Once, after one of these sessions, when he was hauled out of his cell and made to strip and stand at attention in the corridor, his legs would no longer support him, and he had collapsed on the floor. They had allowed him to lay there, resting for a few minutes, until one of the guards came back with a big Turkish bath towel which he soaked in a bucket of ice water. For the next twenty minutes he proceeded to beat McAllister on the back and legs, and even the bottoms of his feet with the towel, the pain exquisite without the danger of inflicting serious injury.
His interrogation sessions seemed to come more often then, and with greater intensity, as if Miroshnikov sensed that time was finally running out for him. During these sessions he often thanked McAllister for various bits of information, until McAllister began to seriously doubt his own sanity. Was he speaking when he believed he was merely thinking? Or was it simply another of Miroshnikov’s techniques? Through it all, McAllister began to have a respect for the Russian that at times bordered frighteningly on friendship and even gratitude. His only stimuli became the interrogation sessions and the occasional beating, so that he came to look forward to his time with Miroshnikov.
“We have come a long ways together, you and I, Mac,” Miroshnikov said.” Although it has taken an inordinate amount of time.”
“How long have I been here?” McAllister asked, shocked at how weak and far away his voice seemed in his ears.
“Twenty-seven days,” Miroshnikov said proudly.” And now the first phase of our work together has finally been completed.” He took a cigarette out of his tunic pocket, lit it, and held it out across the steel table.
Without thinking, McAllister took it and brought it to his lips, inhaling the smoke deeply into his lungs. His stomach turned over and he threw up down the front of his thin prison coveralls, his head spinning so badly that he nearly fell off his chair.
Miroshnikov was smiling again.” Very good. It is time now for us to begin the second phase for which it will be best if your system is completely purged. It will be easier for us, and certainly far easier for you. In some extreme cases our subjects have even choked to death on their own vomit. We wouldn’t want that to happen to you. Not now, not after we have come so far together.”
“What are you talking about?” McAllister asked after a long time.
It seemed nearly impossible for him to focus on anything but Miroshnikov’s face. When he tried to look elsewhere across the distance of the suddenly large room, nausea rose up again, bile bitter at the back of his throat.
“We have completed the first level. You have been cooperative, but there is nothing else, at this stage, you will be able to tell me. Your very fine conditioning precludes that. It is time, then, as I was saying, to probe deeper, much deeper, and for that another method is indicated.”
“I won’t be able to take much more of this,” McAllister heard himself saying.
“Oh, but I think you can and will. You are a very strong man, Mr. McAllister, and for this I greatly admire you.”
“Fuck you.”
Miroshnikov was momentarily startled, his eyes wide. But then a huge smile crossed his face, and he threw back his head and laughed so hard that tears began to stream down his cheeks. “Oh, my,” he gasped.” Oh, dear, that is rich, Mr. McAllister. I love it, I honestly love it and you.”
“Let me speak with my embassy.”
“It’s time now,” Miroshnikov said rising. He came around the table and took McAllister’s hand, helping him up. “It’s not far in distance, Mac, but it will be light years in conception. Believe me, we are going to have a splendid time together, you and I. Simply splendid.”
The torture chamber was a very small room, laid out much like a hospital’s operating theater. A steel table with stirrups for his feet and leather straps for his arms and legs, was situated beneath a large, focused light fixture in the center of the spotlessly clean room. Electronic instruments were clustered around the head of the table. A stainless-steel roll-about cart held several trays, each covered with crisp white towels. Video cameras were set on each wall so that not one single aspect of a prisoner’s interrogation could possible be missed on tape. Two stern-faced nurses in starched white uniforms removed McAllister’s coveralls and slippers and helped him up on the table, where he was strapped in place, his legs bent at the knees, open as if he were a woman about to give birth. There was no value, at this point, for active resistance, he had been taught at the Farm. Now is when you will need all of your strength. The course of training was called Pain Management. Cancer specialists were on the staff, instructing them how to “go with the flow.” Allow the pain to wash through your body. Don’t resist it. Don’t fight it. Scream your bloody head off, in fact, because when you consider the alternative to pain death you’ll learn to endure.
The nurses placed an electroencephalogram headband around his forehead, EKG pickups on his chest, a pulse counter on his left wrist, and a blood pressure cuff on his biceps. They also attached metal clips to his nipples, and soft, almost sensuous suction cups on his testicles. When they were finished they left the room, the door closing quietly after them.
Miroshnikov sat on a tall stool behind and to McAllister’s right. He leaned forward and adjusted a knob on one of the electronic instruments, and immediately McAllister could hear the sounds of his own heartbeat and respiration over a loudspeaker. He willed himself to relax, to accept whatever would come.
They will break your will sooner or later, of course, his instructors had told him. So one might rightly ask: What is the value of resistance of any sort? Simply that the enemy knows we will treat his captured spies exactly the same as they do ours. Treat ours with respect and we will do the same. Treat ours with punishment, and we will respond in kind. The more you take, the more they know will be inflicted on their people.
So where was the twin of this room back home? Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two.
“What?” Miroshnikov asked, his face overhead. McAllister smiled.” Fuck you,” he said good-naturedly.” Thomas Murdock, let us begin with him. It is all that I want this evening.”
McAllister closed his eyes, the faint traces of a smile at the corners of his mouth. It was very possible, he told himself, that he would not come out of this alive. It was ironic that they wanted him to tell them about Murdock, of whom he knew nothing. Voronin, on the other hand, had been the gold seam. Had been, that is, until their last evening together. When? Had it been days, or weeks… — or had it been only hours ago.
A blindingly massive pain reached up from his groin, raced through his body, and rebounded in his armpits. From a long ways off he heard someone screaming, the sound animal, not human. As the pain receded he could hear his own heartbeat coming from the speaker, fast but still strong.
A second pain came, this one across his chest, and although the hurt of it was much less than the first, it was more frightening in that while it was happening he could clearly hear that his heart had stopped. When it began again he nearly cried in relief.
“Do you know Thomas Murdock, Mr. McAllister?” Miroshnikov’s voice was close in his ear.
No he did not. In the old days of Scorpius, of course, he had worked with Tom, but not afterward. Not in ten years.
The pain at his groin came again, this time more intensely, as if hot pokers had been rammed into his armpits, penetrating all the way inside his skull. Once when he was a young boy he had hit his finger with a hammer, and he couldn’t understand why the pain had been the most intense and most lasting in his elbow.Again the pain shot up from his groin, followed almost immediately by the more exquisite torture across his chest, his heart stopping, then beginning raggedly, and frighteningly weaker than before.
Tom had been a womanizer, a boozer, the network’s resident high roller. McAllister decided that he wouldn’t put it past the man to be involved down in Panama as a mule-a delivery and drop man. The cocaine connection, the pipeline back to the States, supposedly measured in the billions of
dollars. Tom would be drawn to it, yes. But was there an Agency connection? We needed the hard currency, beyond the prying eyes of Congress. But how far?.
Again the pain came, this time unbelievably bad and his heartbeat stopped again. He listened. He was reminded for some insane reason about the guillotinings during the French Revolution. The man whose head had just been cut off had a few seconds to look up from the basket at his own mutilated torso flopping in the stock before the dark veil of death descended over him. McAllister found the same thing happening to him; the lights in the room began to fade, faster and faster.
“Mr. McAllister, Mr. McAllister,” someone was calling to him from an impossibly long distance.” Mac.” He opened his eyes to find that he had been unhooked from the electronic instruments, and had been unstrapped from the table. He was sitting up. There was little or no pain remaining, only a detached feeling, as if he were floating a few inches off the table. Miroshnikov stood at his side holding his arm, a big grin on his face.
“Splendid, really quite splendid, you know,” he was saying. Everything was coming back into focus for McAllister, and in some strange, almost indefinable way he felt even better for his experience. As if he had been cleansed. It was the same feeling, he supposed, that a marathon runner must feel after completing his race. Terribly tired and strung out, but with a feeling of inner strength coming from a Herculean accomplishment. They’d not told him about this at the Farm.
He also felt an exceedingly odd bonding with Miroshnikov. As if they had been, until just this moment, Siamese twins. The connecting tissues had been severed with the removal of the electronic probes and the electrodes from his chest and testicles, but he still felt as one with his interrogator.
“You should have felt the pain,” McAllister heard himself say, and he was no less astonished by his statement than Miroshnikov was.” But we’ve made progress, my dear fellow. So much wonderful progress that there cannot possibly be any animosity,” Miroshnikov said.” Here, let me help you down.”
McAllister allowed himself to be helped down from the table at the same moment the two nurses from before entered the room. He stood for a second or two, wavering slightly on his feet, then he leaned left away from Miroshnikov, as if he were about to fall.
The Russian stepped forward, his legs spread at that moment, his right hand outstretched, when McAllister turned back, bringing up his right knee with every ounce of his strength into Miroshnikov’s groin. A look of pain and disbelief spread across the interrogator’s face, and he started to rear back, his mouth opening in a bellow of pain.
The two nurses started forward, giving McAllister just enough time to roll left, then right again, the side of his right hand driving into Miroshnikov’s throat, then they were on him, shoving him roughly back against the tall torture table.
“Bastard,” one of them hissed.
“Fuck your mother, ” McAllister replied in Russian.
Chapter 3
The cell was clean, warm, and reasonably well furnished. For the last three evenings the lights had been extinguished so he had been able to sleep.
Solid, if plain meals had been brought at regular intervals. The Soviet attorney looked up from his reading.
“A substantial case has been built against you, Mr. McAllister. I don’t think a lengthy trial would be of much value. In fact, because sentencing in these kinds of matters is left entirely to the discretion of the judges, the easier you make it for them, the easier they will make it for you.”
“What about my defense?”
Yevgenni Tarasenko, the court appointed attorney, shook his head and smiled.” Under the circumstances, I frankly don’t think you have a defense.”
“Why have I not been allowed to speak with a representative from my embassy?”
“We have been in communication with them,” Tarasenko said.” In fact, I personally have spoken with Mr. Lacey, your charge d’affaires, and his concern goes out to you with all sincerity. He too wishes for a speedy conclusion.”
“Will I be able to speak with him?”
“Before your trial?”
“Now, immediately,” McAllister said. He felt much better than he had for days, and yet he still had the sensation of detachment. He supposed his food was still being drugged.
“I am sorry, Mr. McAllister, but in these matters we must adhere to Soviet law. Our constitution clearly outlines our rights as well as our responsibilities. It is the same in Washington, I assure you.”
McAllister had wondered about Miroshnikov. After that first night of torture, the interrogation sessions had ended. That very night he had been moved to this cell. The next morning he had been allowed to shower and shave, and had been fed a huge breakfast. It all had been confusing.” Formal charges have been filed against me?”
“Yes, they have. You are accused of spying for the United States against my government. Very grave, very serious charges.”
“And you are to be my attorney?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Are there other charges?”
The attorney shrugged. “You were armed with a deadly weapon at the time of your arrest. And there is the matter of the assault on Colonel Miroshnikov in front of witnesses.”
“Was my torture witnessed?”
The attorney looked again at the bulky files he had brought in with him.” Those charges may be dropped, Mr. McAllister, but it depends upon you.
“On my cooperation.”
“Yes, exactly.”
McAllister thought about the chief interrogator and their sessions together. Never once had Voronin been mentioned. Most of their time had been spent going over the Scorpius Network, and Tom Murdock’s whereabouts these days. Evidently the Russians were still feeling the effects of the Bulgarian operation. For that, at least, he was thankful. He sat forward. “Then what evidence is there against me?”
The attorney’s eyes were round. “Your confession, of course. We wouldn’t have dreamed of going to trial without it.”
“May I see it?”
“There is no need, believe me, it is very complete. You spelled out in very complete detail how you, at the orders of your government of course, operated a successful nest of spies in Sofia in the late seventies. Really, Mr. McAllister, there can be no doubt in anyone’s mind.”
“I don’t remember making any such confession…. of my own free will, that is.”
The attorney’s lips compressed. “You signed the transcript.”
“Under duress.”
“Please, Mr. McAllister, believe me when I advise you to plead simply guilty before the judges. It will be much better for you, much better indeed.”
“Thanks for the advice,” McAllister said.” I suppose I’ll get your bill in the morning.”
It took a moment for Tarasenko to realize that McAllister had made a joke, and then his face split into a wide grin. “Very good,” he said, gathering up his papers and rising. “Yes, very good, Mr. McAllister. My bill in the morning.”
With lunch they brought him a blue pin-striped suit, a white shirt and tie, underwear and socks, and freshly polished black shoes, all of which fit well, though the cut wasn’t very good by Western standards.
He had been here for a long time. Certainly weeks, possibly more than a month, yet his memories were hazy and indistinct, partly because of the drugs he had been given and partly because of the lack of sleep and proper food. Yet he didn’t feel terrible. There was no real pain, only a weakness and the slight feeling that he was floating. When he stood up too suddenly sometimes, he would experience a little nausea and light-headedness, but even those feelings had slowly begun to pass, over the past few days.
After he got dressed he began pacing his cell, five steps to the steel door, turn, five steps back. If indeed Bill Lacey had been contacted at the embassy the wheels in Washington would be in motion. At the very least they would stave off any possibility of a death penalty. It was likely that he would be sentenced to a few years imprisonment
, probably even here in Moscow. But even Francis Gary Powers had been quickly released. Spies were exchanged on a regular basis.
It could be months, or possibly even a couple of years, but he was definitely going home to the desk, because from this point on he would present too high a profile for fieldwork. Langley had many such men forever denied sensitive foreign postings.
He stopped. They had his confession, according to the attorney, which meant they had broken him. Or had they? Was it all a big ploy? Was this just another of Miroshnikov’s little tricks? Was this simply another of the interrogator’s phases? Perhaps there wasn’t going to be a trial just yet. Perhaps he would be taken instead back to Miroshnikov, or perhaps back to the torture chamber.
The Scorpius Network was a long time ago. The information by now was outdated. What was of more immediate importance was Voronin, and yet his name had never come up. He searched his memory, but he could not recall being asked, other than in a superficial manner, exactly what he had been doing so late out on the streets the night of his arrest. Had they operated with blinders on, so excited by the prospect of catching an American spy, that they had missed the obvious? Or had he missed the obvious?
Look to Washington. Look to Moscow. Zebra One, Zebra Two. What the hell did it mean? Thinking about it now, he was no longer certain that those words had simply been the ravings of a man gone finally mad. They were cryptic, yes, but they had cadence, they hinted at some abbreviated message, there was meaning. Some sort of a connection between Washington and Moscow? How was that possible, he wondered. And what was or were Zebra One and Two? Obviously code words. Zebra One, a man in Washington and Zebra Two, a man in Moscow? Or was he chasing a will-o’-the-wisp after all? He began his pacing again, five steps to the steel door, turn, and five steps back again, as he tried to get himself ready for whatever would be coming next.
The two armed guards came for him early in the afternoon, and he fell in between them as they marched wordlessly down the broad, stone-walled corridor. At the end they entered an elevator. On the way up both guards stared at McAllister as if he were a wild animal who at any moment might try to run. The flaps of their holsters were undone. One of them rested his hand on the butt of his pistol.
The Zebra Network Page 3