This was part of Hamani’s process, for he was also a master of psychological torment. He carried on the punishment of his prisoners, making sure they lasted weeks, and sometimes months. He did this to maximize his power, to increase the terror of those held captive in the prison. Even if a prisoner was still whole, he was presented every day with the gruesome vision of what would happen to him when his time came. He would wake up every morning wondering what this day would hold. Perhaps he would just be made to watch the torture of another prisoner today, or perhaps he was about to experience some unimaginable violation of his person. The fear and anticipation alone were enough to break many of the prisoners.
At this point, Zak had been aware of his environment for only a couple hours. But he’d already had enough of the tension and fear. In the last hour, he’d changed his philosophy. This wasn’t the way he wanted to die. This wasn’t the way he planned to die. He’d stopped trying to ready himself for torture and had now turned to plotting his escape. As the guards grabbed him and dragged him out of the cell, he wondered if he’d get the chance.
The Operating Theater, as Hamani preferred to call it, was well lit. It was an ample room, some 30 feet by 30 feet, and very clean. There was a drain in the floor, in the center of the room. The only prominent features were two large tilting wooden tables. Each table had six darkly stained leather restraints — four at the corners of the table and two on the face of the table itself. Zak knew from experience that they were restraints to fix the arms, legs, midriff, and head tightly to the table. Along one wall of the room was a large work bench, with various tools — hammers, drills, pliers, alligator clips, a stack of batteries, and a host of other devices for bending, piercing, burning, and cutting. Zak swallowed heavily, and for a moment his vision blurred. There were definitely some disadvantages to knowing exactly what was going on, he thought wryly.
Petroni screamed and jerked violently as he was led to the table, but, being already savagely mutilated, he had little power or mobility left for resistance. Taking advantage of the commotion, Zak glanced furtively around the room again, looking for something, anything, that might be of use in an escape attempt. The tools on the table? Impossible, how would he ever get to them? And what of the guards? At seven to one, and all seven of them bearing arms, the odds were certainly not in his favor. He only had the full use of one leg. And he was bound, another complication.
As he was contemplating the chances of slipping the ropes from his wrists, he noticed that the action at the table had changed. Petroni had been bound to the table, naked and spread out, immobilized by the leather thongs. The other table was being turned toward Petroni, to stand about 15 feet away from it. The guards began dragging Zak toward this second table.
“Ah, Darius Petroni,” said Hamani, walking toward the bound man. “You have given me and my students much from which to learn. We are grateful, and sad to see you go, after… what is it now?” he asked, flipping through a notebook with his pen. “Ah yes, we’ve had the pleasure of knowing you for nine weeks.”
Jesus Christ, thought Zak to himself. This little fucker actually takes notes. Thinks he’s running an experiment for Anatomy 101. This had all the makings of becoming truly ugly.
Hamani walked back and forth between the two tilting tables, setting them so that they were positioned vertically. He looked thoughtfully at Zak, who was now standing next to the second table. “What to do, what to do,” he muttered as he paced. “You see, my friend,” he said, addressing Zak directly, “usually I would have you strapped to this second table, so that you could witness firsthand the torture and death of this man. But I have my orders…” he tapped his pen to his lips, thinking.
Zak stood absolutely still, trying to focus on his plans rather than what the man might say next.
Finally Hamani continued. “Yes, I have my orders, and I am not certain that you should watch, just yet. We need your mind intact, for the time being.” He turned to the guards holding Zak. “Take him outside. He may hear the screams. He may hear the blows, and the sound of saw on bone. But he is not to watch yet. That will come later.”
Zak sagged with relief. It was little consolation, in the long run, but for now it was some reprieve. At this point the present seemed to be the only thing that mattered.
As the guards dragged him from the room, Hamani added one last command. “Stay by the door. Tell him everything that happens.” Then Zak saw him turn back to Petroni.
Before they were out the door, Petroni began to scream.
“Ah, my friend,” smirked one of the guards, “it is too bad you do not get to see. Our good doctor has just plunged his pen into Petroni’s eye. As I’m sure you can imagine, it is quite a painful action, from the patient’s point of view.”
He led Zak to a chair, allowing him to collapse into it, and quickly securing his hands behind his back. Zak listened to the screams of the man in the torture room and groaned to himself. He thanked God that he wasn’t being forced to watch the actions, but hearing them described, in concert with Petroni’s screams, wasn’t going to be easy on his mind.
Suddenly the screams reached another level entirely, and the guard watching through the door grinned in delight.
“Oh, well done, well done.” He turned slightly to address Zak, his eyes still focused on what was going on inside the room. “The master has taken one of our sharpest swords and severed the man’s other foot.”
There was another scream from the room, accompanied by the sound of the sword hitting the wood of the table.
“And his right arm.”
The sound of another blow.
“And now his left.”
Zak’s stomach seemed to shrink, and then expand very quickly. There had never been any training for this. Dealing with his own pain was one thing… being forced to listen to another man dying in this way was something for which his government had never prepared him. He felt his entire body tighten, as though his extremities were attempting to retract into his body. His legs grew tense, as his natural instinct to draw himself into the fetal position tried to take over.
It took all of Zak’s strength and will to remain sitting in the chair. He gasped, trying to recall his self-discipline. He remembered that he had been chosen by his government, one of the few men in the world who was strong enough to be put undercover in such a dangerous situation, and sat up a bit straighter. He had no choice but to find a way out of this situation. Biting his cheek to draw blood and focus his attention, he pulled his consciousness inward and thought only of escape, and how he would do it.
Eventually he became conscious of Hamani standing next to him. The man was staring at him oddly, evidently waiting for his attention. He still carried the bloodied machete in his hand.
“Ah, there we are,” he said, as he saw Zak’s eyes turn to him. He shrugged. “You will be glad to know that I’ve put him out of his misery. I think you missed many delightful things while you were… unconscious. We’ve had him for nine weeks now. I’m sure we could have used him for another month, but orders are orders. And these came from the top.” He pointed at Petroni’s body, still strapped to the table. “What’s left of this man is to be put into bags and deposited in front of the American Embassy in Islamabad.” He glanced at the guards. “See that it is done.”