“Rashid, your file also said you’re a slave to drink; you have a weakness for drugs; and you are perpetually in hock to dealers, bookies and loan sharks. Are there no depths to which you won’t sink? Is there nothing you won’t do for money?”
—Raza Jabarti to Rashid al-Rahman
The woman’s eyes flickered over the naked heavily scarred man. A two-foot rope bound his wrists tightly behind his back. Another line—affixed to a pulley and hanging from an unpainted eight-by-ten ceiling beam—ran inside his elbows. A third rope lashed his ankles, which were bent sharply behind him, bound to his wrists. He was hoisted a full foot above the raw plank floor. The stress on his elbows, shoulders, wrists and knee joints was excruciating.
Raza studied the man hanging from this crude simulacrum of a strappado—a specific form of torture sometimes known as the “Parrot’s Perch”—clearly disdainful of his misery, but then her two-decade career as a professional killer and interrogator had inured her to most varieties of human suffering. In fact, her employers believed that her indifference to other people’s terror and pain was, in large part, what made her such an indispensable asset.
She glanced around at her surroundings. The building was constructed out of concrete blocks, and the interrogation room looked to be fifteen by twenty feet across and a dozen feet high. In one corner was a draped-off toilet. Next to it was a dirty steel sink and an even dirtier steel worktable, on which rested an electric aluminum coffeepot. A single 100-watt bare bulb hung from center of the ceiling. It was one of the more bare-bones torture chambers the woman had worked in.
Raza turned around to look at Tariq al-Omari, who was sitting in a corner to her rear on a folding chair. He wore a white robe, or thawb, and rope sandals. His dark shoulder-length hair and goatee were meticulously trimmed. Smoking a black Turkish cigarette, he stared at Raza.
She walked up to him.
“I do not understand why Kamal insisted you interrogate this man,” Tariq said with an angry scowl.
“Because your methods have become … unsound,” Raza said softly so the prisoner couldn’t hear. “You killed the last four suspects you interrogated. You tortured them to death, and we got nothing from them.”
“They deserved no mercy,” Tariq said sharply.
“Tariq,” Raza sighed, “there’s no point in arguing. I also wish Kamal had put you in charge. Do you think I want to be here? In the scorching heat of the Pashtun desert? We’re practically on the Afghan border”
“I could have handled it myself,” Tariq said.
“I’m sure you could have,” Raza said placatingly, “but Kamal told me this man might be a double agent. We can’t kill him, and we have to make him talk … now. You are not to go near Rashid unless Marika Madiha or me are there to supervise you.”
“I know how to interrogate people,” Tariq said.
“You are a legend in this business, my friend. You’ve become too … impatient though. Your anger is overruling your better judgment. Also Kamal thought that this man might have issues with women and wouldn’t be able to tolerate being hurt by one. His file suggests that he liked dominating them, not the other way around. So Kamal wanted Marika and me to try. She should be arriving shortly. He hoped we might speed the process up. Kamal also thought I might enjoy breaking a big strong macho man. I would ordinarily, but not enough to come here—not to this torrid, arid Pashtun wilderness.”
“He doesn’t look that tough,” Tariq said, staring at the hanging man and shrugging.
“Maybe he’s not, but no one else has been able to get a peep out of him,” Raza said. “So a woman’s touch might be in order. I’m putting Marika in charge. She’ll arrive later. If she needs help, I’ll participate.”
“And if you have trouble,” Tariq asked, “you’ll ask me to jump in?”
“With both hands and feet.”
Directly across from the hanging man was a six-by-four-foot wall mirror. Looking over her shoulder, Raza noted Rashid’s reflection in it—the contorted mask of agony that was now his face, and the intricate maze of ancient scars disfiguring his filth-streaked body. Those cicatrices bore mute witness to other interrogations in other nameless blood-splattered rooms, and they contrasted with the raw red complex of more recent cuts, burns and welts now dotting and crisscrossing his corpus.
This man had had a very thorough working over, and he hadn’t given up one name.
This man was a pro—hard-core.
Raza stared absently at the mirror. Tariq had not hung it there by accident, and Raza understood its purpose. After over forty years of such interviews, Tariq had concluded that if the subject observed himself in a mirror, if he was forced to “visualize and internalize” the sheer horror of his situation—his abject humiliation, his incontrovertible helplessness, the utter hopelessness of his situation—he would give up and give them anything they wanted.
Over the years, that strategy had worked astonishingly well.
Until now.
Until Rashid.
Turning toward the prisoner, Raza caught a side glimpse of herself in the tarnished mirror. In contrast to the prisoner, she looked … outstanding. She’d learned decades ago that close-fitting Western clothing utterly unhinged devout Muslim men during interrogations. Abjuring traditional Islamic garb, she wore tight black Levi’s, matching riding boots and a red T-shirt with the sleeves and midriff cut off. Her long ebony tresses hung down below her shoulder blades. Her high wide cheekbones and full generous lips framed her delicate nose. However, her eyes—flat as a snake’s, hard sharp and pitch-black as obsidian—betrayed any semblance of conventional beauty. Her eyes told anyone and everyone precisely who and what she was. Her eyes froze Gorgons.
“Your shoulder and elbow joints must really smart,” she said pleasantly to the hanging man, her voice lovingly melodious.
“Actually,” Rashid said, “they feel … marvelous.”
“No doubt. I’ve read your file, you know. It describes you as tough—as the archetypal mercenary with no theological or ideological beliefs. Is any of that true?”
“I have deep beliefs about some things.”
“Such as?”
“Ever hear of money?” Rashid asked.
“Don’t honor and high moral character have a role to play in your worldview?” Raza asked, smiling in spite of herself.
“Ever try spending honor and high moral character?”
“Point taken. Your file also says you have an eye for pretty ladies. An African-American mercenary you once worked and socialized with is quoted as describing you as a ‘booty bandit,’ ‘some sheet-shaker’ and ‘a real pee-hole pirate.’”
“I’ve known a woman or two.”
“Or maybe a thousand or two?”
“I can’t help it if women like me”
“Rashid, your file also said you’re a slave to drink; you have a weakness for drugs; and you are perpetually in hock to dealers, bookies and loan sharks. Are there no depths to which you won’t sink? Is there nothing you won’t do for money?”
“I’ll do pretty near anything,” Rashid had to admit.
Raza snorted disdainfully. “Are you even a Muslim? Do you know anything at all about the One True Faith?”
“I tried reading the Koran once,” Rashid said, wincing.
“How did you like it?”
“Pretty slow going.”
“Too many big words and long sentences?”
“Yes—also too many rules and regulations.”
“Then why did you try reading it?”
“I guess I was looking for loopholes?” Rashid almost managed to shrug on a strappado.
“In your case, there aren’t any. Allah disapproves of everything you’ve ever done throughout your whole disreputable life—past, present and future.”
“So you claim,” Rashid said, “but what do you really know of my life?”
“That your entire earthly existence has been dedicated to violence, drink, drugs, fornication and degenerate gambling. I also know Allah doesn’t countenance any of those depraved activities.”
“He’s not exactly a god of fun, is He?” Rashid acknowledged.
“He’s real big on work, worry and servile obedience.”
“What else does my file say?”
“That you kill without compunction,” Raza said, “that you lie just to keep in practice and that you positively eat betrayal.”
“Sounds pretty bad.”
“Actually, those are the good parts, but buck up. Where I come from you’d be considered a role model.”
Rashid looked around the room. He spotted Tariq.
“That guy in the corner?” Rashid asked softly. “What’s your take on him?”
“You definitely want to keep away from him.”
“He seems harmless enough.”
“He’s one sick fuck,” Raza said.
“You’re trying to scare me, aren’t you?”
“Remember when you told that merc that you were a ‘booty bandit, some sheet-shaker, a real pee-hole pirate’?”
“Ye—e—e—e—s—s?” Rashid said with clear misgivings, drawing out the word into several syllables.
“Well you enjoy les liaisons dangereuses? Tariq enjoys collecting kurtas [testicles].”
“He has been staring at my crotch for quite some time,” Rashid had to admit. “It’s a little unnerving.”
“He especially has it in for you. Our superiors are pissed at him. He kills too many prisoners prematurely during interrogations. He wants you to help him prove that he can still break men—totally. You’re his last chance to prove himself.”
“But you’ll protect me from him?” Rashid asked.
“If you don’t tell me what I want, I’ll make Tariq look like the Holy Hajj.”
“Suppose informing on my friends violated my religious convictions?” Rashid asked.
“Fine, but if you don’t give me what I want, your religious convictions will experience an ass-whipping of apocalyptic proportions.”
“Does it have to be either/or?” Rashid asked.
“Affirmative. A binary yes-or-no.”
“You could try bribing me.”
“Will you take a check?”
“I’ll take checks, food stamps, IOUs, supermarket coupons, beads and wampum.”
She wrote him an IOU for $100 trillion.
“Not enough.”
“Suppose I were to give you a whole shithouse of hard cash,” Raza said, laughing. “Would you even know what to do with it?”
“Absolutely,” Rashid said.
“What would you spend it on?”
“What I always do—hard liquor, harder drugs, fast women and slow horses.”
“And the rest you’d waste?”
“You just wrote my epitaph.”
“Then I’ll chisel it on your tombstone and piss my brains out on it,” Raza said, smiling.
“Are you suggesting that I might not survive this little Love Boat?” Rashid asked.
“I believe we should all view each day as if it were our last,” Raza said.
“Words to live by.”
“Especially for you,” Raza said, “given the life you’ve led. If you died right now, what would you leave to the world? What would your legacy be?”
“Besides cold graves and sobbing widows?”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t think about the Big Picture,” Rashid said. “Not anymore. I just live for the day.”
“Then today won’t be one of your all-time greats,” Raza said.
“But you could change all that.”
“Maybe—if you give me what I want.”
“Which is?”
“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Rashid shook his head glumly. “That’s asking a lot.”
She picked up a thick black device that looked like a flashlight and brandished it under his nose.
A cattle prod.
“So which is it?” Raza asked. “Will you tell me what I want to know or do I turn you over to Tariq?”
“What will he do?”
“He’ll electrocute your genitals.”
“So will you—so there’s no difference.”
Then Tariq opened his doctor’s bag, removed a small leather bag and emptied it on the worktable. It had been filled with surgical instruments.
“There is one difference: My friend over there will geld you like a steer first.”
Rashid watched in horror as Tariq began honing a scalpel on a whetstone.