Hardened by Steel

by J. B. Havens

  “Here’s your delivery. I want to state for the record, we do this under protest,” the younger deputy gruffly said. Someone had their panties in a wad today. Guess he wasn’t used to dealing with terrorists or drug dealing scum-bags like we were. I decided to cut him some slack based on his inexperience.

  “Tie him.” Jackson waved me forward. Slipping the zip ties from my pocket, I turned the man around so his cuffed hands were facing me. He began to struggle when I slipped a tie around his wrist.

  “Hold him,” Jackson said to Jordon, who did just that. I met Jordon’s eyes over the man’s head. I expected him to look nervous, but he was resolute. His trademark determination came to the forefront. I tightened the zip ties, and caught the deputy’s eye, pointed to the cuffs. Jordon kept a firm grip on the man’s arm.

  “Un-cuff him, and you can be on your way,” Jackson said, never relaxing his rigid stance of authority. The older sheriff no doubt knew exactly who was in charge here. It didn’t stop him from trying to push a little.

  “What’re you going to do with him?” the older sheriff asked, as the younger deputy retrieved his cuffs.

  “It’s classified,” Jackson answered simply, indicating for Jordon to haul the bound man into the garage.

  “It don’t sit right with me, leaving him here with you people like this,” the sheriff said, as he handed Jackson a folder. “This is his chart from the hospital.”

  Jackson cocked his head to the side, silently studying the man, before answering him and taking the folder.

  “This man is a threat to national security. That is all, Sheriff. I suggest you be on your way now.” Jackson waved us inside. Jordon perp-walked the man into the garage and I hit the button to shut the door. Jackson waited until he heard the cruiser driving away before he pressed his comm.

  “Jones, we clear?”

  “Copy that, Master Sergeant,” came the muffled reply. Jackson lowered the garage floor again and we marched our prize down into the depths.

  Chapter 10

  We went down to Sub-Level Three and into the sparring area to the side of the track. The men had rolled the mats up and pushed them aside, as the concrete floor would be easier to clean up. A lone chair sat in the middle. Most of the lights were turned off, creating strange shadows just like when I was running. This day would be ending quite differently from last night though. Instead of Jordon and me hitting the floor and ending in a kiss, there was a good chance that blood would be dropping onto the floor in moments.

  Jordon and I marched the man to the chair, roughly shoving him down. I tied his legs to the chair. I motioned to Jordon, pointing to the man’s head. Jordon got the idea and placed the barrel of his pistol against the man’s forehead. It was the universal language for ‘move and you die.’ I cut the zip tie on his wrists and roughly pulled his arms behind the chair. I twisted his wrists into a stress position, the backs of his hands facing each other, before re-tying them. The man let loose a low groan. There must have been something in his chest that was hurt; pulling his arms back caused him pain.

  Leaving him bound and helpless, we left the room. Jackson was standing just outside the door along with the others. I pulled my hood down and off my face as soon as I could. I hated wearing it as it made my claustrophobia rear its stupid fucking head.

  “Okay, Master Sergeant, who is he and why do we have him?” I asked.

  “I don’t have a name for him. He was found in your aunt’s yard, still alive and playing possum. The local PD had him in the hospital getting patched up before the clean-up team arrived.”

  The information and all of its implications hit me like a brick to the head. This man had information, information we desperately needed for a successful mission.

  “Well, looks like we get to have a party,” Flynn piped up. He was trying and failing to inject humor into a morbid situation.

  “Are we going to torture this man?” Rook asked. I was waiting for him to voice something. The man in that room would provide me with two pieces of information; intelligence on the Vega cartel and how Rook would handle interrogations. I threw my previous half-formed plan out the window. This was almost better than anything I could have come up with for Rook. Happy day.

  “Yes,” I said simply. In combat, we had all seen things that happened and were against the rules. You live with it and move on. This wasn’t combat though; this was going to be cold-blooded torture. Not something I was particularly a fan of, but it had its uses. “That going to be a problem?”

  “No, ma’am,” Rook answered in his typical style. Fine by me.

  “Get in there and get started. I want reports every hour. Don’t kill him.” His orders given, Jackson left the room.

  ****

  Jordon stood quietly by, taking it all in. Mic had told him someday that he would be asked to hold the bag or the bucket of ice water. Somehow he thought they had moved beyond that point. He had visions of pliers and blow torches in his head. To say he wasn’t scared would be a lie. He wasn’t going to let it stop him; this needed to be done. They were running out of time to hit the cartel. It was imperative they hit first, and hit hard. There would be no second round with them. If so much as one family member survived, this would never be over. Jordon thought back to when Mic was on that operating table, seeing her burning with fever and in agony. He saw Phillips’s body, lying headless in a pool of blood. He felt the rip and burn of the bullet tearing through his own shoulder.

  His course set; he pulled his tactical hood back over his face and was the first one through the door and into the room.

  ****

  “Strip him,” I said. I watched Jordon and Pierce advance on the man, knives in hand. They cut his clothes from his body, leaving his stained and tattered briefs on. That was a vison none of us wanted to see. I lowered the temperature on the thermostat, making the already cold room even more frigid.

  The man seated before me was covered in bruises and blood and we hadn’t even touched him yet. There was fresh blood seeping from a bandaged wound on his chest, cuts on his arms, and heavy thick bruises on his ribs. One leg was bandaged from ankle to knee, explaining the limp. He was giving us a lot to work with here.

  “Do you speak English?” I asked him. I kept my voice calm and even; there was no point in yelling. The only sounds in the room were the heavy breathing of the man on the chair and the whisper of cloth as the men shifted around.

  “Si.” Of course, he spoke English, but answered me in Spanish.

  “Tell me your name.” It was very deliberately not a question.

  “Armando,” he said, offering no last name.

  “Tell me your last name.” I walked closer to him, tapping my knife on my belt, letting him hear the metal sound. His breathing picked up and sweat beaded on his forehead.

  “Fuentes. Armando Fuentes.” Bingo. Using hand signals to Jones, I mined a phone call. I needed him to call the DoD and run the name. Jones left the room at a jog.

  “Do you know who I am, Señor Fuentes?” I didn’t bother to disguise my voice, though I made sure my hood was secure over my face. Looking at the men around me, their faces were also covered other than their eyes.

  I ripped the hood from his face, letting him see who surrounded him. Recognition dawned in his eyes. Along with knowledge.

  Seeing his face for the first time, I memorized his features: a nose that had been broken several times, a wide mouth, and flat lips. His dark bloodshot eyes burned with hate and fear. His dirty hair was overly long and matted to his head with sweat.

  Jones came back into the room, his face tight with anger. Stopping close to me he leaned down and whispered in my ear.

  “They took the call, but hung up as soon as I told them his name and asked them to run it. We’re on our own here, Mic.” I patted Jones’s shoulder in thanks and took a careful step toward Armando.

  “I will only ask one more time. Do you know who I am?” I showed him the knife in my hand, letting the light hit the blade and reflect onto him.r />
  “Si. You are El Acero, Steel,” he said in his pain-filled voice.

  “Smart man. Now, we could go around in circles here, but I’m thinking you already know what I need to know. Will you tell me or do things have to become... unpleasant?” I motioned to Jones, who walked to the table they had set up. On it were two Bunsen burners and a variety of knives and some tools you’d find in any garage: pliers, wrenches, hammers of various weights and sizes. An ax.

  Jones lit the burners, their dancing flames casting shadows on us all. The darkness of the large room was broken only by the sputtering, flickering lights. The wafting scent of the butane mingled with the stench of sweat and blood.

  “I am a soldier of the Vega cartel, you do not scare me.” His bravado was expected; they all said that. Even when they were pissing themselves they said it.

  “Get the water,” I ordered.

  Pierce left the room and came back a minute later with a five gallon bucket of ice water. Walking directly to Armando, he poured half of it over his head. He didn’t make a sound beyond a sharp gasp. He just sat there, dripping and shivering. His skin was pebbled with goose bumps and blood oozed out from under his bandages, which gave me an idea. I took a pair of latex gloves off the table and pulled them on with a snap. He jumped at the sound.

  “Those bandages don’t look so good, Señor Vega.” I started with the one on his chest, jerking it off and taking chest hair with it. He flinched, but didn’t react otherwise. Under the bandage was a neat bullet hole, tightly closed with evenly-spaced stitches. No wonder we left him there, he took a solid hit to the chest. How he was even walking around I wasn’t sure. Must have been one of those miracle wounds. They look bad, but miss everything vital. Good for us, bad news for him.

  I knelt at his feet and started on the one on his leg, ripping and tearing the tape off as harshly as I could. He groaned when I probed the wound with my gloved fingers. He had taken several more rounds in his leg. He was either the luckiest or un-luckiest bastard I’d ever seen. Two more bullet wounds went through his calf.

  “Piss poor shooting, boys, but your poor aim is working out in our favor,” I said to the men around me.

  “That wasn’t us. We don’t aim for the legs,” Jones said, even though I already knew that.

  “So, Señor Vega, did your own men shoot you? Was it on purpose?” I asked. “Give me a knife, a small one.” Jordon handed me a small hunting knife, hilt first.

  “Crossfire,” Armando gasped as I began cutting his stitches out. The wound immediately popped open and wept blood.

  “How unfortunate.” The stitches gave easily under the sharp knife. I finished with his leg and moved to his chest. I caught the edge of the wound, taking a bit of skin with the black thread. He grunted, but didn’t scream.

  “These wounds look nasty, I think we should wash them out.” Keeping my gloves on, I retrieved a can of salt from the table. Showing him what it was, I let the knowledge of what was coming register in his brain. “This might sting a bit.” Without preamble, I poured salt into the wound on his chest. He jerked and thrashed around, scraping the chair across the concrete floor.

  “Hold him.” Rook was the first there, pushing down on Armando’s shoulders. I pressed the heel of my hand on the wound, viciously grinding in the salt. This time he howled and screamed. Snot and tears were running down his face, and he was breathing so fast I was worried he might hyperventilate.

  Backing away from him, I gave him a few moments to come around; the pain had sent him to the brink of unconsciousness. I stripped my gloves off and threw them on the table. Jordon met my eyes and I was pleased to find no judgement there.

  Rook stepped forward, slipping on gloves as he went. He swiftly assessed Armando’s vitals.

  “His heart rate is very high.” He slipped a blood pressure cuff around the prisoner’s arm, quickly pumping it and getting the results. “Blood pressure is elevated, but not dangerously so. His heart is stressed, but not in danger of giving out. Yet. As long as his bleeding doesn’t increase too much more, he shouldn’t die on us.” He stepped away, flipping through the hospital chart.

  Armando’s breathing slowly calmed and he appeared to be dozing off. Pain and the stress of shock was damn exhausting. I’d give him a few minutes then we’d wake him up.

  “Put his hood back on,” I ordered. Jones stepped forward and took the black canvas bag from me, slipping it back over Armando’s head with practiced ease.

  Motioning for the others to follow, I left the room. Propping against the cold wall in the hallway, the men fanned out around me.

  “Give him about ten minutes, then toss the rest of that water onto him,” I instructed Pierce who was still holding the bucket of ice water.

  “What do you hope to gain from this, Mic?” Jones asked.

  “I would think it would be fairly obvious.” I might have the hand for it, but I had never enjoyed torture. It made me sick and disheartened. Even though it gave me a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, I did the necessary deed. Usually we got information through some scare tactics and small pain without having to resort to jumper cables or metal spikes. There was one time that I had to pull a guy’s fingernails off, two nails in and he sang like a canary.

  “Maybe, but explain it anyway,” Jordon joined in.

  “We need a way into that village. We need to know when and where Adolfo Vega and Mercedes will be. I need to save my aunt and, in the process, us.” I hated explaining myself to anyone; but in this instance, I suppose it was necessary. They needed a little reassurance.

  “Works for me,” Jones said, pulling his tactical hood back on his face.

  “You don’t have to do it all, we can take turns or something,” Jordon said so quietly, I almost didn’t hear him.

  “No. I won’t ask you to do torture while I stand back and watch. That’s not fucking happening. End of discussion,” I snapped at him. He visibly jerked back at the force in my words, his cheeks flushing in anger. I purposefully turned my back on him.

  Just what the hell did he take me for?

  “Time is up,” Pierce said, going back into the room.

  I followed him in and watched as he threw the water on Armando with as much force as he could muster. Armando jerked awake, gasping and thrashing against his bonds. The water had washed some of the salt from his wound; fresh blood ran down his chest and mixed with the water. Pinkish water puddled on the floor under him, reflecting the flames of the Bunsen burners. It was both beautiful and terrifying.

  “How you doing over there, Señor Vega?” It was incredibly ironic. He was bleeding, dripping wet, and freezing cold. Add in the pain from his wounds and he was having just a dandy time. I didn’t give a fuck; every wound was deserved and every pain-filled moment was justice. I kept seeing that old man brutally executed in front of his wife, his blood and grey matter spattering her distraught face. I felt no guilt. I would later, but right now, in this very moment, I felt justified in each wound and agonizing act I would inflict.

  “I have nothing to say to you, pinche puta.” His hood was soaked and stuck fast to his face, suctioning with each open-mouthed desperate gasp.

  “Ok then, let’s move on.” I went back to the table, beyond your standard torture implements there was a selection of plastic bottles. Each contained a different acidic or corrosive liquid.

  “Over here, Señor Fuentes, I have a variety of liquids to choose from; rubbing alcohol, acetone, paint thinner, bleach, and even ammonia. You can easily buy most of these at any retailer in the country, but when applied correctly... or should I say... incorrectly, they cause severe pain or even blindness.”

  Grabbing a bottle and a small knife, I slowly advanced on Armando. I could feel the others watching me, waiting to see what I was going to do. The weighted silence was broken only by the sound of my boots on the wet floor and Armando’s heavy breaths. The tension in the room was palpable.

  I placed the bottle on the floor behind his chair and using the small kni
fe, cut the ties to his hood. Before lifting it, I motioned the others to move out of his line of sight. I wanted the first thing he saw to be the darkness and flickering flames of the burners. This wasn’t just about inflicting pain, this was about getting into his head and injecting fear deep into his psyche. Fear is the world’s greatest motivator.

  I snatched the hood off in a sudden, fast motion and I dropped it on the floor with a wet plop. Picking up the bottle and keeping the knife in my other hand, I stepped around in front of him.

  “Here, take a whiff; tell me what you think.” I uncapped the bottle and placed it under his nose. The strong fumes made him jerk his head back and away.

  “This stuff is pretty effective; removes nail polish, and when put on an open wound, you’d think the fires of hell reside within you.” I let the idea sink into his brain—the knowledge that I was about to pour acetone into his body. His breathing picked up again and I could see his pulse racing through the skin of his neck.

  “Tell me where exactly to find Adolfo Vega and that bitch Mercedes and I will put this away. Answer my questions and I won’t dump this entire bottle on your leg.” I watched his eyes; he wasn’t going to give an inch. His words confirmed it.

  “Fuck you.” He spat at my feet, bloody spit hitting my boot. Well then, guess that was answer enough.

  “Boys, hold him.” Rook again stepped forward along with Jordon; I spared them a glance. Rook looked the same as ever, solid and unfazed, which made me think maybe he’d been in a room like this before. I would have to remember to ask him. Jordon was as blank as I’d ever seen him. I didn’t need to worry about Jones, Flynn, or Pierce, we’d done this dance before.

  I knelt next to Armando’s leg. “Last chance,” I said, looking up at him. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back as far as he was able.

  Using one hand, I pulled open the wound that was closest to his knee and deftly poured the acetone inside. His muscles stood out under his skin, veins popping in his neck; he shrieked and wailed. He thrashed violently, jerking his leg, trying to escape the liquid. He shredded his throat with the volume he was producing. My head and ears pounded with the sound. His skin began to split open where the zip ties held him to the chair and still he screamed. The bullet wound rapidly swelled and turned a fiery shade of red, blood and acetone mixing together to run down his leg and onto my hands.