Really. Looks like a bullet wound to me.”

  “That’s what everybody says. But who survives a bullet wound to the head?”

  “No one entirely,” he said. “Some survive, but go crazy.”

  “You’d want to avoid those people.”
r />   “Do you know a man named Joselito Gorrotxategi?”

  I did. He was a financial expert and conniver connected to a group of right-wing Basque extremists. He’d operated out of New York until the Basque operation took a bad turn. Now he was in federal prison, mostly because of me.

  “No,” I said.

  “He knows you.”

  “Can’t help that.”

  “He knows you as El Timador, but he thinks your real name is David Reinhart. We know it isn’t.”

  “Better get word to Joselito.”

  “He said your technical skills are formidable. Apparently that’s so.”

  “Everybody knows the old camera in the sprinkler trick.”

  “He says you’re skillful in financial matters as well.”

  “Then how come I’m not rich?” I asked.

  “Who says you’re not?”

  “I’m not. But I have my health.”

  “Maybe not for long,” he said.

  I shifted around on the bench, knowing well it wasn’t possible to find a comfortable position. I was tempted to say I’d make a full confession if he would only bring me one of his folding chairs. If I only knew what to confess to.

  “Could you just tell me what you want?” I asked.

  “We need to know where it is,” he said.

  “What’s ‘it’?”

  “You know.”

  I didn’t. My knowledge of interrogation techniques came out of a book, though I guessed demanding someone tell you something he didn’t know might be an effective tactic. To what end, who knew, though maybe I wasn’t supposed to know that yet either.

  I lay back down on the bench with my knees up and my hands clasped over my chest.

  “Let me know when you’re ready to talk,” I said. “You know where to find me.”

  I half expected to be wrenched up off the bench and slammed into the wall, but after a few minutes, I heard him stand up, fold his chair and leave the room. The door closed again and the overhead light maintained its unblinking presence.

  I got up and started searching for the hidden microphones.

  About a half hour later the door opened again and this time a woman stepped into the room. She was older than the man, with severe, straight brown hair cut in bangs across her forehead and thick, plastic-framed glasses. Makeup free, she could have used some, especially on her shiny red nose. She wore simple cotton clothes and mannish shoes in need of polishing.

  She brought her own chair, which she unfolded gracelessly before offering her hand.

  “Alberta,” she said.

  “Victor,” I said, shaking her hand.

  “Of course,” she said, settling into the chair like a stenographer about to take dictation, though instead of a notebook and pen, she held a digital recorder. She clicked it on and set it carefully on her lap.

  “This shouldn’t take long,” she said, in delicately accented English. “I’ve already spoken to your lady friend Natsumi, who is quite delightful, by the way. She shared with me all sorts of lovely stories from her childhood, career as a blackjack dealer and studies of psychology. Lovely, but not very helpful.”

  “Better than the conversation I had with that other joker.”

  “I’m not a joker, Victor. That you should know,” she said. I believed her.

  “I believe you,” I said.

  “Good. So, first question. Are you frightened?”

  “No. I’m terrified. I’ve been terrified since looking up the barrel of that combat weapon. I’m terrified for me, and for Natsumi. Do I want out of this? Yes. I really, really do. Am I willing to cooperate? Sure, but how can I cooperate if I don’t know what it’s about? I can try to guess, but I’m a data freak, and data-wise, I’m working with some pretty thin gruel.”

  “My colleague thinks you’re feigning ignorance.”

  “Do you?”

  She looked down at her recording device.

  “Inconclusive,” she said, looking up again.

  “Voice stress analyzer?” I asked. “Who made it?”

  She showed me.

  “Good unit,” I said, “but worthless on a subject you’ve already been stressing out for hours.”

  “I agree,” she said, snapping off the device. She sat back in her chair and let out a frustrated little sigh. “You seem to know a great deal about clandestine technology.”

  “Everyone needs a hobby.”

  “We wonder how this knowledge came to you. There’s no record of you working intelligence for any of our agencies.”

  I’d worked as a researcher for a half-dozen defense contractors trying to repurpose military gear for domestic markets. Night vision goggles, hidden video cameras and voice stress analyzers were among the least sophisticated stuff I’d tested out in the field.

  “Are you a US citizen or foreign national?” she asked. “According to your DNA, you’re of mixed European ancestry, but that doesn’t tell us much.”

  “I was hoping for something a little more exotic.”

  “With so many names, passports and driver’s licenses, you must be in a constant identity crisis.”

  “Knowing thyself is way overrated.”

  “You’re not the person described by your passport, of that I’m certain.”

  I’d used dozens of different identities to accomplish hundreds of tasks, so it was inevitable one would trip me up eventually.

  “Only in a sense,” I said.

  “And your friend isn’t Beverly.”

  “You’d have to ask her.”

  “She’s Natsumi Fitzgerald. That’s something we certainly know.”

  “You have more faith in certainty than I do.”

  “That was a neat trick you managed with the Basques,” she said.

  It wasn’t a trick, I thought to myself, it was a series of highly intricate, interdependent dirty tricks. And I almost said that, before self-preservation trumped vanity.

  “An ancient and honorable people,” I said.

  “We think we know how you did it, though there are gaps. I don’t suppose you’ll give us a thorough debriefing.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Why should I tell you anything when you won’t tell us anything at all?” she asked.

  “Okay. Give me a chance. What do you want to know?”

  “Where is it?” she asked.

  I laughed an honest laugh.

  “I read the book, you know,” I said. “This whole approach didn’t work any better on Joseph K.”

  She looked confused.

  “Sorry, don’t understand.”

  “You people keep asking me about ‘it,’ but you won’t tell me what ‘it’ is. I think it’s the first rule of interrogation. Tell the subject what you want to know.”

  “We’re not interrogators,” she said. “But we’re not stupid. And we won’t waste a lot of time playing games.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  She squinted at me from behind the thick glasses, as if seriously considering my question.

  “We are either very dangerous enemies or natural allies. It’s for you to decide. This doesn’t have to be adversarial. There’s more than enough for everybody.”

  “Enough what?”

  She leaned toward me with a look of earnest intent. I tried to stare into her eyes, but I couldn’t make them out behind the thick glasses.

  “My colleague doesn’t think torturing you will work.”

  “There’s a relief.”

  “But torturing Natsumi will. Not because of her, because of you. I’m inclined to agree.”

  Not knowing the right thing to say, I figured nothing was the best choice. Even with the voice stress analyzer in the off position.

  “There’s a drain in the room we have for her, just like this one,” she said, pointing to the floor. “We can simply wash off the blood with a hose.”

  “You’re right. I’ll tell you anything.”

  This pleased her. She gave a little “atta-boy” gesture.

&
nbsp; “I thought as much,” she said.

  “Just tell me what you want to know.”

  “Good,” she said, actually slapping her knee, “where’s the money?”

  Ah, I thought. Of course. It always comes back to the money.

  My late wife had embezzled millions from her insurance agency for no apparent reason, given the agency’s success and my wife’s otherwise exemplary legal and ethical standing. I’d spent months, at great risk to life and limb, solving the puzzle and making whatever amends were possible.

  Despite my best efforts, I knew there’d be loose ends, and it was inevitable others would catch wind of the scam. But at least now I had an explanation for our present circumstances, an immense relief.

  “I don’t have it anymore,” I said.

  Her excitement slid down a notch.

  “Of course you have it.”

  “No. I gave it back to the rightful owners.”

  “That’s impossible,” she said.

  “No, it’s easy. Simple wire transfers. The hardest part was keeping the transactions from being traced back to me.”

  “We would have known.”

  That puzzled me.

  “I have confirmation that all the funds made it to their rightful homes. Not 100 percent in all cases, but I think they were happy getting back what they didn’t know they’d lost.”

  Now she looked puzzled.

  “What you’re suggesting is impossible,” she repeated.

  “Shuffling millions of dollars around these days is tough, but not impossible. For most of the people I was dealing with, ten million is a daily rounding error.”

  The woman blanched as if I’d given her a gentle slap.

  “Ten million?”

  “Give or take. I kept a little to cover expenses. Call it a recovery fee.”

  She jumped up so violently her chair toppled over and collapsed. She grabbed me by the shoulders and shook.

  “Not funny mister,” she said, enunciating every syllable. “I meant what I said about Natsumi. You can’t even imagine.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, as sincerely as I could.

  “Ten million?” she said to me through her teeth. “Is that what you think will settle this? After we’ve come this far? Are you mental?”