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“I did not lie to you. I told you what you wanted to know.”
“Ahh . . . I find it interesting how you phrased that. You told me what I ‘wanted to know.’ That is not what I wanted. I wanted the truth.”
“I gave you the truth.”
“You did not,” the man said in a voice bereft of emotion.
Rickman grew nervous and began coughing up blood. “I’ve told you everything,” he managed to blurt out in his defense.
“You are a devious man.” His tone had shifted to that of a disappointed father. “We all know this. So the beatings will have to continue, but don’t worry. You will learn very quickly that your games are not worth the effort.”
“Please.” Rickman blindly reached out, clutching for the man’s arm. “I am doing everything you have asked of me.”
The man stood and took a step back. “Not everything. You have told us a few of your secrets, but you have also told us many lies. That means we will have to do this the hard way.”
“Please!” Rickman started crying. “I will tell you what you want to know.”
The man was wearing a mask over his face and shook his head sadly. “You will tell me the truth . . . not what I want to know. The truth is the only thing that will save you.”
“I will tell you the truth, then,” Rickman pleaded.
“Yes, you will.” The man turned and walked past the camera, its red light glowing. In the hallway he took off his hood and tossed it on a wooden table. The two men were waiting like obedient dogs for instructions on what do next. Vazir Kassar was apprehensive about how to proceed. He didn’t have much confidence in these men. One of them started to speak, but Kassar held up a hand. The men had at least learned that much. Kassar despised people who talked too much and had explained
to the two halfwits that there was nothing they could say that he hadn’t already thought of.
After fishing out a cigarette and lighting it, Kassar exhaled a cloud of smoke and said, “It is time to increase the pain.”
Both men nodded eagerly. The taller of the two said, “The genitals . . . can we hit him in the genitals now?”
“Yes, you may hit him in the genitals.” Kassar took no joy in this. It was simply part of the job. “I have given you the area I want you to focus on. Where I know he has lied. You will increase the pain until he tells us the truth. Yes?”
“Yes,” both men answered.
Kassar waved for them to proceed. He took another puff of his cigarette while the two simpletons put their masks on. Kassar couldn’t shake the feeling that these two fools might somehow mess this up. There were no guarantees in life, and definitely none in the dangerous waters where they were swimming. Kassar settled into a wooden chair and watched the single monitor. He checked the time on his watch and made a quick calculation. “This shouldn’t take long,” he said to himself.
Rickman was strung up once again by his wrists. They had yet to lay a hand on him, but he was already sniffling. The men began taking turns slapping him in the head and heaving insult after insult at him. Kassar could tell that the CIA man was losing control of his legendary wits. He’d been awake for a day and a half and he’d been beaten so severely that he could barely stand. He was exhausted and on the verge of a complete collapse.
The men paused for a moment and then without warning one of them took a rubber hose and swung it up between Rickman’s legs, striking him in the groin. A glob of blood exited Rickman’s mouth as his entire body convulsed forward. His sniffles turned into sobs and his chin was coated with spit, tears, and blood. Rickman was begging for them to stop, but the men paid him no heed. They were literally kicking the crap out of him as Rickman defecated in his boxers. This only upset the men more. The slaps were now replaced with punches.
Kassar watched Rickman slump suddenly, his legs completely giving out. The Pakistani moved closer to the screen and tried to see what was wrong. It was not unheard-of for a subject to lose consciousness during an interrogation. Kassar checked his watch again and frowned as the two men continued to beat their unconscious prisoner.
It took them another minute to realize that something was wrong, and by then it was too late.
CHAPTER 22
BAGRAM AIR BASE, AFGHANISTAN
RAPP heard voices. He opened his eyes and looked up at a ceiling he was pretty sure he’d never seen before. His brain didn’t seem to be working quite right as the only thing he could figure out was that he was in a bed and his head hurt. The voices were coming from somewhere down by his feet. Moving his eyes caused discomfort, but he caught a glimpse of two men and a woman talking. None of their faces were familiar, but one of the men and the woman were wearing white coats. The other man was in what looked like light-blue pajamas. Rapp didn’t know why, but their clothes had some meaning to him that he couldn’t grasp.
He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. Suddenly the three people were standing over him, two on his right and one on his left. He opened his eyes and could see their lips moving, but it was all scrambled. Suddenly the woman shined a bright light in his eyes. Rapp didn’t like it one bit, but his limbs felt as if they were encased in concrete, so all he could do was lie there. Thinking of moving them hurt his head, so he gave up on the idea and let the woman move the light from one eye to the other. When she finally clicked the light off he was so relieved he fell back asleep.
Rapp had no idea how long he’d been out, but sometime later he woke to find a familiar face. His head rolled to his right, and there in a chair next to his bed was someone who he knew was very important to him. He couldn’t come up with her name, or how he knew her, but he knew he should have known. In a moment of panic he asked himself if he knew his own name. He came up with that one pretty quickly, but when he asked himself where he was, a half dozen cities popped into his head, which got him wondering what he did for a living. Then things got really murky.
“You’re awake,” the woman said with a warm smile.
Rapp noted the familiar brown eyes, the glasses, and the auburn hair pulled back in a tight ponytail, and then something clicked. “Boss.”
Irene Kennedy said, “You had us a bit worried.”