The Sacrifice Game

by Brian D'Amato

  “Would you please tell us everything Mr. DeLanda told you about the settlement at Pusilha?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything. Just that you’d come through there. I supposed his employers had something to do with it. But he didn’t tell me that.”

  “Mr. DeLanda tells us you alerted this patrol to our location. Would you like to give us your side of the story on that?”

  There was a pause.

  ( 97 )

  No Way knew that was a total lie, of course. It was too close to book procedure, trying to make the subject feel betrayed.

  “I didn’t tell anybody anything.”

  “So you signaled someone?”

  “No. I didn’t signal anyone.”

  “In that case, who do you think alerted the patrol to our location?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you alert this patrol to our location?”

  It was pretty clear to me that was the only real question in the bunch. If they made sure it wasn’t No Way who turned them in, then they’d have to look elsewhere. Probably among their so-called friends in the army.

  “No,” No Way said.

  “Why did you alert this patrol to our location?”

  “I didn’t,” No Way said. The voltmeter slid slowly up, from a hundred-volt tickle to two thousand and then to eight thousand. After three seconds, at fifteen thousand, No Way couldn’t hold it in anymore. His back arched higher and bounced and there was a squeal of his vocal cords sawing into each other. His body bounced again and then relaxed as the voltage went back to zero.

  “That was a one-second application of a level two shock,” Grgur said. “On your next false answer we’re going to wait five seconds and then administer a level four shock. Just so you know, a level eight might be fatal.”

  “Let’s try it,” No Way squawked.

  “I’m going to have to ask you again,” Grgur said. Pause. “It’s not a big deal, you know, we’re not out to get anyone. We just want to know where we went wrong. No Way? Who alerted the patrol to our location?”

  “I don’t know.” No Way’s readings thrashed, anticipating the shock. His temperature was dipping and his galvanic skin resistance was down twenty percent. The EEG was showing sharp seven-hundred-microvolt eliptiform spikes and big asymmetries between the right and left hemispheres of his brain. The shock didn’t come, though.

  “So you’re saying you know someone did.”

  “No. Didn’t.” No Way’s voice sounded like a crushed bullfrog’s. The Estimated Voice Stress Level thingy reset itself to the new timbre. Eighty-five percent, it said.

  “You didn’t what?”

  “I didn’t. Alert. Anyone.”

  “One of the patrol officers already told us the information came from you.”

  “Not true.”

  “Then who did?”

  “I don’t know. If anyone did. Or not.”

  “Who do you think may have alerted this patrol to our location?”

  “¿Quién sabe?”

  “You’re sure? I’m going to have to give you a long charge in a minute.”

  “Can you execute me now, please?” No Way asked, but the voltage was climbing again and his voice rose into a screech and then petered out in gooey sputtering. Grgur held it for three seconds. The EEG dropped down to what it said was an unconscious alpha level. Grgur cut the charge and Leonidas took the muff away from No Way’s neck. Passing out was one thing, but they didn’t want him to go into shock.

  ( 98 )

  “This isn’t good,” Leonidas said. There was blood all over No Way’s chin and when they wiped it off I could see he’d bitten through his lower lip. I guess they were worried about it because it was a torture-victim giveaway. Leonidas stuck some bits of gauze between No Way’s teeth and his upper and lower lips. It gave him kind of a Ubangi-woman look. No Way was waking up, and he drew in a breath to try and get a scream together—he’d picked up on their stealth factor—but Leonidas remuffled him before any noise came out. He taped a shock of hair back out of his eye.

  “Come on,” Grgur said.

  “Okay, it’s okay,” Leonidas said.

  “Okay, No Way?” Grgur asked. “Can you hear me?”

  “Uh-hunh.” I think he was trying to make himself pass out again, but the Royal Ordnance system was good at not letting that happen. Grgur gave him a hundred-volt wake-up buzz.

  “Who is Jed’s backup?” Grgur asked.

  “I am.” His vowels were just ragged grunts and he didn’t have any consonants left, but I could still understand him.

  “All right. Listen. We already know the patrol was acting on a signal from you. We only want your confirmation of who set up the contact and how they were signaled.”

  No answer. Of course, they didn’t actually have Clue One. It was just more standard procedure to tell the subject they knew he was lying. No Way wasn’t buying it, though.

  Torture for information usually actually works well, but it can take time. No Way’s choice now was either to start changing his answers to try to buy time, or to keep to the true answers so they’d kill him as soon as possible. All guerrillas were trained to try to do the first, to hold up the interrogators for as long as possible. The main reason was what used to be called the “forty-eight-hour rule”: you stalled in order to give the other people in the cell time to relocate before the other side learned their whereabouts. The other was that there was more of a chance for you if your interrogators had to take you back to wherever with them. Once you were in prison, you were less likely to be executed. In this case there wasn’t anyone else trying to get away, although maybe No Way thought I might need to get out of here myself, and I’m pretty sure he knew there wasn’t any hope for him either. But he did pick up on the fact that these people were nervous, and had been spotted by someone. And so just to screw them up as much as possible—I think—he did the right thing. Which was to start off telling the truth and then to reverse himself as they turned up the screws and the physiological readings got harder to evaluate.

  “No Way? Listen. Who’s your primary runner on the Guate side?”

  “Cano.”

  “Rank and first name?”

  “Captain. Juan.”

  “Would you please tell us how and when you signaled this patrol?”

  “Fresh stolen phone. Leave text asking for a subscription to newsletter.”

  “Would you please tell us the name of this patrol’s commanding officer?”

  “No sé.”

  “Who have you told about this operation?”

  “Cano y los GNAH.”

  “Who else?”

  “I can’t remember right now.”

  “What have you told them about this operation?”

  “Everything, your schedule, your objective, cargo, everything.”

  “And what do you think is our objective?”

  “Royal tombs.”

  “What about the royal tombs?”

  “Specific artifacts.”

  “Which are?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Would you like a cigarette?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Then please tell us that list and we’ll give you a cigarette.”

  “Uh, de Vega,” No Way said, pretending to think. “De Rivera. Caballero, Negrín, uh, Azana y Díaz—”

  “That doesn’t look right,” Grgur said. He made out like they were checking the names No Way gave them against a list, but I bet they weren’t really. “I’m going to have to give you a level six shock.” Grgur gave him a little jolt, only half a second, but No Way was so softened up I could see sweat bead up out of his skin and roll down like someone was squeezing the wet sponge of his face.

  “Please don’t do that,” No Way said, “I’ll help you get into contact with them.”

  “With who?”

  “Whoever.”

  “We’re not going to execute you, you know,” Grgur said.

  “Thank you.”

 
“Is there anything you would like to tell us before we release you?”

  “No.”

  I could tell No Way wanted to keep them talking longer but he barely had the energy. He knew they were going to kill him anyway, but I guess he wanted to toss them a little more disinformation if he could. Or maybe, at the literal last minute, even he clung to life. It’s hard not to.

  “Okay, that’s it,” Grgur said. “You’re sure you don’t have anything else for us?”

  “No, no, I can tell you more.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “Deposit. Banco de Gran Caimán.” To me it was obvious it didn’t mean anything, though, it was just a false lead to take up their time, and I think they knew it too.

  “Who’s the contact at the bank?”

  “Zamora.”

  “That doesn’t sound right.” There was an almost-silent scream and the voltmeter blasted up to forty thousand. At that level they only left it on for a quarter-second but it still knocked him out. No Way’s face and body twisted up and collapsed. His mouth was open and drooling. His heartbeat skipped and took two irregular spikes and then settled back to sixty-five. His EEG was heavy on the Theta.

  “All right,” Leonidas said, “that’s twenty minutes already, that’s as much as we need to spend on this.”

  “We’re going to give you a list of names of people who may be working at Pusilha. I’d like you to indicate which ones you’ve heard before, which ones your organization is following, or would like to follow, or wants to learn more about. You understand?”

  “Okay.”

  “Even if you’ve just heard the name before I want you to tell me, and then we’ll try to remember where. All right?”

  “Okay.”

  “Bastarrachea Manzano.”

  “No sé.” The program thought for a second and gave a combined reading of 7.6 out of 10.

  “Juan Ramón.”

  “No sé.” It registered a 7.0.

  “Froot Loops.”

  “No sé.” 7.8.

  “Count Chocula.”

  “No sé.” There were a few differences in the readings, but the program flagged it at 8.1.

  “Domingo Dzul.”

  “No sé.” The combined register jumped up to 9.

  “Bacon and Eggs.”

  “No sé.” 9.5.

  “Hmm,” Grgur said. “Let’s talk about Count Chocula for a second.”

  He was right, I thought. That was the only really solid name they had. The readings had gone up after he’d said it because No Way had bitten his tongue or done some other tack-in-the-shoe thing to confuse the reading.

  “Are you sure you’ve never heard of Count Chocula?”

  “No,” No Way said. “I don’t remember product names.”

  “If you had, what would you have heard about it?”

  “I can’t remember yet.”

  “Where would the name have come up? At an EGP base?”

  “That’s right,” No Way said. He wasn’t caving in, by the way. He was trying to confuse them. He didn’t have enough of a secret to protect. At most, he wanted to protect me, to get any blame off of me and onto himself—even though for all he knew I was on their side, or had even called in the patrol. I wondered a lot about what he thought about that. I hope he trusted me. Or maybe he just figured I still had a chance and he obviously didn’t. Or he’d suspended his judgment for the purposes of his last act. And actually, in terms of sheer bearing up, he was one of the bravest subjects I’d ever heard of. Certainly as tough as anyone back in Ancient Mayaland.

  “You’re sure you have nothing to add? You understand we’re going to kill you now.”

  No Way didn’t say anything, he just rolled the pupils of his eyes back, which was the closest he could come to closing them.

  “You’re sure? Okay.”

  Someone’s right hand held a small nylon sandbag that had been tightly wound with duct tape against the left side of No Way’s head, above the ear. The matching left hand cushioned his head on the other side so his neck wouldn’t bend. Nothing happened for a minute and then the arms swung a second wrapped sandbag, like a big sausage, underhand against the first one. It was a variant on what police in the U.S. call the telephone-book technique, a way to give someone a concussion without leaving an external bruise. I could hardly hear the strike, but No Way’s heart rate skipped and spiked and his EEG scrambled up past 900 Hz and then dropped and bounced. No Way’s expression was all sort of submerged pain like a dog having a bad dream.

  “Wait, hang on,” Grgur said. He swung the bag way back again, gathered up force, and struck. No Way’s pulse took a last spike and flatlined. His EEG kept going, though, in this really irregular way, like he was still thinking about a few dissociated things, ships and sealing wax and cabbages. Again, nothing happened for a minute. Leonidas’s hands went out of the picture. The image jiggled as Grgur picked up the phone and moved it into a close-up of No Way’s face with its wide-open doll eye and held it steady, long enough to show he wasn’t breathing. His temperature had already dropped a twentieth of a degree.

  “Okay,” Grgur said. I got glimpses of the crew pulling the sensors off No Way’s head and cleaning and redressing him and everything, but I couldn’t really pay attention. I did notice they put him in a Chouinard rock-climbing harness, which probably meant they were going to dump him in a chultun like he’d been exploring and fallen. You’d think they wouldn’t even bother being so careful out in a place like this, but I guess they were just trained to be absolutely professional.

  ( 99 )

  Two minutes later the video ended. I didn’t move. I felt like I was bursting with acid diarrhea. And vomit. Or actually a single mass of diarrhea/vomit that was about to spurt out every available orifice.

  No Way was maybe my best friend and certainly my only friend left from the vida loca. And he’d always led a dangerous life, but my personally getting him killed was a lot worse for me than his dying on his own. For any member of any blood-brother gang anywhere, if you lead somebody into a trap and he buys it you really owe him, a lot more than if he just took a bullet on the street or something.

  Betrayal is an amazing thing. It’s abstract. I mean, in the Warholian sense, like too big and awful even to try to represent. I was feeling a new dimension in my anger, different from the rage I felt at people who were dishonest and stupid and destroyed everything. In a way it was even stronger than my anger at the soldiers who’d disappeared my family, because it was multiplied exponentially by a more personalized invasion. And thinking back on it, actually, of all the strange things that had happened to me, Marena’s treachery was the strangest, the thing I had the most trouble getting my brain around. Because it made the world seem the most alien. Even though I guess in a way I’d expected it.

  I watched the video through again and then again. Each time I absorbed the fact of it a little more and I could feel my rage balloon inflating up out of my chest and into my throat in an almost detached way.

  She sold you out, I thought. She fucked you all the way up the colon with a Chunnel driller.

  No, wait—I thought back—you don’t know how much she knew about it. She may not even know No Way’s dead.

  Oh, yes, she does. She just doesn’t know it happened down there. Obviously Lindsay doesn’t tell her everything, but she knows good ’n’ plenty. If she’s curious about No Way, she’s just trying to cover her tight little ass.

  Well, first of all, I’ve got to get hold of Grgur. Ask him. What’s Marena’s real deal?

  What is this, Harnessing the Power of Wishful Thinking? You want to determine the exact degree of guilt on some scale between Quisling and Mussolini? She fucked you over and one’ll get you ten they’re going to waste you, too, sometime, and she knows about it and doesn’t care. If she didn’t come up with it herself, that is. It’s probably fun for her to fuck a soon-to-be-dead guy. Dead Man Fucking. It’s another PSDL power trip. Your whole life you’ve just been a tool, maybe a sharp tool
but disposable, like a plastic razor.

  Yeah, you’re right, I thought. Time to rock. I could already see myself boiling over, trashing the whole place, grabbing Marena to interrogate her, a little taste of her own shit—

  Don’t do it, I said. Give in to rage and you’ll screw worse up. Chill. Chill. Get past furious, get to that cold point where you can just nurture that little green flame. Figure out how to record this stuff. Go public. Get them all put away. And then maybe get them killed in prison.

  No, wait, better just kill them first. Even if I got them into court they’d hire Scheck, Spence, & Dershowitz and everything’ll stay the same and I’ll be hung out to dry. At best. At worst I’d disappear before I got myself into custody.

  Okay. Okay.

  Goal.

  Payback.

  Why the shit did Lindsay hang on to that video? I wondered. Maybe he wanted his killers bloody all over. Still—

  Okay. Record. I started downloading the file onto a Zip Chip.

  Okay, I thought. I watched the bar graph fill up with deadly data. It said it would take another 1.2 minutes.

  You know, you still don’t know what’s going on, I thought. Find out. Do de right thing. Find out. Information isn’t power yet, but it’s on the right track. First you learn what Lindsay’s really doing. Then meticulous planning. Then horrible and merciless revenge. Then party.

  I checked Marena’s GPS. She was eight miles west of here, but it looked like she was headed back.

  Okay, think. Lindsay’s got a scheme.

  Find out.

  What’s his plan, what’s his plan, what’s his plan?

  Not sure, Shitlock. I entered SEARCH COUNT CHOCULA. Why did the EGP want to check out this guy? If they did at all. For that matter, why were they that paranoid about that stupid-looking Stake place? It wasn’t like it was a secret or anything, it was just another really bad-taste Mormon summer camp. One of dozens. So far it looked like a vintage-1979 Ford trucks dealership in the middle of the rain forest. So, what’s the big deal? The answers to these questions and more are yours next week . . . in the heart-rending conclusion of—