They beat him. Sometimes it was Deion, sometimes another man.
He smelled shit and he knew it was his. He screamed and cried and didn’t care. They were going to kill him. He prayed they would do it and end the torture.
They stopped.
It was dark. Someone brought him water and a bowl of rice. He tried to eat but found he couldn’t swallow. He choked on the water and it came right back up.
His balls ached from their kicks. He gagged at his own smell.
They came back the next day and took off his clothes, smacking his head with their palms, then they chained him up again and sprayed him with freezing cold water. He could not answer their questions through chattering teeth.
The day continued as before, then the next, and then the one after that. The questions, the beatings. Sometimes they would turn on a siren, his head splitting from the noise.
Time slipped away. He forgot who he was and why he was there. He thought the men were aliens come to eat him, to harvest his organs. Then he thought they might be demons and screamed in fear when they entered.
Why did you bomb the Red Cross? Who helped you?
Their questions made no sense. Something inside him had broken.
He slept on the floor, the rough concrete cold against his bare skin. The beatings had stopped. He was given water and broth. He watched himself from a distance, an out-of-body experience, and knew he had gone crazy.
Deion was there. “Nothing else to say? You got nothing?”
He choked out a sob. “I don’t know.”
Deion left and the room went dark. Time passed but he could not track the days. He tried to track the feedings but he lost count.
The food got better. Water and bread at first, then water and a sandwich. Other men came but they all looked the same, all wire rim glasses and big beefy necks.
They took the plywood from the window of his cell and he could suddenly track the passage of the time. At first it was important to him, then he realized how little it mattered.
He knew where he was. The heat. The humidity. The bright light. There was only one place he could be.
Guantanamo.
They came and chained him to the floor and a new man appeared. Eric. He tried to explain to the man why he blew up the Red Cross, then braced for the torture to start.
Eric stuck him with a needle.
Blurring. He was somewhere else.
Oh God the pain!
His body was on fire, a million pinpricks moving under his skin. He prayed to die, and then he heard voices, yelling and shouting. He tried to scream.
He came awake from the dream, wide-eyed. He was in his bunk at Area 51, the covers kicked on the floor.
He remembered his recruitment, his parent’s funeral. How could he have made his parent’s funeral?
Because it was all a lie. He was not recruited into a secret Delta operation. He was a guinea pig. They put things inside his body. They altered his memory.
Eric was not his friend. Neither was Deion. They were using him, testing him.
He remembered the Red Cross bombing and he loathed himself for it. What kind of human being was he? How could he have done something so heinous?
He was trapped inside the mountain. If he left, he wouldn’t make it ten miles before they would find him and kill him.
He deserved it. If only he had died in Guantanamo.
Eric is wrong. I am monster.
Abdullah dreamed of his wife, the way she smiled when she cooked. Oh, how he missed watching her cook. It made her so happy. So content.
Manny nudged him awake.
He rubbed his eyes and looked out at the darkening streets of Nogales, Mexico. No matter where in the world he went, he was always surrounded by squalor. Nogales was no exception. They pulled up to the house on Independencia Street, not far from the border, and Manny pulled binoculars from the glove compartment, opened the door, and scanned the sky.
Abdullah was confused. “What are you looking for?”
“Drones,” Manny replied. “Cops are always watching us. Got to be careful.”
“Have you ever seen a drone?” he asked.
“No,” Manny admitted, “but everybody knows about them. Don’t you watch TV?” He put the binoculars back and led him inside where five men greeted them. The biggest pulled a semiautomatic pistol from his waistband and pointed it at them. “What shit you got us into, Manny?”
Manny held up his hands and took a step back, almost bumping into Abdullah. “Whoa, chill. This is the guy.”
“Fuck this guy. You heard the news? That shit in Germany? Your cousin was in on it. He’s dead.”
Abdullah’s heart sank. No! Shahid and Mahbeer were supposed to escape and join him!
Manny turned to him and grabbed his shirt. “You got Hector killed? Why would you do that?”
Abdullah calmly placed his hands on Manny’s shoulders. “I am sorry, Emmanuel. Your cousin was a good man and a good Muslim. He was martyred.” He turned to the men. “What of the others?”
The big man said nothing, but a smaller man with a goatee spoke up. “Yeah, some other dude was killed, too. They hunted them down and killed ‘em both. That’s what they been saying on the news!”
Abdullah stepped back. He had lost both young men, Shahid and Mahbeer. He felt their loss, like a physical blow, but he knew the precarious situation could quickly spiral out of control. “They were both martyrs. They died as heroes.”
Manny shook him by the lapels of his suit. “You fucking crazy pendejo. We should shoot you now.”
Abdullah felt Manny’s loss, but tried to reason with him. “If you kill me, my people would send their heroin elsewhere. I thought you liked the steady supply, that it was safer than dealing with the cartels.”
The big man nodded slowly and lowered his gun. “He’s got a point, Manny. I know Hector was your cousin, but we got business with his people. We can’t kill him.”
Manny held him tight, squeezing the fabric of his shirt, then sagged forward and relaxed his grip. “You’re right, we can’t kill him.” He glared at Abdullah. “You live because we need those drugs.”
“Of course,” Abdullah said gently. “May I go? I’d like to get changed before we cross.”
The goateed man led him to the bathroom where he changed into denim jeans and a heavy black t-shirt. When he returned to the living room, most of the men were busy playing video games. Abdullah watched silently, but he did not understand the point of the game, other than it involved shooting large monsters with different kinds of weapons.
The big man, Carlos, approached. “C’mon, we got to get you across.”
Carlos led him to the basement, a featureless concrete box, a metal filing cabinet in the corner. Carlos pulled on the metal cabinet and it opened on a hinge, revealing a hole in the concrete wall that led to a shaft with a makeshift elevator.
It was nothing more, Abdullah noted, than a welded together metal box with a winch on it, but Carlos opened one side and motioned for Abdullah to get in. He followed, closed the door, then activated the winch, which make distressing grinding noises while dropping them slowly to the tunnel floor below.
Abdullah was amazed. They had carved the tunnel out of the ground, an opening large enough for a man to walk through, with metal beams evenly spaced and plywood holding up the ceiling. There was a big pipe leading down the tunnel for ventilation and a string of lights. Metal rails led off into the distance, and an electric cart approached on the track, piloted by a bald little man.
The cart came to a stop and the man smiled and pointed to the flat bed and said something in Spanish. “Rafael says to get in,” Carlos said. “It’s six hundred feet to the other side. We don’t usually ship people, but for you, we make an exception. Manny’ll be right behind you.”