by Brad Thor
With that said, he doubted Radek Heger would be as easy to break, and he told her so.
Rhodes smiled. “I’ve got more ability in my little thumb than you’ll ever know.”
“Honey, I don’t know what the rest of them look like in that village back in the Amazon you come from, but trust me, there ain’t nothing little about you or your thumb,” replied Vlcek, smiling right back at her.
“Your fascination with my height aside, I’ll bet you dinner that I can get what I want out of Heger.”
“Without laying a hand on him?”
“And without you laying a hand on him either,” said Rhodes.
Vlcek didn’t believe she could do it. “You’re on,” he stated. “And I expect you to dress very nicely for our dinner because you’re going to be taking me someplace very special.”
“We’ll see, cowboy,” she said as she opened the door and headed down the stairs to the basement. “Just make sure you keep your cool no matter what happens during the interrogation, okay?”
“Anything you say, Thumbelina.”
Megan shook her head and then focused on putting her game face on. Interrogation might have been something she was extraordinarily gifted at, but it required the right mind-set. It was all about power, even if it was just the perception of power. Power perceived, she had been taught, was power achieved.
Alex Cooper was standing outside the door to the room where Heger was being kept.
“Has he been prepped?” asked Rhodes.
“Just like you requested,” she replied. “We moved Skovajsa into the other room.”
“Hey,” said Vlcek. “I don’t want to end up being the creepy guy with a bunch of people tied up in his basement. Okay?”
“Too late,” stated Rhodes as she reached out and laid her hand on Cooper’s shoulder. “You did an awesome job tonight,” she told her teammate.
Cooper was uncomfortable with compliments. “Are you going to need any help in there?” she asked.
Rhodes shook her head and jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at Vlcek. “As long as he doesn’t faint on me, I think we’ll be okay.”
“All right then,” replied Cooper. “Gretch has got first watch upstairs, so I’m going to grab something to eat and then get a little sleep. Try to keep the screaming to a minimum.”
“A tall drink of water and a screamer,” said Vlcek as he shot Rhodes a look. “Apparently dreams do come true.”
“I wasn’t talking about her,” said Cooper.
“He knows that,” replied Rhodes. “He can’t help himself. Just ignore him.”
Alex shot Vlcek a look of her own and then headed up the stairs.
“There’s earplugs in the nightstand if you need them,” he called after her. “But I don’t mind if you want to listen. Everybody loves an audience.”
Rhodes looked at him. “Are you done now?”
“What’d I do?”
Ignoring him, she took a couple of deep breaths, got her head straight, and then opened the door.
Radek Heger had been tied down to one half of a set of bifold closet doors. The door and the prisoner had then been balanced on an ottoman Julie Ericsson had brought down from the living room.
Vlcek leaned in and whispered in Megan’s ear, “You’re going to waterboard the guy?”
She shook her head. “Just watch.”
Heger had a hood over his head and couldn’t see. When Cooper had reached his crumpled Range Rover he had indeed been wearing his seatbelt, but his air bag had deployed and he had suffered multiple injuries. One of the injuries was a shattered collarbone. Next to the femur, it was one of the most painful bones to break. When the patient was moved, the shards and fragments rubbed together, causing intense flames of pain to shoot throughout the body. Rhodes had decided to use that to their advantage.
With Julie Ericsson silently holding on near Heger’s feet so he couldn’t flip himself off the ottoman, Rhodes walked up to his head and bent down.
“Mr. Heger,” she said slowly. “You have sustained several very serious injuries. In addition to what you can probably gauge from self-assessment, we believe your back has been broken in three places and that you also have internal bleeding.”
Vlcek looked at Ericsson, who shook her head. Rhodes had planned to ramp everything up for maximum psychological impact. As the man carried nothing on his person to indicate that he had a wife, children, girlfriend, dog, or anything of any importance to him, she needed to leverage whatever else she could.
“It is important,” continued Megan, “that you cooperate with us. The sooner you do, the sooner we will be able to get you to an appropriate trauma facility.”
From beneath his hood, Heger rasped. “I’m going to kill you.”
Rhodes laughed. “I’ll make sure to send you a can of oil for your wheelchair so that you at least have a sporting chance of sneaking up on me.”
“I know who you are. All of you. I’m going to hunt you down and kill each of you.”
“Really?” said Megan. “That’s very interesting. Who are we?”
Heger didn’t answer.
“Yeah, I thought so,” she said to him. “You have no idea who we are and you have no idea where we’re from. But I’m going to assume you know what we want.”
“You’re Americans,” he rasped. “I know American accents.”
“To you, I sound American. To another, German,” she replied, changing her accent as she went. “To yet another I am Danish, Dutch, or South African. You see, who I am is unimportant, Mr. Heger. All that matters is what I want.
“We killed a lot of your men tonight. I want you to keep that at the forefront of your mind. The only reason you are alive is that I have let you live.
“We’re not very different, the two of us. You’re a businessman and I’m a businesswoman. I’m proposing a deal. You give me what I want and I will let you live.”
Under his hood, Heger laughed. “Of course you will. I can trust you.”
“Radek,” said Rhodes. “I am going to warn you once and only once. Do not play with me. I don’t like it.”
This made the man laugh even harder. It was nothing more than bluster, pure bravado. “The materials that were inside the bunker in Zbiroh. Where are they?” she asked.
“Go to hell,” the man hissed.
Megan looked at Julie Ericsson and said, “Okay, let him have it.”
CHAPTER 35
Radek Heger screamed in pain as the weight of his body crushed down on his shattered collarbone. So far, Megan Rhodes had been true to her bet with Vlcek. Technically, she had not laid a hand on her prisoner.
Squatting so she could speak directly into his ear and be heard, Rhodes said, “They say the pain you are feeling is akin to being crucified, just upside down.”
Heger tried to choke back his screams.
“I can make it stop. Just tell me what I want to know.”
When Heger refused to answer, Rhodes took her thumb, jammed it down into his shoulder and dug it around. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for as the Czech’s body went rigid and he practically levitated off the board.
He screamed bloody murder as his head snapped to the side and he tried to bite Rhodes through his hood.
After a few more seconds of imposed agony, Megan nodded and Ericsson tilted him back up so he was lying flat.
Heger’s breathing came in rapid, short gasps. Rhodes allowed him a minute to catch his breath. She didn’t need to remove his hood to know that his face was wet with tears. She took no pleasure in aggravating the man’s pain, but he held the keys to his own deliverance.
“Radek,” she said when she thought he had calmed down enough to listen to her. “We’re going to keep doing this until you cooperate.”
“You are dead,” he mumbled from beneath his hood. “All of you will die.”
“Listen to me, Radek. Remember when I told you about the damage done to your back? Remember what I said about internal bleeding? What do you t
hink happens to those injuries every time we tip you upside down like that?”
Heger didn’t respond.
“Sooner or later, you are going to tell me what I want to know. The only question is whether you decide it’s worth allowing yourself to become paralyzed, or worse, in the process.”
She gave him a moment to think about what she was offering. “It’s up to you, Radek. Why don’t you just tell me what I want to know?”
“Go to hell,” he spat again.
Rhodes signaled for Ericsson to tip him over again and she did, hard. The board bounced against the floor, his head bounced against the board, and he cried out again in agony.
She asked him once more what had happened to the contents of the bunker and when he refused to answer, she dug her thumb back into his pulverized collarbone and watched his body tense and then begin writhing as white-hot bolts of pain shot up and down his spine.
Several times, she offered him a chance to make it all stop, but he told her what she could do with her offers. Radek Heger was one tough SOB.
Looking up, Rhodes caught John Vlcek’s eye. Feigning boredom, he looked at his watch and then pretended to yawn.
She smiled at him in response. Heger would break. It was only a matter of time.
She had Ericsson tip him back up and then she allowed him a moment to catch his breath. His clothes were dripping with sweat.
Then, without warning, without giving him a chance to answer her question, Rhodes signaled for Ericsson to tip the board back over.
As it began to tip back, Heger yelled, “No! Stop.”
Rhodes signaled for Ericsson to keep going as she said, “I’m sorry, Radek. We can’t stop.”
The board slammed onto the floor. “Oh, my God. Stop,” he yelled. “Please stop. I will tell you.”
“Tell me what?” asked Rhodes, bending down close to him again.
“Anything,” he stammered. “Everything.”
Megan pressed gently against his broken collarbone with her thumb.
“We never met the purchaser! We only met his attorney. His name is Branko. Branko Kojic. I sold everything in the bunker to him.”
CHAPTER 36
PARAGUAY
SUNDAY
The pilot of the aging Beechcraft King Air 100 made sure everyone was buckled in as he circled the dusty landing strip one last time. As alums of the U.S. Army’s former clandestine unit out of Honduras, codenamed Seaspray, he and his copilot had made so many jungle landings they could do them in their sleep.
Conducting their final pass, they kept their eyes peeled for any goats, chickens, or locals that might need to be scared off. They also assessed the integrity of the landing strip itself. The last thing they needed was an inopportunely placed rock or a gaping hole to snap off a piece of their landing gear, or worse. They had very precious cargo onboard and they knew what would happen to them if anything bad befell their VIP passengers.
Leslie Paxton looked at Jack Walsh and smiled. She’d never seen him out of his uniform before. He looked good in civilian clothes, though she didn’t think anyone would suspect him of being a missionary. His bearing, his haircut, that gaze that could cut right through steel, it all just screamed military.
If the truth be told, there wasn’t much if anything about their team that looked missionary. Even the explosives expert Jack had brought along, a retired naval EOD tech by the name of Tracy Hastings, looked military. While she was an attractive girl, she had the body of an amateur weightlifter. The woman must have worked out at least eight hours a day. There also seemed to be a question about her health, as Jack had asked her a couple of times about headaches, to which Tracy responded that she was feeling fine.
It seemed to Leslie that the two had an interesting father-daughter type of relationship. Jack said that he had worked with Tracy before an accident had forced her out of the Navy. She was one of the best EOD, or Explosive Ordnance Disposal techs, he had ever seen. She was also one of only a few women in the entire Navy ever to hold the job.
But despite Tracy’s significant skills, Jack confided in Leslie privately, a bomb that she had been disarming had gone off. As a result, she suffered severe facial lacerations and had lost an eye.
Paxton was not only hard-pressed to notice any scarring, which apparently many rounds of plastic surgery had helped mask, but the surgeons had done such a good job matching her existing pale blue eye that she never would have known that Tracy had lost the other had Jack not said anything.
In addition to Tracy, Jack had brought along four operators for security. This was a highly irregular assignment. In fact, Red Cooney, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, had wanted him to bring more security, but Jack had talked him out of it. They already had too big a footprint in his opinion. When you included the man they were meeting at the airfield, their party would number eight people total.
Jack’s argument to the chairman was that the operation stopped being covert the minute they doubled their numbers and added the security detail. Cooney, though, didn’t care. He wasn’t about to hand al Qaeda, Hamas, or whoever else was floating around in these jungles such a huge PR coup without a fight. Cooney didn’t even want to think of the hay the terrorists could make if they captured not only one of the Pentagon’s top intelligence people, but also the director of the top military research agency.
The security men were polite, but kept to themselves. They spent most of the flight sleeping. Of average height, but exceptional build, they were Special Forces soldiers from Seventh Group, formerly stationed in Panama, and now stationed at Elgin Air Force Base in Florida. Though Seventh Group had seen a lot of action as part of Task Force 373 in Afghanistan, the men all spoke fluent Spanish and had extensive experience in the jungles of South America. They were honored to have been handpicked for this assignment and were glad to be getting back to the jungle.
The airplane bounced on the dusty runway and taxied over to a small building a step above a hut that functioned as the terminal, control tower, refueling depot, and bar.
Sitting on a stool chatting with the airport’s sole employee and bartender was Ryan Naylor.
As the bush plane taxied over toward them, Naylor thanked the bartender, paid for his Diet Coke, and walked out into the sun. Once the pilot had shut down the engines, he approached the aircraft and waited for the door to be opened and the air stairs lowered.
Jack Walsh came down right behind the SF personnel.
“Admiral Walsh,” said the young doctor cum spy. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
“I’ve read a lot of your reporting,” replied Walsh. “The pleasure is all mine. You’ve been doing great work down here.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Walsh turned to help Leslie Paxton and Tracy Hastings as they came down the stairs. Then, he made all of the introductions.
Naylor helped unload their gear. Parked next to the “terminal” were two beefy-looking Toyota Land Cruisers with brush guards, rows of halogen lights, engine snorkels, and extra-large off-road tires. Secured to their roof racks were spare gas cans and expedition equipment.
Pointing at a door behind the bar, Naylor said, “This will be your last chance at indoor plumbing for a while, so if anyone is interested, now’s the time.”
The ladies excused themselves, and while Walsh tried to decide what gear he wanted in which Land Cruiser, Naylor got to know the SF men.
He gave them a rundown about terrorist activity in the area as well as what the RUMINT was. They discussed who’d go in which vehicles, who would lead, and then one of the SF men issued Naylor a radio.
By the time they had their logistics sorted out, the ladies had returned.
“Not exactly the Plaza,” said Paxton, referring to the facilities.
“Javier is going to upgrade the bathroom right after the free wi-fi goes in,” said Naylor.
“You’re joking, right?”
“No, ma’am,” he replied, drawing her attention to a satellite dish on the roof. “H
e also makes a mean margarita.”
“I’m definitely a margarita girl,” said Tracy.
Naylor smiled. Was she flirting with him? “When we come back,” he said, “I’ll buy us all the first round. How’s that?”
“Deal.”
They continued to make small talk until the SF men had loaded the last of the gear and then Walsh said, “Time to saddle up.”
It was decided that they would ride four per vehicle, Walsh, Paxton, and two of the SF men in one Land Cruiser, Naylor, Hastings, and the remaining two SF operators in the other. As Naylor was the most familiar with the area, his was designated the lead vehicle.
“What can you tell me about the canister?” Tracy asked as the truck bounced along the rutted jungle road.
“Not much, I’m afraid,” said Naylor. “I’m not a bomb guy.”
“How do you think it got to where you found it?”
“I think one of the terrorist groups training in the area put it there. It could be AQ, Hamas, anybody.”
“Why would they just leave it out in the middle of the jungle?”
Naylor shrugged. “I know. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“There were dead bodies near it as well?”
“Bodies, vehicles. There’s a ton of weird stuff.”
“Do you think it caused the death of the people you found?” she asked.
“You mean is it some sort of chem/bio weapon? I don’t think so. What happened to these people is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“So what’s this all about?”
Naylor adjusted the air conditioning and looked into the rearview mirror at Tracy. “I assume that’s what you’re here to help figure out.”
CHAPTER 37
They drove as far into the jungle as they could and then stopped. Naylor had wanted to hire some Guaranis to act as porters but Walsh had been against it. He wanted their visit kept quiet—the fewer people who knew, the better. This, of course, meant that they were going to have to carry all of their own gear.