Judgement

by Fergus Bannon

  Inspection of the films seemed to take forever. He was growing very uncomfortable on the hard bed and his back was starting to hurt again. It made him start to feel angry.

  The breaking point came when the second man returned and pulled the x-ray tube clear of the bed.

  'Get up,' said the first man, who was still the only one who had spoken.

  Leith didn't move. The second man reached down and, grasping him by the upper part of his right arm, dragged him upright.

  He tried to pull away. 'Get your fucking hands off me.'

  The man's grip remained firm. He looked at Leith without emotion.

  Somewhere to the right the first man said: 'Damage him.'

  The wind whistled through his teeth as Leith was lifted several inches into the air by the blow. Then he was on the floor, clenched up into a ball and nursing his gut.

  He was barely aware of the cuffs and blindfold being put back on, but he was very aware of the gag. Breathing had become difficult enough as it was.

  The next time the trunk was opened, Leith became aware of the far away traffic sounds and general acoustic buzz¿ of a city.

  They helped him roughly out of the car and then dragged him backwards. Two short steps banged painfully against his heels. They stopped and Leith heard a key being turned in a lock and a door being opened. He was dragged along what he assumed, from the faint echoes, to be a corridor, then through another door that had to be unlocked. He was dumped backwards onto a chair, which tilted alarmingly before returning to its equilibrium position. The blindfold was removed.

  He blinked up at the first man who stared blankly back.

  'Now what?'

  Nothing.

  He looked round the small room. There were no windows and the walls were bare, apart from a number of broad shelves supported at their ends by brackets bolted into the wall. It was obviously a storeroom, probably for stationary. The damp powdery smell of new plaster hung in the air.

  The door opened and a wiry little man with a smart, almost military bearing marched in. His tanned face and hands were deeply wrinkled and his hair was blond but turning white. His light blue suit was carefully tailored with the corner of a yellow handkerchief peeking over the top of his breast pocket.

  He folded his arms across his chest and looked down at Leith. He pursed his lips as though in thought, then his eyes narrowed.

  'We're not here to fuck about, Leith. We want information and we haven't got much time. Two hours, in fact. We can't allow ourselves the luxury of standard interrogation techniques. We're going to torture you. We're going to start cutting you up and we're going to continue until you answer our questions. We'll try and space it so that you're still alive until the two hour deadline, but don't count on it. Blood loss is difficult to predict.'

  Leith realised his jaw was hanging open and he shut it with a snap. Just then the door opened and the other two men entered carrying chains and a number of large bags. They were wearing surgical greens. He tried to struggle to his feet but the first man punched him in the chest.

  Short lengths of chain were put round his arms and legs and the sides of the chair. More disposable clothing was brought out of the plastic bag. The other two men quickly put them on, then the small man pulled out a leather bag from a sack. He undid the flap, which folded out to reveal a selection of knives each secured through two slits in the leather. He smiled at Leith then laid the unfolded bag down on one of the shelves. Removing one of the knives he came over to Leith and grasped the front of his tee shirt, pulling it out. Leith gave a little cry as the blade arced up through the material, emerging in front of his eyes.

  The man jerked back with the knife ripping the shirt open. He kept hacking away until the whole thing had come off.

  There was a sudden whirring sound to his right. Leith jerked his head round and saw that the second man had plugged in an electric drill and was testing it. The man appeared satisfied that it was working properly, then turned to look expectantly at Leith.

  Leith looked back at the small man. 'I will tell you any fucking thing you want to know,' he said as loudly and as clearly as he could.

  The small man looked genuinely sad. He finished putting on the surgical cap. 'You see. I haven't even asked you a question yet already I don't believe you.'

  'For Christ’s sake, ask me anything!'

  'Ok. Who are you working for?'

  'The CIA.' Leith was trying to speak so fast he stumbled over the initials. He drew a breath. 'I'm sorry. I work for the Central Intelligence Agency.'

  The man's brow wrinkled even more. 'And...'

  'And what...?'

  The man leaned forward so that his nose was almost touching Leith's.

  'I've told you once already. We're not here to fuck around,' he said softly.

  Leith swallowed hard.

  'I work under Dr. Stanley Nevis in the Records Integration Division, which is situated in the most recent annex at Langley. Dr. Nevis is immediately responsible to Carl Neuman, who in turn is responsible to Ted Spencer, Eastern Hemisphere Co-ordinator, then up to Emma Forbes and...'

  The man was shaking his head. 'You really are a stupid shit.' He nodded at the man who was holding the drill.

  It was brought forward. It was just a hand held job, the kind you could obtain from any hardware store. The man holding it thrust it up in front of Leith's face so he could get a good look at the drill bit.

  It's the type for wood, he thought, and almost giggled.

  Then it was pointing at the upper part of his left arm. Despite the chains he managed to shift out the way a centimetre or two. He felt himself grabbed by strong hands.

  The drill whirred into life then was slowly pressed home.

  He saw but did not feel his skin tear. He saw the spatter of blood appear across the forearm of the man holding the drill, then a coil of white tissue wound up around the drill-bit. In his shock, in some small oasis of calm in the maelstrom that was his mind, he guessed it came from the layer of subcutaneous fat under his skin.

  His scream almost drowned out the sound of the drill but the man didn't stop. He pressed harder and this time a red cloud spurted out as the drill reached the more plentiful supplies of blood in the muscle.

  Leith's world became full of burning pain and he wished he would black out. He felt and heard the grating of the drill as it glanced off his bone. He heard the men behind him step rapidly backwards and he guessed the drill had suddenly appeared out of the back of his arm.

  The man withdrew the drill and took his finger off the trigger. The whirring sound died away and the man put the drill down, then reached into the plastic bag to get out a towel. He rubbed it across one cheek where he had been caught by some of Leith's blood.

  The small man stepped forward again, kneeling down slightly so that his eyes were level with Leith's.

  'Who are you working for?'

  'Mossad,' said Leith miserably.

  The man's cheeks puckered and he shook his head again.

  'You bastards,' Leith whimpered through his tears, 'you bastards.'

  He did black out a couple of times in the eternity that followed. They drilled a couple more holes in the same part of his arm and seemed no happier with his answers. He told them he had come across signs of a cabal only by chance, that he had told nobody else but Nevis, that, for God's sake, he agreed with what they were doing. If anybody deserved to die it was Middleton and his men. Could he join their side? Please!

  Nothing worked. The question was always the same: who did he work for?

  After the fourth hole the small guy seemed to grow impatient. He caught the first man's eye and gestured to the shelves with the knives. The drill was put away and a single small knife was again displayed in front of Leith's eyes.

  'Please don't. Oh God, please don't.'

  Like a butcher carving off a prime cut for a favoured customer, the man shaved off a half centimetre thick slice of skin and fat and muscle from just below Leith's left nipple. He held up the
bloody circle of flesh for Leith to get a good look at then reaching down he cut open Leith's trousers and underwear until his genitals were exposed. He looked up at Leith and grinned.

  Leith started to scream and wouldn't stop until the small man took a syringe out of a metal tray and injected him in his undamaged arm. While one part of Leith's mind watched the men stand up and put away their tools, a second part slipped away into another world of nightmare.

  Leith at last began to wonder how long he had lain like this, his eyes wide open and staring at the featureless, freshly painted ceiling. He turned his head slightly and felt the soft pillow yield under his head. He moved his hands between the smooth sheets until he felt his legs, then he moved them up across his body. They stopped at the rougher surface of a bandage on his chest. He began to remember.

  He felt fear, but the drugs dulled it. He pushed with one heavy arm until the sheet and blankets were lifted clear. Pulling himself up painfully he inspected his body and was relieved to find himself intact. Apart from the bandage on his chest, and his well-strapped left arm he appeared uninjured. Then he ran his tongue across the roof of his mouth and found a chunk missing from a front tooth.

  The time since the torture seemed impossibly hazy. He remembered warped faces and the never-ending chanting of the same question. How many days this torment had lasted he could not say. He still felt very weak and his head spun every time he moved.

  He lapsed into another drugged reverie until the door opened and the small man came in. He came across and knelt down by the camp bed.

  'How do you feel?'

  Leith edged away against the wall, wringing his hands.

  The man nodded to himself. 'Come with me. There's a room down the corridor where you can shower and dress. I want you neat and tidy. You're going to meet some important people.'

  'You're going to kill me, aren't you?' The voice was so weak and slurred that Leith could hardly believe it was his own.

  'No. You're going to be fine. Do you need a hand to get up?'

  Leith did but he wouldn't accept it. After a few seconds of ineffectual thrashing about the little man went to the door and opened it.

  'Halliday, Nieman! Come here!'

  Two of the kidnappers came and pulled him gently to his feet, then they helped him to the door. After the first few steps Leith got the hang of walking and even managed to take some of his own weight.

  The shower was good. He noticed some of his clothes draped over the back of a chair. He put them on when he had dried himself and walked over to the wash-hand basin and the mirror above it. The face that stared back at him was deathly pale, and the eyes were small and frightened.

  The first kidnapper had not moved from his place by the door where he had been keeping a watchful eye.

  When he had finished brushing his hair Leith looked at the man's reflection in the mirror.

  'How long have I been here?' he asked.

  The man said nothing for a few seconds then shrugged.

  'About twenty hours.'

  Leith turned to face him. 'Is that all?'

  The man nodded.

  Leith shook his head in disbelief.

  'Ready to go?' asked the man.

  Leith walked over to the door. It was opened for him.

  'You're going for another little drive,' the man smiled. He looked almost friendly. 'No cuffs or blindfold this time. You even get to sit up front.'

  CHAPTER 8

  West Washington, DC

  Heavy rain overnight had given the streets a dirty, oily sheen. The car sped through featureless suburbs huddled under a slate grey sky.

  He was beginning to feel a little better. The huge breakfast had been good and the first man had very gently and professionally redressed his wounds. His chest hardly hurt at all but his arm gave him a dull ache, leavened only by a much sharper pain when he moved it in certain ways.

  Still slightly woozy from the drugs, he had nevertheless identified the city as Washington, even before the car eased its way onto the neon-lit Beltway. The early morning traffic was light and moved in a restrained manner on the rain-black road.

  Stanley, the small man, was driving with Leith bedside him on the front seat. John, the cold-eyed blond, was behind on the back seat, a heavy presence whose every movement made Leith want to flinch.

  Perhaps they weren't going to kill him, but he couldn't help thinking this was just another stage following the torture and the drugs.

  He watched glumly through the side window at the blur of the road and wondered if he'd have had the nerve to jump, even if John hadn't so ostentatiously demonstrated the childproof lock fitted to the front passenger seat.

  An off-ramp took them into a small unfamiliar section of Alexandria called Chilton. The car slid by street after street of expensive houses. It seemed deserted until they came to a private security car parked at the kerb. Stanley nodded to the men inside and one of them waved back.

  A couple of hundred yards later the car swung into a large Georgian style house fronted by a circular drive. It was set in grounds dominated by a variety of established trees, brilliant with autumn colours even in the dull light. Several expensive cars were parked in a square offshoot of the drive and the car nosed in to a space between a Mercedes and a Saab.

  'Get out,' said John.

  Leith waited until Stanley had walked round to his door and released the catch. As he got out Stanley laughed as though Leith had made a joke and clapped a hand gently across his uninjured arm. The rain had started again as a fine mist, which accentuated the heavy sweet smells of loam and cut grass. They walked back to the stone stairs, which led up to a flat area in front of the main door. The ornamentation of the balustrades was old and worn by the weather, like the house itself, but managed to retain a feeling of ancient and enduring wealth.

  A man in a dark suit already had the doors open. Immediately the doors were closed, he frisked Leith, who noticed John raise one quizzical eyebrow. Leith winced as the man ran his hand over his wounded arm.

  Finally satisfied, the man led them across and to the right of the large dark-wood entrance hall to a large panelled door. He knocked and waited. After a couple of seconds there was a faint buzzing sound and the man opened the door, standing aside to let Leith enter.

  The room was a library; each wall was set with ornate bookshelves full of old and expensive looking books. A large rosewood table dominated the centre of the room. The only jarring notes were a couple of military-grade Panasonic notebooks and a large flatscreen monitor on one end of the table.

  Hearing the door close behind him, he glanced round and realised that none of the men had followed him into the room. That meant that the people in the room were confident they could handle him. Turning back slowly, he saw the reasons why, sitting at the end of the table nearest the screen.

  'Please take a seat, Dr. Leith.' A grey-haired man sitting in the middle indicated a chair on Leith's side of the table. 'Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?'

  Leave me the fuck alone! He wanted to yell, but instead:

  'Coffee. Black.' His voice came out so weak he had to repeat it. When he finally caught it the man nodded as though this was a particularly wise choice. His thick grey curls and aquiline nose would have looked fitting on an ancient Roman coin, but there was an air of politeness about him, almost a deference. He quickly poured out the coffee from a silver pot and leaned right across the table to put it in front of Leith.

  'I hope it's to your taste.' He gave Leith a pleasant, open smile.

  Leith took a sip then paid closer attention to the other two people.

  The woman was Emma Forbes. She was Chief Co-ordinator for the Records Integration Division's Western Hemisphere operations, though she looked not much older than Leith. Her face was set in a hard, searching expression but she was conventionally attractive with light, almost blond hair and grey blue eyes set in a narrow face. She was wearing a severe-looking brown pinstriped jacket over a white blouse, but there was no jewell
ery, even on her small fingers, which she tapped lightly against the desk. A workaholic, she was reputed to have little time for a social life.

  The final person in the room was bad news by any standards. Leith stole a glance at him just to be sure, but the man was staring right back, so he looked quickly at his coffee.

  It was Durrell all right. Point man par excellence, and the stuff of company legend. Leith had seen him only once before. He'd been with Nevis at a meeting several years ago. It had been held to set up an operation against some Chechen narco-terrorists. The group had been intent on wasting a DA who was moving against their pals. The Company had lacked hard evidence, and what they did have had been obtained illegally through Nevis' section.

  There'd been at least fifteen people round the table that time, but Leith had noticed Nevis staring at one in particular from beneath a darkening brow. Leith knew Nevis could be precious about violence so he'd paid attention.

  Sure enough, 'Tom' had been given the job of tidying things up. Nevis had supplied the surname later.

  'If people like us are the brains of the company, Durrell's the bone in the fist. The man's a throwback to the sixties,' he remembered Nevis fussing at his shirtsleeves as he had said it. 'But necessary, I suppose.' He hadn't sounded convinced.

  Durrell didn't quite look the part. He was big, though not much bigger than Leith. His features were handsome, with soft brown hair cut short above a broad, urbane countenance. The lips, though not pronounced, seemed a little too sensuous, a little too full to tally with the coldness of the dark blue eyes.

  He was dressed in a navy blue blazer with a white handkerchief protruding from the breast pocket. With his healthily tanned and weathered skin and his refined looks, he could have come straight off the Ryder Cup committee.

  'I think introductions are in order,' said the grey-haired man, rubbing his hands together. 'The charming lady on my right is Dr. Emma Forbes, as I'm sure you know.'

  Leith looked frankly at her but didn't acknowledge the introduction. It was little wonder they'd got onto him so quickly. Nevis' section was like one strand of a web, with this lady lurking right at the centre.