The Inquisitor: A Novel

by Smith, Mark Allen

  To Cathy

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Part Two

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Three

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  The client sat in an eight-foot-square room staring at a large one-way mirror that offered a view into flat, smooth darkness. An audio track of a nervous laugh continually interrupted by a dry cough came through the speakers in the walls, but he couldn’t hear it because he had put in the earplugs that had been left out for him.

  He glanced at his watch. Eleven-twenty P.M. He’d been here three hours and was nursing a second scotch. The windowless room was old wood with a soft gray finish, and expensively appointed. The chair was an Arne Jacobsen, the rug an antique Persian. The chrome bar was stocked with expensive liquor, a pinot noir, and a Sancerre in a dewy bucket. Four conical, brushed-nickel pendants hung from the ceiling, and the etchings in the crystal scotch glasses caught their light and held it captive in brilliant, star-shaped designs. On the bar’s lower shelf, a DVD recorder’s face blinked with a tiny red eye.

  The client was the head of security for a major U.S. electronics manufacturer. He didn’t make the kind of money that allowed him familiarity with these luxuries, but the people he worked for did, and they were waiting for his call. It had taken a week of research and networking to arrange a meeting in a restaurant in Little Italy with an impeccably attired, exquisitely groomed mob boss named Carmine Delanotte, who questioned him over a bottle of Barolo and two double espressos before finally giving him the Internet code and Geiger’s name, though it was understood that the name wasn’t real. The code had gotten him into Geiger’s website, DoYouMrJones.com, and using Delanotte as a referral had moved things along quickly. Earlier tonight the client had snatched his target—Matthew Gant, one of his company’s R&D guys—from a garage and, following instructions, brought him to this bland, two-story building on Ludlow Street.

  When the client and Geiger had finally met, in this room, the first thing he’d noticed was that Geiger hardly ever blinked. The client prided himself on his cool, but Geiger had put him on edge. The silky, even tone of his voice and his physical stillness added to his affect. He had elliptic gray eyes in a sharp, angular face. His body looked lean and hard, perhaps because he was a runner or a practitioner of some form of martial arts. And he had a slight tilt to his posture, as if his skeleton accommodated gravity in a unique way.

  There was something truly strange about him—but then, what could you expect from someone in Geiger’s line of work? The client had heard all kinds of stories. Geiger was a head case who’d done hard time; Geiger was a rogue from the NSA; Geiger was a twisted scion who didn’t need the money and did it for the rush. The only common thread was that he had no equal. When they had shaken hands, the client had said:

  “They say you’re the best, and we hope it’s true. The specs we think Matthew stole are worth millions.”

  Geiger had stared back at him, expressionless.

  “I don’t deal in hope here,” he’d said, and left.

  For the first hour the room on the other side of the glass had been black. The only sounds were Matthew’s outbursts, full of bravado and indignation. Then Geiger’s hushed utterance reached the client through the speakers like a wraith come calling.

  “Stop talking, Matthew. You are not allowed to speak any longer.”

  It was the loudest whisper the client had ever heard. Then the lights came on, and through the one-way mirror the client saw Geiger leaning against a wall in a stark room, dressed in a black pullover and loose-fitting black slacks. The room was completely covered with white linoleum, and dozens of three-inch-wide recessed lights in the walls and ceiling made every surface glare. On the north and south walls, mounted a foot below the ceiling line, were several small video cameras. After a while the view started to play tricks with the client’s vision, the room’s angles gradually disappearing until Geiger seemed to be suspended in air, a sable silhouette frozen in a luminous alabaster tableau.

  In the center of the room, Matthew was seated in an antique barber’s chair—red leather, gleaming chrome, and porcelain. Metal-mesh belts were lashed around his waist, chest, ankles, and wrists, and when he moved bright stars of light ran across their latticework. His face was ashen, with splotches of a red flush on his cheeks. He was bare-chested and barefoot.

  For a half hour Geiger stared silently at Matthew, straightening up every ten minutes to walk once around the room. He had a slight limp, but he had somehow incorporated it into his body mechanics, so it didn’t look like an infirmity—it looked natural, for him. Matthew’s wary eyes followed him on every circuit.

  Geiger gave the barber’s chair a push, starting it spinning slowly around and around. Then he left and the lights went out again. An audio track began playing a series of vignettes, each lasting a few minutes. The client heard a traffic jam with honking horns and screeching tires … a woman humming off-key … the strumming of a single chord on an out-of-tune guitar … a phone repeatedly ringing, stopping, and ringing again … and finally the nervous laugh and cough. At the start Matthew had yelled, “Jesus fucking Christ!” but then he fell silent. Halfway through the track, the client had put the earplugs in.

  Now the lights came back on as Geiger walked into the room again. Hands behind his back, he stood beside Matthew, who eyed him with undisguised fury. The client took the earplugs out.

  “Matthew,” said Geiger, “close your eyes.”

  A scowl tightened on Matthew’s face, but he did as he was told.

  “Now. Imagine you’ve fallen down an empty well. It’s pitch-black down there. You can’t see a thing. The only sound is your breath. Your body hurts. Maybe you’ve broken an ankle, or a wrist.”

  Geiger stayed silent for several seconds, as if to make sure Matthew could hear himself breathing in the blackness of his prison.

  “The pain puts on a light show behind your eyes. You can taste blood in your mouth. You reach out and feel around you. The walls are cold and damp, and smooth. Not a crack or a niche to get a hold of. Can you see yourself down in the bottom of that well, Matthew?”

  The client felt a chill at the back of his neck. He could see Matthew down there.

  “You try to stay calm. You start yelling for help. You tell yourself, Someone will hear me. But after a while you realize you’re probably going to die down there. And as soon as that thought kicks in, something inside you does start to die. Not of the flesh, but the spirit. Do you know what I mean, Matthew?”

  “I keep telling you, man—I don’t know what you want!”

  “Matthew, I said you are not allowed to speak. Just nod or shake your head. Do you remember me telling you that?”

  Matthew stared at the unblinking gaze and nodded. Geiger’s hands came out from behind his back with a wireless microphone and headphones. He fitted the headphones snugly on Matthew’s head.

  “Sennheiser 650s,” he said. “I like them better than AKGs. It’s a more textured experience. Close your eyes, M
atthew.”

  Matthew did, his breath catching in a ragged sigh, eyeballs nervously shifting beneath the lids.

  Geiger raised the microphone and began strolling around the room while speaking softly. He reminded the client of one of those self-help gurus on public television—only with an audience of one.

  “Can you hear me clearly?” Geiger asked.

  Matthew nodded.

  “All right. Now, back in the well, Matthew. Are you there?”

  Matthew swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He nodded again.

  “Good.” The word sounded to the client like a soft prayer. “It’s important that you believe you’re down in the well, Matthew, because this isn’t a mind game. You are down there, and I’m your only way out. I’m the rope that can be tossed down to you and the hands that can pull you up.” He gently put a hand on Matthew’s shoulder; Matthew stiffened. “And the only thing that gets the rope tossed down is truth.”

  The client leaned closer to the glass.

  “It’s a beautiful thing—truth. Man’s only perfect creation. And I know it when I hear it. It’s not that I’m particularly intuitive or perceptive, but I’ve heard so many lies that I can tell when the truth comes out.”

  Geiger leaned down to Matthew’s face, and the client could see Matthew’s jaw joints flex with anxiety.

  “Toscanini said he could tell if one string on one violin in a whole orchestra was out of tune. He didn’t have perfect pitch, but he’d listened to so many millions of notes that he could instantly tell what was true and what wasn’t.” Geiger took a breath. “So, Matthew—don’t lie to me.”

  Matthew’s nostrils flared like a colt’s sensing smoke. Geiger leaned closer, until only the microphone was between his lips and Matthew’s.

  “Did you hear what I said? Don’t lie to me!”

  The aural assault through the headphones made Matthew’s head recoil with such force the client thought his neck might break. His eyes snapped open, his mouth stretched into a cavernous circle, and his howling lasted a good five seconds before it shifted down into a sucking moan.

  Geiger turned his head to one side, and the client heard the click of cervical vertebrae. Then Geiger turned it to the other side. Another click. The client tried to read Geiger’s face, but he couldn’t discern any particular emotion in it.

  “Matthew,” Geiger said, “I need you to keep your eyes shut, stop moaning, and pay attention. Nod if you can do that.”

  Matthew’s groan caught in his throat. His head rose and fell in a meager, marionettic response, and his eyes closed.

  “Now, there are numerous applications of pain for specific scenarios—primarily physical, psychic, and emotional pain. In those categories are many subcategories. In the physical realm, there is audio…”

  He rapped the microphone with his knuckles and Matthew’s head jerked, eyes springing open again.

  “Eyes closed!”

  Matthew howled, and Geiger gently put a fingertip on each of Matthew’s quivering eyelids and closed them. Then he placed a thumb on a spot two inches left of Matthew’s sternum.

  “There is pressure…”

  His thumb stiffened, and with almost no sign of effort he pushed inward and Matthew bellowed hoarsely, his face twisting in a toothy grimace. The client watched, amazed. He poked around curiously at his own ribs.

  “There is blunt force…”

  Geiger raised his arm, elbow bent at a ninety-degree angle. His forearm swung like a spring-action lever and smashed flush into Matthew’s chest, driving all breath out of him, leaving him gasping, desperate to suck air into his lungs.

  “And there is penetration, slicing of flesh…”

  Geiger paused.

  “But that’s too medieval for me,” he continued. “However…”

  His hand went behind his ear and slid something out. It was shiny and silver, four inches long, immeasurably thin.

  “Open your eyes.”

  Matthew’s lids rolled back. His brown eyes were laced with red thread.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  Matthew squinted at the thing between Geiger’s thumb and forefinger, and shook his head. The client found himself nodding. He’d once had a slipped disc, and he’d tried everything for some relief. He knew what it was.

  “This is an acupuncture needle. Its primary function is to block impulses that the brain identifies as pain from traveling up and down neural paths. But it can also create pain.” The needle glinted in his fingertips like the minuscule sword of a toy hero. “There are ironies in my business that you can’t help but notice.”

  The remark was spoken without a trace of humor or menace, and the lack of both made the hair on the back of the client’s neck stir. Geiger’s free hand grasped Matthew by the hair. A short yelp slipped from Matthew—not a response to pain but an involuntary bark of recognition of what was to come—and Geiger deftly inserted the needle between vertebrae in Matthew’s neck. Matthew didn’t flinch, and his gaze never left Geiger’s implacable face.

  “The fact is, the human being is a remarkably vulnerable construct. This needle is lighter than a sparrow’s feather, Matthew. A child’s tear balanced on its end could bend it.”

  Geiger wiggled the needle slightly, triggering a riff of shrill screams. Then he removed it and the yowling stopped. Tears streamed down Matthew’s cheeks, his breath racing in and out of him in short, tight huffs.

  “There’s also manipulation of joints, application of intense heat and cold, forced ingestion of liquids. The fact is, Matthew, I could work on you for days without repeating a process.”

  Geiger removed the headphones from Matthew’s head and put them and the microphone on the floor. “As for psychic pain, I think your sensitivity to physical stimuli makes that area unnecessary to explore. As for emotional pain—according to your file, you are single, unattached, an only child with no living parents, so I see no benefit in going there. You may not believe it, Matthew, but you’re a very lucky fellow.”

  The client wanted Geiger to pound on Matthew so he’d confess and bring this to an end. Then the client could make his phone calls and go home. But he’d sensed when he’d met Geiger that it wouldn’t be like that.

  “I’m not going to ask you yet, Matthew, because I can tell you’re not ready to tell the truth, and I don’t want to make you lie.”

  “Ask whatever you goddamn want. I—I can’t tell you what I don’t fucking know.”

  “That is true,” Geiger said. “Irrelevant, but true.”

  A thought made the client’s stomach tighten. Could Matthew be telling the truth? Was it possible that someone else stole the R&D specs? Everything had pointed to Matthew, but …

  “The well, Matthew,” said Geiger. “You’re down in the well, so close your eyes.”

  Geiger’s hands moved to his sides, fingers constantly flicking the air. Watching, the client wondered if there was a pattern; it almost seemed as if Geiger were playing air piano.

  “All right. You’ve been down there awhile, and the mind is affected when the body can’t move for long periods. Darkness and claustrophobia affect perception, sense of time, sense of self. They create an environment where emotional borders get fuzzy. Pain takes a backseat to fear. Hope dwindles, despair becomes a companion. Once that happens, you start to see who you really are—the depths and limits of your strength.”

  Geiger knelt in front of Matthew. “And then you’re changed, Matthew, rearranged right down to the molecular level. It’s the ultimate wake-up call.”

  Geiger closed his eyes and massaged them with a thumb and middle finger. They were measured, precise movements.

  “We’ll take a short break now. You stay in the well.” He took a black silk blindfold from a pocket and tied it around Matthew’s face. “One other thing, Matthew. I’ve learned that once certain kinds of pain are experienced, the anticipation of further pain is almost as powerful as the sensation itself. I think in time you’ll agree with me.”

/>   Geiger walked out of view and the lights went out again. A few seconds passed, and then the door to the viewing room opened and Geiger came in. Without looking at the client, he went to the bar, poured himself a glass of water, and started drinking.

  “I’m a little worried,” said the client. “Do I have the right guy?”

  Geiger nodded.

  “You’re sure?”

  Geiger nodded again.

  “How do you know?”

  “I explained that to Matthew.” He put the empty glass down. “You were listening, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah—Toscanini. But why hasn’t he confessed yet?”

  “He’s not at the release point yet. He’ll be there soon.”

  “The release point?”

  Geiger nodded once more, but looked as if he didn’t want to have to do it again. “Matthew is still more terrified of what might happen if he confesses than what will happen if he doesn’t. For the moment, the reality of torture is preferable to the possibility of death. But that will change.”

  The client wondered what Geiger looked like when he smiled—if he ever smiled.

  “We’re not going to have him killed,” the client said. “We just need to know who he sold the data to.”

  Geiger stared at him with those unblinking eyes. “But he doesn’t know that.”

  Geiger walked out. The client sighed and looked back to the mirror and the black abyss. The speakers delivered Geiger’s gentle voice to him on quivering wings of angels.

  “Matthew, are you in the well? You can answer me.”

  Matthew’s voice sounded like sandpaper on rough wood. “Yes. I am.”

  “Good.”

  Then Matthew started to scream. The sound was so loud that it came through the speakers ragged with distortion. The angels scattered. The client turned and reached for the earplugs.

  PART ONE

  1

  At four A.M., standing on the stoop outside his back door, Geiger watched a spider weave its web.

  It was raining. The sky, ash-gray and cloudy, was gathered at the horizon like an old quilt. A drop of water clung to one strand of a new web that stretched from the porch overhang to the wooden railing four feet below. The breeze plucked the strand like a guitar string; the raindrop trembled but held fast. Then the spider came down, plump belly swaying, and began weaving a new strand.