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JACK RETURNED THE way he had come, past scrub and along dirt roads towards the highway. He planned to return to the hotel, scrub off the grime of the girl, gather his things, and head to the airport. His flight was scheduled a little after ten, giving him ample time to check in and grab something to eat.

He had frightened the girl and maybe put the fear of God into her. With any luck, the next time a handsome bastard offered her money in exchange for luring an unsuspecting dupe into a trap, she would think twice. Except for one thing. So driven was she for a life that did not include the drudgery of a being a housemaid, she would do it again in a heartbeat. Time would beat her, though. Her youth was already wilting at the edges. From there, it would be an easy fall into decay. She would probably marry a boy her age and go through life the way her mother and grandmothers had, having babies and being grateful for the leftovers that came her way. Or meet a mature man, perhaps a rich man, who would sweep her off her feet ... for a while ... until a younger version came along. Or marry a drunkard who enjoyed beating his wife every other day for good measure until she finally reached the point where she didn’t give a damn what happened to her anymore and took a knife or a gun to him. Or become a prostitute, wiling away her days squatting in the dirt and spending her nights with pawing men who gave her a few coins in exchange for her well-used body. Whatever path she chose, she would look decades older than the date on her birth certificate. There was no place for wan, wide-eyed girls like her, only the dying embers of youth.

Not that he had a right to pass judgment on anyone.

Jack was apart from other men, always had been. The apartness had been imprinted in the womb. Through amniotic fluid, his growing fetus must have sensed his mother and father did not conceive him out of love but from an urgent need to drive out solitude. Once, when he was a child of seven or eight, he found their marriage certificate in the bottom drawer of his mother’s dresser, tucked beneath satiny lingerie rarely worn. He knew how to count from one to nine. He had been conceived before his parents had gone before a justice of the peace. He came into being as the byproduct of passion though not necessarily of love. Although he never knew exactly what had gone wrong with their marriage, it was doomed from the start. And it doomed him. Always around him, he watched the games and parades and celebrations others enjoyed with abandon while he looked on from a distance, feeling nothing. Who needed games? Who wanted parades? Not he. People passed by him, warbling with laughter and song, while he stood apart. Watching. Always watching. And wondering what separated him from everyone else. Everything had come to him secondhand, discarded and used up. Just as he had been discarded by his father and all the fathers before him. Jack had a photo album of remorses, and even though the pictures faded long ago, the emotions remained sharp. Always he had been on the sidelines, even among friends. Always he had looked at himself through the wrong end of a telescopic lens, seeing the distortions of a boy, and then the man, while he stood at the perimeter, lonely in a crowd and trying to be someone else.

The rain dwindled. The clouds parted. The sky became bluest blue. Steam rose from the road, spiriting the wetness away as if by magic.

He became aware of the pounding of oversized tires and the revving of an engine. In the rearview mirror, a monstrous truck—constructed of blinding chrome and dark menace—bore down on his tiny foreign make. The first jolt arrived like a sledgehammer. The second jolt came like an earthquake. Greenery and asphalt revolved from left to right. Images spun in a whirlpool of muddy hues. The car skidded sideways into a ditch. Metal crunched. Windows shattered. A rush of feet arrived along with barked orders. The door was jacked open. Jack tumbled onto the embankment, a tangle of arms and legs, the fall delivering an agonizing blow to his shoulder and a second to his skull, just two more insults to his racked body and stunned mind. The sky revolved above him like a giant pinwheel before sluggishly coming to halt. Three men approaching from the far end of a dark tunnel gathered him up like a broken doll. Even if he wanted to run, to fight back, he couldn’t.

The only option left was to blissfully, gratefully give into blackness. Consciousness slipped away ...

When he came to, his arms were braced over a pair of broad shoulders belonging to two of the men. His head was bowed, his body limp, his eyes tracking a trail of leaves and weeds beneath his feet. He played dead. It was easy to play dead.

The shiny truck loomed before him. They were taking him to it. Somewhere to the rear, the leader spoke in a quiet but stern voice. The duo shifted their hold. One of them cranked open the rear door. They prepared to lift him up and toss him in. The back seat loomed before him. Once inside, he would be trapped.

He jerked. Made a calculated movement. Loosened his left arm. Twisted the other away. Toddled back several steps. Miraculously remained on his feet. Swung his right arm around. Took the first man with a snapping punch to the soft part of his throat. Wheeled around. Found a shout at the back of his throat and howled at the sky. Spun a half turn. Booted the second man between his legs. Sighted a clear path to his left. Raced for it. Shifted the pain into a crevice of his nervous system. Mustered every bit of fight. And hurtled toward escape.

Inherently, Jack was not a violent man. Intellect had been his instrument of power. He used it to get everything he wanted. If his dad had taught him anything useful, it had been this: using fists, especially in a man’s face, would break bones sure enough, most especially his own. Fleetness, he said, worked better than strength. Grabs, twists, lateral kicks, and sweeping legs that relied on balance and gravity were more powerful than punches and whacks. Jack had survived his fair share of scraps of as a kid, usually winding up in wrestling matches where no one was the winner. This time he was fighting for his life.

The big men went down like weeping grizzlies, landing on all fours. The third man, the one who gave the orders, was waiting for him. He growled instructions. The first man rebounded with remarkable agility and delivered a savage kick squarely beneath Jack’s ribs and into his diaphragm. He doubled over, tried to catch breath, struggled to regain his bearings. The scenery gyrated around him. As he readied to maneuver to the right, the second man encased his head in the grip of his paws, and sent Jack skittering across the deserted road like a bowling ball. Road rash scorched his body. He lay sprawled on his belly, limbs thrown apart. Breath refused to come. His lungs struggled for one ragged gasp. Just one. It came, but too late. Both men commenced the cheery business of rib cracking, stomach punching, and head slamming. They were a jolly pair, these two.

He heard a low wail. Then a defeated groan. Both noises came from him. A final whomp into his right kidney took the last bit of fight out of him. He went limp. Only one finger twitched. The index finger of his left hand. A curious detail. He concentrated on the oddity and held onto it, making it a bridge to cognizance. He had minuscule part of consciousness left along with a tilted view of reality. His vision was filled with fuzzy pictures and blurry sounds, everything warped and surreal, moving in slow motion. His brawlers stood at a distance, hands braced on knees, sucking air, working kinks out of pulled muscles and cracked joints. The boss stepped into view, an ugly man with a face resembling a rotten potato sitting on the forgotten shelf of a scrawny neck. His eyes were focused and unconcerned, almost amused. A sly smile spread across his thin lips. He had something in mind for Jack. He was smirking now. Chortling. His merriment didn’t bode well. He snapped a commanding gesture. His men moved with fawning alacrity. One of them kicked Jack in the head. After that, Jack could not have winched up a single eyelid.

Scrabbling movements followed. The leader snapped orders. Car doors opened. Engines revved. The henchmen came back and gathered up their inert captive by the armpits. They tossed him into the trunk of the rental car, stinking of gasoline fumes. His arms were yanked back and his wrists secured with duct tape. Another strip was slapped across his mouth and a third wrapped around his eyes. The lid of the trunk was slammed home with a finality not unlike the closing of a coffin lid. They laughed, deep throaty laughs of merriment accompanied by the sawing of insects and the squawking of parrots.

Unconsciousness encased Jack like a scratchy blanket, plunging him into darkness. Not the darkness of night or even the darkness of sleep. Instead, the darkness of the spirit world. From the darkness came visions of his ancestors, dancing around a campfire and singing songs in falsetto ululations and clamoring laments, hair braided with eagle feathers, faces decorated with war paint, bodies clothed in animal skins, and bare feet pounding the ground to the beat of water drums, rattles, and their own chanting voices. Of a sudden, they disappeared in a whiff of smoke and deserted him. In the nothingness, he heard himself groan, an appeal for deliverance.

Worse than being suspended between two worlds—the painful present and the stirring past—Jack regretted his misspent youth, his frivolous wanderings, and his laughable escapades. Regretted there was no time to say goodbye to a single living soul, proving once again that his apartness had always been waiting for him, here on the road to nowhere.

The next thing he recalled—possibly seconds later, maybe minutes later, perhaps hours later—was of being hauled out of the trunk and dragged away, the toes of his shoes certainly leaving parallel tracks in the dusty dirt. Wherever they were taking him, whatever plans they had for him, he prayed for death. The cessation of existence, he reasoned in the blackest recesses of his mind, would have been preferable to what they planned for him.

He was ushered into a structure of some sort, out of the heat and into the cool. The walls echoed. They slapped him onto a chair with a hard seat and a spindled back, and there secured him by chest, wrists, and ankles with rounds of duct tape . Escape was but a weary dream. Once he had been secured, a broad hand slapped him across the cheeks, once and then twice, bringing him around. From the other side of consciousness, Jack heard himself moan miserably, and moan once more. The gag across his mouth was ripped away.

The leader spoke, his words spoken in German. Since Jack had a grasp of the language, translation was not required. “Enough. He’s coming to.”

From the movements and footfalls bouncing off distant walls, he gathered they were in a large space. A garage of some kind. Or a warehouse. Away from civilization where they wouldn’t be disturbed. Sounds were tamped down by jungle air. With a single sniff, Jack knew that dread had come to visit him like a tiger with claws.

The man who had spoken advanced to the fore, deliberate in his actions and unhurried. He had all the time in the world to do what he set out to do. Jack’s time was limited.

The other men positioned themselves behind their leader, ready for action should their brawny skills be required. The four of them were alone in a standoff from which there would be three winners and one loser. The boss scraped a chair across the floor and positioned it opposite Jack, face to face, a yard separating them. He fumbled in his pocket and lit a cigarette. The smoke gave off the sweet aromatic fragrance of Turkish tobacco. He leaned forward, studying his secured prisoner from close up, a thorough examination that took in every feature and blemish. He was memorizing the details for future reference. Finished with his examination, he sat back and took a few more leisurely puffs of his cigarette, allowing fill the gulf between them. At last he cleared his throat, a prelude to interrogation. He made a motion. His bodyguards cleared out. Silence followed.

He finally spoke. “You are aware. Awake.”

Jack raised his head, trying to peer through the blindfold.

“I will ask one question and one question only.”

Jack needed time. To think. To plot. To assess. To figure out what this was all about. To find the right answers, even if they were lies.

“Whom are you working for?”

Jack moved his mouth around soreness, swelling, and globules of coagulating blood. His words came out slurry. “Working for?”

“Don’t be obtuse. We know who you are. You were employed by your government. But you work for someone else. Consider this. You’re on your own. No one will come to your rescue. Should my friends decide they have a thirst for blood that cannot be quenched, no one will hear your screams. Therefore, I ask again.” He paused to inhale and then to exhale smoke in a measured manner before going on. “Whom are you working for?”

Jack spat out blood before saying, “No one.”

“You have a nasty cut on your forehead.” The gentleman almost sounded concerned. Apologetic. “It should be attended to.”

Jack was on the verge of laughing. This was a scene from B-grade movie, where the good guy is made out to be a villain and the bad guy is really a very understanding bloke.

“It will scar, and we wouldn’t want to be responsible for making your pretty face unpretty.”

“You could let me go.”

“Oh, we would, we would, except we know you’re a fighter. I have a swollen jaw to prove it.”

“Who are you, you and your thugs?”

The German laughed. He made a movement. Got up. Tugged a glove over his hand, manipulating each finger in succession, methodical about it. He stepped forward. Swung out. Pounded his fist into Jack’s gut. Retreated. And retook his seat, fastidious about it, adjusting his clothing and crossing a leg over his thigh. He dragged on the cigarette. Expelled the fumes. Chortled in between. “I do that without anger. Only to make a point. We are only bureaucrats. Pencil pushers. We have an aversion to violence but will use it if necessary.”

Jack passed out, he didn’t know for how long.

When he came to, the cavernous interior had stilled. His head was bowed. The bindings strained. The stink of oil and gasoline permeated the walls. Everything reeked of rot and decay and neglect. Heat was building under a relentless sun.

The inquisitor spoke. The men returned. Footsteps trundled forward. One of the thugs yanked Jack’s head back by the roots. The other forced a bottle between his lips. Water poured down his gullet in a drowning rush. The interrogator watched from his chair, saying nothing, only smoking. The men backed off. Jack hacked, spitting out water, catching his breath. He groaned once, head lolling, and groaned again, putting effort into it, trying to convince his captors he was docile and compliant and eager to talk.

The interrogator spoke in his native language. “Mach ihn unwohl!”

The men went to work. Ripped away what was left of Jack’s shirt. Upzipped his jeans. Tugged them down to his ankles. Stood back, at attention. Awaited the next order.

Their boss sat back, crossed a leg, observed his captive to see what he would say or do. “You may piss, if you like. Or shit. Or puke. Or any combination thereof. One way or another, you will tell me what I want to know or your insides will be outside. Verstehen Sie?”

He lit a fresh cigarette. Inhaled deeply. Uncrossed his leg. Crossed the other leg in the opposite direction. Clucked disdainfully. Exhaled. Picked tobacco off the tip of his tongue. “From now on, it’ll be just you and me. Verstehen Sie mich? Man to man.”

“You’re not German,” Jack said. “You’re Austrian.”

There was a thoughtful pause. “How very clever you are. But not clever enough, I fear. Since I am here, and you are there.”

The men stood off to the side. A silent clock ticked. Eventually the cigarette fizzled and was crushed beneath the sole of a shoe. The burning embers brought Jack out of a complacent malaise into keen awareness. With this awareness came defeat. He wasn’t going to get out of this. His interrogator would eventually get what he wanted, even if it took hours. Even if the remnants of the day stretched into blackest night. And when it was over, when they forced from him the information they wanted, one of the men would execute the final stroke, a quick slice across his throat followed by the slow exsanguination of his blood, which would deliver him to his final destination.

The interrogator made an abrupt movement. Two sets of footsteps retreated once more, the men grumbling beneath their breaths, impatient for their leader to do whatever he had to do so they could get on their way.

“We are alone. Just me. And you.” The inquisitor paused before saying, “Jack Coyote.”

It was the first time the inquisitor had said his name. It meant something to Jack. It also meant something to his captor. What lay between them had become personal.

“Me. You. And the ancient ghosts of this place. Call it a tropical requiem. Yours. For there is no reprieve from your predicament. Merely an unpleasant exit or an easy passing. The choice will be yours. But enough of poetic allusions. Let me arrive at another salient point.”

“I’m dying to hear.”

The air parted. A whoosh followed. The pain was indescribable. Jack screamed and screamed some more as the instrument of torture descended persistently and repeatedly until he lost count at four ... or was it five? The screams eventually died in his throat and left nothing behind but a babbling idiot incapable of anything but dribbling snot and spit onto himself.

A leather-encased hand smacked him hard across his cheek, bringing him around.

“Ah,” the inquisitor said. “He awakens. You’d be surprised the pain that can be inflicted by an ordinary corn broom. The bristles, you see. Stiff. The damage is minimal. But the pain is exquisite. You’ll still be a man when it’s over, but the memories will persist, making you impotent for all practical purposes.”

The torture resumed, going on and on until Jack couldn’t remember his name. Minutes later, or perhaps hours, he came to. Blubbering like an infant, making no sense, thinking he was alone at last. But it was only a hopeful wish, for the voice of his inquisitor spoke once again.

“I am a patient man. An ordinary man. I revile violence. Sad to say, occasionally I must resort to the unpleasanter aspects of my profession. I am merely a vehicle. To deliver pain, it is true. But also, to deliver you from pain. Jack Coyote. John Fox. Whatever name you go by, you are most definitely not whom you appear to be.”

“I’m ...” His head lolling, Jack licked his parched lips. “... a data analyst.”

“Ah, yes, the cover. A very good cover. But you know and I know that you are a hacker. You have refined your skills to a fine art, therefore making your cover very believable since that is how you started out. But now you are something else. Somewhere along the line, you became a spy. Shake your head all you want, but you will not be believed.”

The room descended into blackest silence. Once Jack thought the room vast, but the walls were closing in. The strictures binding his wrists were cutting off the flow of blood. He couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. “At least remove the blindfold so I can look you in the eye.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ve already seen you.”

“True enough. But doing it this way makes you weak. And vulnerable. And serves as a reminder. Of who is in charge. And who isn’t. Pain is the only provable evidence of nobility. And surprise is the truest element of torture. If you cannot see it coming, you cannot prepare for it.”

The thwacks resumed with a rushing fury, the bristles sharp and the force relentless. He passed out again. A wall of water met his face.

The calm voice of his inquisitor resumed. “Tell me whom you work for. Ah yes, I know. You work for the Homeland Intelligence Division. Otherwise known as the Firm or H-I-D. A quaint acronym. But you no longer work there, do you? Ergo, you are working for someone else. We know, for instance, you were stationed in Berlin with the State Department. We also know that while there, you often traveled to Frankfurt and Stuttgart. You can shake your head all you want, but our intelligence is very good. We know you had a romantic relationship with a woman. Heidi Beatrix Schröder. An imposing name for an insubstantial blonde with blue eyes and rosy cheeks. You met at a party through mutual acquaintances. And you promptly took her to bed.”

Jack laughed. It was the crazed laugh of a man on the brink of insanity.

His interrogator paused to light another cigarette, using the flick of his thumbnail against the match. After inhaling deeply and exhaling with a slow steadiness, he continued.

“You resigned from your position rather abruptly and without notice. You gave her a goodbye kiss at the airport. If you had asked her to come with you, she probably would have. But you didn’t ask her, did you? Still, you kept in touch. For a time. Emails. Text messages. Occasional phone calls. Eventually your communications dwindled, due in no small part on your reluctance to continue the long-distance relationship. Perhaps you suspected her. Did you?”

Yes, he remembered her. Yes, he broke it off, just like all the other lovely women. The story of his life in three acts. Beginning, middle, and end. “Suspected her of what?”

“Of being a swallow. But no matter. You may or may not have known that your communications were being monitored.”

“By you?”

“Yes, by us. And your side. Her people became aware of it and had her back off.”

“You’re making it up.”

“Am I? Who’s to say? At any rate, you haven’t heard from her for a while. That is because she is dead, the buxom Heidi. Oh, didn’t you know? I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Suicide. Or so the authorities claim. Who can know for sure. But I wonder. Did she die because of her association with you? Or did she die because she was dabbling in areas where she was a rank amateur? Well ...,” he tossed off as if it were of no importance. “Once we understood the nature of your relationship, we decided to approach you. Unfortunately, you left before we had the chance. Therefore I ask again. Whom do you work for?”

Even if Jack could speak lucidly, he had nothing to say.

“You are a very clever fellow, aren’t you? Yes, very clever, indeed. Brave. And stubborn. Even unto death.”

“You chased down the wrong dog.”

“I don’t think so. We already know who your contact is. We only want you to confirm it.”

“You know jack shit.”

“We have other methods to make you talk.”

“Truth serum?”

His interrogator laughed before taking a drag of his cigarette. “A defector from the Biological Weapons Department of the KGB once claimed that a truth serum with the code name XQ3 was highly effective. No taste, no smell, no color, and no side effects. Most importantly, the victim had no recollection of having confessed his gravest sins, only that he awakened from an unremarkable nap. It was said they used the drug to check the trustworthiness of their own agents. We all know XQ3 is a fiction. There is no elixir that can loosen a man’s tongue, or if it does, will only produce a tainted confession. And so, I ask again ....” He inhaled an impatient breath. “Whom do you work for?”

Jack worked up a globule of spit and launched it.

His interrogator calmly reached into a pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and calmly wiped away the sputum. “I see we will get no further with this line of questioning. There are other ways. There is the pail method. Or the rope method. Or the razor method. All cruder. And messier.”

Jack heard a movement. Sensed a whiff of air. And the echoing blasts of bullets firing from an automatic pistol.

The interrogator made a gurgling noise before his body toppled forward and gracefully folded onto the floor. Soft-soled shoes approached and rolled over the slack body. The automatic delivered three more shots at pointblank range, the reports deafening. The assassin cleared his throat but said nothing. He slowly turned around, and with a leisurely gait, walked out of the building, hard-soled shoes shuffling across the floor.

All men have enemies. Some known. Others unknown. The enemies within are often the most destructive.

Jack gratefully passed out, knowing no more but the empty arms of forgetfulness. The tropical requiem played on and faded into night.

THE END