Twilight of the Gods (Universe in Flames Book 8)
Page 36
I press my index finger against his jugular artery and feel the drugs inject into his bloodstream with a slight pneumatic depression from the tip of my finger.
The drugs act fast, and Samir comes back to consciousness screaming. I put my hand on his mouth to muffle his scream as I grab a knife and put it under his left eye, applying enough pressure to get his attention.
“Listen to me, sucker, I don’t have time to lose. So the only words I want to hear from you are answers to my questions. Are we clear?”
His bloodshot eyes stare at me with pure hatred. I remove my hand slowly from his now silent mouth.
He spits his answer like acid venom: “Go feck yourself, infidel!”
“Wrong answer!”
I plunge my knife into his thigh, about an inch away from his artery and twist it ninety degrees, resulting in more screaming.
“Listen to me, Samir, I have no intention of going easy on you. If you think this hurts, you obviously don’t comprehend how far I’m willing to go to get the information I require from you. So let’s try this again, shall we?”
Samir’s eyes are now shut closed from the pain.
“You know I don’t like it when you torture other human beings,” says Tanya, trying to be the voice of reason.
What she doesn’t understand is that I can’t afford to be a human being with feelings if I am to accomplish my goals. Not when the fate of hundreds of thousands of souls hangs in the balance. I switch off my emotions completely and only focus on results. This pathetic excuse for a human being will suffer and then he will die. How much of it he will have to endure is entirely up to him. But both his pain and death are set in stone as far as I’m concerned. Nothing can change that now.
“Where is Ahmed’s dirty bomb located at the moment? Give me what I need and I’ll make the pain stop.”
Samir blinks his eyes back open. I can start to see fear in them. The dance has begun. There’s still a healthy dose of defiance in them though. That tells me I need to keep pushing.
I grab one of his fingers. They’re arched from the pain, but he can’t move his hands because of the lock-foam. I go for the little finger. I don’t need to use much of my augments for that next move. I break his finger, hearing every brittle bone break under the pressure, and rip it from his hand.
By now I don’t hear Samir’s screaming and moaning anymore. I just need the intel I’m looking for; the rest of the world around me is now just background noise.
“Now, Samir, where’s the dirty bomb located? I don’t enjoy this and I’m sure neither do you. There’s no way out for you. Today is your last day, and it’s up to you if you want to die fast or have me make it a living hell for as long as it takes.”
“Allahu Akbar . . . you shall burn in the flames of hell for all eternity,” he says back to me, tears of pain forming around his eyes.
I take the knife out of his thigh and plant my finger into the wound.
“Not the answer I’m looking for, Samir!”
His teeth are clenched so hard and his eyes close shut.
I approach his ear and whisper to him.
“This, what you feel right now, is nothing compared to what will come next. Do you understand me, Samir?”
But then Tanya interrupts the process. “Cole, the wound in Samir’s leg. It will make him go into shock soon and probably die shortly after if you continue, and then he won’t be able to give you any answers.”
I remove my finger from his wound and activate one of my repulsors in concentrated fire mode. A short, blue-tinged flame comes to life. I usually use this mode to solder things. It will do the trick just fine. Time to seal that wound then. I burn the wound to stop it from bleeding. Without anesthesia I can only imagine the level of pain that he feels from this.
I give Samir a few seconds to recover from the shock of it all. I then pry his left eye open and place my blade under it once more.
“Don’t force me to do this!” I scream. “Tell me where the bomb is!”
He mutters something in Arabic. Tanya translates: “I do not waver in the face of adversity. Allah the merciful is my guiding light.”
“Allah can’t do shit for you anymore. Last chance, Samir!” I shout, one inch away from crushing his face from frustration.
I can feel him trying to close back his eye, but I don’t let him.
I exhale deeply. “Very well, Samir, you asked for it.”
I use the tip of my blade and plunge it under his eyeball and with a swift movement I pop it out of its socket.
“Stooooop! Please stop!” he begs.
Now we’re getting somewhere. His eyeball dangles on the side of his face.
“Where . . . is . . . the . . . nuke? Answer me or I’ll keep going!”
A few seconds pass before he answers.
“I . . . I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say as I grab his eyeball and close my fist around it and start pulling, slowly.
The sound he emits is beyond pain. His facial grimace mirrors that fact.
“This next part will hurt more than anything you can ever imagine,” I say, my voice ice cold.
“Please, just . . . kill me.”
“I will if you tell me where to find the bomb, Samir. You can meet your maker fast; all it takes is that one piece of information.”
“World Security Center.”
“I didn’t ask what the target is. I already have that intel. I need to know the location of the bomb at the present time.”
“Only Ahmed knows that. I don’t know where the bomb is right now, I swear!”
Tanya intervenes.
“Cole, he’s not going to be able to take much more of this, and I detect no deception from his last statement. Maybe we should give it a rest. We have another lead in our mission’s intel package, and perhaps we should get your friend and go pay a visit to Rasul Yasser instead. I don’t think we’ll get anything of use from Samir.”
“Very well,” I say as I rip his optical nerve in frustration and throw it to the side.
He screams from the top of his lungs in agony and part of me disagrees with the move. That part is called my conscience. It’s not happy about this unnecessary act of brutality. I know full well this was gratuitous and that Vassiliki wouldn’t have agreed. I’m surprised at the thought. I usually can contain my emotions better than this. But there’s no denying it, today I’m off my game and I know it. The nightmare has shaken my foundation and I’m not able to turn off my human side the way I know I need to in order to accomplish my goals.
I grab a sonic grenade when my arm stops moving.
“Tanya! What are you doing?”
“Cole, you don’t need to do this. Just shoot him in the head and end his suffering already.”
“Tanya, override and give me back control. Now is not the time, you hear me?”
I can feel the sensation back in my arm and shove the sonic grenade in Samir’s open mouth, breaking and dislocating his jaw in the process. I don’t activate it just yet. I get up and leave the room, and when I’m far enough I send the mental command to detonate it. I don’t need to turn back to know what happens. I get the mental image of Samir’s head being blown into pieces from the detonation and spread all around his now dead corpse.
“Was that really necessary?” asks Tanya with the unmistakable weight of disappointment in her voice.
I don’t answer. I know there’s nothing I can say that will justify my actions. I normally have no problem admitting defeat and ending an interrogation with a simple laser blast to the head, but I’m beyond mad right now. I recognize that. I also recognize that it’s not a good emotion to feel while in deployment. My augments usually allow me to control all my emotions, but today is different. There’s something lurking inside my brain, doubts doubled with fear, and that’s a very dangerous mix.
I get back on the jet bike and soon we’re flying over New Geneva as the day unfolds little by little. It all seems peaceful at the moment. People
going to work, public transport getting them where they need to go, thinking this day is just like any other. They’re unaware of what will happen to them if I fail my mission.
“Failure is not an option,” says Tanya with a grave tone of voice. “Or have you forgotten that?”
I haven’t forgotten. I just have a bad feeling about today. I wish I could shake it, but I can’t. It lurks in the back of my head, eating at my confidence with every passing moment. I need to regain control, and fast.
End of Sample
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Damocles Fall
Dramatis Personæ
The Story So Far
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Afterword
Also by Christian Kallias
About the Author
A Word from the Author
Rewind 717
Rewind 717 Book Cover
About this sample
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8