He placed his hand around Captain Isinov’s shoulders, leading him out of earshot from the doctor and his medical assistant. “Captain Yuri Isinov, why don’t we allow the good doctor to apply his medical treatment to the prisoner and see if he will be more cooperative? I might need someone of your expertise to lead the attack on the Rebel Headquarters when this is finished. We need this prisoner alive and well. No more slicing and dicing, okay? We might be able to use him in a prisoner exchange for some of our boys.
Captain Isinov knew he reacted partly out of his frustration. He wanted to end the war himself and saw this prisoner as his golden opportunity to do so. “Comrade General, I must apologize for my behavior. I know how much you have protected my career. You could have chosen to dismiss someone like myself many years back, and I thank you for not doing so.” He looked the General straight in the eye, and then took his hand in friendship.
“All right then, let’s get back to work,” the General said, slapping him on the back, both walking back to where the prisoner lay motionless.
“Comrade Doctor, is our prisoner ready to unburden himself with the details of the remaining rebel secrets?”
Doctor Razinski stood beside the general, monitoring the pulse of his weary patient. He had provided the truth serum to Sirna only 2 minutes before watching as it quickly took its desired effect.
“General, the time has come; he should be under the drugs influence. You may proceed with your questioning at any time.”
The General motioned Captain Isinov to take up a position on the opposite side of the hospital bed, in the process casually dismissing the doctor and his medical assistant from the room. They then stood solemnly at Sirna’s bedside, waiting to hear the metallic click of the door closing.
“Do you know anything about the man we have here, Yuri? Any details on his life? Anything private?”
“Yes sir,” he said, reaching into his dress shirt, pulling out a yellow piece of paper that looked to be removed from someone’s legal pad. “We have a one page dossier on our man, all of it documented and verified by our FSB.”
The general quickly scanned the sheet before handing it back to the captain. “Very good. Ask him a few personal questions to see if we are on the right track. This will be our test case to see if he is telling us the truth.”
Captain Isinov briefly consulted the sheet of paper looking for some easy questions. “Sirna can you hear me?”
A soft “Yes” was his response.
“Where were you born, Sirna?” said Captain Isinov as he leaned over him, carefully wiping the blood from around his eyes, allowing him to briefly view his captors.
Sirna lay motionless on the bed. A feeling that he was completely at rest suddenly overwhelmed him. He had never experienced such a feeling. It felt as though his body were floating on a cloud. The only thing that troubled him was the fact that he was not in control of his body; it was choosing its own path. Is this paradise? Was he already dead and preparing to meet Allah? Yes, it had to be. Only Allah could make such words want to flow so freely from his mouth.
“I was born in the village of Kirnez, oh great one,” Sirna said, a smile appearing on his face thinking Allah was standing over him. Captain Isinov nodded to the general.
He continued. “Sirna, what position do you presently occupy in the Rebel Army?”
“I am presently the Eastern District Commander in Chechnya.”
The general signaled for the captain to proceed with the tougher questions, wanting answers before anything happened to Sirna in his weakened state. The serum was known to cause heart attacks in some patients.
“Sirna, when captured by the Russian soldiers you were coming from your headquarters. Can you tell us the location of your headquarters?”
Sirna hesitated as he struggled with the answer, grunting and straining against the chains on his hands and legs, sweating profusely, finally relenting when his head eased back unto the pillow. The floating effect had stopped. “From the spot of capture, it was close to 4 and ½ kilometers south by south east,” he spat out in disgust.
General Poszk removed a detailed ordinance map from his briefcase, spreading it out on the same table occupied by the doctor’s instruments. “The red x marks where we captured him, so that would place the headquarters right about here,” pointing to the Nakyata Pass. “Show this map to him; get him to pinpoint the location of the Headquarters.”
The captain wiped the blood from Sirns’s eyes then held the detailed map up for Sirna to see. “Sirna, can you show us the location on this map? We need to know the Headquarters position.”
Sirna felt groggy from the drug’s effects, trying to focus on the map as the captain eagerly held it for him. He tried to fight the impulse to speak aloud but his tongue and brain were working in defiance. “In the valley of Nakyata and partially buried in a cliff. It has a rock outcropping that resembles a rams ear.”
“The rams ear?” repeated Captain Isinov, looking at the map himself, walking around the bed with the map and over to the general. “If we go south 4½ kilometers it would bring us to this location.” His finger traced along the route. “It would obviously be somewhere off the trail over here in the mountainous area bordered by the tree line. The valley of Nakyata, that is right here, 1 kilometer from the trail.”
“Here, right here,” the General said excitedly. “It resembles an ear of a sheep or ram, right here.” He pointed to the spot on the map for the captain to observe before thrusting the map in front of Sirna for concurrence.
The captain wiped the blood from above Sirna’s eyes allowing him to view the map. “Yes, that is the position.” He could not distinguish if it were Allah or the devil who now controlled his tongue.
Still not satisfied, the general continued. “We are not complete here, Yuri. This man still has more information to provide us.” He picked up the yellow piece of paper in his search for additional questions.
“May I proceed with some questions of my own sir?” Captain Isinov said.
“By all means Yuri, please.”
“Thank-you sir,” said Captain Isinov before turning his attention to the captive. “Sirna, when the Russian officer captured you, where were you heading? What was your mission?”
“That man was evil,” Sirna spit out, again straining against the chains that bound him to the bed. “He killed my brother in front of my own eyes. The heavens cannot hold me. I will seek revenge upon that man!”
“It is okay my friend,” he replied. “He will soon have to pay his own price. Please answer the question I posed to you.”
Sirna smiled. “I was leading a patrol to the front lines of our glorious troops to inform them of our impending victory.” He relaxed as he thought he was still walking amongst his troops. “We have procured two weapons of mass destruction and are in the process of using them against our enemies. Victory will soon be ours.”
The general dropped the cigarette he was lighting along with its accompanying lighter onto the floor, allowing the hollow metallic click of the lighter to resonate throughout the room. A look of shock graced his face. “Did I hear him correctly? Did he just say a weapon of mass destruction?”
“No sir, he said weapons.”
“Ask him for more details Yuri, quickly before he comes around and the drug’s effect wears off.”