19

This was going from bad to worse.

Yet Marcus had also just picked up two more pieces of valuable intelligence. “Your colleagues” had to refer to Kailea and Yigal, which meant they were both still alive and very likely being held nearby. What’s more, the Egyptian had neither spoken to them nor tortured them—not yet, anyway.

On al-Masri’s command, guards closed and locked all three garage doors. What little breeze had wafted in was now gone. Once again sweat began to pour down his face. Marcus was becoming dehydrated. He tried to blink back the drips coming down his forehead, but it was no use. The salty discharge was stinging his eyes, but this was the least of his problems. He looked at the colonel and had no doubt this man had been thoroughly trained in the black art of sadism and took great pleasure in it.

“Don’t fool yourself, American,” al-Masri said. “You’ll talk. The only question is how much pain you suffer before you tell me what I want to know.”

When Marcus remained quiet, the colonel nodded to his sidekick, who reached over and flipped a switch. Electricity surged through the cables. Marcus’s body went rigid, then began to shudder. His left arm started to spasm. Then his right knee and foot did too. He was hit by the stench of burnt hair.

The pain was absolutely brutal. But it had one side benefit. He was wide-awake now and thinking clearly. He gritted his teeth. He forced himself to remember that the IDF’s quick reaction force had to have been just moments away from rescuing them back on that border road. That meant they knew he, Kailea, and Yigal had been captured, and the hunt for them was well underway.

Marcus knew the Israelis’ capabilities. He knew their professionalism. He knew their commitment to getting their people back, no matter what it took. He had seen the Israelis in action over the years, and he had no doubt they were coming for them now.

His mission, he reminded himself, had to be twofold. First, he would not let his captors know who he really was under any circumstances. Second, he had to buy the three of them as much time as he possibly could. If Hezbollah was determined to kill them, there was nothing he could do to stop them. But he didn’t believe they were going to kill him. The three of them were too big a prize. And that, he hoped, might just give him the time and leverage they would need to survive.

“Enough,” al-Masri shouted.

The man flipped the switch. The electricity stopped flowing. The pain did not.

“Now let’s try this again—what is your name?”

Marcus still refused to talk.

“I want your name, rank, and serial number—that’s all,” the Egyptian insisted. “Then we’ll take you down and give you some cold water and something to eat.”

Marcus knew this was only the beginning. The pain combined with the offer of food and water was designed to make him crack. Designed to test his breaking point. So he looked away and said nothing.

His mind raced. Hezbollah hadn’t carried out a successful kidnapping on this border since 2006. They hadn’t even attempted a kidnapping for years. Why now? There could only be one reason. Hezbollah’s Sheikh, wherever he was—in some bunker near Beirut or the Bekaa Valley—wanted something. Needed something. So as much as they might brutalize him, Marcus was betting on the notion that they were going to keep him alive. All he had to do was hold on for a day. Maybe two. Then the IDF would do the rest. He could do that. He’d been trained to do that. So he braced himself for round two.

“Very well,” al-Masri said.

Once again the Egyptian nodded to his subordinate. Once again the man hit the switch. Once again electrical current surged through the cables and into Marcus’s body. Once again the pain was excruciating. And it wasn’t just hair this time. Now he could smell his flesh burning.

“Stop,” said al-Masri.

The cables grew limp. So did Marcus. But still he did not talk.

Al-Masri asked for the truncheon, then drove it into Marcus’s right side again and again. This pain was different, in some ways worse than electrocution. Several of Marcus’s ribs had been broken in an operation in the East China Sea. That had been more than eighteen months ago. The bones had long since healed. Yet Marcus knew it wouldn’t take many more blows like this to break them again. And he found himself wondering if al-Masri already knew who he was.

“Again,” al-Masri said. “And dial it up.”

His assistant complied, and Marcus experienced electrocution on a level that he’d only heard of before from POWs or read about in books. Most of the muscles in his body began to spasm uncontrollably. The pain was so intense it was no longer possible to think or to reason, except to wonder if he was going to go into cardiac arrest.

“Enough,” the Hezbollah commander shouted after another minute or so.

Again Marcus’s body went limp. Remarkably, he had not blacked out. But he knew he was close.

“Look, American, you think you’re a tough guy? Please. No one can hold out forever. Everyone breaks. Everyone. So just tell me your name, your rank, and your serial number before one of the others gives it to me and I simply decide to put a bullet through your head.”

Marcus’s vision was blurring. He could tell al-Masri was still standing there looking up at him, but he could no longer see his face clearly. So he looked blankly back at his tormentor and smiled.

That set al-Masri off. The colonel pushed his deputy aside and threw the switch himself. The leads sparked and smoked. Marcus’s body shook and spasmed and then went rigid.

And then everything went dark again.