Ballistic

THIRTY-SEVEN

It was hot on the floorboard in the back of the sedan. Three pairs of black boots on Court’s back, ass, and legs kept him facedown; the electrical tape over his mouth, the cuffs securing his hands behind his back, and the black hood over his head only added to the stifling conditions. A few times the sweat in his eyes burned so badly he cried out, muffled as it was by the tape. Each time he made this noise a boot heel in the back of his head quieted him. He felt the cuts on his chest from the window glass, felt the warm wetness of his blood and perspiration on the rubber floor mats under him. He tried to shift his weight forward to his shoulders to relieve the pain, but this just pressed his face tighter into his hood and made it nearly impossible to breathe.

He felt the tip of the suppressor of an MP5 pressed into the small of his back; it jabbed into his lumbar with every bump in the road.

The car radio played banda music at full volume; if there was conversation between the men above him, he could not hear it over the loud accordions and crashing cymbals.

Court assumed Laura must have been tossed into another vehicle; he’d caught a glimpse through the window of several nondescript four-doors pulling in front of the hotel as he was being cuffed and taped up in the hotel room. He’d also stolen a glance at Eddie’s sister just before the hood was slipped on and the lights were turned off. Laura’s already big eyes were wide with panic; the men had flipped her facedown on the bed and cuffed her there.

She was naked.

Gentry had no idea if these were real cops or, even if they were real cops, if they were good guys or bad. He did not know where they were taking him; even a born-and-bred ciudadano of Mexico City would not have been able to discern their location after dozens of turns while hooded and facedown.

Finally, the car stopped, and he was dragged out by his shoulders; the perspiration all over his body made the men’s gloves slip as they wrestled to take hold. Court was frog-marched forward, and he felt the sunlight leave him and heard the echoes of a large room. He continued on, stepped into what felt and sounded like a freight elevator, and went down what must have been at least three floors.

Once off the elevator, he was pushed forward a few yards and then spun around, his hands were unfastened, and then his body was pressed up against cold metal bars. A fence, perhaps? His arms were simultaneously outstretched and cuffed wide away from his body, two men on each appendage. The insides of his legs were kicked until he spread them, and his ankles were shackled in irons, with his legs spread wide open.

His back and arms and legs and butt pressed up against cold metal.

A pair of long, cold sheers entered his boxer shorts. He tried to recoil from the sharp metal, but he could not get away. His underwear was cut from his body. He was totally naked now, chained spreadeagle against cold metal.

He began to shake in the cold.

Only then was his hood pulled off his head. Steam obstructed his view for a moment as it poured from his hair and beard; thick beads dripped from his eyelashes onto his cheeks and tickled as they trickled down through his facial hair to his chin.

The room was a square, stone basement, twenty by twenty, with a low ceiling and a cement floor. A bare overhead bulb in the center illuminated the middle of the room and the majority of the walls, but left the corners completely black. He smelled the mold in the room, but that was not all.

He also smelled the unmistakable scent of death. This was a kill house, a torture chamber. There was dried blood on the walls, and the cement floor was stained with black rivulets of blood that led towards the drain in the center of the room.

Across from Court was the wooden door of the freight elevator. Next to that was a narrow stairwell with no door.

Four men stood around — two dressed in the uniform of the federal police. They’d removed their masks and goggles and helmets, but their submachine guns hung from their chest rigs.

The other two men wore leather aprons. They were Mexicans; they were not cops; they looked serious and sinister. One of them was short and fat; his head was bald and covered in sweat that shone in the light above him. He was hard at work on some sort of wheeled table not more than six feet ahead and to the left of Gentry. The other was a young man, perhaps twenty, dressed the same as the older.

These would be Gentry’s torturers; he was certain of it.

There were no Black Suits in the room, which Court initially took as a good sign, but he had to search hard for that silver lining. A few feet in front of the iron fence or grate onto which his naked body was now chained, a car battery sat on a dolly, and wires wound their way up to a metal contraption on the rolling table. More coiled wires ran from this machine and ended at large roach clips that were fastened to Gentry’s grate.

Court had been around. He knew an electroconvulsive torture device when he saw one. And right now, he was bare-assed naked and attached to one.

“Welcome to hell,” the fat man said in Spanish. “I will be your tour guide as we visit the horrific, agonizing, and slow end to your life.”

Gentry said nothing.

“They call me el Carnicerito.” The Little Butcher. The short, fat, bald-headed man said this though he was still distracted by his work; he arranged devices on the rolling table while he talked. Saws, hand drills, a stainless steel mallet that gleamed in the light of the bare bulb. Knives, forceps, kerrisons rongeurs, and other surgical tools covered the horizontal surfaces of the table. Without looking up from his equipment, he continued, “I work for Don Daniel. I produce pain, and I extract information from those reluctant to give it. I am extremely good at what I do.”

“Your mother must be proud.” Court affected the macho comment, but he wasn’t feeling it. He pulled and kicked against his restraints, and he could tell that he would not be getting himself off of this contraption.

In short, he was fucking toast.

El Carnicerito just smiled. “This is my protégé.” He waved a fat hand towards the young man in the apron. Then he returned to his work at the table. He turned a dial on the machine slightly, and Court felt electricity tingle his spine. The fat man looked at a dial on the face of the black device. Apparently, it was just a test, because he inflicted no pain. He turned the dial back down and looked up at his victim.

“The electricity is just one measure I have at my disposal. Within the next few hours you will endure indescribable suffering.”

El Carnicerito stepped forward, close to Court’s body, and reached up with a rubber glove, began picking glass out of the cuts in the American’s chest inflicted by the federale coming through the window. Court winced with pain but tried to keep his face as impassive as possible; he did not want to encourage this sadist by showing how much it hurt.

The man smiled; Court could plainly see that an idea had entered the butcher’s head. He turned quickly and stepped over to the protégé, and he delivered a quiet command. His subordinate nodded and hurriedly left the room via the stairwell.

As he ran up the stairs and the echoes of his footfalls began to die off, new footsteps clicked down from above. Two men, Gentry could tell, one wearing heavy boots and the other soft shoes.

Within seconds the two new men arrived in the dungeon. One was a Black Suit. Young and well-groomed, he wore the short hair, goatee, and mustache combo common with the leadership of the criminal organization. An HK UMP submachine gun hung from a sling over his right shoulder.

The man’s fine suit and clean face contrasted with the sick sights and smells of this basement hellhole.

And the man next to him contrasted with the dungeon as well. He was American. White, thin, curly brown hair. He wore a wrinkled short-sleeved dress shirt and khakis.

Court rolled his eyes.

Jerry Pfleger.

Court scowled at him as he stepped into the light. Dryly, Court said, “My fellow American.”

The young American embassy staffer looked around the room, clearly taken aback by where he found himself. He was shocked, out of his league, and frightened. He tried to mask it, but Court saw the horror on his face.

“Why is he still alive?” Jerry asked the men in Spanish as he moved into the room.

Pfleger kept looking around the room; clearly, he could smell the death, see the stains on the walls and floor. He knew what this place was. What went on there. He shook it off and looked at Court. “I’m a businessman, dude. It’s the American way. I insisted on coming here to… protect my interests in this enterprise.”

Court said, “They are going to kill the girl; they want to kill her sister-in-law and her unborn baby.”

Jerry nodded. Clearly, he at least suspected this if he did not know it for sure. “Sucks to be them.”

“You did this for money?”

Jerry nodded then shrugged. “It’s more than money, actually. I am making a statement.”

“What statement?”

“The statement is, dude, I hate it here.”

“You hate Mexico?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

Gentry did not respond.

“Yeah, well, you’re banging a hot little beaner, so you’d like it, wouldn’t you?”

“You are a trained diplomat? Christ.”

“Have you ever been to Denmark?”

Court lied. “No.”

“Denmark is the shit. I went to college in Denmark; I speak Danish, know the backstreets of Copenhagen like the back of my hand. I get hired by State, and where do those idiots at Foggy Bottom fucking send me? Denmark? Finland? Norway? Fuck no! Mexico! Are you kidding me? Four years punching visas for beaners. Fuck that! As long as I’m stuck down here, I’m going to make a little dough along the way.”

“And you’re making money by handing Laura over to de la Rocha?”

Jerry smiled. “Oh… you don’t get it, do you.”

“Get what?”

“I’m handing the girl to DLR, yeah. But that’s a freebie. I’m making my money handing you to the CIA.”

Gentry shook his head. Slowly, he said, “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. Think about that for a second. What is Langley going to do when they find out a consular affairs officer is working with the Black Suits? You’ll never get that posting to Copenhagen.”

Jerry smiled again, like he was one thousand times smarter than the naked man in chains.

“Los Trajes Negros do the handoff to the CIA, and then they give me the reward. I get the reward, and I’m outta here. Outta Mexico, outta the State Department.”

“You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you?”

“I have a deal with the man himself. DLR.”

“Deals with the devil usually don’t pay off in the long run, kid.”

“He’s a businessman. I’m a businessman. It’s all good.” Then he looked to the Little Butcher, who’d been standing patiently as the men spoke English. In Spanish Jerry said, “That some sort of electricshock machine?”

El Carnicerito nodded.

“Then juice this pendejo once for me, boss.”

The Little Butcher smiled and grabbed an old leather wallet from the table. “Open your mouth, please. We cannot have you biting your tongue off when we still need you to talk.”

Court did as he was told; he knew what was coming, and he knew the leather in his mouth would help. He moved his tongue away from his teeth, bit down hard, and the Little Butcher turned the dial.

Current ripped through Court’s body, from his toes to his anus to his neck. His back arched, his eyes protruded, and a vibrato cry emitted from deep in his throat behind the wallet.

After a few seconds the dial was rotated back down. Fresh sweat shone on the prisoner’s face and chest.

The torturer stopped for just a moment. Pulled the wallet from his prisoner’s mouth. “Where is Elena Gamboa?”

“¿Cómo se dice ‘fuck you’?”

The wallet was returned to Gentry’s mouth, and he bit down. Electricity pulsed through his body again. His head slammed backwards uncontrollably, slamming his skull into the iron grate behind him.

The torture was stopped. The wallet removed. The question repeated.

“Where is Elena Gamboa?”

“Kiss my—”

The wallet was put back in place. The shocks grew stronger, the pain more intense; the muscle spasms wrenched his body in all directions.

The Black Suit and the two federales looked on.

Jerry Pfleger looked away.

Minutes later a technical glitch in the machinery allowed Court a respite from the agony. The Little Butcher worked on his electroconvulsive device, and the protégé returned down the stairs with a bag of groceries.

Gentry’s blurred vision followed the young man’s movements as he stepped to the table and pulled items from the bag.

An empty plastic pitcher, a large bag of salt, a bottle of rotgut tequila, and a large bag of limes.

Court groaned and let the now shredded leather wallet fall from his mouth to the floor. Immediately, he regretted his show of dread. It would only bolster the fat man. The Little Butcher turned his attention from the machine, and he began slicing the limes in half. The protégé sliced as well; together they looked like a couple of bartenders in a beachside cabana bar. Helped by his assistant, together the two men squeezed the juice into the pitcher and then tossed the peels in behind the juice.

The assistant poured the alcohol on top, and el Carnicerito opened the bag of salt.

Court even managed a quip. “I’ll take mine with no salt.”

The three other Mexicans in the room watched with curiosity. They laughed and joked amongst themselves, but Court wasn’t in the mood to concentrate on translating their fun so that he could understand it.

When the pitcher was full of tequila, salt, and lime juice, the torturer hefted it and walked forward to the naked prisoner. He held it up in front of Court’s face, slapped him a few times to make sure he had Court’s attention, and then the butcher fiddled with a tiny piece of broken glass stuck just below the American’s right nipple.

“Can you imagine how this will feel inside your swollen open wounds?” The man smiled as he spoke.

Gentry said nothing.

“I will ask you where Señora Gamboa is hiding. But please… please, I beg you, do not tell me. I want to do this to you!”

The narcos back by the elevator just laughed. Jerry looked away.

Court nodded, took in a long breath, and then spit in the face of the cruel little Mexican. The Little Butcher’s assistant ran forward and punched Court in the nose.

The fat man did not wipe the spit away. Instead he smiled and said, “You only make my job more enjoyable. In a couple of hours when I saw your head off of your living, breathing, flailing body, I will feel pity. A pity that the day is done.”

And with that he lifted the pitcher, slowly poured the pungent mixture down the American’s nude and abraded body, rubbed the liquid with his hands into the open cuts, smeared it in, and cackled almost as loud as the prisoner’s screams.

A minute later the elevator was called up to the surface. The two federale gunmen in the room put their hands to their earpieces, and the Black Suit looked down at his phone and saw that he’d missed a call, unable to hear the ring over the wails of agony in the small chamber.

Before he could identify the call, one of the cops stiffened slightly, looked to el Carnicerito, and said, “DLR is here.”

Court continued to moan in agony.

Seconds later the elevator started back down; it took thirty seconds for the car to arrive with a thud. The wooden door rose. Three men in black suits emerged, appearing dim in the light.

Court writhed in pain, forgotten by the others in the room. It was several seconds before he could recover from the residual twitching in his muscles enough to recognize Daniel de la Rocha at the center of the three new arrivals.