When in fact, I hope to God they keep it up until those motherfuckers talk.
G.W. shakes his head. Never, he thinks, never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine that I’d allow such sickening brutality to take place in my presence. And yet not only am I not objecting to it, I’m condoning it.
In a very real sense, I’m encouraging it.
I feel so… so cheap. So slimy. It’s against everything I’ve ever believed in. I just hope that God can forgive me for this.
But even if He can’t, if it’ll bring my little girl back to me…
To get Jillian back, I’d suffer the flames of hell for all eternity.
Gladly.
He sighs and surveys the small room in which he stands. It looks exactly as it did every other time he looked around. A few metal folding chairs are set up in various places around the room, seemingly at random. Several more are stacked against the far wall. Unintelligible newspapers and the remains of some unrecognizable fast food lie casually strewn in the corners and against the walls.
The wall behind him and the wall to his right are blank and featureless. The wall to his left is the same except for a large clock with a sweep second hand and the door, now closed, that leads to the hallway. And in front of him, a strip of glass stretches nearly the entire length of the wall, maybe ten feet wide and a yard high, somewhat below eye level, perhaps because most people in Qen Phon are shorter than your average American, or perhaps so that the activities in the interrogation room can be more easily viewed by onlookers seated in the folding chairs.
It's like a movie, G.W. thinks. Or maybe a basketball game. Torture as a spectator sport.
From G.W.’s side, the glass is a window, a means to view the progress of the “questioning of the suspects,” as Karnaga had called it. (Don’t stand too near to the glass, he had cautioned. They can see you if you get too close. And you can never predict how a suspect will react if he knows he’s being watched. Sometimes they become more compliant, but often they grow even more stubborn. It introduces another variable into the questioning of the suspects, which could work for us or against us. And we lack the time to experiment.)
From the interrogation room, G.W. has been told, the glass is a mirror, a constant opportunity for the “suspects” to receive visual feedback on just how badly they’re bearing up under the relentless abuse. Two of the three walls that G.W. can see through the glass feature similar long mirrors.
Who else is viewing this “interrogation,” G.W. wonders? Are they as disgusted by it as I am? Or have they seen it so many times that they’re bored, sitting around eating their box lunches, reading the newspaper, arguing about who’s going to win today’s hundred-meter relay finals?
Or, worse, are they enjoying it?
Next time I hear some punk kid in Dallas complain about “police brutality” I’m going to laugh myself sick.
These people are animals, G.W. thinks. We take an awful lot for granted in the good old U.S. of A. I’ve always been a patriot, God knows, but I don’t guess I ever realized just how much we have to be thankful for.
And right now, he thinks, grimly, wincing at the sight of yet another unheard scream, the main thing I’m thankful for is that – with the intercom speaker mercifully turned off – the interrogation room, two-way mirrors and all, is completely, utterly, one-hundred percent soundproof.
֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍ ֍
“It is not going well,” Karnaga says, grimly.
G.W. nearly jumps out of his skin. “Jesus, Christ,” he snaps. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“I have been standing next to you for several minutes. I assumed that you were aware of my presence. Perhaps I should have realized that you were…” – Karnaga gestures toward the glass – “…distracted.”
“I guess I am a little edgy.” G.W. sighs. “I’m not used to… what do you mean, it’s not going well?” He looks at Karnaga, welcoming the chance to turn away from the glass. But Karnaga continues to stare into the interrogation room even as he responds to G.W. And after a few seconds, G.W. feels obliged to turn back that way as well.
“I am increasingly concerned that we will not be able to break them,” Karnaga says. He speaks casually, conversationally, as if he were describing today’s weather. “And we are running out of time.”
“Out of time? What do you mean?” For an uneasy moment, G.W. experiences a reality shift: He has the strangest feeling that Karnaga does, indeed, relate to the interrogation as a sporting event. They’re in scoring range, they’re in the red zone, but it’s fourth down, and they have no timeouts left, and the clock is winding down. Will they be able to snap the ball before time runs out and the gun sounds and the game is over? Tick, tick, tick…
“When the people who are holding your daughter realize that we have captured their associates,” Karnaga explains, “they will simply move her to another location. At that point, any information we get from these two will be useless.”
“Great.” G.W. sags. “What makes you think they don’t know already?”
“They may. But it’s likely that they won’t try to re-establish contact before dawn. Cell phone service in that part of the country is spotty, and we cut the landlines before we moved in. So they’ll probably use a courier – who, oddly enough, would be easier to spot at night, because there are so few people on the roads after dark. During the day, he could blend in with the crowds, and we wouldn’t even see him.” Karnaga glances at the clock by the door. “Realistically, if we cannot break one of these two within, say, the next hour, our chances of resolving the situation quickly will diminish considerably.”
“An hour?” Christ, G.W. thinks, that’s not much time. “Why only an hour? It’s not gonna be light for three, maybe four hours yet.”
“You forget that it will take some time to mount a rescue operation. Two of my commando squads are on full alert. But still, once we discover where the terrorists are holding your daughter, we must be transported to the location, we must secure and surround the perimeter, we must execute the assault with great care to minimize the collateral damage…”
In other words, G.W. thinks, grimly, you’ve got to make sure that you don’t fuck up and accidentally kill Jill and Sunshine while you’re trying to save them. “Are you making any progress at all?” he asks.
“Some.” Karnaga motions impassively at the glass. “We know the names of these two. We know that they are with different organizations that have joined forces specifically to participate in this operation. We know the identity of their leader. They speak freely about these things because they are to be made public soon anyway, when the terrorists deliver their demands. We even know what those demands will be, and how and when they will be delivered. But we do not know where they are holding your daughter. Which is, of course, the only thing that counts at this point.”
“What are the chances that they’ll talk?”
Karnaga shrugs. “Not good. We may have used the wrong approach. But,” he adds quickly, “I am not going to second-guess my decisions.”
“Wrong approach? What do you mean?”
“When we interrogate prisoners,” Karnaga explains, choosing his words carefully, “we are seldom under such severe time restraints. There is a wide range of information-extraction techniques that can be used when more time is available, but time is not a luxury that we possess in this situation. So we have had to improvise, to try to predict which procedure would be most likely to produce the desired results in as short a time as possible.”
Karnaga swivels his head, offering G.W. his thin, cold smile. “No two subjects respond the same way to the same techniques. Interrogation is not an exact science, you know. In fact, despite many recent advances, it is still more of an art than a science.”
Recent advances? G.W. thinks, skeptically. Looks to me like you’re still using the same techniques that were pioneered by the Nazis.
Although from what I’ve seen, I suspect that your goons probably could have t
aught the stormtroopers a trick or two.
5.2.18: Tanami
Glancing at the clock, G.W. is surprised to realize that the interrogation has been underway for no more than an hour.
He remembers how horrified he had been as the brutality unfolded before his eyes. And yet, within a few minutes, his horror had given way to discomfort, and then to a grudging and uneasy acceptance. After all, desperate situations demand extreme responses.
When he had first been led into the “viewing room,” as Karnaga had called it, the interrogation room had been dark and empty – in fact, G.W. was not even aware of its existence on the other side of the smoky glass. Then the bright lights of the interrogation room had been switched on and one of the suspects had been led in.
Or, more accurately, thrown in. G.W. still had not entirely recovered from the surprise of the interrogation room suddenly materializing through the two-way mirror when a door on the far wall was flung open and an unkempt young man stumbled crazily through the door and crashed heavily to the floor, face first.
“Jesus Christ!” G.W. had exclaimed. Karnaga’s only response had been to deliver his calm warning that G.W. should be careful not to get too close to the glass.
The cause of the headlong fall was readily apparent: The man’s feet were shackled together by a chain no more than a foot long, and at the speed at which he had apparently been propelled through the doorway there was no possible way for him to keep his balance. And the reason he had chosen to break the fall with his face was just as clear: His hands were securely tied together behind his back.
“Who is he?” G.W. had asked, in a hoarse whisper, when his voice returned.
“We are fairly certain that he is one of those who abducted your daughter. He matches the descriptions given by several witnesses. We do not yet know his identity, but he will tell us soon enough,” Karnaga had predicted, confidently. “Although we may learn that information from his fingerprints before he has an opportunity to share it with us.”
Two uniformed policemen had strolled into the interrogation room, laughing and joking. One of them, an enormous hulk of a man with meaty arms and a grossly protruding belly, retrieved the prisoner from the floor, hoisted him over a broad shoulder, and deposited him roughly in a metal chair, facing the glass through which G.W. watched. As the groggy terrorist was lashed to the chair, it was obvious to G.W. that the man’s nose had been broken by the fall; his face was covered with blood, which continued to flow thickly from his nostrils.
And even before one policeman had finished tying the “suspect” to the chair, the other, to G.W.’s stunned disbelief, punched him squarely in the nose. G.W. groaned. In his head, he heard the scream in chilling clarity even through the soundproof glass.
“Was that really necessary?” G.W. had asked, weakly. He felt as though he might be sick.
“Do you wish to see your daughter alive?” Karnaga gestured toward the window. On the other side, the two uniformed men were alternately pummeling, kicking, and shouting at the young terrorist who now sat up stonily with a defiant look in his eyes. “What makes you think,” Karnaga added, “that your daughter’s captors are treating her any better than this?”
And then G.W. had felt that he really was going to be sick. But somehow, he had managed to fight it back down.
And so G.W. had looked on with a mixture of disgust, hope, and fear as the interrogation of the prisoner proceeded. At times he felt as though he were in a trance, totally absorbed by the terrible drama being played out before him. He was only marginally aware of the presence of Karnaga, who quietly left the viewing room and returned several times while G.W. stood and watched, and watched, and watched…
At one point, G.W. had surfaced from the depths of his reverie long enough to wonder why Karnaga was allowing him to watch the terrifying display. He had turned to ask the commander, but he was alone in the room.
Why would they let an outsider see this? G.W. had wondered. If I threatened to talk about this to the press, they’d have to stop, wouldn’t they? Surely, they couldn’t risk this kind of publicity. Not during the Olympics. Not after spending the last two years trying to convince the world that this kind of thing didn’t happen here anymore. Not that I would go to the press, of course, not with Jill’s life on the line. But how could they know that? And why would they take the chance? Why not just keep it to themselves?
At one point, the smaller of the two policemen had whipped a revolver out of his belt, held it to the prisoner’s head, and cocked the hammer. As G.W. sucked in a sharp breath, the prisoner merely sneered. He doesn’t believe they’ll really shoot him, G.W. had thought. I wish I shared his faith. Or maybe he’s simply not afraid to die.
The young man had, however, flinched noticeably when the hammer fell. G.W. had winced, fully expecting to see brains and blood spattered all over the walls. But either the gun was not loaded or the chamber was empty. G.W. exhaled. It had been a bluff – and, judging from their hearty laughter, one that both of the interrogators had thoroughly enjoyed.
Now, suddenly, the interrogation room door is flung open once more, and G.W. is treated to his first glimpse of the other captured terrorist. In what appears to be a replay of the first prisoner’s entrance, the new arrival also falls clumsily to the floor, face first.
But despite the eerie similarity, there’s one enormous difference: To G.W.’s amazement, the new prisoner is female.
“Oh, my God,” G.W. whispers, without realizing that he’s speaking out loud. He watches in stunned disbelief as the fat policeman scrapes her off the floor and deposits her roughly on a long table that stands off to one side of the room.
My God, G.W. thinks, shivering from a sudden chill. She’s just a girl, about Jill’s age, maybe even younger. Just a girl. And they’ve broken her nose, too. And judging by the bruises on her face, they’ve been working her over, just like they’ve been working on the one in here. And she’s just a girl!
The young woman’s entrance has wrought a sudden and dramatic change in the first prisoner, who has been enduring his various beatings with silent, stoic defiance. But now he begins to come alive. And by the time the burly policeman throws the girl down on the table, the first prisoner has become quite animated – or, at least, as animated as it is possible to become when your nose is broken and you’re bound hand and foot to a heavy chair. Although G.W. can’t hear through the glass, it’s apparent that the man is shouting – and not from pain, as he’s been doing frequently during the last hour, but with furious, face-contorting anger. The girl is screaming, too, and the policemen are laughing, even as they wrestle with her, pinning her down on the table.
G.W. is surprised when one of the policemen removes the shackles that bind the girl’s ankles. Why did they do that? he wonders, fleetingly. That’ll just make it easier for her to struggle.
But when one of the policemen pins the girl’s shoulders to the table and the other begins to tear off her pants, G.W. understands exactly why they freed her legs.
Anger swells within him like a dark cloud. And in a strange way, it’s a comforting emotion, certainly more familiar than the fear with which he’s been fighting a losing battle for the past hour. “No!” he shouts, as his sudden rage explodes. “By God, no!!!”
“Mr. Kendal?” The door to the hallway cracks open and an anxious face peers in. “Mr. Kendal? You okay?”
“Get Karnaga,” G.W. snarls. “You go find Commander fucking Karnaga and you tell him that this interrogation is over. Those fucking animals of his are going to stop. And I mean right now!”
“Is there a problem, Mr. Kendal?” Karnaga pushes past his subordinate and strides into the viewing room, looking vaguely puzzled.
“You’re fucking-A right there’s a goddamn problem,” G.W. fumes. “Look at what your fucking pigs are doing to that poor girl! Jesus Christ, they’re gonna rape her right there on that fucking table, right in front of God and everybody.” He walks to the window, momentarily forgetting Karnaga’s admonition
about keeping his distance from the glass. And even as Karnaga starts to remind him, G.W. turns and walks back to the commander angrily. “You’ve got to put a stop to this, right now. It’s gone too far. That’s enough. Call it off.”
“Those ‘fucking pigs,’ as you call them,” Karnaga responds, coolly, “are two of my most able interrogators. The techniques they are using, distasteful as they may seem to the uninitiated, are designed to extract information from prisoners as efficiently as possible.”
“Bullshit.” G.W. fumes. “Your fucking interrogators are nothing more than a couple of sadistic goons. You people are no better than the goddamn terrorists, can’t you see that? You’re no better than they are. You’re all just a bunch of fucking animals.”
“Mr. Kendal, I am at a loss.” Karnaga throws up his hands in apparent dismay. “We believe that this… this woman knows where your daughter is being held. If we can persuade her to share that information with us, we may be able to save your daughter’s life. We are using every method we know to encourage her to talk.” He eyes G.W. with one lifted eyebrow. “Or do you think, perhaps, that she would tell you if you were to ask her politely? As a special favor?”
“I’d like to give it a try,” G.W. says, surprising even himself.
“I beg your pardon?” Karnaga apparently was not expecting that response.
“You heard me. Let me talk to her. I want to talk to her.”
Karnaga hesitates, confused.
“Now,” G.W. insists. “I want your men to stop. Now. Immediately. I want to talk to her.”
After what appears to be a brief mental wrestling match, Karnaga shrugs and barks an order to one of the men who has been watching his exchange with G.W. through the open door. The man salutes crisply and runs off. Moments later, as G.W. watches through the glass, the man enters the interrogation room and relays Karnaga’s orders. The two interrogators – one of whom already has lowered his pants to his ankles – seem puzzled, but they cease their activities.
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