The subject was fit and densely muscled, thick cords of veins bulging in his neck and arms. Pounding and pulverizing implements such as mallets, vises, and hammers would be less effective than piercing or slicing instruments. Accordingly, the Butcher selected a nine-inch-long stainless steel needle and placed it on the table. Its slow insertion in the ear canal or eyeball could, obviously, inflict horrible pain, the shock of which often resulted in unconsciousness—counterproductive to the objective. Consequently, the Butcher employed the needle as a primer. He would prick the ear canal or eyelid enough to elicit a shriek and a pearl of blood, but immediately withdraw it, the promise of worse pain to come.
To the right of the needle, the Butcher placed a finely honed, slightly parabolic six-inch razor with which he would peel off the subject’s epidermis, an endeavor that required skill as well as patience.
His mentor had insisted that for maximum pain the razor should first be applied to the scalp at the front hairline, scaling the skin backward over the skull. But the Butcher found this to cause too much blood to stream into the subject’s eyes, producing a disorientation that impeded eliciting useful information. Instead, the Butcher preferred slicing across the back of the subject’s hand at the knuckles and slowly pulling the skin toward the elbow, pausing every few centimeters to use the third object he’d placed on the table—a simple propane torch.
The appearance of the torch almost invariably generated panic in his subject, but its actual purpose was to cauterize the area from which the skin was pulled back: slice, pull, pause, torch; slice, pull, pause, torch. Effective, even if the acrid smell of seared flesh, blood, and bone sometimes made him wretch.
The Butcher would need no other instruments. He sat a few feet away from and opposite the subject, whose ankles, waist, and wrists were strapped respectively to the legs, back, and arms of a high-backed metal chair. He observed the subject almost clinically for a few moments, somewhat fascinated by his taciturn expression. Probably catatonic from fear, thought the Butcher. Unsurprising.
He wondered how long the subject would live.
The smile had been fleeting, so much so that Garin couldn’t be sure it had actually been there.
The smile—if it had been there—had been replaced by an analytical expression, that of a predator assessing the vulnerabilities of its prey.
Garin conducted his own analysis: He was in trouble. His hands and feet were bound to a heavy iron chair by multiple swaths of heavy-grade duct tape. His torso was bound upright against the back of the chair. Save for the implements the grotesque-looking man had just arrayed on the metal table, the room was empty of anything Garin could possibly use as a weapon, and there was no possibility of reaching such implements. The room itself was approximately eight feet by twelve, consisting of cinder-block walls and poured concrete. The door was metal and looked several inches thick. The concrete floor was covered with a sheet of plastic.
The fog that had enshrouded his brain had lifted quickly, but he still had a vague, unsettled feeling throughout much of his body. The last thing he could remember was lying on the ground with his arm around Bulkvadze’s neck, the giant’s weight suddenly becoming inert. Garin had no recollection of confronting or even seeing the grotesque-looking man, and he was sure if he had he wouldn’t have forgotten him.
“You killed Bulkvadze,” the Butcher informed him in a voice that surprised Garin. It was urbane and cultured, with perfect diction. Incongruous, coming from a face that brutal. It was tinged with a Russian accent so slight that only someone who heard the language regularly would catch it. “Unexpected given the substantial size disparity and his initial tactical advantage. Normally, I would have given him four-to-one odds of defeating you within ten seconds.”
Garin’s expression remained taciturn, inscrutable.
“You should be dead, not Bulkvadze.”
“Speed kills,” Garin said, his voice low and quiet.
“That has been my experience as well. But there are times when death can come slowly and deliberately. This shall be one of those occasions.”
Garin’s face remained inscrutable.
“I suspect you think that my purpose is to pry information from you, to employ the judicious application of pain to determine what you and your government know about what we are doing and how you plan to deal with it.” The Butcher picked up the needle from the table. “That is a bit theatrical. Although I will secure information from you, my charge is simply to kill you if Bulkvadze failed. How I do so is up to me.”
Garin knew the purpose for the grotesque-looking man picking up the needle was to foreshadow pain, to instill fear and apprehension. Garin kept his gaze focused on the man’s eyes.
“You have no information useful to us,” the Butcher continued. He paused and cocked his head slightly in reconsideration. “Perhaps that is an overstatement. You may have some information, but it is likely to be of marginal consequence. Nonetheless, to be thorough I will extract it before we are done here.”
The Butcher tapped the tip of the needle with his thumb. A bead of blood appeared. Garin kept his eyes focused on the grotesque-looking man’s face but saw the needle in the periphery of his field of vision.
“What shall I call you?” Garin asked.
“Why do you care?”
“Decency,” Garin replied softly. “It’s only proper to know the name of someone you’re going to kill.”
“Delightful,” the Butcher responded, though his voice contained not even a hint of mirth. “We’ve already met in a manner of speaking. I believe you were introduced to some of my artwork in the nuclear facility at Yongbyon. We knew you were coming. We know what you are going to do before you do. So I was charged with eliminating any evidence of Russian assistance to the regime’s nuclear program.” A pause. “I have no name, Garin, although I suspect somewhere in the vast databases of your intelligence services there is a rather unimaginative reference to someone known as ‘the Butcher.’”
“Quite unimaginative,” Garin agreed. “But it will make for an interesting gravestone. A conversation starter.”
“Your attempt at bravado is understandable but misplaced. It will not change the futility of your circumstance. I assume by now you’ve determined that you are in the house you were watching. We are in a subbasement. This room was specially constructed to be soundproof. Steel-reinforced walls. Did you know that for years Saddam Hussein maintained such a room in the basement of the Iraqi consulate in the middle of New York City? His agents would torture Iraqi expatriates in that room, those with relatives still in Iraq. A superb way to control the population back home. It was only discovered after your country’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. The floor of the room was covered with thick plastic to catch the blood, intestines, and other body parts of the subjects.”
The Butcher caught the slight flick of Garin’s eyes toward the floor.
“You expect that your law enforcement will, eventually, come to the house because you’ve alerted them to my handiwork in the woods in back. They will not detect the entrance to this room. Regardless, we will be finished before they step foot in the house.” The Butcher shook his head. “No one will hear your screams, Garin.”
“Nor yours.”
The Butcher sighed. “Dispense with shows of insolence. I’ve been briefed about you. Primarily by Bor. You are a gifted operator. Tough. But the evidence shows Bor outwitted you. He is at least as talented and tough as you.”