by Chris Ryan
Santa’s relief was only momentary. Almost immediately, his muscular tormentor battered him against the wall for a second time. There was a dull thud of impact. The prisoner’s whole body seemed to go limp with the collision. He slid, dazed, down the wall. The chain tightened again. Danny saw a smattering of blood dripping down the side of Santa’s face. Birchill shoved him up to his feet again so that he was no longer being throttled, but he was gasping noisily as he tried to swallow some air. Still holding him, Birchill looked over his shoulder, through the window at Penfold, with an enquiring expression on his face.
Penfold nodded abruptly. Birchill slammed the prisoner against the wall for a third time.
The man in the white coat had been scribbling notes while all this happened. Now he exchanged a look with Penfold, and inclined his head. Penfold raised one hand, palm outwards. A dreadful rasping noise came from the back of Santa’s throat. It sounded like he was trying to say something, but couldn’t formulate the words. The interpreter said nothing.
Penfold and the interpreter walked further into the room. They stood two metres back from the prisoner while Birchill continued to hold him up to keep the rope slack. ‘You have information relating to an attack on British soil,’ Penfold said. He waited for a moment while his colleague translated into Arabic.
Santa shook his head. His eyes were still rolling.
‘You might as well tell me what it is,’ Penfold said. ‘It would be better for you, in the long run.’
The translator did his job. Again, Santa shook his head.
Penfold looked over his shoulder towards the man in the white coat. ‘Would you join us?’ he said.
The man in the white coat entered the chamber. While Birchill continued to hold the prisoner up, the doctor checked his pulse and pulled open his eyelids to examine his pupils. ‘He’s fine,’ he said after half a minute.
‘I think we’ll move into the water chamber,’ Penfold said, his eyes flickering over at Spud. ‘Bring him please.’
Birchill undid the collar. The prisoner collapsed to the floor as Penfold and the doctor walked out into the main room. Danny looked at Spud again. ‘Calm down, buddy,’ he said quietly. ‘This is their call, not ours.’
He instantly knew it was the wrong thing to say. Spud left the chamber. Birchill dragged the prisoner out of the walling chamber and into the waterboarding chamber. Penfold and the others were watching without any emotion. ‘You know you’re doing this all arse-about-tit, right?’ Spud said, a hard edge to his voice.
Penfold shut the door to the waterboarding chamber, then slowly turned to look at Spud. ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said coolly.
‘You heard me. You’re screwing this up, big time.’
Penfold’s gaze hardened. ‘You’ll forgive me if I trust to my own considerable experience,’ he said.
Spud walked up towards him. Danny found himself holding his breath. He glanced at Caitlin, who nodded almost imperceptibly. They both took a couple of paces forward, ready to restrain Spud if he went for the spook.
Spud wasn’t much taller than Penfold, but he was a hell of a sight more imposing. Penfold shrank back slightly as Spud fronted up to him. ‘You want to talk about experience?’ Spud breathed. ‘You want to know what it’s like to soak up everything the Syrian mukhabarat can throw at you?’ He looked around the room with a sneer. ‘Trust me, buddy, their set-up makes your little toys look like the fucking Early Learning Centre. Or maybe you want to know what an Eritrean jihadist can do to a man when he gets his talons stuck in?’
There was a silence. Nobody moved in the hexagonal room. In the waterboarding chamber, clearly oblivious to what was going on, Birchill was strapping a struggling Santa on to the reclining chair. The prisoner was clearly making a lot of noise, but they couldn’t hear him with the door shut.
‘Here’s the problem,’ Spud continued, his voice deadly quiet. ‘If you go too hard and too quickly, they’ll end up just telling you what you want to hear. He’ll invent any sort of shit to make it stop. Trust me. I’ve been there. I know.’
As Spud spoke, Danny grew a little closer. By the time his mate had finished he was standing a metre behind him. He caught his own reflection in the window of the waterboarding chamber and saw that Spud was watching him. ‘Any closer, Danny,’ Spud breathed, ‘and I might get nervous.’
Danny stopped. Penfold spoke. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered, ‘for your input.’ He turned his back on Spud and approached the waterboarding chamber. He opened the door, stepped inside and switched on the second set of spotlights. The others followed and took up their position behind the lights. Santa was strapped to the chair by now, and was struggling forcefully, straining against the restraints. He was shouting again. The interpreter didn’t need to translate. Everyone understood that the prisoner was screaming ‘No . . . no . . . no!’
Penfold nodded at Birchill, who conjured up a small towel from a box under the chair and laid it over his prisoner’s face, with the strange care of a hotel maid folding back a freshly laundered bed sheet. He bent over and picked up the piece of rubber hose that was coiled on the floor, then fitted one end on to the nozzle of the tap on the back wall. He turned the tap and water started to sluice out of the hose.
The water spattered on to the floor and drained away. Santa’s struggles against the restraints became more violent, his shouts more desperate. The interpreter continued talking in his flat, expressionless voice: ‘No. Please. No. I don’t know anything. You’ve got the wrong guy.’
Birchill approached the prisoner with the hose. Danny could see Penfold’s eyes behind his balaclava. They were wide and bright. Like some sicko watching their favourite part of a video nasty. Danny felt his distaste for the man growing. What had Spud said? It’s when the interrogators start to enjoy it that I get a bad taste in my mouth. Roger that, Danny thought. But it was still no reason to interfere. The interrogators had a job to do.
Birchill raised the hose and allowed the water to fall over the towel onto Santa’s face.
The prisoner’s voice fell silent. He arched his back and stayed in that position, rigid, while the water continued to sluice over the towel. Danny stared at the scene impassively and found himself counting up in seconds. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten . . .
Birchill removed the hose and tore off the towel. Santa’s back remained arched as he tried to get air into his lungs. Penfold stepped forward again. ‘You have information relating to an attack on British soil,’ he repeated.
Santa started gasping desperate words at him. They tumbled furiously out of his mouth, but the translator’s version was as measured and monotone as ever. ‘I don’t know anything . . . I don’t know anything . . . Please . . . Let me go . . .’
Penfold stood at the foot of the waterboarding chair. He was silent for ten seconds. Then he said: ‘Do it again.’
The doctor stepped forward. ‘I should check his pulse,’ he announced. ‘He took a couple of bad knocks to the head in the walling room. If he’s concussed, the sudden oxygen starvation could—’
‘I said, do it again.’ Penfold’s eyes were glinting sharply. He threw both the doctor and Spud a defiant look as he stepped out of the chamber and closed the door behind him. Danny could see Spud’s fingers twitching. He half-expected his mate to go for Penfold, and knew he’d have to restrain him if he did. But Spud remained where he was. The doctor stepped back too, although Danny could see a vein in his neck going. Birchill laid the towel over Santa’s face and started with the water again.
Danny didn’t count this time, but he could tell that this second session with the hose was at least twice as long as the first. Santa’s body arched again and his limbs trembled against the restraints.
‘That’s too long.’ Danny looked to one side. To his surprise, it was Caitlin who had spoken. ‘I said, that’s too long. If you’re too heavy-handed—’
‘If you haven’t got the stomach for it,’ Penfold said, ‘feel free to leave.’
Caitlin took a sudden st
ep towards him. Danny moved to stop her, but suddenly there was a shout from the doctor. ‘We’ve got a cardiac arrest!’ Danny looked at the prisoner. Santa’s body was no longer arched. He was slumped on the chair again, and twitching with short, violent movements. Penfold’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing and didn’t move.
Danny turned to the doctor. ‘Treat him!’ he barked. ‘If he dies, his intel dies with him . . .’
Both Danny and the doctor ran towards the prisoner. Birchill had removed the hose and stepped back, but the towel was still lying over the prisoner’s face. Danny ripped it away. He instantly saw that the prisoner’s eyes had rolled upwards. From the corner of his eye he could just see, behind the spotlights, that Caitlin was restraining Penfold, pulling him out into the main room. He left her to it while he grabbed Santa’s wrist. ‘No pulse,’ he told the doctor, who had already got the palms of his hands over the prisoner’s chest and had started regularly pumping the ribcage down a good couple of inches.
Thirty chest compressions. The doctor had a grim look on his face as he squeezed his patient’s nose and bent over to give him two rescue breaths, before going back to the compressions. But Santa’s dark face had developed a faintly chalky cast. He didn’t need a doctor. He needed an undertaker.
Danny stormed back out into the main room. Caitlin was no longer restraining Penfold, but she and Spud were hulking over him, making sure he didn’t move.
‘Your man’s dead,’ Danny spat. ‘If you’d known what had to happen to get him here, you wouldn’t have let that happen.’
‘Don’t try to lord it over me,’ Penfold spat. ‘I know who you are. Are you trying to pretend you’ve never done this kind of work?’
‘No,’ Danny said flatly. ‘But there’s a difference. We do what’s necessary. You’re enjoying yourself.’
Penfold’s eyes were darting left and right.
‘You want to know what really gets people talking?’ Spud said, his muffled voice suddenly very quiet.
‘Pain,’ Penfold spat back at him.
Spud inclined his head. ‘Sometimes,’ he said. ‘But not always. But fear? Fear does the trick, pal. Trust me. Imagining what someone’s going to do to you is always worse than the thing itself.’ He looked over his shoulder towards the chamber that contained the second prisoner. ‘Let’s bring him out,’ he said to Danny and Caitlin.
Danny had a call to make. Support Spud, or tell him to back down and let Penfold and his team do their job. Spud was on the edge, but he couldn’t make a bigger hash of things than Penfold. Danny turned to Caitlin. ‘Get him,’ he said shortly.
She nodded and crossed over to get the prisoner.
‘I would remind you,’ Penfold said, ‘that I am in charge of this—’
He didn’t finish his sentence. Spud had grabbed him by the neck and thrust him up against the window of the walling chamber. He struggled slightly, but was clearly clever enough to realise that he had no chance of coming out best in a confrontation with Spud.
Caitlin dragged Rudolph out into the main room. He was naked too, and the piebald patch on his face extended over his torso. Like his mate, he was trying to cover his shrunken genitals, and he stank of urine. He was still hooded. Danny grabbed him, pulled his hands behind his back, removed his hood and turned him to face Caitlin. ‘Pathetic, hey?’ he growled.
Caitlin played her part well. She looked down at his genitals and narrowed her eyes in contempt. ‘Pathetic,’ she agreed, her female voice loud and clear. Danny knew from his own resistance to interrogation training that there were few things that weakened a man’s resolve like humiliation. He felt him shiver, then spun him round and pushed him across the room to Spud.
If anyone really had thought that Spud was the terrorist’s friend, the brutality with which he treated the prisoner would soon have disabused them of the notion. He grabbed a clump of Rudolph’s hair and dragged him across the room to the waterboarding chamber. Danny turned to the interpreter. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Get in.’ The young man scurried into the chamber. Danny and Caitlin followed.
The balaclava’d doctor had stopped trying to revive his patient. The prisoner lay naked, limp and lifeless on the waterboarding chair, his limbs still strapped into their restraints. His eyes were open, and his lower jaw had slumped gruesomely on to his chin. Birchill stood at the back of the chamber. He was holding the hose, which was still spouting water. The floor was soaking wet.
Spud had positioned Rudolph right next to his dead mate. His eyes bulged as he looked up and down the naked corpse. He was still shivering violently, and as Danny watched with an impassive stare, he saw yellow liquid trickling down the prisoner’s inner thigh. Spud looked over at the interpreter. ‘Translate,’ he said.
The interpreter nodded nervously.
‘You’re worried we’re going to hurt you,’ Spud growled. He paused to allow the interpreter to render his words into Arabic. ‘You might be right. We can hurt you in ways you can’t even begin to think about. We can start with your fingers – rip them out from the knuckles and if you’re still not singing, go to work on your tiny, stinking dick.’
Rudolph’s shaking grew more violent as the interpreter translated Spud’s vicious threats.
‘We can pull out your teeth, we can strip off your skin. Ever had a nightmare about being buried alive? We can do that too.’
Another pause while the interpreter caught up.
‘See your mate here? We hardly got the chance to get started on him. And look at him now. You’re probably wondering if he’s dead. He’s dead alright. And that’s you, in half an hour, if you don’t give us what we want. Nobody knows you’re here. Nobody’s coming to save you. So you want to know what the worst thing about your situation is?’ He grabbed Rudolph’s piebald face and twisted it round so the prisoner was looking directly at him. ‘If you want to see the outside of this place, we’re your best friends.’
Spud allowed the prisoner to look back at the corpse of his mate. ‘Take a good look,’ he breathed. ‘That’s the last time you’re going to see him. We’ll be burning his body just as soon as we’ve unstrapped him. Don’t worry – we’ll keep the fire going, just in case we need it for you.’
He let the interpreter catch up. Then he dragged Rudolph out of the room and back into his isolation chamber. The others followed. Spud ripped off his balaclava. ‘Give him half an hour to sweat on that,’ he said. He pointed towards the room that led to the kitchen. ‘We’ll be waiting for you in there.’ He nodded towards Birchill. ‘Don’t let this klutz lay a finger on him. Our man will be singing before you know it.’
And without another word, Spud stormed out of the main room. Danny and Caitlin removed their own balaclavas and followed.
The atmosphere in the kitchen was tense. Spud was staring down Danny and Caitlin, as if daring them to criticise what he’d just done. Danny kept quiet. He’d made his decision to support Spud back in the chamber. Caitlin was less restrained. ‘That was a right fucking cake and arse party,’ she said. ‘You should have just taken one of his fingers, told him you’d remove the others each time he told you a lie. It’s textbook.’
‘Maybe you should just go and join the freak show out there,’ Spud spat back. ‘Sounds like they’re right up your street.’
Caitlin looked incredulously at him. ‘What the hell’s your problem? If you can’t give a proper field interrogation, you shouldn’t be here. These are IS suspects we’re talking about. When the hell did you turn so bleeding-hearted?’
Spud’s face was a riot of emotions. ‘At least I didn’t kill our one remaining prisoner,’ he muttered, before stalking off to the other side of the room.
‘We’ll give it ten minutes,’ Danny announced. ‘Then we’ll go back in. If he’s not talking, we’ll do it Caitlin’s way.’
He took their silence as consent.
But they didn’t need ten minutes. They didn’t even need five. Barely a minute had passed before there was a diffident knock on the door. The interpreter ap
peared. His eyes flickered nervously at each of them. He spoke in a cracked voice.
‘The prisoner’s ready to speak,’ he said.
Six
Santa was no longer there. Nor was Birchill. Danny didn’t need to ask what he was doing with the body.
Rudolph had taken his mate’s place on the waterboarding chair. Penfold was standing by him, thin-lipped. He said nothing as the unit entered the chamber with the interpreter. Spud made to approach the prisoner, but Danny held him back. ‘I’ll do it, mucker,’ he breathed. Spud looked like he was going to argue, but he held back.
Danny stepped up to the chair. ‘Speak,’ he said.
The interpreter didn’t even need to translate Danny’s instruction. Rudolph started gabbling breathlessly in Arabic, as if he couldn’t get the words out fast enough. ‘London,’ the interpreter spoke over him, translating in real time. ‘We were on our way to London . . . There is going to be a bomb . . . a big bomb . . . we were to wait for a phone call when we arrived in England, to tell us what to do . . .’
‘Where will the bomb be?’ Danny demanded.
The interpreter put the question. Rudolph hesitated. With a glance at Spud, Danny grabbed his left hand and, with a sudden yank, snapped back the little finger. Rudolph shrieked with pain. A weak smile crossed Penfold’s lips. Danny leaned in closer. ‘Where will the bomb be?’ he demanded.
Rudolph spoke.
‘Westminster Abbey,’ the interpreter stated.
A sudden, heavy silence in the room. Even Penfold looked shocked.
‘When?’ Danny asked.
Rudolph’s eyes bulged. Danny made to grab one of his good fingers. Rudolph shouted out again, his voice high-pitched and terrified.
‘Christmas Day,’ said the interpreter. ‘Christmas Day.’
The silence fell again. Everyone in the room looked at the prisoner in disgust.
‘We need to get on the line to Hereford,’ Danny said. ‘Now.’