Page 98 of Rising Tiger

“Do you offer them any lube? I’m guessing you don’t. I probably shouldn’t, either. It’s really best if you get a true taste of your own medicine. Vijay, however, wanted as much hot, sharp steel as we could get in you as possible. He didn’t think it was right that you only thought of him when a storm was coming. He wanted you to think of him all the time.

“But if you ask me, I think he’s overthinking it. There’s no way you’re going to survive. And best part of all, when the tabloids find you here, with your pants around your ankles—and they will find you first, because we’re going to call them—no one is ever going to look for us. We’re going to get off scot-free, because everyone—even the cops and the people in your own organization—are going to believe that you deserved it and that it was carried out by some rival organization that no one will bother wasting the time to investigate.

“So, you need to understand that you don’t have a single card left to play. If you don’t cooperate with me, you’re going to experience pain the likes of which you have never imagined before tonight. I am going to make you pay for every sin you have ever committed. And at the very moment you think you can’t take any more, not a single, additional ounce of pain, I’m going to see to it that you do. Are we clear?”

Harvath waited for the gangster to respond and when he didn’t, he said to Vijay, “Okay, time for round two.”

This time he selected a metal nut from the coals. “Ear canal or nasal passage?” he asked.

Harvath looked at Sayed to see if he had a preference. Once again, the man didn’t respond.

“If you shove that in his nostril,” said Harvath, “he’ll only be able to snort cocaine on one side. By the same token, if you stick that far enough in his ear, he’ll probably go deaf and not be able to hear anyone who sneaks up on that side. If it were me, I wouldn’t want to lose my hearing. So, definitely shove that thing as far as you can into his ear. You pick which one.”

Sayed had absolutely no reason to doubt that the ex-cop was going to do it. He was already in more fucking pain than he had ever been since that asshole had tossed him off the building. He couldn’t go on. He needed to make it stop. These people were completely psychotic.

“Stop,” he pleaded.

“Sorry, Aga,” Harvath replied. “It’s kind of like a children’s party. Once you remove a treat from the bowl, it can’t be put back. You’re going to have to take your medicine. Maybe next time I ask you who killed Eli Ritter, you’ll be a little more polite and a hell of a lot more forthcoming.”

“I don’t know who killed him,” the man insisted.

“And herein lies our problem,” said Harvath. “You want me to do something for you, but you’re absolutely unwilling to do anything for me. You’re not really a good negotiator, are you?”

Sayed became even more insistent. “I cannot tell you his name because all I did was make arrangements for him.”

“What kind of arrangements?”

“If I tell you, will you let me go?”

Turning back to Vijay, Harvath instructed, “Pick whatever ear you want and let’s get this over with.”

“The gun!” Sayed yelled as the ex-cop closed in on him with the tongs and the flaming-hot piece of metal. “The gun, and the silencer, and the hotel room, and the motorcycle. All of it.”

Harvath signaled for Vijay to wait. “And who asked you to make these arrangements?”

“He is a very bad man.”

“People who arrange murders usually are,” Harvath replied. “For your sake, I hope you’ve got a name to give me.”

“I do,” said Sayed. “I do. Just don’t let him put that in my ear.”

“There’s nothing I can do if you don’t come out with it. Hurry up.”

“All I know is that he’s originally from Pakistan and he goes by the name Malek Hamid.”

Harvath doubted that was everything Aga Sayed knew. But he wasn’t worried. Vijay had brought lots of additional surprises and they had all night to get to the bottom of things.

CHAPTER 56

“Malek Hamid is one of multiple aliases he uses,” said Lawlor. “His real name is Basheer Durrani. He’s a deep-cover operative working for the Pakistani ISI.”

Harvath had been feeding information from Sayed’s interrogation back to his boss in Northern Virginia.

When Lawlor gave him the update, his first question was, “How’d we get our hands on that intel?”

“Youactually secured it.”

“Me?” replied Harvath. “When?”