The Deepest Cut

by Conor Corderoy

  There was no traffic and we hurtled through the town doing forty miles per hour. Then we were out in the desert again. Up ahead there was a glow of light from some kind of complex. I’d spotted the wings on the captain’s collar and I guessed it was an air force base. I was beginning to put two and two together, but I was scared I was making five instead of four.

  I eyed the captain a moment and said, “You speak English? I’m an American.”

  His answer was to pistol-whip me across the face and scream at me in Ugly again.

  In less than five minutes, we were pulling into an airbase. As we cruised toward the main admin buildings, I caught sight of the field and the runway. I saw one small plane, a lot of military helicopters and a real long runway—the kind of thing you’d need for a Jumbo 747. I wondered how many 747s they had landing out here in an average week.

  We stopped outside a row of one-story buildings. Double glass doors gave onto a small lobby lit by strip neon lights. I was pushed through the doors and the captain strode ahead to a set of fire doors that led down a passage with offices either side. I thought about demanding to see the colonel, demanding they respect my rights under the Geneva Convention, but I knew the best I’d get from that would be another pistol-whipping—if I was lucky.

  The captain knocked on the door at the end of the passage and opened it. He exchanged a few words with somebody inside then turned and signaled the grunts to bring me in. I had a hot pellet in my belly because I was pretty sure I knew what was coming next. The grunts pushed me in. They closed the door and stood on either side of it. There was a guy in uniform in a chair behind a desk. By his insignia, he looked like a colonel. He was about sixty with graying temples. He watched me a moment with mild disgust.

  Finally, he said, “You are Jewish!”

  I shook my head, “No.”

  “Israel! Jewish pig!”

  “I’m an American.”

  “Israeli, Jewish pig, American…all the same. What you are doing here?”

  I’d been thinking about that question since Dover. I still hadn’t come up with an answer I liked, but I did my best.

  “I’m writing a book about the Fennec, the Algerian desert fox. It’s unique. It’s one of the natural wonders of the world, and it is practically unknown. I am researching it. The examples at Illizi are the best in the world.”

  “You are naturalist.” It wasn’t a question, but it was full of ironic disbelief.

  I shrugged and sighed and said, “Yes. I am.”

  “Where is camera, film, notebooks, notes?”

  “My bag was stolen.”

  “Where?”

  “Ceuta.”

  “Ceuta? You come from Morocco?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why not fly to Algiers?”

  “It was cheaper to fly to Malaga and rent a car in Morocco.”

  Outside, I watched a Jeep skid to a halt. The door at the end of the corridor slammed open and boots tramped down to the office. There was a loud knock. The colonel barked in Ugly and the door opened. A grunt handed him my bag and an explanation. He was dismissed and he left. Colonel Brain poured my stuff onto his desk. The tracker was there, but the Sig wasn’t. I figured they had made only a perfunctory search and hadn’t felt under the dash. That might mean nothing, or it might mean they weren’t out searching for me, in particular. They didn’t know who I was. They’d just hauled me in because I was a Yank driving around the desert at night for no good reason.

  He picked up the tracker and turned it over in his fingers. He was looking for the On button. He showed it to me. “What is this?”

  “It’s my voice recorder. The battery is dead. The charger was in my other bag, the one that was stolen.” He watched me and I thought I detected doubt in his face. So, I pushed. “And before you start laying into me again, Colonel, I am an innocent citizen of the United States of America and I am protected by international treaties and international law. So take it easy, will you?

  He put down the tracking monitor and walked over till he was standing in front of me. I knew I’d overplayed my hand and I was ready for the backhander when it came. But it still hurt like hell and left my head ringing. What I wasn’t ready for was the right cross that sent me crashing to the floor, half-unconscious, or the vicious kick that followed.

  The beating lasted maybe two minutes, but it was enough to leave me badly bruised and weakened. I knew a couple more of those would incapacitate me. I had to avoid any more beatings, and clearly the US citizen card was no ace of trumps in this neighborhood. The same grunt who had kicked me to the ground earlier now grabbed a handful of my hair and dragged me to my feet. The colonel, panting from his exertion, shoved me back into the chair.

  He thrust his face into mine, just an inch away, and screamed, “You American Jewish shit! You shit! Shit! You’re nothing here! Nothing but shit!”

  And I knew in that moment I was going to kill him—him and his grunt.

  I had the iron taste of blood in my mouth, and I could feel my lip and the side of my face swelling. I said, quietly, patiently, “I am not Jewish. I am not religious. Life is complicated enough without bringing gods into it. I am just a naturalist who loves your deserts and your wildlife, nothing more.” Then, promising myself I would put a bullet between his eyes, I added, “I am very sorry if I have offended you or your country with my behavior.”

  He stood erect and looked down at me. The contempt was palpable, like slime. But he’d liked the apology. It had fed his ego. “Prove!” He spat the word at me, literally, and I felt his saliva rain on my face. “Prove you are not Mossad spy!”

  I was sure now they had no idea who I was, and I was getting a pretty good idea of why I was here. I frowned at him. “How can I prove a negative?”

  “Who you work for?”

  I spoke without thinking. “I work for the University of London.”

  “University of London? Prove!”

  “Okay, call the head of my department.”

  I gave him Russell’s number at UCL. He stared at me a long while then barked at his grunts in Ugly and I was dragged away. They took me out of the building and across a yard to a place that was little more than a shack next to some hangars. They unlocked the door and threw me in. I dropped to the floor, rolled on my back and listened to the door lock behind me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I lay for half an hour, nursing my wounds in the dark and allowing my eyes to adjust to the absence of light. I had no idea if the colonel would buy my UCL story or how Russell would react when he received a phone call asking about me. Either way, my first priority had to be escape, but the state I was in, I didn’t know how I’d make it.

  After a time, I dragged myself to my feet and had a look around. It was a plain, empty room with a wooden door and a window. The window had metal bars and the door had a simple Yale lock—a cinch if I’d had my picks. But they were duct taped under the dash with the Sig, if they hadn’t been found. There was nothing in the room I could use for a weapon, either.

  I slid down the wall and curled up on the floor. If there was nothing I could do right then, my best plan was to sleep and try to recover some of my strength. I was pretty sure I was going to need it.

  They came back about an hour later, the one who’d hit me with the rifle butt and another one. They didn’t put much enthusiasm into it. They kicked me around for a few minutes, but they’d obviously interrupted a cheap porn movie or a speech by their favorite political leader to come and see me, because they finished up quick and left. But enthusiasm or not, they left me more badly bruised and aching, and, what was more important, in even less of a fit state to make a run for it. I tried to find a place on my body that didn’t hurt so I could lie on it, but there wasn’t one. So I thought about Maria and the container instead. It had stopped moving and had presumably unloaded its cargo. If I wanted to check out their operation and get Maria out of there, I needed to get to it by morning, before it took off back to London again. And I didn�
��t know how I was going to do that. I doubted I could even stand right then, let alone run.

  One small consolation was that my arrest didn’t seem to be part of del Roble’s plans. If I survived, it might just give me an edge of surprise.

  Then I heard boots tramping outside and I groaned. They were coming back for more. I pushed myself up against the wall and prepared to try to stand. I was out of options. I was going to have to either kill them or die.

  The door opened and the two grunts came in, followed by the colonel. They’d brought an old, rickety wooden chair with them for him to sit on. He sat and produced my tracking monitor from his pocket. His manner had changed subtly. He was what you might call dangerously courteous.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s a voice recorder.”

  “Why have you brought it here?”

  “I use it as a notebook.”

  “Why can’t I switch it on?”

  “The battery is dead.”

  “Because you left your charger in the bag that was stolen in Morocco…”

  It wasn’t a question but I said, “Yes.”

  He turned it over and showed me the back. He was showing me the battery cover. It was a cell—the sort you replace after two years, not the sort you recharge. I looked at it, then met his eye.

  “What are you showing me? It’s a cell. I know. You haven’t got that here yet? It’s new from Apple. Next year, you’ll be able to recharge your watch.”

  He closed his eyes, like he was sad. “I don’t know what you are doing here, Mr. Murdoch, but you are not studying desert foxes. We haven’t the facilities here, so I am going to take you to Illizi. There we can make you talk very quickly.”

  He jerked his head and the two grunts grabbed my arms. The colonel walked out and I made my play. I made a feeble attempt to shake free of the grunts.

  I snapped at one of them, “I can walk!”

  He didn’t like my tone and he curled his lip, swore at me in Ugly and shoved me hard. I stumbled and fell onto the wooden chair. As I’d expected, it splintered underneath me and I crashed to the floor. They were screaming at me and kicking me and I made a big show of cowering and covering myself as I crawled away from them. By the time they’d dragged me to my feet and out of the room, I had my weapon hidden in my pants. It wasn’t much, but a long, jagged piece of wood is as good as a Samurai sword, once it’s inside you.

  I was thrown into the back of a Jeep again, and it was no surprise to see the colonel being driven away in a black Audi. We took off after him, back toward In Amenas. When we got there, under the flood of light from the gasworks, we turned south and accelerated into the blackness of the desert. The grunt who’d hit me with the rifle butt was sitting in front, half turned toward me with a service automatic in his hand. I had a grunt on either side, each holding an automatic weapon. Then there was the driver. From what I could see, he was a sergeant. This wasn’t the time, and besides, I was getting a free ride to where I wanted to be.

  But, for the hell of it, I eyed Rifle-Butt Man up front and said, “You speak English?”

  He sneered and spat something at me in Ugly about English American Western Satan Jewish Pig. I smiled.

  I said, “Good. Tonight, one of us is going to die, and two gets you twenty, it’s going to be you.”

  He showed me his nostrils again and gave me some more crazy talk. I looked away and smiled at the racing blackness around us. We drove for maybe an hour and a half, and over to the right I began to see the glow of some kind of facility in the desert. After a while, the Audi up ahead swung right off the road and we followed it. Ten minutes later, we drove into the base. The guard on duty at the barrier must have known the colonel’s Audi because he glanced at it and saluted without stopping it. We sailed through in its wake.

  Before we hit the main offices of the base, the Audi turned off the blacktop and we moved across the dirt toward a collection of huts and low buildings set aside from the main complex. I figured these were the colonel’s ‘facilities’. I had a nasty pit in my belly that I knew was raw fear. This was it. Now.

  We headed for one of the huts. The door was open and light was spilling out onto the yellow sand. The Audi was parked out front with its two near-side doors open. We pulled up behind it and they dragged me out by my arms and my hair. Then they pushed me through the open door into the hut. I saw a small desk with the colonel sitting behind it. In the middle of the room was an autopsy table and next to it was a trolley with lots of cold, steel blades on it. Beyond, there was an iron frame bolted to the wall. There was also a tap, like a garden tap, with a bucket next to it.

  The colonel looked at me with eyes that were bored of seeing suffering. He had seen human beings reduced to their most pitiful, broken state and he’d gotten used to it. He said, “I spoke to your Professor Russell Whittering. He was annoyed at being woken so late, but confirmed everything you said.”

  I frowned. “So I can go?”

  He smiled at his desk and shook his head. He pulled out the tracking monitor and laid it in front of him. “This is not Apple technology. There are no plans to recharge your watch for next year, Mr. Murdoch. You—and Professor Whittering—are lying.”

  The pain in the back of my legs was like nothing I had ever felt in my life. Before I could fall, I was being dragged backward and I was thinking, Not the autopsy table! Not the autopsy table! That was when I saw the pulley in the ceiling. The room went upside down. My head smashed against hard concrete. Rope bit into my ankles. My face scraped on the cement then I was swinging, being hoisted upside down. It stopped when my head was three or four feet from the floor. Then a wooden chair was pulled in front of me and the colonel sat with his face maybe a foot or eighteen inches from mine.

  “First,” he said, “we will castrate you. Forgive me if the blades we use are not quite razor-sharp. We are just a humble, third-world country without your Western resources, so we don’t replace our scalpels very often.

  “The scrotum is, as you know, a very sensitive area with many nerve endings. The pain, Mr. Murdoch, will be beyond imagining. And the psychological impact will be profoundly destructive, on a psychic level.

  “Your death, however, will not follow quickly. We will do things to you that go beyond horror, but we will make it linger. If you talk now, I can promise you a quick, painless death. If you talk a lot and you are of interest to us, I may even be able to spare your life and send you back home.”

  I ignored what he was saying. I had to. All I could think of was that I needed him to turn away for just a moment. Rifle Butt had stepped out to take the air. Maybe he was squeamish. The other was sitting by the door looking bored, like he wanted to fast-forward to the good bit.

  I said, “Are you crazy? You can’t just arrest random researchers and murder them because they have voice recorders! There will be political repercussions.”

  “You are wrong, and I think you know you are wrong. We can do anything we like.”

  “Yeah? Like Lockerbie?”

  He smiled and shook his head, “No, we can do anything we like.”

  I stared at him, but my head was beginning to throb. We? Who’s we?

  “You don’t know?”

  I lost patience. “Oh, for crying out loud. You are fucking crazy. This is insane. For fuck’s sake, show me the damned recorder and I’ll show you how it works!”

  He raised his eyebrows, stood then moved to the desk. Every muscle in my body was screaming, but I forced myself and doubled at the waist, reaching for my pockets. With my fingertips, I found the four-inch piece of wood I’d taken from the chair and slipped it into my palm. The colonel came and stood over me. He had the tracker in his hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Colonel, this is insane. Let me down!”

  He sat and leaned forward. His eyes were soft and brown. I saw every pore in his skin.

  He said, “When we start cutting, Mr. Murdoch, it will be too late to turn back.”

  He didn�
�t get any further. What he said next was just gurgles. I had plunged the piece of wood into the soft flesh behind his jaw. His eyes bulged as his throat filled with blood. I pulled hard with my right arm, till his face was an inch from mine. With my left hand, I released his pistol from its holster. It was a good, reliable Colt 45 automatic.

  “Let me introduce myself, Colonel,” I said, and it must have looked weird to him, my face upside down and swollen from hanging there. “I am the meanest son of a bitch in this fucking valley.” I put the muzzle in his eye and blew his brain out of the back of his head.

  I turned and saw the grunt gawping at me, fumbling for his piece. It’s hard to aim upside down, so instead of hitting him in the chest, the slug tore out his balls. Juliet Loss would have said there are no accidents and my unconscious had done it deliberately. Maybe she’d be right about that. Either way, he let out a weird, high-pitched sound then passed out. The other grunt came crashing in. My favorite, Mr. Butt. I made a hole in his thigh and, as he went down, I aimed at the ropes around my ankles. I was lucky not to blow my foot off, but the next moment I was on the floor, winded but alive. I staggered to my feet and turned. Butt was half out the door, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He thought he was going to raise the alarm. I took two strides with an energy that was pure adrenaline fueled by hatred, kneeled on his back and put a .45 round through the base of his skull. I’d have liked to have made some wiseass comment to him, but you can’t always get everything you want.

  I collected the tracker from the colonel then stepped outside. The main airbase complex was about five hundred yards away and brightly illuminated with spotlights. It looked quiet. Over to my right, in the shadows, was my Land Rover. I figured they’d brought it to make a thorough search of it. I opened the cab and felt under the dash. They hadn’t done the search yet. My Sig was there, with my picks. My bag was on the back seat, with my two-hundred Camels and my Zippo.