No more questions followed, just a barrage of abuse, this time interspersed with the occasional pistol whip.
The abuse stopped and they started to talk between themselves in whispers. Because they still spoke in English, I figured they intended me to overhear.
‘Why don’t we do it our way, a toe at a time, then the fingers?’
‘Orders. Perez doesn’t want us to do anything the CIA wouldn’t do.’
‘Why? That’s stupid. Wait, that’s okay, then, we can just say he tried to escape and shoot the mother if he doesn’t answer.’
‘Maybe he needs more time to think about cooperating?’
I held back, wanting to scream as they hauled at the chain over the beam to raise me back into my previous upright position and kicked away the chair. Footsteps pounded on the floorboards, and then the door slammed, leaving me to my agony and to consider my options.
That I should simply tell them all they needed to know started to make sense. It would at least put an end to the pain. Even if Leandra was on their side, she was right. For the sake of my family – they were the ones who depended on my survival and escape. I owed it to them to do whatever it required for us to be reunited. The DEA would survive any disloyalty. But then I had to ask myself, could I live with that betrayal? Would I be able to look my colleagues in the face if I succumbed to my interrogators and gave them what they wanted? Worse, I wondered if the news ever reported my cowardice, calling into question my patriotism as an American, what would my kids think of me as a dad?
There followed an endless stream of arguments for and against compliance, followed by the dreaded ifs, buts and maybes that had followed my journey to where I was now trapped. The question of who had placed the hit that had started my life crumbling, kept circling, and all the time to the drip, drip, freakin’ drip of the tap water.
Reasoning ceased. I had no idea how long it had been since the guards had left. I didn’t even know what day it was. It became more of a concern whether my body would hold out. My fingers no longer had any feeling. I screeched at the top of my voice. A bout of cramp left my right calf taut and in agonizing pain. Then the toes of both feet cramped. Still whimpering and asking God for mercy, I heard voices mumbling and the door opened.
Through the clatter of heavy boots on the floorboards, laboured footsteps scraped in my direction and stopped close to me. Two fingers and a thumb gripped my wrist. The fingers fidgeted as if looking for a pulse. Whoever it was wheezed and then coughed in a splutter. Then the unmistakable doctor’s voice boomed.
‘He’ll live. Better get him down, though.’
This time there was no chair. My legs wouldn’t support my body and I crumpled in a heap on the floor. Both arms were stiff, and without strength. Every sinew ached to the extreme. Distress shrouded my brain in a vice-like grip, creating a pulsating headache.
My interrogators bundled me to my feet. One of them dragged off the sack blindfold. The doctor passed them the chair and I collapsed onto the seat. They quickly bound me to the chair. My head slumped forward and someone slapped my face.
‘No sleep. We have work to do.’
The questions started again. Weasel went first.
‘What type of vehicle do they use to transport the confiscated drugs to the evidence depot?’
I heard the question, but all I wanted to do was sleep. I glanced down at my right hand. Most of the palm had swollen and blistered from grabbing the chain fastening me to the beam above. Only gripping my hand in a clench seemed to reduce the throbbing. A slap reminded me that they were waiting for an answer.
‘How the shit should I know? Maybe a stagecoach and four horses.’
A blow to the side of my head landed with such force that the chair, with me in it, tipped over. They hauled me back upright and Weasel snarled an inch from my nose.
‘You escorted the shipment you stole from us. I read it in the newspaper. So I’ll repeat...’ He held up his pistol as if to strike.
‘Okay, okay, trucks.’
‘What type, colour and liveries?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe pink with Walt Disney written on the side.’
The head butt was as unexpected as the explosion of pain, manifested as a coloured spectrum, spreading in all directions in my vision.
I groaned. ‘Ungf... arghh... Brown with no livery.’ Damn me, I had given them the correct details of the truck. ‘No, wait, black with “D.E.A.” written on the doors.’
A hand pulled at my hair from behind, lifting my head, and my eyes met an apparently displeased Weasel, shaking his head. A grin twitched on his lips.
‘Kurt, dear Kurt, we know they don’t use their own vehicles, they use contractors. What paperwork do you need to provide at the depot for the provenance of the drugs taken there?’
Sleep beckoned and my eyes closed. I couldn’t even remember what paperwork we used.
‘Look at me when I’m talking.’
A slap to either cheek and I cracked open an eye.
‘What?’
He repeated the question.
‘I don’t know.’
A tirade of abuse and propaganda followed, the questions put on a back burner. The words were just a sea of floating sound, but some of them stuck. Useless, nothing, unwanted, unloved, disowned, forgotten, discarded, and so on. Every time I seemed to drift toward peace, they brought me back with a slap on the face.
The door opened with a blast of daylight. All I could see through scrunched eyes was a black silhouette of a man, standing akimbo in the doorway.
‘Dayshift’s arrived, what have you mugs got?’ It was the voice of Stony Face. He lumbered over to the desk, picked up the notebook and threw it down. ‘Is that it, his name, age and a freakin’ brown truck?’
Weasel shrugged. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Get him on the gurney. He must be tired,’ Stony face ordered.
Even through the haze of a fatigued mind, his consideration didn’t fool me. Catching the doctor napping over at the desk, Stony Face shook him by the shoulders. The doctor opened his eyes, coughing and wheezing as if it were his last breath.
‘Wake up and check him out. We don’t want Perez to think we’re not looking out for his welfare,’ Stony Face said, in apparent disparagement of Perez’s train of thought.
Now that I was unbound from my seat, Weasel and his cohort each took an end of me and launched my body with a swing onto the gurney. I didn’t have an ounce of strength left, or the will to resist. Weasel held my head while his partner fastened a strap over my forehead, before moving on to strap my arms and legs. All I could hope was that the doctor would call time on any further interrogation and let me sleep.
The doctor’s face peered over me. Pulling at my bottom eyelids each in turn, he shone a light in each eye. Then he held my wrist and, glancing at his watch, he took my pulse again. Finally, he lifted my T-shirt and using his stethoscope, listened to my heartbeat.
Stony Face said, ‘Well?’
The doctor peered over my face, scrunched his top lip to his nose and spluttered. ‘Your call. It’s borderline, really.’
‘Can you give him something to keep him lucid?’ Stony said.
‘Sure, give it five minutes to work. I’ll give him an injection.’
Contemplating what he meant by “borderline”, I didn’t even feel the needle when it entered. After a few minutes, what I did notice was a surge of alertness. Stony peered at me, biting at his bottom lip. Our gazes locked. If I feared Weasel, under these circumstances, Stony Face somehow terrified me more.
Chapter 20
Death or Dishonour
The monitor screen overhead displayed static, flashed, and turned a hypnotic blue. Stony Face fidgeted about and I wondered what he was doing. It didn’t take long to find out. With the strap holding firm on my forehead, I couldn’t turn my head to see him. All I heard was a chair being placed at the side of me, then he began to talk in soft tones. A scanned photo of the picture taken from my wallet of my wife and kids
appeared on the screen. As pleased as I was to see them, I was glad it was just an image and that they wouldn’t have to witness what might transpire.
‘Listen, Kurt, I really don’t want to distress you, or hurt you. We have a situation here. Ninety-five percent of what we ask you, we already know. Now, we could just as easily have someone enrol as a cleaner at DEA headquarters and find out the other five percent. This is all about saving time and effort. Seeing as how you’re here, hold onto the thought that your answers could speed up you returning to your family.’
I couldn’t resist asking a question that was rolling through my mind, but I had to grind it out from weakness. ‘Wouldn’t it have been easier... to do that... employ a stooge, rather than kidnapping me?’
‘Okay, fair enough. We want you to answer questions, so you deserve an answer. Let’s make this a two-way street. I’m not privy to how Perez found out someone had put a hit on you. That said, when he heard that the hit was the guy who was responsible for him taking a considerable loss of merchandise, he thought it would be beneficial to buy out the hit. After that, he just needed to have you sent to him, for you to give an account of yourself. All that said, think carefully. You might consider Perez the enemy, but he’s saved your life.’
There was no doubting he might have saved my life, but I wasn’t buying that he intended me staying alive. Especially once I had answered all their questions.
‘Why... ohhh. Damn...’ Grimacing, I had to take a moment to overcome an overpowering pain in my calf muscle. ‘Why do you need to know all this stuff you’re asking?’
‘Intelligence gathering. We’re running a business here. Nothing more. It’s no different from your intelligence gathering. Information is power. No one will ever know you gave us the other five percent.’
He took a deep breath, letting it out in a long slow sigh before continuing.
‘I’ll give you an example of something we know. When you take the confiscated goods back to your secret depot, you chemically analyze each product. Every cocaine processor uses a slightly different mix. From the result of the test and the brand stamps, you build up a map of where it was likely produced. You can work out which country south of the border produced the cocaine, from the samples sent to you when the various army units shut down a production facility. And from that you can reasonably deduce which cartel is responsible for the product.’
‘If my hands were free, I’d applaud.’
He tapped my arm as if applauding himself.
‘So there we are. I’m happy to answer your question. No torture, no distress, just talking man-to-man. Do the same and we’re out of here.’
It sounded tempting. I stared at my smiling family on the screen. While he was in the mood for answering my questions, I thought I would chance the big question.
‘Who put the hit out on me?’
Laughter erupted around the room.
‘Did you hear that?’ Stony Face said. ‘He’s not listening. He thinks it’s a one-way street. Time for your questions later and I’ll answer you honestly, but now it’s your turn. Uninterrupted, I might add.’
I closed my eyes to await his question. I knew if I stalled with an answer, they’d take it as a definite lie.
‘Who tipped you off about the consignment?’
I groaned out an answer. ‘I told your friend here. It was a lucky strike.’
‘Hmm, okay, have it your way. Don’t say I didn’t offer you an easy way out.’
He obviously didn’t buy the response. His chair legs scraped the floorboards as he stood and his figure passed me like a ghost in my peripheral vision. Somehow, I knew his amiable little talk was going to take a sinister turn. I shuddered at the thought of maybe losing a finger, or a toe.
If Perez thought he had someone inside his cartel giving away his secrets, I guessed they’d stop at nothing in finding out who had informed on them. Especially with such a large consignment of cocaine lost to them. It was bound to have hurt them, big time.
The magnitude of the bust must have left many anxious dopamine receptors craving, north of the border, not to mention the dollars that were lost down the supply chain. Some paranoid, drug-crazed dealer would have sufficient motive to want to take me out for denying them their precious stardust. I doubted Stony Face would give them up no matter what information I gave him. These were criminals. Criminals don’t snitch without serious motivation.
Water ran from the tap at the basin as if he were washing his hands. Apprehension formed in the pit of my stomach. My temples began to throb. I closed my eyes as if doing so would keep Mary and the kids from seeing what he was going to do to me. But really, it was the terror of not knowing his next move that sent wave after wave of cold tremors through my body.
Whatever the doctor had injected me with had started to wear off. It left my mind drifting, my body weak, the pain throughout my body intense.
Fingers clasped my nose. Startled, I jolted. My eyes popped open. The gurney dropped in a tilt, with my head lowered. A jug of water was poised over my mouth. Droplets moistened my lips. Someone held my jaw in a vice-like grip. Desperately I attempted to move my head, my lips tightly closed, but the strap held fast. My heart pounded at the exertion of trying to hold my breath. Foolishly, I thought I could trick them. Opening my mouth, I kept my throat closed. Water filled my mouth. My lungs desperately sought oxygen. Pains stabbed at my tightened chest. My head felt as though it would explode. Trying to spit out the water proved futile as more followed. My options diminished and my throat opened, gasping for air. All I took in was a gulp of water.
My body thrashed, but the straps held fast. I began to hallucinate. Dad’s voice screamed in my ear. ‘Stand tall.’ It was as if I was underwater. On the surface a giant poster of my family smiled back, the picture undulating on the ripples... witnessing my life slip away. The image turned to my tormentors’ at school, but it was my kids in the circle. ‘Coward, coward, da-ad’s a coward,’ they sang.
The gurney tilted again, raising my head. The pressure on my nostrils released.
‘Let’s try again, shall we? Who told you about our shipment?’
There was no answering straight away. Water spewed for my mouth and snorted through my nose. Taking a breath of air, I coughed and spluttered. The sound of the jug filling with water told me there would be more if I didn’t answer.
‘Informant.’ More coughs followed and loud, rasping, deep breaths. ‘It was a tip-off.’
‘Name?’
Unashamedly, I began to whimper. ‘P... please, I don’t know. He used the code name Bison.’
‘How did he contact you?’
My vision fixed on the picture of my family. Not sure where the stubbornness came from, but defiant, I clammed up. There was just about time to mouth “sorry” to my family before the gurney tilted and Stony pinched my nose. My mouth filled with water from the jug. I held out as long as I could by holding my breath, until my willpower deserted me.
This time I must have passed out. My eyes opened to the doctor, mumbling and checking my pulse. They’d removed the strap from my forehead. A hand held my head tilted to one side and I could smell vomit. The voice I heard had a metallic, reverberating sound.
‘We nearly lost him. But you can go again... if you have to,’ said the doctor.
It was no longer about duty to anyone other than myself. Patriotism and standing tall as a hero, with no witnesses to write a commendation after my death, was no use to man nor ornament. It was a matter of my own personal survival. My interrogators were right. I was no one in the scheme of things and little to be remembered after my obituary.
‘Let’s get this over with. How did Bison contact you?’
Though weak, I managed somehow to dig out an answer. This time, I replied with a croak instead of a whimper. ‘By telephone.... Always with voice encryption to alter his voice.’
‘Did you trace the calls?’
Stony’s face started to fade in and out, replaced by the image of Eddie Carte
r, the leader of the gang that had bullied me at school. He was throttling me and screaming for an answer. As I blinked my eyes frantically, Stony Face stared at me, his face distorted, as if I was viewing him inside a goldfish bowl.
‘The calls, did you trace them?’
‘What? Oh yeah. Only to the northeast of Mexico. We couldn’t pinpoint the exact location. We assumed from the Cobras.’ The effort of talking had me gasping short breaths of air.
‘Why?’
‘Because... they didn’t ask for money. He always hung up before we could do a full trace.’
‘He?’
‘He, she, I don’t know.’ My voice had a ring of impertinence.
I wanted to drift to sleep, but he held up the jug, which kept me going.
‘Please, I’m telling the truth.’ The tone of voice came out like a child pleading.
‘You said “every time”. Have you had other tip-offs?’
‘Yeah, just small stuff, but reliable. That’s why we took him or her seriously.’
‘See, it’s that simple.’
A lump like a burr stuck in my throat. Probably a side effect of vomiting. His words implied they had bought it this time. Most of it was the truth, save for the code name and the Cobra connection.
‘Now give me the address of your depot.’
‘Please, I need to rest.’
‘Plenty of time for that. First, a slide show.’
The picture on the screen morphed to a shot of Mary dropping off the kids at school. My buddy Rob walked beside them, his hand inside his jacket on the holster side. Then it cut to a picture of Mary carrying overnight baggage and the kids walking the pathway at her mother’s house. Security guys in suits stood at her car, smoking and looking down at the sidewalk. They were hardly paying attention. Damn if these weren’t recent pictures. They were stalking my family. A surge of strength and indignity had me raising my head and trying to snap the straps holding me to the gurney in the futile gesture of a broken mind. Then, as quickly as the surge arose, I fell into a limp, catatonic state, my eyes fixed to the monitor screen.
‘See, we know where your kids are. Now let’s finish this. Give me the address.’
Deadly Journey Page 11