by Ted Dekker
A single caged bulb shed very dim light on the room. The bare concrete space was perhaps fifteen feet to a side and may have once been used for storage or as a cistern. A single wooden table that held a small crate sat against the wall to his right. He could see no doors, but the back wall was nearly obscured by darkness.
“What’s a matter, you were expecting worse?”
Danny blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
“I asked you a question.”
“I didn’t have any expectation,” Danny said.
The red-faced man wore a sneer. “You will. We reserve deep meditation for the worst of the worst, and you’re about to learn why. There’s two ways to do this. We can either knock you out, or you can go willingly. Either way, you’re going. Clear?”
Going to where, Danny had no idea.
“Yes.”
But then the restraints on the back wall emerged from the shadows and he did know. They were going to strap him up on the wall.
The captain saw his stare and smiled. “They never see it when they first come in. It’s a pain getting you up there when you’re out cold, but it’s your choice.”
“I’ll go willingly,” Danny said.
“We’ll see. One wrong move and you get a Taser in the neck, you hear? I’m gonna take off your restraints, but Mitchell’s quick on the trigger. Keep that in mind. No sudden moves.”
Danny nodded. He had no intention of showing any aggression. It would only prove pointless.
“Walk to the wall and turn around.”
Danny shuffled forward, eyeing eight eyehooks set in slats that could be adjusted to fit varying body sizes. He turned around a couple feet from the stained concrete wall. The CO named Mitchell, a rail-thin man with a long face that held too-big eyes, stood with his legs spread and Taser ready, as if he was facing off with a bear.
“Don’t move,” he snapped.
Bostich approached, holding a single strap in his left hand. He reached behind Danny, tied the restraint at his waist off to an inset eyehook, and cinched him tight against the wall. He released the irons on Danny’s wrists and ankles before stepping back.
“Sit tight.”
The man retreated to the crate on the table and withdrew a fistful of cables with leather cuffs. In less than two minutes each of Danny’s wrists, knees and ankles were snugged firmly in padded, three-inch leather restraints. Each of these six cuffs were then hooked into cables that latched into the sliding eyehooks on the wall.
Working now in silence but for their heavy breathing, Bostich and Mitchell pulled first his arms, then his feet, then his knees wide into a spread eagle on the wall. They returned to the arm cables one at a time and stretched him wider. They repeated the same exercise on his legs, pulling them up off the ground and away from each other.
Danny said nothing. All of his attention was on pressure in his joints and tendons. He was a strong man, but Bostich seemed determined to mitigate any advantage Danny might have.
As of yet, he felt no pain, but he knew that would soon change.
When they were done, the facilitators stepped back and studied their handiwork.
“Good enough?” Mitchell said.
Bostich smiled. “Oh, yeah. Two things you should know,” he said to Danny. “One, you’re in here for forty-eight hours. Don’t you worry, we’ll check on you and give you water. You’re going to need it. Two, this is just for fun. Every second you’re on that wall, you remember one thing: it can get worse. Much worse.”
Danny just stared at the man.
Evidently satisfied, they turned their backs on him, turned off the light, exited the room, and shut the door. The thud reminded Danny of a heavy crypt being sealed, and hanging on the wall in the pitch darkness, he couldn’t escape the subject of his own mortality.
Already his arms and legs, with which he supported most of his weight, began to tire.
The only thing he could see was inky darkness. The only thing he could hear was his own breathing. The only things he could feel were the stretching of his muscles and his naked skin, which had already started to shiver as a means of generating body heat to ward off the cold.
But these weren’t the most unnerving to him. The fact that he was even in such a predicament reserved that place in his mind.
And the fact that such a place even existed in a free country that despised abuse. The fact that word of this room would bring a thousand human-rights advocates and their fully armed attorneys running. The fact that no human being deserved this kind of treatment, much less a simpleminded boy like Peter.
And yet here Danny was, strapped to a wall in Basal’s bowels. If the warden inflicted such punishment on the members, it was only because he could. How, Danny wasn’t entirely sure, but his adversary was far more organized than even Danny had imagined.
No one of Pape’s intelligence would dare open the doors to this place without taking every precaution to mitigate fallout that might threaten either him or his precious sanctuary. Any objection from any member subjected to such treatment would likely bear terrible consequences or death, the threat of which would follow them into their old age.
Corrections and rehabilitation at its finest, a shining example for the rest of the world. California’s prison system was being fixed by someone who thought himself far wiser than the politicians who ran society, all to one end: the salvation of that society.
Punishment and reward, as it had been demonstrated throughout history. Basal: heaven and hell in one building.
The first half hour was quite tolerable. The next was less, forcing him to use more of the muscles in his arms and shoulders to take the weight off his burning calves and quads. During the second hour, his strength began to fail. His weight shifted from his muscles to his tendons and joints, which increased his pain.
And then Danny began to lose his sense of time, because every minute seemed to stretch far beyond its capacity. It was cold but he was sweating. His muscles were toned and strong, but he was trembling like a frail reed. His intelligence and stoic reasoning had served him through the worst of human experiences, but now they began to fade.
Danny shut down his pain to the best of his ability and hung on the wall, naked, stripped of all thoughts but the worst of all.
What were they doing to Renee?
14
BRADEY’S DINER WAS a hole in the wall three blocks from the biker bar, nearly empty when Keith and I got there at ten fifteen that night. We sat in an isolated corner booth with two cups of coffee, having assured a waitress in an orange dress that we wanted nothing else. Nothing at all.
“You kneed him in the groin?” Keith asked. “You couldn’t have just grabbed the note and run?”
“And risk him coming after me?”
“Not likely in a place like that. Besides, you did what was asked. The man’s job was done. He’d have no reason to come after you.”
“He was a pervert.”
Keith couldn’t quite suppress his grin. “You really can handle yourself, can’t you?”
I shrugged. “I suppose, if I have to.”
“Just keep in mind that we aren’t in this to teach perverts a lesson. We do what we need to do and nothing more that might draw attention to ourselves. That includes physically assaulting a pervert. We have more immediate concerns, right?”
“Right.”
“Although I can’t say I blame you. Let me see it.”
I checked the restaurant, saw that the waitress was clear across the joint gabbing with a cook, and pulled out the bear’s note. It was on lined yellow paper, same as the first note, folded over eight times.
Keith opened it carefully and smoothed it out on the blue Formica table. We sat side by side, staring at Sicko’s third message:
Good girl.
Nausea swept through my gut. The idea of being anybody’s good girl jerked me back to the days when I had stooped far too low to please others and suffered abuse at their hands. For a moment I lingered on th
ose two words, terrified that I was being drawn back into a similar place.
It had started with Cyrus Kauffman, who pulled me into the world of drugs and tried to kill me when I refused to prostitute myself to make good on a debt. Danny had saved me from that, but what if Sicko was about to resurrect my old self?
We all have memories of darker days pushed back into the corners of our minds, but mine were sucked up to the surface with those two words. Good girl.
Keith slid his hand over the note. “You okay?”
I nodded.
He put his hand on mine. “Look, sometimes things look bad, but we get through them. The truth is, you’re a free person. You could probably fold up shop and go on the run now…never look back. It would probably be your safest course of action. Frankly, half of me thinks that’s just what you should do.”
“Then you don’t know me.”
“Actually, I’m getting to know you better. That’s what I’m saying. You could do it, but you won’t because you love a man that society has all but thrown away.”
A knot gathered in my throat. I nodded.
“So you’re doing this for love. Me, I’m sitting here for far less noble reasons. Self-preservation. The fact is, my own past is catching up to me.”
“By making an enemy in Randell.” I looked across the diner again. We were alone now except for one old couple on the far side.
He nodded. “But I did the right thing. I put him behind bars for the right reason, and now it’s coming back on me. You try to do the right thing and sometimes you pay a price.”
“You could walk away.”
Keith lifted his hand from mine. “I’ve been telling myself that all afternoon, but the truth is, I can’t any more than you can. If Randell’s working with someone who can do this to you, they can do it me. Are doing it to me. This goes deeper than either of us can guess. They could probably find a way to reach out and crush me anytime they wanted. We’re in this together, period. Okay?”
He was trying to ease my mind, and after my little episode with Bear, I needed him to.
“Okay. You should know that what Danny did, he did with a noble heart. He hurt some people, but only those who deserved it. No different from what you did.”
“Maybe.”
“No, not maybe. He confessed and now he’s paying a price. But to be honest, I love him even more for it.”
“Then remember that. You’re doing this for him. The truth is, no one else can help him now.”
I dipped my head, pinched the edge of the yellow paper, and slid it out from under Keith’s hand. Sicko’s note stared up at me.
Good girl.
There’s an old warehouse at the end of Sherman Road, Morongo Valley. You will be there Saturday night at eight o’clock. I’m watching. If you go to the police, I will know. If you go to the prison, I will know. If you deviate in even one detail, I will know.
Do what you’re told, Renee. The priest is suffering but he’s alive. Don’t make me kill him. Set him free.
There was no salutation, no name. Only the blatant assurance that whoever had written the note had all of the strings in his fingers and was eager to pull the ones that would end Danny’s life.
Keith turned the note over, then flipped it back. “That’s it.”
“Saturday? We’re supposed to just sit around for two days?”
“Keep it down.”
“I danced with that pervert for this? Why didn’t he just say this in his first note?”
“Because that’s the way it works. He playing with our minds, knowing that you would react exactly the way you are. So don’t.”
“We can’t just do nothing! Something’s not right.”
“Nothing’s right! That’s the whole point.”
“We’ve got to find out what’s happening to Danny. I can’t just sit on my hands for two days.”
“Slow down. That’s exactly what he’ll expect.”
“What?”
“You doing something crazy. Going to the cops. Finding an attorney. Trying to contact the warden—anything and everything he’s said not to. If we do that this guy’s going to carry through.”
“So, what? We’re just his puppets now?”
“No.” Seeing the waitress headed their way, Keith folded the note and slipped it into his pocket. “Hold on.”
The smiling server with stringy mud-blonde hair held out the pot. “Need a freshen-up?” She smiled wide, bearing front teeth that should have been put in braces when she was younger.
“No, thank you,” Keith said.
She faced me. “How about you?”
“Nope.” I sounded snappy, I know, but I was at the end of myself. It struck me as her face fell at my retort that Keith was right. This was exactly what Sicko wanted. But could I help it? I didn’t think so.
In fact, if it were only me I’d probably run into the bathroom, lock the stall, and have a good cry.
“No, thank you,” I said, as she walked away. She flashed a faint smile over her shoulder.
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I’m not suggesting we do nothing.”
“Then what?”
“We have two days to think. To research. To try to figure something out. Then we go do what he says. Other than that, we go dark.”
“Dark.”
“He’s watching. We don’t react the way he expects us to. In fact, we do the opposite. We don’t break his protocol, but we don’t panic.”
I understood immediately. “Play his game.”
“Play his game. Try to shake him.”
“Make him second-guess us.”
“That’s right. We go about our lives as if nothing’s happened. We get a beer, we shop, we go to work…do you work?”
“No. And my routine is pretty simple.”
“Fine. We assume he’s listening to our phone calls, so we don’t talk on the phone. Only outside, in a park, on the beach, out of earshot. But we don’t act concerned or panicked.”
“Seems like a pretty weak play.”
“It’s a start. It’ll at least make him wonder. More importantly, it gives us some control—and trust me, honey, we need some.”
I took a sip of coffee, black, the only way I can force the stuff down. One cup and I’d be up all night, but I doubted I’d do much sleeping anyway. The next forty-eight hours were going to be screaming torture—Sicko’s whole point. Still, the thought of doing nothing without knowing what was going on with Danny was going to double me in half. I’d have to visit my therapist.
“Okay.”
“Trust me, it will drive him nuts. Take consolation in that.”
“Nuts,” I said, nodding. “We’ll drive him nuts.”
“Bananas.”
“Bananas.”
But all I wanted to do at that point was find Sicko and shove a gun down his throat.
15
SATURDAY
TWO DAYS COULD be a lifetime: this is what Danny already knew but learned once more as he hung from the wall in the bowels of Basal. The human body was an incredibly durable vessel: this is what he had learned too many times in Bosnia and never wanted to learn again.
When the body was subjected to an overload of pain, it tended to spare the mind prolonged duress by shutting down. Unconscious, it does not shiver uncontrollably or feel pain or scream. Danny was comforted only by the thought that he’d likely spent at least half of his time in that oblivious state before his body rebooted in darkness and flared with agony.
Conscious, he also had to live with his thoughts and his emotions, which flogged him just as relentlessly. Strapped to the wall, he was acutely aware that his thoughts and emotions, though only temporal things, could affect as much pain in him as harm to the body could. Through the years he had willed himself to live in simple consciousness, stripped of the thoughts and emotions that dragged him into suffering. The brief periods of time in which he succeeded filled him with peace and clarity.
He’d often wondered if
such a place of clarity was the closest thing to heaven to be found on earth. Finding it this time proved more difficult than before because of his incessant fear for Renee’s safety and his empathy for Peter’s circumstance.
Some advocated surrender as the path to peace, but Danny had always known that his mind was too strong to surrender to anything. Instead he controlled it with raw determination and willpower, a process that sometimes worked better than others.
He’d once been taken captive by the Serbian Christians in Bosnia and, because he was suspected of numerous infiltrations into their strongholds, was questioned over a two-week period before he managed to escape. Their interrogation methods had become increasingly forceful. It was the first time he’d been forced to endure tremendous amounts of carefully directed pain.
Marshall Pape’s version of hell did not match that torture, but the pain of deep meditation was severe enough that a boy like Peter would likely never survive a second encounter.
And wasn’t that the purpose of the warden’s sanctuary? To scare the wayward straight by subjecting them to the threat of extreme punishment?
Doing his best to ignore the pain in his nerves, his thoughts, and the torment inflicted by his emotion, Danny sought the stillness beyond, peering into the darkness, searching for awareness of God’s love and beauty in his own spirit. It wasn’t easy to find.
Bostich did not come with water as promised. No one did. No one came at all. The promise of water was only a hope deferred to make the heart sick, one little twist of the knife to increase his suffering. Without any food or water, his body might have shut down completely had they not come for him after forty-eight hours.
When Bostich and Mitchell did come, they came with a hose, which they used to wash him down while he still hung on the wall. He sucked in as much of the water as he could.
They finally released him from his restraints, a process that heaped pain upon pain, then stood back as he collapsed in a heap.
“Get yourself together. We’ll be back.”
