Electric light seeps dimly into their chamber. Though Nick is most likely still awake, Burkett ever so carefully withdraws the plastic bag – hoping what little noise he makes is masked by the distant grumble of the power generator – and swallows three tablets.
Nick might see death as gain, martyrdom as a path to glory, but it’s Burkett who will die first. Nick has the backing of International Medical Outreach, the wife and friends raising untold thousands for his ransom. It is no doubt obvious to Tarik that one prisoner is far more valuable than the other.
The question plaguing Burkett isn’t whether or not he will be killed, but how it will be done. Will he have to endure some kind of torture? Pieces, Tarik said. He thinks of Abu, whose severed genitals were stuffed in his mouth.
Will they force him to read some statement? Before, he thought he would refuse, but what would be the point? Refusing would serve only to extend the pain. He’ll read whatever semiliterate manifesto they set before him.
Or is the better option simply to fight? If he’s going to die no matter what, why should he not attack as soon as they try to bind him? They’ll assume him to be incapacitated, but no question, he can muster the strength for a last stand. He would have the advantage of surprise – the sudden transformation from dazed invalid to raging killer. He’ll snatch the nearest gun and start shooting.
He remembers Tarik’s first visit, the morning he thought he was being led to his own death. He’d made that rash prayer: I’ll believe if you let me live. He went against his word and now the debt is being called in. It will take all his strength not to make that prayer a second time.
‘If they kill me,’ Burkett says, ‘would you do me a favor and make sure my father in Atlanta is taken care of? He might already be dead, in which case you have nothing to worry about.’
‘We’ll leave here together or not at all,’ Nick says. ‘It would be ridiculous to keep us alive this long only to kill us.’
A man with a flashlight and pistol comes down the stairs. Burkett winces and raises his arm to block the light which seems to bypass some key optical filter before directly piercing his brain. It is the same man who has been administering his drugs. He kneels over Burkett and clamps and disconnects his IV and detaches the Foley catheter from its receptacle. With the barrel of his gun he waves Nick toward the stairs.
‘Where are we going?’ Nick asks.
‘Wait,’ Burkett says as the man takes his elbow.
He opens the plastic bag and draws out the final three tablets. Nick stands watching him, his eyes expressionless.
Burkett climbs the stairs for the first time in days. He glances into the courtyard, where two of Tarik’s men stand over a fire and another squats in the opening of a tent.
He follows Nick down the passage, their escort lingering behind them, just out of reach. He has no plan, just the desire to stay alive and a sudden, inexplicable certainty – perhaps drug-induced – that he will.
Tarik waits in the well-lit room at the end of the hall. The pock-marked mural spreads behind him like the backdrop of a cheap play: the same bright blue stream and green meadow, the same man and woman with their gouged faces. A band of mud, left by standing water and splashing rain, skirts the base of the mural. Burkett imagines it climbing higher, eventually covering the meadow and the stream and the human figures as well.
Akbar waits in a chair, a Kalashnikov in his lap. He wears a brace on his straightened knee, a nylon sleeve with metal rods and hinges. Two chairs are propped before a black curtain, close enough to the wall that no one could fit behind them to cut Burkett’s throat. Of course they still might kill him, but at least he’ll be able to see it happening.
Tarik stands from his campstool and spreads his arms and says, ‘Good morning, my friends. Shall we take another picture?’
Burkett and Nick remain silent. Their escort pulls a black mask over his face and hands Nick a copy of yesterday’s International Herald Tribune. The mask is worrisome, but surely there would be no reason to time-stamp an execution. Burkett notes a side bar on the front page: khandaros to vote on secession.
Nick displays the newspaper for the camera. Before taking the picture, Tarik asks, ‘Do you still think you understand the Arab mind?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Nick says.
Tarik nods and the man in the mask punches Nick in the face. Blood drips from his nostrils. The newspaper lies on the floor beside him.
‘Let me read what you wrote in your blog,’ Tarik says, taking a sheet of paper with printed text.
‘My blog?’
‘There’s something in the Arab mind,’ Tarik reads, ‘something that makes it more susceptible to forces of violence and shame. There is a tendency among them to respond violently to the threat of shame, sexual or otherwise. Similarly, Arab culture sees violence as a way of making amends for shame.’ He looks up from the page. ‘What exactly do you mean by the Arab mind,’ he asks, ‘or Arab culture?’
Nick shakes his head. ‘I wrote that more than a decade ago. I was a different person.’
‘You were a soldier then,’ Tarik says, ‘attempting to understand the men you were killing.’
With a nod from Tarik, the man in the mask unleashes a series of punches. When the chair topples, Nick tries to hold himself upright on the floor, but a kick sends him sprawling. When the man in the mask backs away, there are open wounds on his knuckles. Nick sits up, wiping blood from his face. He spits, rights the chair, and resumes his seat.
Nick says, ‘I wrote those things before I knew Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior.’
Tarik shakes his head. ‘Of those who suppress faith, the Qu’ran says, Slay them wherever you catch them.’
‘It also says, To you be your way and to me mine.’
Tarik doesn’t seem impressed. ‘What is worse?’ he asks. ‘That you would defy Allah by elevating his holy messenger to the status of a god? Or that you would set out to convince Muslims of this polytheistic farce?’
The man in the mask steps toward Nick, causing him to flinch, but instead of punching him merely hands him the newspaper, now torn and begrimed and flecked with blood. Tarik snaps a photograph.
When they take away the newspaper, Nick says, ‘I hadn’t finished reading that.’
It seems fitting that Nick would discover humor only after having his face pummeled by fanatics.
‘Is it true,’ Tarik asks, ignoring the joke, ‘that you were a member of the Navy Seals?’
Nick stares at the ground before him.
‘I understand you were a sniper,’ Tarik says. ‘Which means you killed men, Muslims, from great distances, where they couldn’t see you. This seems cowardly to me, no? A courageous man would make himself known to his enemies.’
Nick spits. ‘Is it courageous to strike a man who is your prisoner?’
‘Did you shoot these men in the head or heart? Personally, I would aim for the chest, a larger target, but perhaps you had other motives. Perhaps this was the source of your interest in the so-called Arab mind. Perhaps your primary aim was to traumatize the brains of Arabs.’
‘You couldn’t be further from the truth. You’re talking to a former soldier, a man who did a job and moved on. Some of my closest friends in this world are Arabs.’
‘I too happen to be a marksman of sorts,’ Tarik says. ‘My father recently built a thousand-yard rifle range in Allaghar. You might even have heard about it. Perhaps you and I can go there sometime and place wagers on who is the best shot.’
‘No thanks,’ he says.
‘In the meantime, I would like you to read a statement. My apologies for the crude penmanship.’
He props a scrap of cardboard against the tripod. Capital letters in black ink fill the space between the torn edges:
there is no god but allah and muhammad is his prophet. christianity is a blasphemous distortion of the truth concocted by satan to lead muslims into sin. i formerly preached christianity but i have seen that the truth must be found first in the holy and perfect qu’ran.
The sign falls and the masked man picks it up and tries without success to brush away the dirt.
‘When you are ready,’ Tarik says, ‘I would like you to begin reading the statement.’
He presses a button on the mounted camera and a red light appears. Nick remains silent, his eyes fixed on Tarik.
‘I don’t think he wants to read it,’ Burkett says.
Tarik turns and asks, ‘Do you find this amusing?’ He doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘Very shortly he will beg me to let him read it.’ As he speaks his eyes fall to the long-handled bolt cutters on the table beside his papers.
Burkett stares at the tool. The stub blades with their silver sheen look brand new, but the grips at the ends of the pipes are worn from use. Tarik spoke of pieces. This must be his instrument of choice.
‘Read the statement,’ Tarik says.
The camera is still recording, but Nick refuses even to look at the words of the statement. Tarik goes to the door and summons Sajiv, who enters with a handful of zip ties. He keeps his eyes to the floor, perhaps ashamed to look upon his former chaupar companions.
The zip ties, the bolt cutters: Burkett can see where this is heading. He looks at Nick and says, ‘There’s no shame in reading it.’
‘Listen to the wise doctor,’ Tarik says. ‘No one needs to be hurt.’
‘I’ll read whatever you want,’ Burkett says.
‘Thank you,’ he says, ‘but for now it’s Mr Lorie whose testimony we seek.’
Akbar sets aside his gun to help the others restrain Nick. They tie his wrists to the flimsy arms of the injection molded chair.
As they approach Burkett, he eyes the Kalashnikov leaning against the wall. The possibilities spring into his mind: Tarik as a hostage, flight into the wilderness, either by car or on foot, but going where? A gunfight when he wouldn’t even know where to find the safety catch on the weapon. When he is barefoot and catheterized, weakened by subarachnoid hemorrhage and a probable skull fracture. No, it wouldn’t be much of a fight: he wouldn’t make it out of the compound alive.
They cinch the plastic bands so tightly, two on each side, that the veins swell and the skin grows pale. At least his legs are free, but what good are they now? How far could he run?
Perhaps he should have gone for one of the Kalashnikovs. How many men would he have to kill? Four in this room, at least three more outside in the courtyard, one of whom, the man with the scimitar, presently appears in the doorway, either as a sentry or spectator – perhaps both.
Tarik holds the cutters upright such that they rest against his shoulder. The man in the mask kneels and begins to pry open Nick’s fist. Sajiv has to lock Nick in a bear hug to keep him still. The task of controlling his feet falls to Akbar, who despite his injured knee lowers himself to the floor and sustains a brutal kick to the face.
‘We’ll start at the proximal interphalangeal joint of your little finger,’ Tarik says. ‘If you hold perfectly still, perhaps we can avoid cutting bone.’
The one in the mask has Nick’s wrist flexed against the arm support, the chosen finger pointed downward. As Tarik opens the blades, the chair twists, its legs scraping against the floor. Nick throws himself against Sajiv, and together they fall in a heap. Akbar, whose nose already gushes blood, loses his hold on Nick’s ankles and absorbs yet another kick to the head. Tarik and the man in the mask wait just beyond kicking range while Akbar presses the weight of his body over Nick’s legs. Tarik bends down and continues the operation with Nick lying on the floor. The clippers, meant for metal, seem to find little resistance in the skin and bone of Nick’s finger.
In the silence that follows, they seem to be waiting for Nick to cry out in pain, and for a brief time, a few seconds perhaps, he resists doing so.
The zip ties have drawn blood in Burkett’s wrists. Pain scrapes the backs of his eyeballs when he tries to look away, anywhere but the dripping knuckle and severed finger where Nick lies shivering in the overturned chair.
‘The solution is easy enough,’ Tarik says. ‘You will lose one finger from each hand until you read the statement.’
Nick answers with grunts as the man in the mask rights the chair. Tarik drops the severed digit in a ziplock bag.
‘Just nod,’ Tarik says, placing the bag on the table, ‘and I will give you the statement to read.’
Nick keeps his head bowed, his eyes closed. He seems to have passed out. The stub on his left hand twitches, and blood smears the white plastic beneath it.
With a look from Tarik, the men once again clutch his torso and legs, but Nick seems to put up less fight this time. A hand, the right one now, is pried open, the clippers placed over the little finger. Nick shouts in agony. The chair breaks at the junction of the seat and one of the arms. Nick collapses with an awkward splaying of limbs, his wrists still bound to fragments of the chair.
‘I can see you want this to end,’ Tarik says. ‘All you have to do is read the statement.’
Nick answers with silence. Tarik converses with the others in Arabic. He collects the finger and adds it to the plastic bag.
‘These will be sent to International Medical Outreach,’ he says, ‘to encourage payment.’
With a flip-knife, Sajiv cuts Nick’s restraints and kicks away the remains of the chair. Nick offers little resistance as his wrists are bound at his back.
Tarik turns to Burkett. ‘Are you ready, Dr Burkett?’
‘Ready for what?’
‘Did you not realize?’ His eyes flash a kind of mock sympathy. ‘Everything that happens to Mr Lorie will happen to you also – unless of course he reads the statement.’
Burkett jerks against his restraints. He clenches his fists and tries to stand, but all at once strong hands are gripping him by the shoulders and feet.
‘No, please,’ he says, as Tarik fits the blades around the little finger of his left hand. ‘Please, I’ll read whatever you want.’
He can see Nick where he kneels on the floor with his hands bound and head bowed.
‘You have the power to stop this,’ Burkett says, but Nick doesn’t acknowledge him. Two fingers amputated, and he has retreated into his prayers – shut out the world. He’ll let them take all of his fingers, and Burkett’s as well.
‘Listen to me,’ Burkett shouts to Nick. ‘All you have to do —’
Pain: the so-called best friend no one wants. For years he’s studied it, made a career of fighting it. What is a physician’s purpose if not to keep it in check? And yet he’s never imagined pain like this.
He realizes he is screaming. He always thought he had a clear understanding of the nervous system, how it responded to injury. With only a finite number of sensory fibers, surely there must be a limit to physical pain, a point of divergence beyond which it remains the same no matter how severe the injury?
He understands nothing, knows nothing but pain. It no longer matters to him whether or not this man fired the gun that killed his brother. He’ll do anything he asks if it can bring an end to the pain.
Beyond the sound of his own weeping, he hears the voice of Nick.
‘I’ll read your damn statement,’ he says.