Requiem for an Assassin

5

HILGER SLID a wooden chair over and sat facing Dox. He observed the big man for a moment, as silently and dispassionately as a scientist studying a microbe. He wanted Dox to understand that he viewed him not as a man, but merely as a subject, the focus of a series of impending if/then sequences that meant nothing to Hilger other than his desire for a certain result.

“I’m going to make this as easy for you as I can,” Hilger said, his voice low, his tone reasonable. “There’s no need for you to suffer, or even to be uncomfortable. The information I want isn’t going to compromise anyone. It’s not going to put anyone in danger. It’s just going to enable me to contact someone. That’s all.”

Dox smiled. “The ladies in my little black book wouldn’t be interested in you, amigo, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. They seem to prefer their men handsome and virile.”

Hilger sighed. He’d seen men in Dox’s position before, many of them. What they all had in common was fear. What differed, what was interesting, was the way they tried to cope with it.

Some men, faced with torture, would bluster. Some men begged. Both types were really two sides of the same coin: their focus was the interrogator, and because of this they tended to crack easily. As soon as they saw that their bluster and begging were useless, that they couldn’t make a human connection that would stop the pain and torment, their psyches folded and information began to spill out.

There was another type that would go silent even before the interrogation began, who wouldn’t utter a word even later, even while screaming. These men were more self-contained, and therefore more difficult to crack. They didn’t expect anything from their interrogator. They conceived of him not so much as a human agent, but as more of a natural force, like foul weather or a disease. Not as something that could be reasoned with or negotiated with or otherwise influenced, but rather as something that could only be ridden out.

There was a third type, also very tough, and, in Hilger’s experience, the rarest variety. These were the men who under duress defaulted to some core personality setting from which they derived strength and comfort. Dox, it seemed, was part of this last group. They didn’t disengage from the interrogator the way the stoics did, but their behavior wasn’t calculated to affect the interrogator like that of the beggars and blusterers, either. Its function instead was self-referential. What Dox was doing, although Hilger wasn’t sure if he was even conscious of it, was proving that if he could still crack jokes, he was still himself. If he was still himself, he was still in control, and things couldn’t be that bad.

Which was what made breaking men like Dox so hard. It wasn’t just a question of pain. Pain was a surface thing. To break a man like Dox, you had to break him down deep. Even with a jihadist, it was an unpleasant thing to have to do. With an American, a former serviceman like Dox, it could be grim.

“I know from your file you’ve been through SERE,” Hilger said. “Did they waterboard you?”

SERE was the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape program. The purpose of the question was twofold: first, to bring forth memories that would trigger anxiety; second, to suggest that Hilger knew a great deal about Dox, that he was in complete control.

“You tell me,” Dox said, and Hilger thought, Touché.

“They did,” Hilger continued. “You held out for almost five minutes. Your instructors were impressed.”

Dox smiled. “They gave me a gold star.”

“It’s different when it’s not in the classroom. Worse.”

Dox glanced up at his bound feet. “You know, just because the latest chickenshit legislation says it’s okay to do this sort of thing doesn’t mean you should be doing it. Shame on y’all.”

Pancho laughed. “Why not? The legislation even promises to indemnify us, if we get in trouble.”

Dox looked at him. “Especially shame on you, son. You’re a disgrace to the Marines.”

Pancho startled for a moment, then glanced at the Semper Fi tattoo on his forearm, realizing where Dox had gotten his information.

Hilger could almost have smiled. Dox was playing the same “I know more than I’m letting on” game Hilger was.

“And where’s that accent from?” Dox said. “You from Mexico?”

Pancho’s eyes narrowed. “You have a problem with that?”

Dox turned his head and spat. “Well, it explains a few things.”

Pancho started to move forward. Demeere stepped in front of him and said, “Easy, easy.”

“Go ahead,” Dox said. “You might be able to take me, tied up as I am.” Then he added something in Spanish that made the blood drain from Pancho’s face and scalp. Pancho tried to move around Demeere, but the big man kept him back.

Hilger was impressed. Dox was using what he could to control what he could, and steadying himself in the process. Before he could manipulate the environment any further, Hilger said, “You’re right, it’s strange there was such a fuss over these…what did the president call them? ‘Alternative interrogation techniques,’ that’s right. Because mostly they’re ineffective, it’s true. You haul in a fishing trawl’s worth of field-level jihadists? You don’t know who they are, much less what they know? Hook up the alligator clips and crank the generator and they spew so much bullshit that even if there’s some real intel mixed in with it, you’ll never know, much less be able to make use of it.”

He paused as though in thought. “But when you know who you’ve captured? And you know he’s got the information you’re after? And you can immediately verify the quality of that information as soon as you extract it? Well, when you’ve got all that, alligator clips and a generator are pretty much a man’s best friend.”

“Listen to what you just said,” Dox said. “Really, listen. Alligator clips and a generator are a man’s best friend? You’ve been out in the field too long, amigo. All of you have. You’ve got to get yourself some help. You need it.”

Hilger was getting irritated despite himself. “What I need,” he said, “is information. Tell me how I contact Rain.”

Dox chuckled. “Yeah, I thought you might be pissed about Hong Kong. How’s the back, by the way? That was a heavy chair.”

Hilger cautioned himself not to take the bait. He had to be smarter than that. If he reacted like Pancho, they’d all just wind up beating the shit out of the subject and get nothing of any value.

“The back is fine,” Hilger said. “Thanks for asking.”

“What do you want with Rain? You mad at him for killing that guy Al-Jib? Boy wanted to make an atomic bomb for Al-Qaeda. And you were going to give him the matériel. I’ll tell you the truth, it’s hard for me not to be sick just talking to you from this close.”

“What you don’t know about Al-Jib,” Hilger said, “would fill a book. And when AQ does get a bomb or a radiological device, you and your friend can thank yourselves for it. You fucked up an operation that would have stopped it.”

“That what you tell yourself when the Ambien’s not working and you’re lying awake at night?”

It was strange. Initially, seeing Dox helpless had eclipsed Hilger’s anger at the man’s previous interference, at the long recovery Hilger had endured after getting hit with that chair. But now that brief and improbable moment of sympathy was receding so quickly, it almost seemed not to have happened at all.

Hilger was beginning to accept that this wasn’t going to be an easy one. True, the information he wanted from Dox would entail only a minor betrayal, but the man’s honor and self-image required him to part with nothing without a fight. And, although his repeated requests now were likely to prove as futile as Dox’s resistance later, Hilger had his own reasons for trying one more time. It would make the memories of what happened next easier to deal with.

“I’d prefer a phone number,” he said, his tone still reasonable. “Or an e-mail address. Or the URL for a secure electronic bulletin board. Why don’t you give me one of those instead?”

“I don’t know how to contact him,” Dox said. “He contacts me.”

“How?”

“He calls me. Always from a different number. But I haven’t heard from him in months.”

“Not true, Dox. You saw him three months ago. In Barcelona.”

Dox blinked, then instantly recovered. “I was in Barcelona to take in the Gaudí architecture and meet some nice Spanish ladies. You’re fishing and you know it.”

Hilger had been fishing-he knew from customs records Dox had spent four days in Barcelona, and had no idea whether he’d seen Rain there. But the gambit had paid off with that single, involuntary blink.

A long moment went by. Hilger said, “Last chance. Do you have something you want to say?”

Dox glanced at his feet again, then turned his head to Hilger and smiled. “It looks bleak for our hero, I’ll say that.”

Pancho smiled and picked up a bath towel. He started to move in.

“No,” Hilger said. “You’re running too hot, and you know it.” He nodded to Demeere. “Do it.”

Demeere took the towel from Pancho. Pancho looked at Dox and said, “You’re lucky, pendejo. This time.”

Dox smiled and said something in Spanish again. Pancho’s nostrils twitched and he strained forward like a Doberman on a leash.

“Outside,” Hilger said.

Pancho shook his head. “No, I’m okay. If you’re not going to let me do it, at least let me watch. I want to hear him blubbering with his voice as high as a little girl’s.”

“Out,” Hilger said again.

Pancho shot one more glance at Dox, then nodded and started to head for the door. Dox said, “I’m going to miss you, Uncle Fester. Y’all come back and visit, you hear?”

Then Demeere was lifting Dox’s head, wrapping the towel around it with clinical ease. Dox tried to twist away, but the reflex was useless. Guthrie stood astride him on the table and turned on the hose. He looked at Hilger. Hilger nodded.

Guthrie aimed the hose onto Dox’s chest. The cold water hit the towel and immediately soaked through it. Dox twisted his head left and right, but Guthrie kept the water flowing onto the towel. A minute passed, during which Hilger knew Dox was holding his breath. Then suddenly the big man was choking and coughing, his body bucking against the table and the restraints around his wrists and ankles. Guthrie kept the water flowing for a few more seconds, then diverted it to the side.

The advantage of the towel was that it modulated the amount of water the subject could actually swallow, while still causing suffocation and thus the sensation of drowning. The sensation was what you wanted because that was enough to produce the panic response. Actual drowning was counterproductive because when you’re unconscious, you’re no longer panicking, and being revived from drowning can sometimes produce euphoria-not exactly the goal of a hostile interrogation. Actual drowning was also risky: if the subject died, you sure as hell couldn’t interrogate him. Besides, performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to save Abdul the terrorist suspect you were torturing a minute earlier wasn’t considered good form in the community.

“Anything you want to tell me?” Hilger said, no more loudly than was necessary to get Dox’s attention. “Or do you want to do it again?”

The coughing subsided, but Dox didn’t answer. Hilger nodded to Guthrie, who turned the hose onto Dox’s face again.

They repeated the process twice more, then again. On the fifth time, when Guthrie diverted the hose, they saw vomit flowing from under the towel. Hilger judged this the right moment. If they went on much longer, panic would be replaced by exhaustion, and Hilger would have to change to more brutal tactics, which he preferred not to do-more, he recognized, for his own sake than for Dox’s.

Hilger nodded to Demeere, who stepped in and peeled the towel away. Guthrie hosed the mess off Dox’s face. Dox jerked back and forth, blindly trying to avoid the spray. Guthrie turned aside the hose. Dox wheezed and gagged, then threw up again with a choking, strangled scream.

“Nothing funny to say?” Hilger asked, and was immediately ashamed of himself.

But Dox was past humor now. His chest heaved in the cadences of barely controlled panic. His teeth were chattering and his hands shook in their manacles. His breath whistled in and out in whimpers, and Hilger realized the man was crying.

Hilger pushed aside his shame and disgust. He leaned forward and said, “I don’t want to know where he is, just how to contact him.”

Dox shook his head.

Hilger said, “You’ve already held out longer than Khaled Sheikh fucking Mohammed, you know that? And he held out as long as anyone I’ve ever seen. But no one can hold out against this forever. No one. Why don’t you tell me what I need to know. Otherwise we’re going to do it again. And again.”

Hilger waited a long moment, then nodded to Demeere. The Belgian stepped forward with the towel. He lifted Dox’s head, but Dox shook free.

“All right!” Dox shouted, his voice hoarse. “All right.” He let out a stream of foul words that Hilger had never heard strung together quite so inventively, not even during his time with the linguistically creative men of Third Special Forces in the first Gulf War.

They waited. When the invective had subsided, Dox said, “It’s a secure bulletin board.” He told them the URL, and Demeere wrote it down.

“How often does he check it?” Hilger asked.

“I don’t know. We’re not in touch that often. I’d guess once a day, if that.”

“Good. That means we’ve got twenty-four hours.”

“For what?”

“For Rain to get back to us. If I haven’t heard from him by then, I’ll assume what you’ve given me is inaccurate. In which case, I’ll have to ask you again. And probably not as nicely as I did just now.”

Dox turned his head and spat. “Yeah? What are you going to do, behead me and sell the videotape to Al Jazeera?”

Hilger looked at him. “I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

“Really? Why don’t you tell me the difference? Because I can’t see it.”

Hilger waited a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was cold.

“The ends,” he said. He was still looking at Dox, but it was Rain he was thinking of. “It’s all about the ends.”