The Martyr’s Curse

Chapter Fifty-Seven

For anyone driving an enormous military-style four-wheel-drive laden with automatic weapons, a stack of ammunition and a hijacked prisoner, it made sense to steer largely clear of the prying eyes of civilisation and its polite citizens. Something that should have been easy in the central Swiss canton of Uri. It stretched for over a thousand mountainous square kilometres, of which almost a fifth was covered in thick pine forest and less than two per cent was inhabited. They passed through verdant valleys and skirted glittering blue lakes over which lazy paddle steamers scudded in the distance. The road rose and fell dramatically; now offering spectacular lofty views of the jagged mountain peaks, now dropping steeply to be swallowed by green tunnels of foliage. The sunny afternoon was wearing on. Three o’clock came and went and Ben was getting impatient. He considered stopping half a dozen times, but could see nowhere ideal. What he had in mind couldn’t be done at the side of the road.

‘Hell,’ he muttered as they unexpectedly hit a town. It was a small, rural place comprised mostly of neat, decorative little gingerbread houses, with a church whose ornate spire poked up through the trees, and a flagpole in the square proudly flying the bull’s head on a yellow background, the symbol of the canton. Next to the pole was a neat wooden sign with arrows pointing in three different directions towards narrow roads that led off the square. One said Rathaus, town hall; one said Bahnhof, railway station; another said Ärztezentrum, health centre. Ben pressed on.

It was Silvie who spotted the abandoned cottage in deep countryside a few kilometres further on, half hidden among the leafy undergrowth to their right, several hundred metres from the twisting road.

‘Back up,’ she said, pointing. Ben hit the brakes and reversed until he could see it, too. He nodded and twisted the wheel and bumped the Hummer off the road and on to the rutted earth track that led to the old house. As they approached they could see the decaying wooden shutters hanging off the windows, the sagging roofline and the weeds growing up around the front door. The corroded shell of a dead Simca was the only motor vehicle in sight. Nobody had lived here for a long time.

At the end of the track, Ben killed the engine and kicked open his door, walked round to the back of the Hummer and opened it up to reach inside and grab the prone Donath by the tape that bound him. The German was awake and struggling, muttering incomprehensibly behind the gag over his mouth. His eyes were bulging and his face was livid, a road map of veins swollen up all over his temples and forehead as he strained pointlessly to free himself. Ben used the SOG knife to slash through the tape binding his legs and dragged him out. Donath was unsteady on his feet as Ben steered him roughly in the direction of the derelict cottage.

‘What are we going to do with him?’ Silvie said again, biting her lip and looking at Ben with uncertain eyes.

‘William Tell was supposed to have lived in these parts,’ Ben said. ‘If we had a crossbow, we could honour the legend by standing matey boy up against a tree and taking turns shooting apples off his head. That might loosen him up a bit.’

Silvie didn’t look amused. ‘We don’t have a crossbow, Ben.’

‘Shame.’

He kicked the cottage’s front door. It burst in, flakes of old paint and slivers of rotting wood falling to the floor. The hallway smelled of damp and mice. Plaster was peeling off the walls and the bare wooden boards felt soft and loose underfoot. A doorway at the end of the hall, rodent-gnawed and ragged along its bottom edge, opened up into a gloomy room that had been stripped of its furniture, apart from a pair of ancient wooden chairs. Broken light peeped in through the cracks in the closed shutters.

Ben shoved Donath towards one of the chairs and pressed his shoulders down hard to force him to sit, with his cuffed hands looped behind the backrest. He tossed Silvie the tape, and held the Browning at Donath’s head while she fastened the man’s ankles to the chair legs and wrapped two lengths around his torso.

Ben pulled the other chair up and sat opposite Donath, two metres away with the gun in his right hand aimed squarely at the man’s chest. He reached out with his left hand and ripped the four-inch length of tape from Donath’s mouth. ‘Now let’s get started,’ he said.

Donath gave him the shark eyes. ‘You’re a condemned man.’

‘We’ve already covered that part,’ Ben said. ‘What comes next is, you tell us exactly where your friend Udo Streicher’s gone to ground, and we don’t leave you here for the maggots. How does that sound?’

‘You want to find Streicher,’ Donath said.

‘You’re a really fast learner,’ Ben said. ‘No wonder your pal thought you were good Parati material.’

Donath smiled. ‘You’ve gone to all this trouble, it means you have no idea at all where he is, do you?’

‘We’ll find him, one way or another,’ Silvie said.

Donath’s gaze swivelled sideways to peer at her. He smiled more broadly, with the same smug expression he’d shown during the prison interview. Go, Udo. ‘No chance. He’s smarter than all of you fuckers put together.’

Ben raised the Browning a few degrees higher, so that it pointed at Donath’s forehead. ‘Talk,’ he said. ‘Now.’

The German appeared unmoved. The smile stayed on his lips, as if nothing could give him more pleasure than sitting here taunting these two idiots, knowing they were in a jam and that he held all the cards. ‘Go ahead and shoot me, Arschloch. Not going to change a thing. Udo’s got a little surprise for everyone.’

‘We know about his plans,’ Silvie said. ‘I can assure you, they won’t happen.’

‘Is that a fact? How’re you going to stop him? Or don’t you think he means business? Then you don’t know him.’

‘I asked you to help us. You want millions of people to die, is that it?’ Silvie said.

Donath just shrugged. ‘What the fuck do I care what happens to them?’

Nobody spoke. Silence in the gloomy cottage. The overpowering stink of rot crowded in on them. Ben looked at the pistol in his hand, and gave it a waggle. ‘This doesn’t really scare you, does it, Miki?’ he said.

‘I’ve had guns pointed at me before,’ Donath growled. ‘Plenty of times. By men a lot harder than you, and I’m still here.’

‘That’s the problem with these things,’ Ben said, lowering the pistol. He rested it on his knee. Clicked on the safety. ‘They’re all or nothing. There’s no middle ground with them. Even if I shoot you in the legs, you’ll be in shock and bleed out too quickly to be of any use to me.’

‘Bluffer,’ Donath said. ‘I knew it.’

‘I don’t need a gun to make you talk to me,’ Ben said. ‘And you will talk. Even if I have to hurt you. Do you understand that?’

Donath’s satisfied little smile broadened out into a grin. ‘You think you can hurt me, prick?’

‘I get it,’ Ben said. ‘You’re a proper tough guy. The real deal. You’re not scared of a little roughing up, because you’ve been through all that and you were taught how to handle it, back in the day. RTI, we used to call it. Resistance to interrogation training.’

Donath’s grin slackened off into a sour grimace. He spat. The shark eyes watched Ben.

‘I’ve been through it myself,’ Ben said. ‘Not much fun, but you get over it. It teaches you a lot of useful lessons, too. About yourself. About human frailty. Because no matter how tough we are, we’re all human and there’s a limit to what each and every one of us can take. Even you, Miki. Don’t kid yourself about that. Or about who I am. Not for one second. It would be a serious error of judgement.’

‘Why, who the fuck are you?’ Donath growled.

‘I’m the guy who knows where the limits are,’ Ben said. ‘Trust me, I’ll drive right through them and break you into a hundred pieces without thinking twice. I’ll feel absolutely no remorse afterwards. Just like you, after what you and your friends did to the little girl.’

Donath said nothing.

Silvie stepped around the chair to face him. She rested a hand lightly on Ben’s shoulder and bent down so that her face was at the same level as the German’s. ‘Miki, listen to us, please. You don’t have to stand up for Streicher. He’s not your friend. He could have used this opportunity to get you out of jail, but he didn’t. If he releases this plague, you’re just another victim as far as he’s concerned.’

Donath’s face worked for a few moments as he turned that thought over. He shook his head. ‘Go play your mind games somewhere else, bitch. Think I’m a retard or something?’

‘Last chance,’ Ben said. ‘Where is he?’

Donath shook his head again and clamped his mouth shut, turned his head away and stared resolutely into the murky corner of the room. Silvie stood up, biting her lip, and looked at Ben, as if to say, I can’t talk to this guy.

The clock was ticking. Every moment that passed, Udo Streicher could be getting ready to drop his bomb on hundreds, thousands, millions of innocent people.

‘Nobody just disappears,’ Ben said. ‘Not while they’re still alive. But you will. Take it from me. So answer me. Where’s Streicher hiding out?’

Donath turned his gaze back on Ben. The shark eyes seemed to twinkle for a moment. ‘Somewhere you’ll never get to him, that’s for sure. He’ll know you’re coming. One whiff of your stink from a mile away and he’ll lock down and stay buried for as long as it takes. He can stay down there a year if he has to.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll be there waiting for him when he sticks his head out of whatever foxhole he’s cowering in. And you’re going to tell me where to be standing.’

‘You’re so fucking stupid. Nobody’s going to stop him. He’s been waiting for this all his life.’

‘I know what impatience feels like,’ Ben said. ‘I’ve been waiting since this morning to start breaking bones, and now I don’t think I can stand the suspense any longer. I won’t ask you again. Where is he?’

Donath tossed his head and snapped out a defiant, ‘Fuck you.’

‘I give up,’ Ben said. ‘This isn’t working. I see I’m going to have to let you go.’

The prisoner’s eyes gave another victorious little twinkle. Ben stood up. Slipped the Browning back into his belt and took the handcuff keys from his pocket. Silvie gave him an incredulous look as he walked around the back of Donath’s chair and unlocked the cuffs. The linked aluminium bracelets hit the bare floorboards with a thump.

The German’s arms fell loose down the sides of the chair. He sighed with relief and rolled his shoulders to loosen the stiff muscles.

Ben turned to Silvie. ‘Maybe you’d like to get some air. It stinks in here.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, catching his look and returning it with a questioning raised eyebrow.

‘Up to you,’ Ben said. And then he grabbed Donath’s left hand and twisted it sideways and down, and felt the joint fail under the sudden violent pressure. There was a crackle of cartilage and a muted snap, like the crunch of a stick of celery breaking. Donath cried out sharply in pain.

Ben could feel Silvie’s horrified look, but he didn’t look back at her. ‘There are three hundred and sixty joints in the human body, Miki. We don’t have all day, so I’ll just stick to the major ones to save time. Wrists, ankles, elbows and knees for starters. Then we’re on to hips and shoulders. Then spinal vertebrae. I’ll even let you choose. So, next wrong answer, what’s it to be?’

Veins stood out like tug ropes on Donath’s neck and forehead. His eyes were bulging with agony as he nursed his broken wrist.

‘You prefer surprises,’ Ben said. ‘That’s fine by me.’ Before Donath could twist away, he stepped around the right side of the chair and took hold of the man’s right wrist. Cupped his other hand tightly around the bicep and pulled back, hard, and simultaneously drove forwards with his knee with a slamming impact that punched right through the joint and caved it in the wrong way.

Donath’s piercing scream didn’t quite drown out the sickening crack of bone. Ben felt the arm go floppy in his hands. There was nothing except a strand or two of muscle and some torn sinews connecting the humerus above the joint to the ulna and radius below it. Nothing except a lot of catastrophic damage that was going to require intricate surgery and months of healing to repair. Maybe an artificial elbow joint to replace the shattered original. Ben let go, and the useless arm flopped into Donath’s lap. Donath was beating his head from side to side, snorting and groaning and gnashing his teeth. Mucus and drool were running down his chin.

‘Ben—’ Silvie started.

‘You can make this stop whenever you want,’ Ben said, ignoring her.

‘Go — and — fuck — yourself,’ Donath managed to say in between gasps.

It was hard not to admire his courage. Donath was tough, all right. Ben looked at him for a moment, then kicked over the chair and Donath went toppling sideways. Ben stepped over him. He took out the SOG tactical blade and slashed the tape binding Donath’s right ankle to the chair leg. He flicked the knife down at the floor, where it stuck point-first in the boards, quivering. Caught the man’s freed leg as it began to kick and thrash, and held the foot by the toe and ankle, ready to start twisting.

‘Ben, please,’ Silvie said. ‘Not like this.’

‘Do you hear that, Miki? Agent Valois would like me to treat you with more human empathy. Just like your friends treated mine.’ Ben twisted the ankle, hard enough to threaten the joint and put serious secondary strain on the knee. Donath squirmed and tried to snatch his leg away, but Ben’s grip on it was tight. He twisted a little harder, just to the point of breaking, but no more. ‘But there’s a difference between me and your friends,’ he said. ‘I don’t enjoy this one bit. Them? Pain and suffering is what they’re all about. They’re even worse pieces of shit than a child rapist like you. They’re not worth putting yourself through this. So I’m asking. I’m begging. Answer the question, while there’s still a chance that a surgeon can put you back together again.’

Ben’s heart thudded as he waited for Donath to defy them once more. If that happened, things were going to start getting properly ugly. Once you crossed the line, you couldn’t go back. You just had to live with it for the rest of your life. Ben had enough to live with already.

Two long seconds passed. Then three more, then five more.

It didn’t happen.

Every man has his limit.

And, to Ben’s immense secret relief, Donath’s had finally been reached. Sweat beading in huge droplets from every pore of his face and his chest heaving with tortured breath, the German told them everything.