The Black Bullet

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

A glass of cold water splashed across Mike Gates’ face. His head pounded. Gates was groggy, his vision blurred as if he’d opened his eyes wearing a dive mask underwater, a surreal perspective around him. He was strapped in a metal folding chair, stripped to his underwear, his feet in metal buckets filled with water. Wires ran from his ankles and wrists. He shook his head. This wasn’t happening.

Standing in front of him was Boris Borshnik. Seven heavily armed men stood at the windows and doors. Two men sat at folding tables, three laptop computers on the tables, the canisters of HEU lined on the wooden floor, a small video camera trained on them. Twenty feet to Gates’ left, Jason Canfield was tied to a chair. The kid had dried blood around his mouth, one eye swollen shut.

Gates looked up at Borshnik and said, “We had a deal! We had an agreement!”

“So did my father with your FBI in 1951!” Borshnik roared.

“That had nothing to do with me.”

“Yes it did! Because the man who lied to my father trained you, and you lied to me about Robert Miller. You told me he died of cancer. Now I know otherwise. You denied me that retribution years ago.”

“I’m more valuable to you alive than dead.”

“You have no value. You made a mistake, said something that should only be said if the other side knows it. You understand the game, but in your haste, you told me you had been exposed. The only value you have to your government now is in making you an example. I shall save them the cost, most generous of me. Don’t you agree? Probably not, because for you, it has always been about the money.”

Borshnik pulled a roll of one hundred bills out of his pocket, shoved them between Gate’s teeth and tied the bills in his mouth using a small piece of rope like a bit and bridle for a horse. He nodded and one of his men plugged the wires into a 210 volt power outlet. The force of the electricity threw Gates back in the chair, his head slamming against the brick wall.

Gates screamed, his voice like frightened growls from a muzzled dog. His body convulsing and shaking as the electricity burned into his nervous system. Smoke coming from his wrists. His neck corded in veins and muscles. His heart pumped in erratic beats, his bladder collapsing and urine soaking his underwear.

Jason Canfield looked the other way, tears seeping from his swollen eyes.