Hell To Pay

by Andrik Rovson

  He was breaking without laying a finger on him, interrogating himself.

  “I have one question, answer that and you can go,” he moved over and lifted the shaking man's chin, his fingers poised over his carotid arteries again, forcing Lance to remember the infinite, horrible moment, his mind failing, helpless, an instant before he'd blacked out, bounced off the floor in the bathroom.

  “What, tell me you motherfucker, stop fucking with me!” Lance was getting tired of being pushed around. His self confidence came roaring back, sure he would get out of this, that the corporation and Grigor would make it all right, hell, he'd get this jerk tied up in a chair and ask him what he was doing.

  “Lance, shhh, relax, nobody's getting hurt here, we're all friends,” he went back to the bottle, ignoring Lance's outburst, taking a long swig to finish it off. Without a pause he took out his cock to piss in the clear, empty bottle. “Damn, I needed to do that.” sighing with animal relief. The closed room made the quiet rattle of his heavy yellow stream the only thing Lance could hear. The acrid odor of fresh pee crowded up his nose, impossible to ignore.

  “What the fuck, is this some sort of faggot thing?” Lance squeezed his eyes shut, instantly remembering Jabo surprising him in the hotel restroom, cupping his cock then doing something with his arms when he tried to push him away, turning, falling to bang his head on the floor to pass out and wake up, bound and terrified, trapped in a car trunk. Later they'd rolled him into this room in a stinking, plastic trash barrel. Was Jabo a gay rape and death guy, like Gacy? He started to panic, panting quickly, trying to ignore the sound and smell of Jabo's endless piss, rattling into the plastic bottle.

  “Ahh, I love a nice long piss, don't you?” he capped the bottle and put it on the table next to Lance, “got to remember not to tap that.” He farted, “sorry, big lunch, you hungry? Did I ask that?”

  “Will you fucking get to the point?” Lance wanted to laugh. This guy was the worst interrogator in the world, never asking him what he wanted to know, as if he'd tell him, but hey, when was he going to ask Lance something about his work, or why he was following them.

  “Lance, you seem like a decent guy, not too stupid, well, stupid enough to get caught following me and my friends, that was dumb, can we agree on that?” Jabo looked at him, “I'm a bit thirsty, just a sec, in fact, let's get two bottles, one for you when you realize you need a drink, air conditioning does that, dries the air, makes you thirsty, parched.”

  Lance followed his reasoning, licking his lips, trying to swallow to find his throat was as dry as the dusty bad lands of West Texas. He watched Jabo go over to a small box and pull out two water bottles, dropping one on his captive's lap, making Lance jerk, feeling his nuts popped lightly by the weight of the bottle.

  “Hey, sorry,” Jabo laughed, “is that what you call water torture?”

  “Fuck me, no, that's where you pour water over a towel on my face, don't they teach you anything where you're from, wherever that is.” Lance was confused, his head hurt like hell for a moment as he remembered he had a mild concussion from hitting the back of his head on the floor in the bathroom. It was coming back to sit just behind his forehead, a small dwarf banging the shit out of a clanging anvil.

  “Just fucking ask me!” He panted, then whimpered, feeling beat, lost and really scared for the first time, understanding why Jabo was so confident and slow about getting started. He was so fucked, in this guy's power, captured on his first real job outside the concrete data center building. Before this he'd only walked the halls at night or sat, staring at the cameras, watching the stupid techs go to computers, unplug them then pull the long boards out to fiddle around before they shoved them back. Mind numbingly boring.

  “Got somewhere to go? 'Cause I'm good just hanging out with you, shootin' the shit, man to man, you know, getting to know...” Then his words trailed off, like Lance was already dead or he'd gleaned enough during this weird, indirect questioning, allowing him to move on to killing him without making a mess.

  Jabo picked up Lance's driver's license, then compared the photo with his ID badge from LazaRuss, what had cemented the deal with him, convincing Albert and Cathy he was right. It had hurt Jabo more than her. She'd worried he felt betrayed or doubted. It cut to the quick, seeing her urgent blue eyes asking his forgiveness, for her sin of questioning him, freaking out when things had gotten dark and fluid back at the hotel. He'd had to restrain his response to her, using his mission face and outlook. Being in charge demanded he stay cool and aloof – the boss first, last and always. She could make it up to him later, which brought a smile to his lips.

  “What the fuck are you thinking about, screwing me in my ass? Fucking Faggot FREAK!”

  “Oh, forgot about you, sorry, where were we?” he looked at his driver's license again, “Lawrence Hamilton Junior,” he looked over at Lance, “no middle name?”

  “Andrew, fucking Andrew, but they didn't put it down, because I'm a junior, I don't fucking know, shit, give me some water, please.”

  “Oh, thirsty, sure,” Lance put down the credentials and picked up the bottle, giving Lance a little smirk, like he was gay and liked having his hand near his cock as he picked up the bottle from the bound man's lap. It made Lance whine, giving him something else to worry about, not sure it was an act. Why he was here and when would he start asking questions?

  Lance gulped the entire bottle down, then Jabo put it on the table next to him, the cap off and placed carefully beside the empty bottle as Lance watched him nervously. Every gesture had hidden meanings and threats.

  “So you can pee if you have to,” Jabo's eyes went from the bottle then slowly, almost lovingly to Lance. His voice was soft, intentionally feminine and gentle, affectionate and flirty. Expecting overblown male rage, Jabo's gentle, sweet behavior was driving him crazy – terrifying him.

  Like many men who boisterously trumpet their masculinity, Lance was scared of being around gay men, even worse being tied up, and unable to stop him if he decided to molest him, or worse, like fuck his ass or make him suck his cock. That image terrified him. It smoldered in his mind, the after effect of watching a few graphic movies about men in prison, ramming their huge penises down the throats of the new prisoners, making them their bitches as they laughed, driving their helplessness home.

  Was that why he was being so nice, not hitting him, what was behind his act?

  “Lance, I have one question, just one, who do you work for?”

  “What, you mean my boss? Grigor?” Lance was shocked it was so easy, was this it, his boss's name. Was he free, able to go?

  “Grigor what?” Jabo was fiddling with his fingernails, peeling out the thin line of dirt he'd got from somewhere, ignoring Lance, supremely confident all was going well.

  “Grigor..., fuck, let me see, gimme a minute, Grigor Petronaz, that's it, weird fucking name, Russian, but all we ever call him is Grigor, well boss, or sir, nobody has the balls to call him Grigor to his face.”

  “Bad ass eh?” Jabo went to the table and picked up his bottle of piss, “I'm going to pour this down your mouth and hold your nose, make you swallow all of it when you tell me a lie, understand?”

  “What the fuck, NOOOOOOOOOO!” Lance screamed as Jabo unscrewed the bottle and held the open bottle near his nose, making Lance recoil in terror. “GAWD NO, please, please, I won't lie, promise, shit, you're fucking crazier than Grigor.”

  “Am I?” Jabo put the cap on the bottle of piss and dropped it on Lance's lap, popping his balls again, making the younger man emit a quick huff of air as he grunted, more from fear than pain. “Hurt? Sorry, now back to Grigor, let's talk about him, basically everything you know about him, from the first day you met, go...”

  Jabo looked at Lance, as he leaned back against the table, his arms crossed, looking off so Lance could see his intense emotions – Jabo's anger and rage – what he'd felt from the moment he found out his grandparents had been murdered. His deadly fury streamed out, burning two holes in the wall
opposite him, as Lance droned on, dutifully recorded in high detail by the camera focused on him.

  Chapter Eleven

  You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it

  Margaret Thatcher

  “What are we going to do with him?” Lance's confession over, the three of them talked in a nearby room. Albert dreaded what was coming next certain Jabo was going to make it his problem, giving him the shitty job while Jabo started planning their next gambit. Albert hoped it wouldn't be disposing of Lance's dead body, but he could handle it if that's how it played out.

  “What do you want to do with him, turn him, put him on ice somewhere, take him out?” Jabo wasn't sure what Albert did in situations like this, still a newbie with his new set of bosses and their semi-civilian organization. Maybe they took no prisoners, fine with him but messy and time consuming. It's not easy to destroy a human body so nobody can find it later. That's where C-4 was so useful, a few pounds placed under his body, some blasting cord coiled around the extremities and boom – Lance would turn into pieces that the birds and animals could carry away to gnaw on. There'd be nothing identifiable left, that was for sure.

  He'd done it a few times for effect not revenge and never on the living. Dead fighters, the opposition, made a great display, showing the ones who were still alive, prisoners watching from their cells, what the evil Americans would do when they were dead – implying they'd be tortured to death if they didn't spill their guts. Don't want to talk? Fine, you'll spill them a different way, for Allah, of course. That was the game, more believable because they learned the details through the prison grapevine. Stories and rumors sprang up to explain how the men they saw explosively vaporized had died, killed because they were unwilling to talk – becoming heroes, transported instantly to paradise, courtesy of the US Army. Some stiffened their resolve, but most found their hearts were made of jelly and they talked.

  The fanatics never talked, and you couldn't torture them, not in the field, took too much time and somebody always grew a conscience later, or might, so you did the next best thing, separated the ones who might talk from the ones who wouldn't, then gave them a little show. They weren't from the local area anyway, so relatives wouldn't clamor for their bodies. They were dead to them, whoever had bore and raised them. They'd cry when they volunteered to fight, going off with the lean faced, hard eyed men who needed bodies to replace the ones they'd led to death the previous year, all of them duped by their fantasies of paradise and fame. After they separated them, it was time for some ghastly theater using a few dead bodies from the recent fire fight, dressed up in fresh clothes to hide their bloody bodies, add some screams at at distance, done by the interpreters who hated the Taliban more than the soldiers. The horrible screeches of someone being tortured seemed to rise from the resistant fighters, seconds before they blew up, flailing out body parts to fall in front of the cages holding their comrades. What it appeared to be became a terrible truth, then a horrifying fate those who were apparently next would do anything to escape... again, by talking. The only real problem was the gory rain of shredded flesh that fell for a surprisingly long time afterward.

  “Can't we let him go?” Cathy asked, worried what they'd do to Lance, sensing the options considered, though no one said anything out loud. She was one of their inner circle again, more restrained, her lesson learned. They'd do, she'd do what Jabo decided, period. She felt uneasy, discussing this man's fate, making them judge and executioner, potentially. Was this what war was like? Her comprehension of what Jabo was, what he'd done the last four years kept changing radically. He was relaxed as they talked, like it didn't matter – life, death, imprisonment, who cares. Lance was the enemy and had no rights, only fate which they were, like the Gods of old, deciding.

  “No, we've got the edge, they don't know what happened to him, what we found out. They're the people who were mad at Missange for going to the FBI, the ones on over- watch at the Data Center to see if someone like us showed up, to find out more about LazaRuss. The battle has started Cathy, from this point on we show no mercy.” Jabo didn't need Albert's blessing or agreement, but he saw him nod slightly, showing he was on the same side as Jabo.

  “But he's only a guard, hired a few months ago, probably had nothing to do with your Grandparent's death, a soldier!” she paused, making her case, “you don't kill prisoners do you?”

  “So, one vote to imprison, right?” He looked at Cathy who was ready to slap him then she caught herself, seeing the painful rage behind his eyes, held in check. Another lesson accepted, she struggled to hold her feelings back. This was how you fought people who'd killed someone you loved, your comrades, buddies, without feeling, logical, rational, all business, the best plan wins. It wasn't emotionless, you felt the impact of decisions, but it mattered in a different way.

  “Yes, I guess,” he wasn't decided, “I could vote we put him on ice for the duration. When it's all over we'll have this discussion again.” Jabo relented, easing the tension in the room.

  “Actually, I agree, he's nothing, came in after they'd decided to kill the Missange family, to keep them quiet.” Albert suggested, not that this was a democracy, but Jabo clearly invited everyone to speak their mind. “Missange knew something, was going to be a government witness, provide key evidence against LazaRuss, assuming they were going to prosecute, instead of making a deal.” Albert liked summing things up, trained as a lawyer, he'd become an investigator and found he liked the field more than the office.

  “Alright two votes for keeping him on ice,” Jabo looked at the man's license again, weighing his fate, the one who'd make the final decision, but willing to listen to the others, his helpers, nothing more.

  “Where can we keep him, out of sight?” Jabo looked at Cathy then Albert, one of them would have to volunteer a place, or a means to pull it off. He had nothing, only a rank in the Army but no official assignment yet, hell this was his assignment, as far as he knew.

  “Guantanamo?” Cathy asked, then they all laughed, their tension easing. It was a bit forced, but a relief after the hard talk they'd had.

  “We have a facility, usually for walk-ins or people who want to get things off their chest, whistle blowers, the occasional spy.” Albert looked at Jabo, “we could take him for a few months, no problem,” he turned to Cathy, “No torture or hassle, watch TV all day, all the channels, three squares, but he won't be able to leave. They'll get what they can from him, see if he should go to jail, that sort of thing.”

  “Fine with me,” she looked at Jabo, wanting him to be merciful. “He was following us, under orders from Grigor, his boss, and ready to kidnap one of us, if he could, probably me, the female, I dunno.”

  “No, he was stupid, got caught. I'm sure he was told to follow, sit on us then report where he was,” Jabo knew Grigor was fuming and a little worried. His man had disappeared and he didn't have enough clout or people to send more men to look for him.

  At the LazaRuss server facility, Grigor was like a Medieval Seneschal on alert, walking his concrete fortress, literally, pacing the hallways. Every few minutes he returned to the central control room where all the video camera feeds were displayed. There were so many cameras they had to rotate their images on the limited screens covering the walls. Since they were on high alert, a large, very high resolution screen in the middle of the wall displayed video from the camera that had most recently detected motion. All the people inside the building were authorized and vetted, with credentials, so all of this vigilance was wasted, burning up his men's energy and eyes. Most of the time there was nothing to do but sit and stare at the people walking in front of the a camera, doing nothing in response to what they saw.

  Preferring attack instead of defense, Grigor had chafed when he'd been given this assignment, meant as a promotion after he'd killed the previous traitor two years ago. A dangerous task, he'd personally removed the only real threat to their American facilities, the main ones in San Marcos, had ever had. It had been quiet until that assh
ole Missange had gone to the FBI.

  Unable to find him after he'd been hidden away, Grigor's boss had brought in a man the head of security had heard about tangentially, the 'sick one', as he was known in Russia. Respected but reviled, no one would put him on their payroll, but they were happy to buy his services because he never failed to get the job done, and from the news reports he'd watched after the debacle in West Texas, was not bound by any rules. He was no different than most contract killers in his country who'd spray a cafe filled with people with bullets to get their target sitting among the innocents, including children.

  But in America this kind of wanton murder of an informant and the people around him was way over the top. Expecting a quick response, they'd gone to the trenches the day before it happened, increasing security. In the main offices a half mile away, they'd rechecked all the computer hard drives, looking for incriminating files, making sure any reference to Missange or his employment was gone, ten times over. But there was always something you missed, a picture, an email, a memo that would lead to others.

  Here, on the dedicated servers inside the thick concrete walls of their facility they had at least Ten million documents. A certain percentage had a connection to Missange. It was unavoidable. He was the lead researcher in his section, Project HXX, the one who'd cracked the last puzzle, making it a industrial process, a mere recipe of chemicals, temperatures and actions – then he'd cracked, going to the FBI with all his notes hidden, thank God, on a set of thumb drives smuggled out of his lab. They were his insurance the FBI wouldn't cut him free before the trial. But they were his Achilles heel as well, once it was known he'd kept them from the FBI investigators and US Attorneys. By wiping out Missange, his entire family there was a good chance his hiding places would disappear with him.