Day Of Confession

21

Still Wednesday, July 8. Same time.

Thomas Kind stood in the darkness, watching the man in the chair. Two others were in the room with him, dressed in coveralls, standing somewhere behind him. They were there to help if he needed it, which he would not. And to do the work afterward, which should be simple enough.

Thomas Kind was thirty-nine, five foot ten and very slim, a hundred and forty pounds at most, and in superb condition. His hair was cut short and jet-black, as were his slacks, shoes, and sweater, which made him difficult – if not impossible – to see in the darkness. Besides the paleness of his skin, the only color about him was the deep blue of his eyes.

The man in the chair stirred, but that was all. His hands and feet were bound and his mouth closed, pinched tight by thick tape.

Thomas Kind stepped closer, watched for a moment, then walked completely around the chair.

'Relax, comrade,' he said quietly. Patience and calmness were everything. It was how he lived each day. Even tempered, waiting for the satisfactory moment. It was the sort of thing Thomas Jose Alvarez-Rios Kind, native Ecuadorean born of an English mother, might put on his resume. Patient. Painstaking. Well educated. Multilingual. Add to that, one-time actor – and also one of the world's most-hunted terrorists.

'Relax, comrade.' Harry heard the phrase again. A male voice, the same as before. Calm, even. In accented English. And Harry thought he felt someone moving past him, but he couldn't be sure. The throbbing of his head overrode everything. All he knew was that he was sitting up and that his hands and feet were bound and there was tape across his mouth. And then there was the darkness. Yet there was nothing on his head, no blindfold, no cap. Nothing at all. But no matter how he twisted or turned, the blackness was all-pervasive. No shadows, no light spill from behind a door seam. Only dark.

He blinked. Then blinked again, twisting his head from side to side. Determined to be wrong. But he wasn't wrong. And it suddenly came to him that whatever had happened, wherever he was, whatever day this was, he was blind!

'No! No! No!' he screamed, his voice garbled by the tape covering his mouth.

Thomas Kind stepped closer.

'Comrade,' he said with the same unhurried quietness. 'How is your brother? I understand he is alive and well.'

Immediately the tape was torn from Harry's mouth. And he cried out as much in surprise as from the sting of it.

'Where is he?' The voice was closer than it had been.

'I don't… know… if… he's alive…' Harry's mouth and throat felt like sandpaper. He tried to make enough moisture to swallow but couldn't.

'I asked about your brother… where he is…'

'Could – I – please – have some – wa – ter?'

Kind lifted a small remote control. His thumb found a button and touched it.

Instantly, Harry saw a pinpoint of light shining in the distance and he started. Did he really see it, or was it an illusion?

'Where is your brother, comrade?' This time the voice came from behind his left ear.

The light began to move slowly toward him.

'I…' – Harry tried again to swallow – 'don't… know…'

'Do you see the light?'

'Yes.'

The pinpoint came closer.

'Good.'

Kind's thumb slid to another button.

Harry saw the light alter its track and shift ever so slightly. Moving toward his left eye.

'I want you to tell me where your brother is.' The voice had changed sides and whispered in his right ear. 'It's very important that we find him.'

'I don't know.'

The light was now moving toward his left eye alone and growing steadily brighter. The throbbing inside his head had been forgotten with the terror of his blindness. But with the light it began again. A slow, steady drumming that grew stronger with the approaching luminescence.

Harry jerked sideways, trying to turn his head, but something hard prevented it. He twisted the opposite way. Same thing. Then he pressed back. But nothing he did could turn him from the light.

'So far you have not felt pain. But you will.'

'Please-' Harry turned his head as far as he could, squeezing his eyes closed.

'That won't help.' The timbre of the voice was suddenly different. The first voice had been a man's, this time it sounded like a woman's.

'I – have – no – idea if – my broth – er is – even – alive. How could I – know – where he – is?'

The light's pinpoint narrowed, its beam rising up, moving over Harry's left eye, searching, until it found the center.

'Don't, please…'

'Where is your brother?'

'Dead!'

'No, comrade. He's alive, and you know where he is…'

The light was only inches away now. Becoming brighter. And brighter. Its pinpoint sharpened even more. The pounding inside his head grew. The light came closer, a needle pushing from the outside in, toward the back of his brain.

'STOP!' Harry screamed. 'MY GOD! STOP! PLEASE!'

'Where is he?' Male.

'Where is he?' Female.

Thomas Kind shifted from one voice to the other, playing both man and woman.

'Tell us and the light will stop.' Male.

'The light will stop.' Female.

The voices calm, even quiet.

The pounding became thunderous. Louder than anything Harry had ever heard. An enormous booming drum inside his head. And the light crept on toward the center of his brain, a white-hot needle searing toward the sound. Trying to mate with it. Brighter than anything he'd ever seen, or could ever imagine. Brighter than a welding arc. The core of the sun. Pain became everything; it was so terrible he was certain even death would not end it. He would take its horror with him into eternity.

'I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW! GOD! GOD! STOP IT! STOP IT! PLEASE! – PLEASE… PLEASE…'

CLICK.

The light went out.