The Panic Zone

39

Somewhere in Morocco

Nearly two hours outside of Rabat a convoy sped along a dirt road, cutting across a vast stretch of forgotten territory.

The sun hit the chrome on the first two cars; both were government-owned Peugeot sedans out of Temara. The last vehicle was a late model Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen that had been dispatched out of Ain Aouda. Only a few of the men involved were members of the DST-Direction de la Securite du Territoire-the Moroccan secret police.

No one knew the identities of the others.

Dust clouds billowed from their trail, forming a rising curtain that concealed their destination and intention.

The man lying on the back floor of the G-Wagen, under a canvas tarp, stripped naked, shackled and blindfolded was Jack Gannon. His brain throbbed and his mouth tasted as if it had been stuffed with burlap and he recalled an overwhelming smell.

Chloroform?

The last thing he remembered was discovering Adam Corley’s corpse amid a bloodbath in his Rabat home.

Gannon forced himself to cling to the drone of the wheels, to breathe deeply and calmly. He concentrated on the murmur of French coming from his captors at the front of the vehicle. He tried to pick up any information, a tone, a word he might know.

A cell phone rang, and the man who answered spoke in a language Gannon didn’t recognize. The vehicle slowed to a halt, and he heard muted shouting through the closed windows. Dread gnawed at the edges of his mind and he tried not to imagine what awaited him.

Had he been able to see through his blindfold he would have discerned the high chain-link fence topped with razor wire securing the low building, which was half-submerged in the earth. It was a secret facility that did not exist. Not officially. In intelligence circles, it was known as a black prison.

For several years, the building had received suspected terrorists transported on ghost flights from countries that denied knowledge of activities conducted within its walls. It was undocumented work performed by contractors expert at obtaining information from any resistant subjects delivered to them. Some of the interrogators had extracted intelligence on the attacks in Casablanca, Madrid, London, Bali and on September 11. They had also thwarted a number of planned attacks that remained unknown to the world beyond its barbed-wire gates.

A sudden blast of 110-degree heat overwhelmed the SUV’s air-conditioned interior as the doors were opened.

Gannon was yanked out.

Stones pricked his bare feet and the ground burned his soles as he hobbled with his captors a short distance before they pushed him indoors. The air was cooler but he was nearly overcome by the stench of urine and excrement. The drone of flies was alarming and he feared he was among corpses. As Gannon was shoved along the building’s reeking corridors, he found his voice.

“I’m an American citizen. I want to call my embassy.”

A sharp pain exploded in his buttocks from the kick of a large steel-toed boot. Gannon’s knees buckled and he was dragged into another room.

Distant shouting and screams echoed. The floor was wet as he was positioned with his feet spread apart. Chains clinked and steel collars were clamped to his ankles.

His plastic handcuffs were replaced with steel ones that were fastened to chains. The cuffs gouged him as his wrists were hoisted over his head. He had to stand on his toes to touch the ground.

“What have I done?”

A fist drove so fast and deep into Gannon’s gut he felt his organs squeeze against his spine and reflexively vomited. The hot contents of his stomach flowed over his skin.

He wheezed through tears.

“The question for you,” said a voice in English, with an accent Gannon could not identify, “and it is a question you must ask yourself, is, Are you going to cooperate with pain, or without it?”

Gannon continued gasping.

“Because in the end, you will cooperate.”

For a moment, Gannon swore he heard a male American raise his voice in another room. The American sounded like he was talking urgently to someone over the phone.

“Yes! Gannon, run his name again! I need everything on him now!”

Gannon’s attention shifted back to the accented voice before him.

“No one knows you are here. No one can help you. We will bury you and poof-you will vanish.”

There was the snap of a lighter then the smell of a strong cigarette.

“By the time I finish my smoke, you will be broken.”

A table rattled with the tinkling sounds of small metal tools on a tray.

“You can save yourself.”

Gannon’s stomach quaked. His arms burned.

“Did you murder Adam Corley because he knew of the operation?”

“I want,” Gannon gasped. “I want to call my embassy.”

Gannon’s face was slapped.

“Did you murder Adam Corley because he knew of the operation?”

“No.”

“What do you know of the Avenging Lions of Africa?”

“Nothing.”

“What do you know of Said Salelee of Dar es Salaam?”

“Nothing.”

Gannon heard a slight shuffle then felt a point of pressure under his chin. It felt like the tip of a steel blade.

“What do you know of the operation?”

“Nothing.”

The blade’s point traveled slowly down his throat to the center of his collarbone, tracing a pressure line without breaking the skin.

“Why did you travel to Rabat?”

“You have my passport. I’m an American journalist.”

“You are lying.”

“Call the World Press Alliance in New York.”

“Why did you come to Rabat?”

The blade’s tip traveled down Gannon’s chest and over his lower stomach to the top of his groin.

“Why were you in Adam Corley’s home?”

“To meet him for a story.”

“A story on the operation?”

“Yes, he had information.”

“What kind of information?”

“I don’t know.”

The blade slowed as it traveled lower.

Gannon swallowed.

His blindfold was yanked off, light burned into his face and he sensed the silhouettes of several people outlined in the darkness. Standing before him was an unshaven, swarthy, muscular man about six feet four, sweating under a sleeveless T-shirt.

He wore combat pants.

His cigarette, half gone now, sat in the corner of his mouth. He dragged heavily on it, enveloping Gannon in foul smoke. Suddenly large hands reached from behind and gripped Gannon’s head. Fingers reached around to his eyes and held his lids open.

“Why were you in Adam Corley’s home?”

“He never showed up for our meeting.”

“You are lying. What do you know of the operation?”

The man moved his cigarette closer to Gannon’s right eye until the glowing tip was all Gannon could see. It burned like the sun as the man held it to within a hair of touching him.

Gannon felt its heat.

“No, please!”

“What do you know of the operation?”

“Corley was going to tell me more. Please!”

“More about what?”

“The connection between his research and a law firm in Rio de Janeiro. The firm may be tied to a global child-smuggling network and the bombing of a cafe that killed ten people.”

“Is it tied to the operation?”

“I don’t know.”

“You do know!”

“No.”

“Who killed Adam Corley?”

“I don’t know. He was dead when I arrived.”

“You’re lying!”

“No, I swear!”

“I’m finished my smoke.”

The man stepped back.

“Up!”

Chains clanked.

Racking pain shot through Gannon as he was pulled up by the wrist cuffs until he was suspended inches from the floor.

He struggled to breathe.

“Now you will become intimate with agony.”