by Paul Heatley
“Agent Hogan,” he says once she’s close enough, looking her over and smiling.
Carly does not like the feel of his eyes running over her skin. “Eric wants to know how things are coming along.”
“Inside,” Chuck says, stepping aside to let her through. He closes the door, says, “Things are coming along well. He didn’t hire some two-bit operation – he hired the best, and he knows that.”
Carly glances around the warehouse. Three other men are sitting around. It looks like they’ve been playing cards, but they’ve gotten bored of it. They’re all looking at her now. She feels the same level of discomfort under their gaze as she did under Chuck’s.
Carly keeps her back straight, her jaw set, defiant. She doesn’t care that they’re undressing her with their eyes, that it’s probably been a long time since any of them were with a woman. She doesn’t care about the awful thoughts that must be running through their heads. She won’t be cowed by them.
“Show me,” she says.
“Of course,” Chuck says. He walks away and she follows. She knows the eyes of the other three will still be upon her, will be watching her ass.
The warehouse is cold. She notices some of the windows have been smashed. Likely by kids with rocks during its years of emptiness. Chuck leads her to the back of the building. There is a van, and next to it are boxes. They are under a tarp, likely to keep them dry.
“Eric sends you down here to check in on us, huh?” Chuck says. “He don’t trust us, that what it is?”
“Eric is cautious. You should know that by now,” Carly says. “And he’s a control freak. He doesn’t like things being out of his hands like this, doesn’t like having to rely on other people.”
“Man from his background, I’d expect he’s used to having other folk do things for him.”
“I didn’t come here to make conversation about Eric,” Carly says. “I came here to see the goods.”
Chuck smirks. “Sure thing, sweetheart.” He steps over to the corner of the tarp, pulls it back. “What exactly is it you want to check? All the fertilizer? You can probably smell it already.”
“I can,” Carly says. She’s avoided wrinkling her nose so far. In all honesty, she just thought it was the smell of five men in close quarters together. “You know what I came to see.”
Chuck smirks again, and she wishes she could slap that look right off his face. He picks up the nearest box, brings it over to her. He opens it up. There is ammonium nitrate inside.
“Plenty more like this,” Chuck says, tilting his head back toward the other boxes. “We ain’t mixed it in with the fertilizer yet.”
“I thought it was already inside the fertilizer,” Carly says.
“Not enough for the size explosion y’all are asking for.”
Carly’s mouth fills up with spit suddenly. She has to swallow it before she can speak again. “You’re not nervous, being around all this?”
Chuck puts the lid back down, shrugs. “Ain’t the first time,” he says. He puts the box back with the others. “You wanna check them all individually?”
“No,” she says. “One is enough.”
“Well,” Chuck says, coming back over to her, “there it is, in all its glory.”
Carly feels uncomfortable being so close to so much explosive material. It must show, as Chuck starts to laugh. She asks, “How much damage will this all do?”
“A lot,” Chuck says. “Just like you wanted.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Oh, He don’t have nothin’ to do with it. Way I understand it, they don’t even believe in Him, ain’t that right?”
Carly says nothing to this. Her eyes are fixed on the boxes. Now that she’s seen the contents, they make her nervous. The hard surface she was determined to wear while she was in here, with these men, is beginning to crack.
“Everything to your liking?” Chuck says. He’s enjoying this, how uncomfortable she looks. It sounds like he’s mocking her. “You gonna report back to Eric, tell him how hunky-dory everything is on our end, how we’ve done it all exactly how he told us, and how we’ve been worth every dime?”
Carly looks him in the eyes. “I’ll tell him just that.”
“Great. Satisfied with what you’ve seen here?”
Carly spares another quick glance at the boxes. Thinks about the damage they are going to cause. How many buildings they are going to destroy. How many people they are going to kill. She thinks about one person in particular. “Very.”
45
It takes a moment for Ronald to get his bearings. He knows he’s in his kitchen, but this is an angle he hasn’t seen it from before. He has to raise his head a little to look around. He’s on the kitchen table, flat on his back.
Then he realizes he can’t move. He’s tied down.
And he’s not alone.
Tom watches him wake. In his hands are a towel and a watering can. It’s the same damp towel Tom spotted earlier in the bathroom. He found the watering can in the garage. It’s perfect. It’s old and hasn’t been used in a while and looks like the last thing it had in it was oil. Tom has filled it up with water from the tap. It’s ready to go.
Ronald’s eyes settle on him. They blink, narrow, widen. “Who the fuck are you?”
Tom holds up the items in his hands. “Are you familiar with waterboarding?” he says.
Ronald looks confused. “Huh? What?”
“It’s an old practice. It goes back to the 1500s, to the Spanish Inquisition. It’s called an interrogation technique, but let’s be realistic here: It’s a form of torture. Most recently, you might have heard about its use at Guantanamo Bay. There was a lot of controversy about that, right? I bet you were one of those guys who was all for it. Fuck the A-rabs, right?”
Ronald stares at him, slowly comprehending why he is being told this.
“But you ever seen it done? You ever done it? You ever had it done to you?” Tom raises his eyebrows, cocks his head, like he’s waiting for an answer. There is none forthcoming. “Basically, this wet rag here, it goes over the person’s mouth and nose. And then, the water in this can here, it gets poured over the rag. The water gets in your mouth, it gets in your throat, and your gag reflex kicks in. You know what it feels like? It feels like there’s a fire in your throat and your nostrils. It feels like drowning. And it feels like it ain’t ever gonna end.”
Ronald looks scared. He tugs at the cords that bind him to the table.
“Oh yeah,” Tom says, “you’re gonna want to struggle. You’re gonna kick and scream and thrash around, try to break free, but you’re tied down real tight, believe me. I know a thing or two about knots. You’d think I was a Boy Scout or somethin’.”
“Who are you?” Ronald says. “What do you want?”
Tom ignores him. “Ideally, the table should be inclined about ten or twenty degrees, just to really get the water in there, but we can make do, right? I don’t have the time to be sawing and sanding down table legs, getting them just right. And trust me, it’ll work just fine on a flat surface. You understand why I’m telling you all this, right?”
“You’re trying to scare me,” Ronald says.
Tom laughs. “I’m gonna do a lot more than just scare you.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m gonna waterboard you, Ronald. And it’s gonna hurt like hell. So much so you’re gonna wish you were dead.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah, you’re acting tough now, but believe me, when it comes down to it, you’re gonna cry like a baby. Unless, y’know, you just tell me everything I wanna know right now.”
“I’m not telling you anything. I ain’t telling you shit.”
“You don’t even know what I’m curious about yet, Ronald.” Tom grins.
“It don’t matter – you ain’t gonna get a damn thing outta me!”
Tom sucks his teeth. “Well, we’ll see.” He puts the towel over his face. It covers his head. Ronald tries to shake it off. It’s damp already and i
t clings to him. Tom pours the water over his mouth and nose, his other hand holding him tight by the jaw, keeping him still. Ronald’s body spasms. He tries to cough and splutter through the towel, but nothing gets through. Tom counts to ten in his head. He stops. Takes the towel away, drops it onto his chest.
Ronald gasps, wheezes. He throws up on himself. The bile is watery. “Told you, didn’t I?” Tom says. “Feels just like drowning.”
“Who the fuck are you!” Ronald says. “I got nothin’ for you!”
“My name is Tom Rollins,” Tom says. “My brother is Anthony Rollins. I believe you know him already.”
Ronald’s eyes go wide. They fill with realisation, with understanding, with fear. Quickly, he tries to hide it. To be tough. Belligerent. He juts his jaw. “You killed Peter,” he says.
“Guilty,” Tom says.
“Who’s with you?” Ronald says. “How many guys you got? We’re gonna waste ’em all, then we’re gonna find your brother! We’re gonna finish what we started!”
“Guys?” Tom says.
“Who’s helping you?”
“I’ve always worked better alone, Ronnie.” Tom winks.
“Bullshit.”
Tom shrugs. “Who told you about my brother, Ronald?”
Ronald closes his mouth tight, breathes through his nose.
Tom leans down close to him, rests his elbows on the table. “A mutual acquaintance of my brother thinks it came from within the FBI. That true? They got a mole?”
“Fuck you.” Ronald spits the words through gritted teeth.
“Have it your way.” Tom puts the towel back in place. He pours the water. Pours it intermittently, gives him a chance to catch his breath. By the time the can is empty, Ronald is screaming.
Tom removes the towel so Ronald can see what he does next. He takes the empty can to the sink, fills it back up from the tap. Fills it all the way to the top. Makes sure Ronald is watching him while he does so.
“All you gotta do is talk, Ronnie,” Tom says. “Just tell me what I want to know. It ain’t a big ask.”
Ronald’s eyes dart left and right as Tom approaches with the freshly filled can. There is no way out. There’s no one to help him. No one has heard his screams, come running. There’s no way out. No help.
Only one thing he can do to make this all stop.
Tom can see he’s close to breaking. He doesn’t say anything as he picks the sodden towel back up from his chest, prepares to put it back in place.
“Wait!”
Tom looks at him, raises an eyebrow.
Ronald breathes hard, panting. When he doesn’t say anything, Tom moves the towel again. “I’ll talk!”
“I’m listening.”
Ronald grits his teeth. He looks ashamed of himself. “We don’t know who she was,” he says.
“She?”
“Yeah. She called Michael, direct, but she wouldn’t say how she got his number. She told him about Anthony, how he was undercover.”
“You were there?”
“Yeah. Me and Harry. We were at Michael’s just hanging out, having some beers, watching a game.”
“I don’t need your life story, Ronnie. Stick to the details that interest me.”
Ronald swallows. “Michael asked why he should believe her. He had got her on speakerphone, so we could all hear. All she said was, Do whatever the hell you want, but there are twelve other cells in four other states taking out their trash tonight. Do y’all wanna be the ones who don’t?”
“And you believed her? Just like that?”
“Harry got on the computer, started checking the news. He saw a report about two other undercovers getting wasted right here in Texas, just minutes before.”
“How’d he know they were undercovers?”
“They fit the bill she was telling us. How else would she know about them? It was breaking news.”
“You didn’t ask who she was?”
“Sure, Michael asked her exactly that. And she says, You’ve got friends in places you don’t know about.”
“You heard from her since?”
“No.”
“Michael try calling her back?”
“It was an unlisted number. He almost didn’t answer it. He’s destroyed that phone since, got himself a new one.”
Tom grunts. “He really think that’s gonna make a difference?”
“Better than doin’ nothing.”
“That’s true. I agree, it’s always better to be proactive, in any kind of situation. Now, on that note, tell me about the attack you’ve all got planned, Ronnie.”
Ronald’s eyes narrow. “Attack? The fuck you talking about?”
Tom brings up the towel.
“I swear, I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Hell, I barely know what I’m talking about here, Ronnie. I was asked to ask. But apparently y’all are planning some big kind of attack, a real case of domestic terrorism, something big and dangerous like this country hasn’t had for decades.”
Ronald is confused. “Who the hell told you that?”
“Money trails, security cameras.”
“What?”
“What about Michael and Harry? They gonna do something? Maybe they’ve left you outta the loop?”
“They wouldn’t do that,” Ronald says, adamant. “They wouldn’t leave me out of anything. There’s never been a decision they made they didn’t bring me in on first.”
“That so?” Tom says. “Then let’s forget about the attack for now, because I believe you when you say you don’t know anything about it. Look at that, Ronnie, I believe you. We’re making real progress here, aren’t we?”
Ronald doesn’t respond to this.
“Let’s go back to the night you found out Anthony was working against you, shall we? Let’s go back to when you ran him off the road, and you found he wasn’t alone. His girlfriend was with him. You remember all this, right, Ronnie? It wasn’t all that long ago. So you find him with his girl – her name was Alejandra, by the way, Alejandra Flores, I want you to remember that – and you see that Alejandra is pregnant. You couldn’t miss it. She was real far along. I mean, you must have seen, right? Did you notice, Ronnie?”
Ronald looks scared to answer this.
“Sure you did. So here’s a question. If there’d been a child with them, an actual living, breathing, out-of-the-womb child, half-white, half-Latino, what would you have done then? Put a bullet between its eyes?”
Ronald doesn’t answer. Doesn’t want to answer. But Tom knows. He knows that this is exactly what they would have done. Tom raises the watering can.
“Hey, hey – what’re you doing?” Ronald is panicking. “I told you everything you wanted to know! I answered all your stupid questions!”
“You didn’t answer the last one,” Tom says without turning.
“Fuck you,” Ronald says. He chooses to be angry instead. He knows how this night ends for him. “Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!” He starts screaming for help.
Tom puts the towel back over his face, shoves it into his mouth. He starts pouring the water. He doesn’t stop. Ronald’s body spasms; it struggles; it strains at the bonds. The movements begin to slow, become languid. Tom empties the can. He fills it again, leaves the towel in place. By now, Ronald is still. There are choking, gagging sounds coming from the back of his throat. Tom returns to the top of the table, empties the can into his face once more. Ronald moves a little, but it’s not long before he’s completely still. Tom watches him choke to death.
46
Ben is sleeping.
As far back as he can recall, he’s never been able to remember his dreams. He’s always put it down to falling into too deep a sleep, tired and weary from the busy events of his daily life. Lately, however, he has been plagued. Nightmares. Visions of death and destruction. He finds himself running through the night, pursued. Eventually, it’s like he’s running in place; he can’t go fast enough. The person chasing him catches up, runs hi
m down.
It’s Anthony. It’s usually Anthony, out for his blood.
Sometimes, it’s Tom.
Ben wakes in a cold sweat from these dreams. He wakes with the inside of his cheek chewed ragged, the taste of blood in his mouth and burning in his throat. Of course, this is only when he’s able to sleep at all. Some nights he just tosses and turns. He stares at the ceiling. He goes downstairs and paces the floor, fretting.
Tonight, he wakes to the sound of his buzzing phone.
He reaches for it, but doesn’t answer it immediately. He pauses, glances back, then remembers he is alone. Carly only returned from visiting her family in Fort Worth earlier tonight. She said she’ll be tired; she’ll stay at her own place; she’ll see him tomorrow at work.
The caller is Tom Rollins. Ben feels a lump in the center of his chest. He coughs, then answers. “Hello.”
“I’ve spoken to Ronald Smith,” Tom says.
Ben clears his throat, breathes through his nose. “Is Ronald still capable of speaking?”
“No.”
“Color me surprised.”
“Do you want to hear what he had, or not?”
“I’m listening.”
Tom tells him. Tells him how Ronald doesn’t know anything about a planned domestic terrorist plot, and doubts the others on the council do, either. Tom tells him that he believed Ronald.
“How can you be so sure?” Ben says.
“He wasn’t lying,” Tom says. “I know.”
Ben feels a cold chill run through him.
“I asked him about the mole.”
The chill intensifies. Ben’s throat is dry. “And?”
“He didn’t have a name.” Tom tells him how the call came unexpectedly. They didn’t have the number. The caller didn’t introduce themselves or explain who they were. All they did was tell them the truth of who Anthony was, and they had knowledge of the other undercover murders happening that night.
“He said it was a woman’s voice,” Tom says. “When they asked who she was, she told them they had friends in places they don’t know about. I assume she was referring to the FBI.”
