Knox's Irregulars
Page 25
She placed a soft hand over his lips. It trembled where it rested. "Don't talk, please," she said in a whisper. "Just hold me."
Blowing out the candle, she eased onto the mattress beside him. Through the night he held her tightly with his good arm. For a long time he felt her shake with silent sobs until finally she drifted off.
Now that she was safely returned, he let sleep overtake him.
CHAPTER 18
My advice to you is to get married;
if you find a good wife you'll be happy;
if not, you'll become a philosopher.
—Socrates
"Izmenik, what color are the ceiling tiles?"
Izmenik — traitor. That's all they would call him. The ridiculousness of the question irritated Nabil, but refusing to answer would only invite a beating. "They are white, doctor."
Hands settled on his shoulders and pressed downward. His knees hung over a metal bar, while his hands rested back on a second one, supporting his bodyweight. Around his neck looped a slender wire garrote, with no more than a centimeter's tolerance. The downward pressure forced the garrote tight. His throat spasmed to draw air.
"Wrong, izmenik. They are black."
The hands relented. When he could, Nabil gratefully sucked in lungfuls of air. He had no idea how long the session had continued. Five hours? Half a day? The best estimation he could muster was that he had been a prisoner for a week. The present interrogation was his eighth.
"Your friends in this terrorist band, how numerous are they?" The doctor rounded on him, pressing his face close and smiling. Now he would be kind. Doctor Gvozdyov had the most malleable face Nabil had ever seen — in an instant it could shift from apoplexy to kind concern.
Nabil refused to think of his compatriots, driving them as far from his mind as he could. He would forget them so he could not betray them. He would never become the izmenik the doctor named him to be. Never.
It became easier each day to forget them. His world was only the doctor now — the doctor, his cell, and the room they brought him to. Everything was still fuzzy. They woke him for most interrogation sessions with electroconvulsive therapy. That was something he expected. He had seen it used countless times on prisoners in Abkhenazia. By awakening him with a mind-numbing electric charge, they hoped to render him groggy and suggestible. He vowed he would not break.
The doctor's cordiality faded. "How numerous are your friends, izmenik?"
Nabil managed a wan smile. "A vast host, from every tribe, tongue and nation. . ."
He steeled himself for the inevitable retaliation. Just so long as it wasn't more falaka. The soles of his feet still throbbed from the beating.
An elaborate show was made of deciding his fate. As the doctor opened his mouth to pronounce it, Nabil heard the door open. The garrote wouldn't allow him to see who it was. Regardless, the interruption was welcome.
"What news do you have for us, Doctor Gvozdyov?" The voice was quietly menacing, but there was a slight slurring to it. Nabil knew that voice. He felt his heart shrivel inside his chest.
"Nothing specific yet, Colonel Tsepashin. But his will is weakening." The doctor smoothed the white lab smock nervously.
Colonel Tsepashin. Nabil swallowed, barely pushing the lump in his throat past the biting wire. Then the man himself was squatting in front of him, his pale vampyr face nearly nose-to-nose with Nabil. "Here is someone I never expected to see again. . ." Tsepashin spoke almost wonderingly, the long, thin fingers of one hand scuttling down Nabil's face like a white spider.
"I still have the present you left me; I carry it with me wherever I go." The voice was almost kindly. Tsepashin untucked his fatigue blouse, showing Nabil the narrow scar between two of his ribs. "Every breath I take through this artificial lung reminds me of you, my dear friend. You were like a son to me. You were to be my successor. But you betrayed everything to go chasing after the God of the infidels."
The hand grasped Nabil by the chin, hauling his eyes upwards toward Tsepashin's. "Let us see your foreign God deliver you from my hand." Jerking Nabil's chin downward, he left him sputtering for breath, turning to the Scourge interrogator. "He's just sitting there. Burn him or something. Or let me have him alone for a few moments."
The doctor shook his head quickly. "The izmenik belongs to the Scourge. I will inform the Fist as soon as he is broken."
Nabil felt gratitude toward the doctor for rescuing him from Tsepashin. No, you idiot, he berated himself. That's what they want you to do, identify with your tormentor.
"These passive measures are unsatisfying and slow. Perhaps more. . .direct means of persuasion should be applied."
"This one is very strong, Colonel. Beating him has only strengthened his desire to resist. Instead I have put him in a difficult position — he must hold himself up, or he chokes. It is not I who am inflicting pain; he does it to himself because he refuses to cooperate. Do you see?"
Tsepashin grunted. "Very well. I will monitor your progress."
"Of course, Colonel. I...read the medical report on the nerve agent antidote in your system. I trust all is well?"
A pregnant pause followed. "I am almost fully recovered, doctor. However, if your viewing my private files is a reminder of how far the eyes of the Scourge can reach, I am aware of it. But they do not see everything. Especially where the Fist places the death mark. Remember that."
The doctor sketched a faint inclination of a bow. "All power to the Mogdukh."
"All power."
Relief flooded Nabil as the door closed.
"How many panes are in that window, izmenik?"
They were back to the nonsense questions. There were no right answers. For a while he would be peppered with them, but in time he knew the doctor would come back to the subject of his friends. "There is no window. There is only bare wall."
"Wrong! You only refuse to see it!" The choking lasted longer this time.
As he regained his breath, he fought down the black pall of hate welling inside. His hate was burned up in the flames of the refinery; he would not resurrect it. Hating the doctor would be the biggest victory his torturer could win, though the doctor would never understand that.
It was obvious to Nabil what they were doing. They wanted to destroy his will by destroying his mind. Why else take away his name? Why the random switching on and off of the lights, or the clocks which ran quickly forward and sometimes backward? Why the questions that denied what his eyes could plainly see?
His body shook. It was necessary to keep his elbows locked in place now — the muscles in his arms were nearly spent. The temptation was strong to just let go and let the garrote make an end of him. But the doctor would never allow it and it would only bring more pain.
"Doctor," he said, the voice unsteady in his ears. "I have something important to confess."
Gvozdyov clasped hands together, asking expectantly, "Yes? What is it, izmenik?"
"I confess that Christ is Lord, and that if you will fall to your knees and ask Him, He will forgive you for what you have done here today." Nabil braced himself for the punishment sure to come. He would remain faithful to the end.
***
Reluctantly, Randal tied off the last of the cords binding Nabil's bedroll. There were others who needed it. Already more than a week had passed since he disappeared; it was time to face facts. Nobody went up against a half-dozen Fists and lived. Pyatt's bedding was long since gathered up and redistributed.
Their absence was much more difficult to handle. Pyatt might have been a bit aloof, but he was a natural leader. Nabil was the only real black ops man on the roster. The loss of their powered armor was a disaster of similar scale.
"Onegin sends his congratulations. He was impressed with your work at the factory." Jeni stood in the entry.
"Did he send any food with his congratulations?" Randal patted the bedroll. "I can't believe they actually killed Nabil. If there was anyone I thought Death would take a shine to it was him."
"F
unny you should say that..."
"Say again?"
"Onegin passed along something else for you. Nabil isn't dead - he's captured. They're holding him in the penitentiary with the other political prisoners."
"Oh blight. Poor devil." It would be better for Nabil if he were dead than to fall into the hands of the Scourge.
"They're interrogating him, and he's slotted for evolutionary experimentation when they're finished."
Randal looked up sharply. So the Khlisti were up to old tricks. They hadn't wasted any time, it seemed. Human experimentation was one of the key differences separating moderates from Purists. Both looked forward to the leap from flesh to pure spirit, but the Purists were Khlisti in a hurry — they hoped to jump-start the process through arcane and brutal human testing.
It made sense in their twisted worldview. Individual human lives meant nothing; they were only steps in the collective evolution of humanity. Killing an infidel was no crime, because it was merely the ending of a devolved throwback. It was no worse than a farmer culling a sick animal from his herd to protect the others from infection.
Paradoxically, the lethal experimentation was a "mercy." Infidels had no hope for an afterlife, instead simply ceasing to exist after death. There was always the chance, in the Khlisti mind, that the experiment would be a success and give the victim a chance to evolve to pure consciousness and escape the prison of the physical.
"Can Onegin help him? Lebedev could put together a suicide pill if your spy friend can get it to him."
The girl shook her head. "I asked. He'll kill Nabil if he can, but he's not hopeful. Security is drum-tight."
Practical concerns pushed aside worry for his comrade. "We'll need to order another evacuation."
Jeni sighed and nodded. "Just when I was finally getting my digs laid out comfortably. I'll get the HQ staff going with the packing."
"Thanks. Tell them to be ready to move out in two hours. Pieter has directions to the contingency HQ site."
Rather than leaving to carry out the orders, Jeni folded her arms and leaned against the wall, her expression darkening. Sadness was not common to her and it caught his attention. "Something on your mind?"
Jeni took out a rolled pack of bidis, lighting one up before answering. Soon the chamber was filled with clove-scented smoke. She dragged from it heavily. "I'm worried about Nabil. . ."
"Well, of course. I am too, now that we know where he is."
"No, Randal. There's stuff you don't know anything about. Classified stuff. I guess that really doesn't matter now, does it? Security clearance and all that. . ." She took another drag, shaking her head slowly. "Didn't you ever wonder what a native-born Abkhenazi was doing in our military? I mean, that's pretty rare."
"I just always assumed he got out on an exit visa. It happens occasionally. Well, it did before the Purists took over, anyway."
"I wish it was that simple," Jeni answered miserably. "Nabil and Colonel Tsepashin go way back. I don't even want to imagine what the reunion must be like for our friend. Nabil was Tsepashin's aide-de-camp."
Randal stared at her in disbelief. She pressed on with the story. "Nabil was a Fist of the Mogdukh, a real fanatic. From what he said in his debriefing, he totally bought into the Khlisti propaganda about infidels being the source of Abkhenazia's problems. You can't really blame him, he'd been sent away to a military madrassah when he was seven. He only saw his family in the summer and the rest of the time his head was filled with junk.
"What Nabil didn't know was that while he was busy helping Tsepashin kill off the infidels, his parents had converted to Christianity. They were discovered and shipped to the Christian ghetto in Samarkand. When he found out, he took leave and flew down to try to talk them out of it, thinking they were being duped by foreign spies or something. Instead, he realized they were for real and that all the propaganda he'd been fed about infidels was probably nonsense."
"So he defected then?" Randal asked as Jeni paused to tamp out the bidi. She held up a hand for patience, chaining another smoke.
"No, it gets worse. Nabil goes back to 'work' and finds out Tsepashin has ordered the Samarkand ghetto to be liquidated. He confronts his boss in his chambers, somehow thinking he can help him see reason. Tsepashin tells him that the ghetto was already purged while Nabil was in transit and then denounces him as a heretic for defending his parents. He was just about to call for the guards when Nabil stuck him in the ribs with his guldor pichok.
"So Nabil escapes in the confusion and makes his way overland to the border. It takes almost a month with next to no food. This was back when the Huguenot Division was stationed on the Demilitarized Belt. He makes it through the Belt and surrenders to a forward observer. A friend of mine was on the team that interrogated him. We had to make sure he was for real. After that, all he wanted was a chance to get back at the Abbies. Even though he was Special Forces back in Abkhenazia, we couldn't put him into anything requiring a security clearance, so he ended up in the scouts."
It took some time to digest. "To go through all that, and then end up back in Tsepashin's hands. It makes you wonder what God is thinking sometimes, doesn't it? There has to be some reason He let it happen." Even as he spoke the words, Randal realized he meant them.
"You got me, Randy. Listen, I'll go tell the HQ staff to start packing." She sounded resigned. It was the fourth time they'd been forced to evacuate because of captured Irregulars. Tsepashin was relentless in his pursuit, sending hunter-killer teams to follow up any lead on the Irregular's location. After the last incident, the Sergeant-Major had instituted the Guide Corps. Outside of the senior staff, only Guides knew the convoluted path to the HQ.
Nabil knew the path. Even now the Abbies could be moving on them. Nabil was tough, but no one escaped the Scourge unbroken. Images of beetle-like Fists of the Mogdukh scuttling through the tunnels played in Randal's mind.
"On second thought, have HQ ready to bug out in thirty minutes."
"Roger that."
Taking up a canteen, he took a sip of cold birch bark tea. The bitter concoction worked well as an appetite suppressant — an invaluable trait now that rations had dropped from one-quarter to one-fifth standard. Never one to carry extra weight, his frame could now most charitably be called sinewy.
Things could be worse, he thought. That was a quip he had heard several times lately: an Irregular optimist didn't say things would get better, he said things could always be worse.
One bright spot was his relationship with Ariane. The horrors of the ambush and its aftermath had fused them together. Gone was the awkwardness of before. They were a bit irresponsible, talking long into the night. For a long time he had been infatuated, but now that he wasn't pushing her away she revealed sides of herself he was sure others never saw.
A bigger surprise was Jean-Marie. Children were never his strong suit. They couldn't exactly talk books or history, they were too small for rugby, and they would rarely sit still for any length of time. He was usually at a loss with them.
Jean-Marie was different. It was fun teaching him to play soldier. He was definitely the most militant almost-two-year-old Randal had ever met, marching around the headquarters singing the first couple lines of "Lead on, O King Eternal" as best he could. In a way it made Randal sad to see a little boy who knew only war, but Jean-Marie seemed as well-adjusted as anyone could hope. In another year or so he'd begin teaching the boy his Catechism. If there was anything left in a year.
The other good news offsetting his desolate mood was the communiqué that had arrived that morning. Recruiting in the mountain villages was proceeding well. Apparently, word of the Irregulars had filtered out of Providence and many in the hills were anxious to get into the fight. When the thaw came in a few weeks the rural wing of the Irregulars would stand ready.
Laurent Mireault was cleaning his autorifle when Randal reached the room they shared. The aging weapon was broken apart, pieces surrounding the man on his pallet. After Mireault came over to the guerrill
as, Randal had given him half his own room as a gesture of respect.
"Are you getting the feel of that weapon yet, sir?"
Mireault smiled sheepishly. "I always hated them. It still feels strange in my hands. Somehow, I think it can sense fear."
The change in the man still amazed Randal. Mireault reminded him of his own father in some ways — he was tough-minded and irascible, but once he made a decision he implemented it decisively. Now that he was an Irregular, the switch was made without a backward glance.
"Sergeant Diaz says you'll be ready to go topside soon." Randal started gathering up his personal gear. "But for now we need to bug out. Our poz has been compromised. Please get your stuff policed up and ready to move in fifteen minutes, sir." It was curious giving orders while remaining deferential.
Mireault nodded, taking the evacuation in stride. "I'll get started."
"Also, I wanted to thank you for your help at the refinery. It wasn't easy for you, I know."
The man waved it off. "I should be thanking you. A good kick in the seat of the pants was just the thing. I still don't believe this supernaturalism you and my daughter put faith in, but what you said that night was what I needed to hear."
Randal started to speak and then thought better of it. He should be focusing on the bug-out and not his personal life.
"You seem like there's something on your mind, Captain Knox."
"Um, yessir. Well, I'd like to ask you for courtship rights. I want to court your daughter, Monsieur Mireault." Until the words were out he hadn't been sure he could say them. He risked a glance at his prospective father-in-law. The man looked dumbfounded.
"You're serious? I assumed you two were just dallying. Why would the Prime Minister's son marry an immigrant's daughter avec un enfant bâtard?"
Obviously not all of Mireault's rough edges had been worn away, Randal thought ruefully.
"Because I love her. And Jean-Marie won't be illegitimate after I take him as my son." He folded hands behind him, pain shooting through his wounded arm. Lifting his chin, he said resolutely, "Monsieur Mireault, I request a suitor's right to court your daughter, Ariane."