The Devil's Game (The Game Trilogy Book 2)

by Sean Chercover

  Daniel stood and excused himself, leaning in for a kiss as he left the table, and Kara tilted her face up and put the palm of her hand on his chest and kissed him back.

  Passion simmered just beneath the surface—an acknowledgment of what was to come in the bedroom upstairs. But there was also a sadness in the kiss—an acknowledgment that they’d looked into the abyss today, and seen the depths of cruelty humans were capable of.

  They’d come so close to death.

  And seen such horror.

  The only appropriate response was to do something beautiful and life affirming. So they would stare into each other’s eyes over a candlelit dinner under the stars and then go upstairs and, as the British say, shag each other rotten. Probably stare into each other’s eyes during that, too.

  Today had been a good day to die. But Daniel had stayed alive, and whatever happened tomorrow, tonight he would abide.

  He left Kara at the table and walked through the hotel lobby and pushed open the polished wood door, into the men’s room. Like the rest of the hotel’s public spaces, it was tasteful and well appointed. Their two-bedroom suite with an ocean-view veranda was better still. Even in a place as poor as Monrovia, the moneymen and diplomats and spies demanded first-world luxury. And the Cape Hotel delivered.

  Daniel stood in front of the urinal and unzipped, thinking: What a difference seven hours makes . . .

  The men’s room door swung open behind Daniel as he zipped up.

  He used the urinal’s chrome hardware as a mirror to see—

  —a large man closing in fast, so fast Daniel felt the sharp pin jab in the back of his neck before he could even pivot.

  His legs turned to rubber.

  The room started spinning.

  He sank to the floor.

  A second man pulled a black hood over his head.

  Daniel slipped into darkness.

  39: STRANGERS

  Upon awakening, Daniel’s first thought was headache.

  Followed by: Right, the guy in the men’s room.

  And then: Kara—oh God did they get Kara, too?

  He opened his eyes. A naked lightbulb hung about six feet above. He was lying on his back on a bench of some kind, secured to it by straps across the chest and thighs and ankles. His wrists were bound together behind his back, arms stretched under the bench. His shoulders throbbed, especially on the left side where Kara had stitched him up. The place smelled of Dettol antiseptic.

  He turned his head to the side. The room was about ten feet wide. Cinder-block walls, unpainted. A small, battered table to his left, and a single folding metal chair. On the table, a two-liter torpedo bottle of Coca-Cola. Nothing else in the room.

  He heard a door open and then close behind him. Then footsteps—large man, rubber-soled shoes—coming closer. The man appeared in his field of vision—the first man from the men’s room, the one who’d injected him—carrying something mounted on a black tripod. Camera? The man set the tripod about four feet away, to Daniel’s right.

  Not a camera. A workshop light.

  Two thousand blinding watts of halogen light bore down on Daniel, making his eyes water. Worse was the heat. Already a hundred degrees in the room, and within seconds Daniel could feel his skin temperature rising under the artificial sun.

  The man walked out of Daniel’s field of vision. The door opened again.

  “He’s awake, sir. We’re ready.”

  New footsteps, leather-soled shoes this time, coming closer, stopping next to Daniel on his left, beside the table.

  Evan Sage looked down at Daniel, shaking his head. “You know, you are really starting to piss me off, Mr. Byrne. I thought I made my position clear. Your country needs your help. All you had to do was show up at the American embassy and talk to me, like any patriotic citizen would. But you decided it was a better idea to run away to the Liberian jungle”—he leaned in close and spoke directly into Daniel’s ear canal—“and DESTROY THE EVIDENCE!”

  Sage dragged the metal chair across the concrete floor, closer to Daniel. He sat. “And that makes you an enemy combatant. Your citizenship no longer grants you any rights. Way things stand, you’re looking at a one-way trip to Guantanamo.”

  The other man moved the tripod a foot closer, tilted the head down, pointing the powerful lamp directly at Daniel’s face and chest, close enough to give him a sunburn.

  Daniel’s mouth was dry. He swallowed. “The place was rigged to blow before I got there.”

  Sage said, “Well, that’s a start.” He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one with a Zippo, snapping the lighter shut and blowing a blue stream of smoke directly at Daniel’s face. “Rigged by whom?”

  “The men you’re chasing,” said Daniel. “Michael Dillman’s crew, I guess.”

  “And how do you know that?”

  Daniel tried to clear his throat but it was too dry. “Water,” he said.

  Sage glanced up at the man standing in the darkness behind the light, then back to Daniel. “How do you know it was Dillman’s crew?”

  “Said I guess. I don’t know.” Daniel’s throat felt like sandpaper.

  “Then why do you guess it was Dillman’s crew?”

  “Because you’re chasing them. Because you said they’re involved in bioweapons. Because the place looked like a medical lab.”

  “Don’t get cute. You knew damn well who Dillman was, and you knew his crew had something going on in Liberia, knew exactly where to look. And you knew it before I did, so you can cut the business consultant crap. And don’t give me shit about investigating all that mystical Tim Trinity voodoo.” Sage blew smoke in Daniel’s face again. “Who are you working for?”

  Daniel said nothing.

  Sage glanced at the big man in the shadows. The man walked away and Daniel heard a faucet running, filling a large metal pail. After a minute, the tap shut off and the man appeared above Daniel, silhouetted by the workshop light.

  The man said, “Back in Washington, they call it enhanced interrogation, but that’s bullshit. I promise you, it’s torture. Got a taste of it myself in training. Once you can’t breathe, nothing else matters. Me, I’m pretty tough and I cried uncle after two minutes. Nobody else in my group even made it a full minute.” He put the pail down, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a black cloth. He stretched the cloth tight across Daniel’s mouth and nose, hooking the ends around something to keep it in place.

  Daniel sucked air through the cloth, fighting against the panic rising in his chest, focusing on breathing steady and slow.

  The man lifted the pail again. “They say it simulates drowning—that’s also bullshit. It is drowning, just in slow motion. Drowning puts the body under incredible pressure. Usually when people die, it’s because they stroke out or have a heart attack. You don’t have a heart condition, do you?” He began tilting the pail.

  Evan Sage held up a hand and the big man put the pail down again. Sage unhooked the cloth. “We don’t have to do this, Daniel.” He dragged on his cigarette again. “Hell, I’m a Democrat, I’m against this shit. I hate it, really.” He nodded his chin in the direction of the big man. “Sam here, he likes it. But I will do anything to protect my country—your country too, by the way—from all enemies foreign or domestic.”

  “We’re on the same side,” croaked Daniel.

  “If that were true, you’d have come to the embassy,” said Sage. “If that were true, you’d already be talking instead of waiting to see what happens next. Well here’s what happens next: Sam floods your lungs with water until you tell us everything. Period. You don’t tell us, we pick up your girlfriend and you can watch while we do it to her.” He dropped the cigarette, ground it out under his heel. Then he pulled the cloth taught over Daniel’s mouth and nose.

  Sam reached for the pail.

  Daniel closed his e
yes and slowed his breathing further.

  The water came. A splash at first, and against his will he swallowed it, rehydrating his parched throat. Then another splash filled his sinuses and then the water came steadily and his entire body went rigid. He fought to turn his head to the side, couldn’t. He tried spitting the water back up, but the cloth held most of it in his mouth and it just kept coming faster, more going in than coming out, and he coughed and gagged, heart pounding against his ribs, muscles spasming, but the water just kept coming.

  Daniel was drowning. Each second without air was an hour, and the room began spinning around him. Blind panic set in, the pure animal need for oxygen raging in his chest and in his mind. He wanted to tell Sage everything. He needed to tell. But somehow, deep in his mind beneath the panic, there was a place of stillness, and he tried to center his consciousness there. And in that place, he knew telling Sage the truth would only make things worse. Everything Daniel had learned, he’d learned by way of what Sage called that mystical Tim Trinity voodoo. From the soldier in West Virginia to Kara’s voices and dreams, to the cave in Norway, all the way to the horror of that village upriver. He could tell Sage everything, and Sage wouldn’t believe a word of it, and the water, the water . . .

  the water would . . .

  just . . .

  keep . . .

  coming.

  Daniel hacked up a lungful but the cloth stopped it and it came back into his mouth and he swallowed it and his stomach hurt.

  The water stopped briefly, and he choked and gasped for air, inhaling water, his chest burning.

  The water started again.

  “Stop!” Daniel screamed, forcing what little air he had out of his lungs.

  The water stopped. Evan Sage untied the cloth. The other man stepped forward and lifted the end of the bench by Daniel’s feet and hooked it to something against the wall, putting Daniel’s head about twenty degrees lower than his feet.

  Daniel vomited all over himself, gasped for air.

  Sage checked his watch. “Damn, that was pretty impressive.” He glanced at Sam, then looked down at Daniel. “I’m listening.”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “I will if it’s the truth.”

  Daniel sifted quickly through the facts, sorting them into Tell and Don’t Tell. It wasn’t just about stopping the waterboarding. He could make up a story, tell them what they wanted to hear, and that would stop the waterboarding. But Sage would keep him detained while checking the story out. The main goal—the only goal—was to stop Conrad Winter and Michael Dillman from releasing their plague bacteria into the world. And Daniel couldn’t do that from this room.

  And as much as he hated Evan Sage right now, Daniel knew Sage was committed to stopping them too. Sage didn’t need to know about AIT, whether he’d believe it or not. But he needed to know the threat of an outbreak was imminent, regardless of the Foundation’s obsession with secrecy.

  Daniel said, “Michael Dillman has possession of a new strain of the plague. I don’t know if it was bioengineered or a natural mutation, but it’s pneumonic and he has a lot of it. And I’m trying to stop him before he releases it.”

  Sage’s eyes flicked to Sam and back. “Where?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Who’s backing him?”

  “He’s working for a man named Conrad Winter. A Vatican priest.”

  Sage snorted. “You expect me to believe the Vatican is behind this?”

  “No, not the Vatican. Winter has his own agenda.”

  “So who’s behind Winter? Because you don’t finance an operation like this on a priest’s salary.”

  “You’d have to ask Winter.”

  “Winter’s not here . . . if he even exists. I’m asking you.”

  “I don’t know,” Daniel lied.

  “Don’t spoon-feed me. I need it all. Who’s behind Winter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You gotta do better than that. A lot better.” Sage stretched the black cloth over Daniel’s mouth and nose, held it firm, and nodded to Sam. “Again.”

  Sam unhooked the bench and lowered it back to horizontal.

  Shit shit shit shit shit . . .

  Sam lifted the bucket, tilted it.

  The water started again. Daniel’s sinuses flooded and water splashed against his esophagus and he gasped a mix of water and air into his lungs and his diaphragm spasmed.

  Sam tilted the bucket further and Daniel couldn’t breathe—it was all water now, water and pure blind panic, heart racing, head screaming, chest ready to explode.

  Behind Daniel, the door opened and all at once the water stopped.

  A third man’s voice said, “Sir, phone call for you. Urgent.”

  “Christ.” Sage released the cloth and Sam tilted the bench, and Daniel coughed and gagged and threw up some more water.

  Sage stopped on the way to the door and rested his hand on the torpedo bottle. “You have two minutes to rethink your position. Then we switch to Coke. Nobody holds out after they get a lungful of Coke.” He left the room.

  Daniel got his breathing under control once more, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the Coke bottle. How much longer could he hold out? He was right at his limit now, with only water. The thought of Coke flooding his lungs sent a violent shudder through his body, and he suddenly felt not hot, but very cold. He shuddered again.

  And then Sage was back in the room with the other man. Rough hands released the straps across Daniel’s body and cut the zip ties from his wrists and ankles. Sam hauled him to his feet and kept him from falling until he could get his legs under him.

  Evan Sage lit a cigarette, spoke bitterly. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but you have friends in very high places. You’re free to go.”

  Daniel walked unsteadily to the door, stopped and looked back, and started to speak.

  Sage jabbed his cigarette at the open door. “Just fuck off.”

  40: DON’T SLOW DOWN

  Daniel stood alone in the same men’s room at the Cape Hotel where a needle in the back of the neck had made him disappear, thinking, What a difference seven hours makes . . . again.

  The man facing Daniel from the mirror looked older than Daniel. And he needed a shave. Frankly, he looked a mess. His shirt was disgusting, his hair all over the place, his face filthy and shiny and flushed, his expression that of a man disconnected from himself.

  Hollow.

  Daniel turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face.

  Jerked his face up and spun the tap off.

  No water, no thank you.

  He took a few deep, centering breaths, got his heart rate back down to normal. He pulled his shirt off. There was a horizontal bruise across his chest where he’d struggled against the restraint. Checking over his shoulder confirmed the quality of Kara’s needlework—the wound was an angry shade of red, but her stitches had held just fine.

  He rinsed his shirt in the sink, dislodging flecks of vomit, ignoring the sound of the faucet as best he could. He shut off the tap, wrung out the shirt and wiped his face with it, then put it back on. He ran his wet fingers through his hair, dried his face and forearms with a towel, and nodded to the scruffy guy in the mirror.

  It would have to do.

  Upstairs, he keyed his way into the suite and stopped short in the hallway.

  Voices from the living room. Kara and Pat. Arguing.

  Kara was saying, “Well I can’t just sit here and wait for the phone to ring. We should be out there, looking.”

  Pat said, “You don’t know Monrovia, darlin’. We can’t just go wanderin’ the streets at 3:00 a.m. Jacob’s got feelers out all over town, and headquarters is working it full-tilt boogie on their end. Soon as we get a lead, I’m outta here. I’ll get our boy back, I promise. Best thing you can do right now
is get some sleep.”

  Daniel walked into the room. “Pat’s right, you do look a bit tired.”

  “Daniel!” Kara shrieked and ran toward him, arms wide.

  Last thing Daniel wanted was his chest squeezed, even by her. His body wanted to pivot away from her, make her miss. But he held firm and braced himself for the hug, guiding her arms down and around his lower back. She kissed him and he kept it short, taking hold of her shoulders and moving her back a step.

  “I’m disgusting,” he said, putting on a smile for her.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “You’re alive.”

  “’Course I am,” he said. “You worry too much.”

  Pat was talking into the phone, relief audible in his tone. “Just walked in the door. Yup.” He winked at Daniel. “Little worse for wear, but I reckon he’s okay. Will do. Thanks.” He put the phone down, grinned at Daniel. “Everyone back home sends hugs.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What happened?” said Kara.

  “Just an unscheduled conversation with Homeland Security. I’m fine.”

  She grabbed his hands in hers and went into doctor mode: “You are not fine. Your hands are freezing . . . pupils dilated . . . eyes unfocused. Daniel, you’re in shock. What did they do to you?”

  “Kara, stop.” He looked her in the eyes, making sure to focus his. “They asked me some questions and encouraged me to answer them. And now it’s over. I’m fine, really, just need a shower and some shut-eye.” He kissed her forehead. “The worst part of it was missing our date. Now go on to bed. It’s been a long day for all of us.”

  Pat stood out on the veranda, under the stars, leaning back against the railing and sipping root beer through a straw, smoke rising from a joint in his other hand. Daniel stepped out to join him, closed the door behind.

  Pat said, “She asleep?”

  “Will be any minute.” There was a bottle of Old Rip Van Winkle beside a single rocks glass on the table. Daniel poured a few fingers into the glass and dropped himself heavily into a patio chair, close enough to reach the bottle for refills.