by Tom Kratman
“It was a rhetorical question, Mr. Kulat,” Lox said. “Through our contacts with the police”—that was almost a complete lie, but Lox thought it might be useful to have Kulat think it was so—“we know you do. And we’re not, for the moment, at least, interested in them. This could, of course, change.”
Lox let the threat hang in the air for a few moments, then said, “I would like you to imagine whichever one it is in the world you most love, in the hands of your enemies. Perhaps it’s your wife, or your son. Maybe it’s a father or mother. No matter, just imagine. Put your best loved face to that image in your mind.
“Now picture that best loved face, and the human being behind it, kidnapped, mistreated, tortured, dismembered. What would you not do to save them?
“What if the person who had the key to saving them were, like yourself, a member of the press? Would you care much about freedom of the press, in that case? Would you care enough to let that best beloved suffer a horrible life and then die a worse death?
“If you didn’t know how to save them, would it be wrong for you to hire someone who did?”
Lox gave a grim smile. “I ask you these things, Mr. Kulat, so that you will understand that you are the key to saving someone else’s best beloved, and there is no limit to what we will do to you, on behalf of our principal, to get that person back, whole and safe. What you would do, or would hire someone to do, we will do. In case you didn’t understand that, what you would do, we will do. And freedom of the press means less than nothing to us. Indeed, we tend to blame you—all of you—for the state the world is in.”
Lox reached into a pocket and pulled out a pair of rubber medical gloves. These he put on. From a different pocket he took a set of cheap steel vise grips. Those he adjusted, then carefully closed on one of Kulat’s testicles. The vise grips were just tight enough to be noticed, not so tight as to really hurt.
“Electricity is good for this purpose,” Lox advised, “but there’s always the risk of cardiac arrest. And, besides, some people are more terrified of physical damage, especially to their reproductive systems, than of mere pain. Your persona suggests that kind of vanity.”
Lox’s voice changed from conversational to hard. “Your cameraman is being held in a different chamber of this compound. I am going to ask you questions. He will be asked the same questions. If your answers do not match, there will be pain and there will be damage.”
With a grin, Lox asked, “Now, to begin, what is the airspeed of an unladen European swallow?”
Safe House Bravo, Muntinlupa, Manila,
Republic of the Philippines
Maricel was considerably more American in her ancestry than she was Filipina. Her great-great-grandmother, who had been in the same line of work (well, at different times in both of Maricel’s current lines of work), had gotten herself knocked up by the artillery major (white, of course, in those olden days) in whose house she’d taken domestic service, not so very long after the end of the Philippine Insurrection. The major had bought her off with what, at the time, she’d thought was a fair and generous settlement. It hadn’t lasted, of course, which was why great-great-grandma, and later the half Kano great-grandma, had both ended up working various knocking shops. This was also how great-grandma had ended up giving birth to the child of either the 31st Infantry Regiment or the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment. That was as much as she’d been able to narrow down grandma’s paternity.
Three quarters American, and substantially white, grandma had been in great demand—practically a whiff of home—for Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines on R&R from Vietnam. This was how Maricel’s mother had ended up seven-sixteenths American white, seven-sixteenths American black, and a bare one-eighth Filipina. Mom had not the first clue to her paternity. Neither did grandma. When you’re dealing that kind of a volume business . . .
Maricel’s mother had broken that long line of honorable service to the U.S. Armed Forces, managing to get herself pregnant with a Swiss businessman, on vacation from a dowdy wife. This made Maricel half Swiss, seven thirty-seconds American white, seven thirty-seconds American black, and a bare one sixteenth Filipina. She was considerably taller than the local norm, and, despite the black heritage, considerably lighter. Thus, instead of being an LBFM, she was more in the lines of a Large, Off-white, Fucking Machine, an LOWFM.
And though there was not a trace of genetic predisposition to prostitution in Maricel’s make up, memes propagate just as well as genes do, if not even better. The memes she’d grown up with included sex as being about as sacred as going to the bathroom and sex as about the only way to make a living as a bastard girl of only marginal local ancestry . . . those, and that the more you did it, and the better you did it, the more money you could make and the sooner you could retire before your looks and allure fled.
Maricel carefully did up Sergeant Malone’s zipper and belt before rising to her feet. She rebuttoned her own blouse as she rose. She had much larger breasts (see ancestry, such as it was, given above) than the typical Filipina and had learned at mother’s and grandma’s knee that men liked to play with them while being blown.
“So it’s no problem to take the day off, boss?”
Malone shook his head. “Nah. Everyone’s entitled to a day off now and again. Go see your family and relax. We can send out for Chinese or something.”
“No need, boss. I stayed up late making champorado for your breakfast and a nice pork adobo for your lunch. I’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“Nah,” Malone replied. “We’ll still send out for Chinese for dinner. You take the whole day off. Be back in time to make breakfast the day after tomorrow.”
“Yes, boss. Thank you, boss. I promise something extra special then.” Whether she meant extra special in terms of eating, or extra special in terms of being eaten, she left hanging.
Before she left, Malone slipped a ten down her shirt to nestle between her breasts. With a quick glance at the darkened window, Malone said, “You’d better hurry; it’s getting late.”
Leaving, she called over her shoulder, “Since you’re going to send out, Fu Lin Gardens and Gloriamaris are both pretty good.”
There had once, and in the not so distant past, been public transportation in this part of Muntinlupa City. Not that the residents had needed it; they’d all had cars. It had been mostly for the domestic help. Those days were past, buried under “austerity measures” that were closer to survival measures for the local government. Sure, the well-to-do types could have afforded the taxes. They simply would not, and would give more to any political group that would keep them from paying taxes than the taxes themselves cost.
Thus, Maricel had to walk more than three miles to Dr. Santos Avenue to pick up a bus to take her, not home to her mother and grandmother, but to Tondo, to TCS, to report in and to see the child that was—she was a hooker; she was not stupid—plainly a hostage for her good behavior.
Once past the well-to-do area, streetlights became a memory of a happier and more prosperous day. That is to say, the poles were there but nobody had replaced the burnt out lamps in, oh, a very long time, long enough that people had, at some level, begun to forget that the poles even had a purpose. They were just there, dysfunctional and useless as all the other trappings of civilization.
Only once was she accosted. After she hissed, “TCS,” the man fled away. If anything, she was in greater danger from the broken sidewalks and potholed streets that, like the streetlamps, nobody was taking care of anymore.
On the bus, once she reached a still functioning line, Maricel had time to think. This wouldn’t be such a bad life, if I had my baby with me. Every one of them but Zimmerman uses me just about every day, which I could take or leave, but every one of them slips me at least ten bucks, forty-thousand pesos, whenever they do. Plus my maid’s salary. And I get to keep it all, rather than the lousy hundred bucks I might make a week, servicing fifty guys, under TCS. And the quarters would more than do for the baby and me, both. Damn, why i
s it all the really nice arrangements never last?
Tondo, Manila, Republic of the Philippines
However brave a show she’d put on while walking the streets, Maricel couldn’t breathe easy and relax until she’d passed through the borders of Tondo, to the safety of her own people, her own tribe.
In that secure cocoon, now, Maricel and Lucas sat on opposite sides of an old metal table, off in a private corner of the gang’s headquarters. Lucas was project officer, so to speak, for the enterprise, as he was for most high profile kidnappings.
“There are six of them,” Maricel reported. “One of them’s in charge, Mr. Benson. Supposedly some high up Kano executive. But even if he’s dressing like one, he doesn’t act like an executive. I don’t know what he acts like. He sings a lot, weird Kano songs I never heard before: ‘Rickity-Tickity-Tin, Goodbye, Mom, I’m off to drop the bomb.’ Things like that.”
And maybe I don’t know because the Americans pulled out their combat forces a long time before I turned thirteen and went into the life. Mother or grandma, though, might know. And once, just once, one of them called Benson, “Sarge.”
“I mean, if everybody but the big boss used me I’d put it down to him being married and faithful, but not minding what the peons do, and that would be that. But it’s not like that.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lucas said. “What’s their security like?”
“Typically four of them will be gone for a while on any given day, mostly in the day but sometimes at night. There are always at least two of them on guard, one inside and one walking between the house and the wall around it. And when they’re on guard they are scarily alert. And very heavily armed.
“And . . . ”—the girl struggled for the right words— “. . . they’re strange, you know. They all make use of me, except for one, Zimmerman. But, tell me, how often does an executive adopt share and share alike with his minions? And they’re not sharing because they’re kinky, or anything. Pretty vanilla, as a matter of fact. Just tsupa and the occasional fuck. No gang bangs. No lez shows, not even a suggestion. No whips and chains.”
She hesitated for a moment, then amended, “Well . . . one of them wanted my ass, once, but that’s not really kinky.”
“Takes all kinds,” Lucas said, with a shrug. “You see anything we can’t handle?”
“I dunno,” Maricel answered. “They’ve got the guns. They’ve got body armor that they wear religiously when they’re working. Some funny goggles that see in the dark; one of them showed me once.”
Again, Lucas shrugged. “Okay, so they’re an unusually good personal security team. Nothing we can’t handle if we go about it the right way. Have you paced off the house?”
Maricel nodded.
Pushing a pad of paper and a pen across the table, Lucas commanded, “Sketch it out.”
“What about my baby?”
Lucas held up a palm and waved it in negation. “After you make me a sketch of the place. And then, I think, I’ll have to give you a little something to put the guards to sleep, because, realistically speaking, they sound a little tough to take on without some extra advantage.”
Maricel shivered slightly, then said, “In case I wasn’t clear enough, these are not some run-of-the-mill business types that you can drug and rob or drug and kidnap. You want me to drug them? Then you figure out how to give it to them at one time, then have it act on them all at the same time, or in a set sequence, when they’re all different sizes and weights, while not only getting the armed guard on the inside but also the one outside? When I’m probably going to have to be fucking one of them.”
Lucas rocked his head from side to side, then reached for his cell. “Okay, good point. I’ll check with Loo Fung and see what he might come up with from China.”
Safe House Bravo, Muntinlupa, Manila,
Republic of the Philippines
“Hey, Sarge, are there any egg rolls left?” asked Malone.
Benson shook his head, answering, in a New England accent, “Nah; that asshole Bakah took the last one. And when did you say Maricel gets back? And if you call me ‘Sahge’ again, I’m gonna kick yah ass.”
“Sorry, Mr. Benson. Tomorrow morning.”
Benson puffed out his cheeks and blew air through his lips in a raspberry. “I am really not comf’table having a potential spy in the house with us. Even if she’s both a Christian and a very good self propelled vacuum cleanah.”
Malone gave a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s like Lox and Graft said; we either accept that risk or we accept the greater risk of standing out more than we do and getting the attention of some people we really don’t want to notice us.”
“Yeah,” Benson conceded, “but I still don’t like it.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung
—Kipling, “Gentlemen Rankers”
Interrogation Room #1, Safe House Alpha,
Hagonoy, Bulacan, Luzon, Republic of the Philippines
It was easy to be brave and defiant, Kulat discovered, just so long as there was no possibility of your bravery and defiance being tested. When they were tested, when they were seriously tested, by, say, having a set of vise grips tightened on one’s testicles, or having electricity sent coursing from one’s anus to one’s penis, or having a blow torch played over one’s toes . . . then bravery and defiance tended to fall away.
Now, having endured all those things, defiance was a dim memory and bravery a concept totally devoid of meaning. Now it was, Oh, God . . . please . . . please, ask me something I can answer. Anything I can answer. Please . . . just stop hurting me.
In his agony, he wasn’t quite sure if he’d merely thought that, or whispered it.
He sobbed quietly, half from the pain that had not yet gone away, and perhaps never would, and half from the humiliation of begging and pleading. They’d hosed him off after the session, but he could still smell the shit he’d deposited on the concrete floor.
There was the sound of a turning doorknob, followed by a thin sliver of light appearing at the door’s edge. Kulat screamed.
In a nearby room, likewise dug into the hill behind the main house, Lox had an ear piece stuck in one ear. He was listening for any softer sounds coming from Kulat’s cell.
“I don’t get that first question you asked,” Mrs. Ayala told Lox. She could hear the prisoner weeping—sobbing really—inside. This was understandable, since the vise grips had been adjusted shut enough to more than half crush one testicle. “For that matter, I don’t understand any of the questions you asked.”
Lox looked vaguely ill, though Madame seemed pleased enough with progress so far.
“To convince him that we’re madmen who can, if he tries really hard, be placated. To make him want to satisfy our most absurd requests. To rob him of reason. To train him not to lie.”
“You seem to know your business,” Mrs. Ayala complimented.
“Not really,” Lox disagreed. “Oh, I know the principles of the thing. But a really good interrogator could get as much information, faster, with less coercion. There’s always some coercion, of course; there probably hasn’t been a totally noncoercive involuntary custodial interrogation in history, and only liars and fools think there has. Sadly, the world has a shortage of really good interrogators and so we must make do with me.”
“So long as you can find where my husband is being held.”
“We probably can,” Lox nodded agreement, “but it possibly may not be from these two. Even if they only lead us to someone who knows where your husband is, I’ll be minimally satisfied.”
“Why wouldn’t they know?” she asked, bright eyes flashing. “They were there.”
“I’d be very surprised if they weren’t blindfolded for the trip,” Lox replied. “At least once they were away from shore.”
The woman’s face sank to match her heart. “If they don’t know . . . ”
“Don’t worry, Madame,” Lox reassured her. “They either know or they kno
w who does know or, and this is quite likely, they can describe enough of the area where your husband is being held for us to figure it out by map and terrain analysis.”
“What are you going to do with them once you’ve got all the information we need?” she asked.
“Kill ’em, I suppose; it’s become that kind of a world. And even if it weren’t, we can’t let them go after what’s been done to them.”
“I assume, then, that you would like the deaths to give a certain impression?”
“Talk to Welch,” Lox answered. “It’s his area of specialization, not mine.”
“I’ll talk to him,” she said. “I need to talk to him. My husband’s kidnappers have sent me a demand, and a set of instructions. As for this one; I’ll do the killing.” Her tone brooked no quarrel. “Rather, Pedro and I will.”
“That’s fine,” Lox agreed, “but there are certain parameters you must meet or the information we’ve gathered will soon be useless.”
He heard a word, a bare whisper, in his earpiece. “And on that note, it’s about time to get back to work.”
As soon as Lox had the door opened by three quarters of an inch, his ears were assailed by a long, loud, and—for the pure terror in it—heartrending scream. He opened the door fully, walked into the interrogation cell, and slapped Kulat several times across the face to make him shut up. Then he bent slightly and began turning the knob to release the vise grips from his victim’s testicles.
“Oh, thank you . . . thank you,” Kulat whimpered.
“Mr. Kulat,” Lox said, “it would be normal, at about this time in your interrogation, to introduce you to what we call ‘the good cop.’ This would be someone who would pretend to be your friend, to have your best interests at heart, to stop the pain if only, if only, you would cooperate. We don’t have the time or the people for that.”