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the chances of any good coming from shouting were awfully remote, while the
chances of someone coming in and smacking him in the guts with a truncheon and
duct-taping his mouth shut and hooding him after for good measure were fairly
high. It just wasn t a percentage move.
He hadn t been much mistreated, he had to admit, if he was willing to discount
that initial waterboarding and some electric shock they d applied to his feet
after to get him to scream over the phone for Rain s benefit. Jesus Christ
almighty, the waterboarding was flat-out awful. The hell of it was how
short-lived the effects were. One second you re pissing-your-pants-panicked,
and then a minute later you re rational again, swearing you won t break this
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time. Except you do. It was unnerving to be swept away by blind fear that
way it was like losing control of your bowels or something, but a hundred
times worse. Hilger was right, going through it at SERE was one thing, having
the bad guys do it to you with real intent was something else entirely. That
vice president who d called it a dunking ought to have his head pulled out
of his ass.
They d left him in his cold, wet, soiled clothes for about a day and hadn t
fed him at first, either. That meant they were still checking on the
information he d given them, wanting to keep him uncomfortable and mindful of
his recent ordeal so they could break him again more easily if it turned out
he d been bullshitting them. When they hosed him off, changed him into a
clean, dry track suit, and left him food and water, he knew something had been
worked out. And whatever it was, his life was part of the bargain.
They d pretty much left him alone after that, except when they d put him on
the phone with Rain. That conversation had been hard. Rain was his buddy, and
he knew the man wouldn t quit until he d gotten him free or died himself in
the process. He was ashamed his carelessness had put his partner in this
position, and it was awful knowing Rain was out there doing God knows what,
while he was here, chained up and helpless to change the odds even a little.
They were even feeding him well enough, he supposed, with two hot meals a day
in styrofoam containers that he ate hunched over with a plastic spoon.
Sometimes the food was Chinese, sometimes Malay, sometimes Indian. Which
didn t mean much, because you could get all three at pretty much any food
stall in Southeast Asia, and it all froze and microwaved just fine. They could
be anywhere. There was no porthole in his room, and his only sense of place
was the rise and fall of the swells beneath them and the sound of the engine
when they were moving. He didn t even know what time of day it was, or night,
for that matter.
His worst immediate problem, aside from shame, boredom, and the feeling that
his tongue was cultivating lichens, was the Mexican, whom Dox thought of as
Uncle Fester for both his bald head and his crazy eyes. The man had a touch of
the sadist in him more than a touch, in fact. Every now and then he liked to
pop into the cabin and get in a cheap shot. The first time it had been in the
gut, but Dox had seen it coming and even though the fuckwit knew how to punch,
the damage hadn t been too bad. But there were other places to hit. He d kneed
Dox in the coccyx once and the spot still hurt like hell and made sitting in
his chains even less pleasant than it otherwise would have been. The man was
picking his targets, Dox realized early on, so as not to leave marks. He
figured Hilger, who while clearly being a four-alarm psycho in his own special
way also seemed to be guided by some sort of professional ethos, would have
taken a dim view of gratuitous treatment of a prisoner, and the bald guy was
being careful because of it.
The last two days had been particularly bad. The only people he saw were the
bald guy and the boyish-looking one, who Dox knew goddamn well at this point
was anything but boyish, and he figured Hilger and the blond dude had gone
somewhere. With fewer people around, Uncle Fester seemed to be emboldened.
The punishment hadn t stopped him from provoking the dude with insults,
though. On the contrary, more than ever his dignity required that he prove he
was unbowed. There wasn t much he could be proud of at the moment, but
standing up to that piece of shit, insulting him grievously enough to make him
an enemy, that was something. His body was paying for it, but it was helping
keep his spirit alive.
He shifted on the cot and winced at the pain in his lower back. Yeah, he liked
putting that fucker down, and he didn t mind suffering for it, either. Cause
when this was over, he was going to make Uncle Fester pay for all of it, and
with more interest than the man could ever hope to come up with.
He just had to live through it first.
11
I WENT OUT the back of the hotel and made a variety of aggressive moves until
satisfied I was clean. Then I found an Internet café where, after the usual
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examination for spyware, I checked the bulletin board I used with my contact
in the CIA, a young Japanese-American in Tokyo Station named Tomohisa Tom
Kanezaki. Kanezaki and I had first run into each other a few years earlier,
when he d been a green, idealistic Agency recruit newly posted to Tokyo. He d
quickly figured out the way his superiors were using him, though, and was a
sufficiently quick study to turn the tables on them and survive. Since then,
I d helped him with a few off-the-books matters, and could typically count on
him for information, and sometimes equipment, albeit always at a price. I
wondered what the price would be this time. Whatever it was, I d have to pay
it. I knew I couldn t get Dox out of the jam he was in without Kanezaki s
help.
The bulletin board was empty. I didn t know when Kanezaki might check it, so I
sent him a text message from an e-mail account he would recognize as mine: You
in Tokyo? Need to meet. Although over the years Kanezaki had managed to
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