Hugh Conners picked up the pint of Guinness Stout and held it in front of Ferguson.
“Look at it, Ferg. Aye that’s a beer,” said Conners, his Irish accent far thicker in death and dream than it had been in real life. “You’ll be wantin’ to drink up now, lad, if you know what’s good for ya.”
“Hey, Dad,” said Ferguson, using the dead sergeant’s nickname. “How’s heaven?”
“Ah, it’s a grand place, Fergie, simply grand. A parade every afternoon, and the taps never run dry. Drink up now.”
“Can’t.”
“Ah, you have to. We have a place saved for you. We’ve been waitin’ a whole long time fer ya, a whole long time.”
“Gotta go.”
“Stay awhile and have a song.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you,” said Ferguson.
Suddenly overcome with grief, he began to cry.
“Ah, now, there’s a good lad. No savin’ to be done,” said Conners gently. “Yeh did yer best.”
“You shouldn’t have died. It should’ve been me.”
“A song to brighten your mood.” The sergeant, killed during a First Team mission a year before, began singing “Finnegan’s Wake.”
“Gotta go,” said Ferguson, and the next moment he was awake, back in North Korea, heart pounding and head spinning.
He hadn’t had his drugs now in what?
Twenty-four hours?
Forty-eight?
Longer. And he hadn’t eaten and was run down to start with.
If his hands were this cold, it had to be three days at least, and it felt like twice that, maybe because he hadn’t eaten and had had almost nothing to drink.
Plus, it was cold, cold and damp. So maybe it wasn’t the lack of drugs but just something stupid like lack of sleep and isolation.
Stupid things he could beat. Those things he could beat. He couldn’t get by the lack of the hormones, but thirst and fatigue he could beat. He’d been cold before and hungry plenty of times.
So, really, Ferguson told himself, things weren’t that bad. Because he’d only been off the drugs two or three days, maybe just one now that he really thought about it, now that he decided it was one day, twenty-four hours, and probably, certainly, not even that.
What was that? Nothing. Nothing at all.
He could last for a long time. He’d gone two weeks without them during the worst of the treatments . . . two whole weeks.
A hell of a two weeks. But he’d made it.
So this was nothing. He could do this on his head. He could last months if necessary.
And when the time came, when he couldn’t do it, he’d make the bastards shoot him.
“Ivan, are you ready for your medicine?”
Ferguson looked up from his cot.
“I don’t need it,” he told Owl Eyes.
“You look tired.”
“I’ve been sleeping like a baby.”
The North Korean took the bottle from his pocket and popped off the cap with his thumb. The white disk rolled across the floor.
The two men locked glares. Owl Eyes raised his hand, then slowly upended the bottle. The pills, large T3s, small T4s, tumbled out to the ground.
The North Korean put the toe of his right foot over the ones closest to Ferguson’s cell. Well in reach if he dove for them, Ferguson thought.
He wasn’t going to; that was what Owl Eyes wanted.
Diving was the same as giving in. Diving was surrender. And he would never ever fucking surrender.
Slowly, the North Korean put his foot down and crushed the pills as if he were putting out a cigarette. He dragged his foot back across the floor, pulling the powder back out of reach.
Owl Eyes systematically crushed the remainder, one by one. When he was done, he motioned to someone down the hall, and had him bring a mop and bucket.
“When you are ready,” Owl Eyes told Ferguson as the floor was mopped, “perhaps we will be able to find replacements.”
“Have you spoken to the embassy yet?” said Ferguson, staring at Owl Eyes.
“I have no need to speak to your embassy.” He started to walk away.
“Then do me a favor and call General Namgung. Tell him the Russian who was outside during his meeting at the lodge hopes to be of use.”
Owl Eyes continued to walk down the hall.
“If the general isn’t around, have him send Captain Ganji,” Ferguson said, his voice just under a shout. “Mention the meeting. It was at the lodge. I was there. Tell him.”