He kissed his daughter on her forehead and left the house. The paternal soft smile he had given her was nothing more than a veneer over the ugly cracks of a man who had no trace of compassion or emotion. His clean-shaven head and disjointed nose merely hinted at the contents — a soul stripped bare of anything beyond an unswerving loyalty to duty, a duty that had made his reputation as a breaker of the most tenacious of wills belonging to those who tried to defy his interrogations. They called him “The Rat.” A term most westernised cultures associated with an informant, but in Arabic took a more literal form — a relentless gnawing to reach the bones of truth. He was (retired General) Amin Hamouda, now a senior officer of the Tunisian Intelligence Service, a secular regime that put down Islamic extremism with a relentless and brutal iron fist of extra-judicial process.
He placed a pair of pristine aviators on his crooked nose and walked down the front path surrounded by well-tended rose borders to a waiting black Mercedes E-Class. His driver, a skinny young man clad in a smart but ill fitting off the peg black suit and unbuttoned white shirt, nodded in deference as he opened the back door. Amin slid his portly frame into the back seat, the door closed and they drove away.
Amin’s place of work was a former French legionnaire fortress on the edge of the Sahara desert. Surrounded by a barren sand-sea of nothingness, brutal heat and desolation, it was a man-made purgatory now used predominately as a C.I.A black-site for their global rendition program. The Tunisian allies provided a useful (but unequal in the American’s favour) partnership in obtaining information from unwilling informants without the need for due process, human rights, or over-sight. It was a task Amin performed with great diligence.
As he exited the car he mopped the beads of sweat from his brow and walked briskly from the secure courtyard into the shade. The wooden posts the legionnaires had used as punishment still remained as a monument to the most brutal of tortures — simply attempting to survive on the tip of the desert sun’s anvil.
Whilst moderately cooler (thanks to the feet-thick sandstone walls) the basement interrogation rooms still remained stifling ovens that lacked even basic air circulation. The rudimentary sanitary system added a permanent noxiously unpleasant odour to the discomfort of occupation. A pungent aroma Amin had long since become accustomed to.
He walked in and pulled out an old wooden chair from beside the table then sat down.
She didn’t move.
Her eyes remained fixed in a middle-distant stare at some imaginary point on the far side of the room. Completely motionless. She betrayed nothing. He sat and stared at her. A measured stare. Sharp chiselled features, high cheekbones with half-cast skin pulled taut over, perfectly manicured eyebrows, dusty mocha hair in a ponytail. A svelte frame of toned sinewy muscles. Her vest singlet t-shirt drenched in sweat tight over her breasts, nipples erect pushing at the soft cotton. Amin’s breathing broke from his usual highly controlled subdued pace, a coarse of arousal flooded into his loins as he imagined ravishing her young slender body with force. Visceral moments of imagined sexual violence, as he smashed her head against the wall during his climax, breaking her perfect features into a bloodied mess before strangling her. Moment by moment he mentally de-humanised her, turning her from an attractive young woman into a mere conduit for his violent fetish to de-personalise her into nothing more than a rag-doll for his sadistic pleasure.
It was if she felt his eyes invading her. A woman’s intuition sensing the danger from the close proximity of a sexual predator. She flicked her eyes to look at him. An intentional stare that betrayed nothing, save an edged notion of disdainful contempt, an acknowledged recognition of what she could see beneath his veneer. The subtle visual dance between skilful agents of subterfuge engaged in a non-consensual foreplay of sensory perception.
His throat was dry. He declined to solve it with a gulp of the water presented in a glass before him, preferring its Marlboro-laced hoarseness to improve the delivery of his message in tone, as well as substance.
‘You know why you are here.’
Statement of fact. Not a question.
She said nothing. Still betrayed nothing. Just stared.
Time passed.
How much is irrelevant.
Simply the stall before the inevitable where ten minutes would be no different to ten hours after the event. It was a conceit he would grant her only insofar as it suited his purpose. ‘You know why you are here.’ He repeated it as if she might not have heard the first time, or perhaps his treacle-thick accented English required a repeat intonation.
She still said nothing. She still did nothing.
Repeat it once. Repeat it a thousand times. It was the same statement, the same fishing expedition. Not to determine if she knew why she was there, but if she cared enough to protest why she was there, or offer up some alternative narrative that would determine the way in which he would crack her icy English reserve and get to the truth his sponsors had demanded.
He had one objective. Information. He didn’t care by what means he obtained it, only that he obtained it, and it was the truth. ‘I require three things from you. The location of your associate, Mister Bishop, the dossier, and the video recording you made. I’m at liberty to use whatever means at my disposal to obtain them. It would be advisable for you to co-operate.’ Finally her emotionless stare was broken. An involuntary memory reflex that forced her visual focus aside as her brain flickered through her memory to recall and connect the events to her current circumstances. Less than a second later she closed her eyes, chastising herself for the lack of control over her instincts that imparted her interrogator with his first indicative of guilt, closely supported by the second from her self-admonishment. Slowly her eyes opened and her gaze returned back to his, awareness that he’d read both signals and deciphered them instantly. Her carefully constructed mask of deceit already cracking. He nodded. His first returned signal that it was understood. She tried to swallow. A burnt parched throat desperate for moisture, and yet hesitant to ask because she knew already what was coming. Sensing his captive’s discomfort, Amin laid down another card in his deck of power plays. He slowly and deliberately picked up his glass of water and sipped it gently, each swallow slow and echoed in the silent void of the interrogation room. He placed the glass back down and wiped a finger down the condensation clinging to the side of it then returned his stare to her.
No response.
Not so easily riled.
She would take more. Much more.
Amin pleased himself with a brief glint of a smile to savour the potential for practising his skills on such an attractive canvas. Her defiance simply served to further the eroticism for Amin. He looked at his protégé, who was stood in the corner leaning lazily against the wall, and made a slow and deliberate nod. Amin got up and removed his jacket slowly before placing it neatly on the back of the chair. He walked over to a wooden bench placed up against the wall, it was set out with a jug full of water, an empty bowl, and some clean towels. He carefully unbuttoned his cuffs and removed his expensive gold cufflinks, rolled his sleeves neatly up above his elbows, removed his wedding ring, filled the bowl with water then plunged his hands gently in before slowly bathing the water across his face and head to wash away the sweat. As he performed his ritual cleansing, his assistant walked over and placed a black cotton hood over her head and pulled the cord tight round her neck. She didn’t struggle or resist — a passive acceptance of what was to come. The protégé walked over and took a large jerry can then returned and waited behind her.
Amin patted his face softly with the towel. ‘Begin,’ Amin said quietly, barely above a whisper.
The protégé summoned the two guards. They walked over and picked her up by each elbow and forced her on her knees before tilting her backwards over the chair. The protégé tipped the jerry can over until a long stream of water cascaded down over her face, slowly at first until the cloth soaked through then increasing in volume as she began to choke, cough, and then gasp for air. It continued until the entire five-gallon can of water was empty. Amin walked over. ‘Again,’ he said. The protégé took a second can and repeated the water boarding. She struggled, but they kept tight hold of her, she desperately sucked at the soaking cloth for gasps of air that only served to inhale more water vapour, increasing the sense of drowning and panic. They continued repeatedly for more than an hour until finally Amin sat down again. He nodded at his accomplices. They dragged her back up onto the chair. The protégé loosened the hood and pulled it off. Black eyeliner streamed in messy lines, running down reddened cheeks, she spat the water and sputum from her mouth as she desperately strained for breath, her lungs burning with prickled pain from the irritation, her eyes bloodshot and unable to focus as her brain lapsed into delirium.
‘Where is Bishop? Where is the dossier? Where is the tape?’ The Rat gnawed again slowly, word by word. She coughed and spat out what was left of her dignity, her head dizzy, unable to support its own weight, desperate to escape into the comfort of unconsciousness. Sensing his victim’s departure into a comatose state, Amin got up and walked over, he grabbed her roughly, clenching meaty coarse-skinned hands around her slender neck. A sharp violent backhanded slap delivered with precision knocking her head from one side to the other. Re-awakening all her pain sensors. A second slap in the opposite direction followed by a third, her cheeks now burning red and numbed by the onslaught. Grabbed by the throat again. ‘Tell me what I want to know! You will tell me!’ The defiance remained. Smouldering from deep within and projected out through the mirrors of her eyes.
‘Fuck...you.’
Slow.
Deliberate.
Her first words as empowered as they were simple - a statement of intent that her will would not be broken. She prepared to disconnect her physical being from her mental and spiritual. An expired lease on her body that served no further purpose to her other than to be a weak link in her otherwise exceptional armour. She knew what he wanted. What he desired. What he would do, but she wouldn’t gratify him with anything other than an empty vessel of skin and flesh to derive his sadistic pleasures from. The essence of her being would remain locked far away with no route of access from her physical manifestation.
Something about her infuriated Amin. His usually calm and controlled demeanour suddenly enraged by the arrogance of such a sleight elfin creature — how could she possibly not understand the position she was in? What gave her the right to be so stoic? She was nothing — a woman, a useless emotional lesser gender that served no purpose other than breeding. For Amin the idea that he, The Rat, couldn’t break this fragile thing on a whim was an insult greater than his hubris could bear. The result was a punch so severe it knocked her clean unconscious as soon as it landed. Her head fell from his grasp onto her chest as a slow trickle of sticky red blood rolled down from her nose, across her lips and onto her chin. Amin retreated and sat back down on his chair, wiping his hands on a towel he stared at her with seething resentment. He fought against his urgent base instinct to violently rape her and slit her throat.
She began her retreat into subconscious, searching for some memory to cling to; visceral enough to transport her away to a place he couldn’t reach her. And it came: a perfect gentle winter’s day, she sat watching through the comfort of the window as snowflakes danced softly on the light breeze whilst a deep blue sky tinged to evening. A light crackling of apple logs on the open grate fire. A red-chested robin flitted from bush to bush, gathering berries, occasionally stopping to observe for predators, oblivious to her presence inside the cottage. She glanced across and there he was, stood wearing a rough old grey Arran sweater, three days stubble and a raffish mop of hair. He walked over and handed her a mug of hot chocolate. She wrapped her hands around the mug, comforted by its warmth as she returned her gaze out of the window. He didn’t say anything. He never needed to. It was simply enough to enjoy each other’s presence. She felt his comforting hand on her shoulder. He sat alongside her on the window seat and she felt his rough stubble press against her cheek as she let slip a soft contented smile. ‘In times of darkness remember this place,’ she imagined he had said, when perhaps he had said nothing at all. ‘You’ll be safe here always...’ Her smile melted away as she saw him: her tormentor, stood in the perfect snow-covered garden staring back at her. She felt him move from her side. She watched as he went outside and stood confronting the unwanted visitor to their perfect idyll. He took out a pistol. A shot with no sound and her tormentor was gone, vanished, leaving nothing behind. He turned to her and smiled softly, reassuring her as he put the gun away. ‘Alex...’ she muttered.
‘What?’ Amin asked, listening intently.
‘Alex...’ she repeated.
‘Who?’ Amin asked again with a frown. She gradually lifted her head slowly, deliberately, her eyes now burning with inflamed anger and fury, a built up seething furnace fuming out from her.
‘Alex Green is going to kill you!’ She spat out a mouthful of blood and spit at Amin. He didn’t react as it slid down his face, a palpable sense of shock uncontrolled and unguarded escaping from his pores as The Rat stopped gnawing, sat on its back legs and sniffed the air, sensing the sudden threat to its existence as another, greater, apex predator stalked it silently from the shadows.
‘The Dragon...’ he said, barely able to say the words.
‘You have no idea what you’ve done...’ she replied with a demonic knowing smile and a shake of her head. ‘You have no idea...’ she repeated as her head fell down into unconsciousness.
Amin swallowed nervously, he got up quickly and headed outside resisting the urgent temptation to vomit. He panic stumbled through the hallways and stared around the courtyard. Her words echoing in his ears. ‘Alex Green...’
He took out his handkerchief and mopped his brow. He looked at each of his men in turn. Wondering which one...which one would be the one to betray him. Which one did The Dragon own. He staggered back inside to his office on the first floor, took out a small notepad and thumbed through it, punching the numbers in with a shaking hand.
‘Yes?’ the voice came.
‘What have you done to me? Who is she?’ Amin barked part nervously, part in anger.
‘What is the problem?’
‘Alex Green. How does she know him?’
‘Did you say Alex Green?’
‘Yes. What is her connection to The Dragon?’
‘That’s not important. Did you get the information we asked for?’
‘No. I want no part of this! You come and take her! You take her or I’m letting her go!’
‘Calm down. We’ll take care of it. Don’t let her go. I’ll call you back.’
The phone line went dead.
Amin slammed the receiver down. He took out a bottle of scotch from his lower desk draw and filled a tumbler with it then necked it down, choking on it. The protégé knocked on the old wooden door and entered. He stared at Amin in disbelief. The Rat’s eyes were now full of fear and suspicion. The protégé frowned. ‘What is it?’ The protégé didn’t understand. To Amin the mere mention of the name was as if she’d summoned the devil himself.
‘Take her back to her cell. You tell the men. Nobody is to touch her. Nobody!’ The protégé nodded. ‘Get out of here! Go on! Get out!’ Amin yelled throwing the glass at the protégé as he scurried out through the doorway.
Back in her cell, she tried to find some comfort on the barren wooden bench that served as a bed, her thoughts returned back to the cottage. A faint solo piano melody chimed in echoes through her head. She hummed its melodic tune softly and closed her eyes.