“Dvora, they tell me you’ve been a very bad girl,” Bayard whispered, as if the three men weren’t in the room with the two women. “I’m going to ask you one question, one time. If I’m not pleased with your answer, I’m going to make you exceptionally uncomfortable. I’ll do my best not to go too far, but you know, sometimes my best just isn’t good enough. Do we understand each other, Dvora? Such a sweet name you have, Dvora.”
The young woman inhaled deeply. She was scared. But she gathered her inner strength, prepared to do battle with this strange woman in the white coat. As she’d been trained.
She did not respond to Bayard, giving no indication she even heard her.
“All right, Dvora,” Dr. Bayard said. “Let’s begin our little session. Dvora, I want to know the name of the Israeli who smuggled the nuclear bomb into the United States. You will tell me his name right now or I will be so unhappy with you. What is the man’s name, Dvora? Let’s start with just his first name.”
All eyes in the room were locked on the young woman taped to the board on top of the table. Her reaction was completely unexpected.
She broke into loud, uncontrolled laughter.
“You people are out of your minds,” she said. “I don’t know anything about atom bombs or about anything being smuggled anywhere. I got onto that ship to save my ass. That’s all I know about anything.”
The young woman locked her eyes onto the older woman. Dr. Bayard shook her head slowly.
“You disappoint me, Dvora,” she said. “I told you I would not give you a second chance.” She turned to one of the soldiers. “Tape her mouth, then bring the equipment in.”
The soldier tore a six-inch strip of duct tape and placed it over the young woman’s mouth, careful not to cover her nostrils. He went out the door and returned pushing a cart. Bayard took a three-foot, red rubber hose from the cart.
“It hurts me so much to have to do this to you, dear Dvora.” The doctor turned to the two soldiers. “Take the cinder block from the cart. Lift the other end of the board and put the cinder block under it. I want her feet elevated. Then come back to this end.”
The two soldiers followed her instructions. The young woman’s feet were higher than her head as she lay on her back on the wooden board. The rubber hose dangled from Bayard’s hands just above the young woman’s vision, swinging in front of her face from time to time. All signs of Dvora’s cockiness had disappeared. Her eyes opened wide in fear.
Where is the washcloth? she wondered. This isn’t waterboarding.
“Hold her head tightly,” Dr. Bayard barked to the soldiers. She leaned forward, holding one end of the rubber hose and snaked it into the young woman’s right nostril, causing the woman to gag as the hose went in at least twelve inches, passing down her throat.
“That wasn’t too bad, now was it, Dvora?” Bayard said. Turning to one of the soldiers, she said, “Put that plastic funnel in the end of the hose and hold it up high.” To the other soldier she said, “Push the cart over here. Dip me one cup of water, please. We’ll start with that.”
The soldier dipped a plastic cup into a pail of water on the cart. He went to hand the water to the doctor, thinking she was thirsty. She smiled at him and pointed at the hose.
The soldier poured the water into the funnel, watching as it drained into the young woman’s nose and down her throat. Her body spasmed with gasping as her throat filled with water. She was unable to swallow because her head was lowered. She was terrified to inhale, knowing the water would fill her lungs. The tape over her mouth prevented her from spitting the water out. Her eyes went white with terror and she attempted to thrash from side to side but could not move because of the duct tape wound around her and the board.
“Dip me another cup,” Dr. Bayard said to the soldier. He again looked to the interrogator, who looked at Dr. Bayard expectantly, then, seeing only impatience, shook his head in the affirmative. The soldier held the cup of water near the funnel, waiting for instructions.
The young woman’s eyes began to roll upwards, leaving a startling amount of white showing in her wide-open eyes. Dr. Bayard leaned forward and whispered to the woman again.
“Are you ready to talk with me now, Dvora?” she asked softly.
The young woman reacted with enthusiasm, nodding up and down vigorously, life seeming to return to her, mumbles coming from her sealed mouth.
“Wonderful,” Bayard said.
The soldiers lifted the young woman, still taped to the board, off the desk and stood her against the wall. She gasped and coughed, spitting and swallowing water at the same time. When she caught her breath she glared at Bayard.
“I thought you were going to kill me, you bitch,” she whispered.
The doctor stepped in front of the young woman, who was still bound to the board leaning against the wall.
“But that’s the point of this medical procedure, my dear,” she said. “So, tell me, who is this man who brought that big bomb to the United States?”
“The absolute God’s honest truth, Doctor, is that I don’t know anything about any atom bombs. I really and truly don’t. I admit I’m in the army, even in the special forces. I’ll tell you all about how we sank those Coast Guard boats. I’ll even tell you I fired one of the RPGs. Or all of them. I’ll tell you everything I know. But I really and truly don’t know anything about atom bombs. I don’t. I don’t.” The woman now looked defiant. “You can pour as much water as you want into me. I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
Bayard shook her head. “You disappoint Dr. Bayard. Now I am going to have to do that all over again. And you know that this time you will tell me the truth. Please, Dvora, don’t make me do this to you again.”
The young woman was silent, then she spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
“Put her back on the desk,” Bayard said to the soldiers as she took the rubber hose in her hand. This time, the young woman did not resist, and before the tape was placed over her mouth, she softly said the first words of the ancient prayer, “Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Elohaynu…”
As before, the young woman gagged and choked when the water entered her throat. Her body jerked against the duct tape. She rocked from side to side on the desktop.
“Pour in another cup, slowly this time,” the doctor ordered.
The water drained down the hose but seemed to have no effect on the woman, who went limp, her eyes rolled upwards, only the whites showing.
“Shit,” Bayard said as she pulled the stethoscope from over her shoulder, placed the ear cups into her ears and placed the end against the woman’s chest. She tore the tape from the woman’s mouth. The woman did not move. Dr. Bayard leaned down again, placing her stethoscope on the woman’s chest.
“Shit, shit… she’s dead.”
The Echo Team interrogator remained alone in the room for several minutes, his mind racing. Leavenworth, he thought. Use torture and you’ll rot in Leavenworth, he’d been trained.
He walked quickly from the interrogation cell to the Echo Team office. He sat at a computer and found a file labeled Interrogation Room 3. He slid a DVD into the computer’s drive and copied the interrogation room file onto the DVD, removed it from the computer and placed the DVD in his jacket pocket, then walked to his bunk to lie down and stare at the ceiling.
I won’t be the one going to Leavenworth, he thought.