Durrani’s breathing remained laboured, the pains in his chest still severe, as if every joint in his ribcage had been pulled apart and then harshly pushed back together.
‘You’ve got to give me something soon,’ the interrogator said. ‘Even if it’s something small. Otherwise this is going to be a long and very painful day for you.’
Durrani stared at the floor ahead, trying to control the shaking that suddenly gripped his body. The heavy clunk came again and he jerked in fearful anticipation as the sound triggered the air pump and the drop in pressure.The pain was immediate and even more intense than it had been previously. Durrani let out a howl as the veins in his neck seemed to swell beyond their physically possible limits. He could feel his eyes bulging in their sockets and heard cracking sounds in his head as if the bone plates that made up his skull were pulling apart. Seconds later another clunk signalled another reverse of pressure and Durrani exhaled massively before breaking into a coughing fit. His nose began to run, but it was blood, not mucus dribbling into his mouth. Durrani could taste it and as the more intense pains subsided he let out a long moan.
‘You came from Kabul,’ the voice continued as Durrani’s shoulders sagged with relief.
Durrani could not see the floor clearly any more - his eyes were out of focus, and he feared for the damage the torture was doing to his body.
‘Talk to me, Durrani!’
Durrani looked up at the window, no longer able to see any figure behind it, and nodded as he muttered something inaudible.
‘I can’t hear you.’
‘I . . . I will talk,’ Durrani said louder.
‘Good . . . you know it makes sense . . . Let’s go back a little further, just for a moment. Not too far back. A day or so before you left Kabul for the last time there was an attack on a military helicopter, a British helicopter. It was brought down by a rocket. Everyone on board was killed. You know anything about that helicopter? You know anything about the rocket?’
Durrani’s breathing increased in anticipation of the next assault on his body, the very thought of which filled him with horror. He wanted very much to say something, to answer the question, but somehow found the strength not to. When the clunk came he tensed so fiercely that he cut the skin against the clamps holding his arms to the chair. Then suddenly another clunk announced the mechanism moving quickly into reverse.
‘You don’t ever have to hear that sound again if you don’t want to . . . You’re going to tell me what I want to know in the end. Everyone who sits where you are right now always does. Why go through all that pain, all that damage to your body? Some people have never walked again after leaving this room . . . I’m told it has something to do with bubbles expanding in their lower spine. If that damage goes higher you may lose the use of your arms as well. Is it worth it? Really? Ask yourself if it’s really worth it . . . Do you know about the helicopter that was shot down?’
Durrani lowered his head and nodded slightly.
‘I didn’t quite get that. Was that a yes?’
Durrani nodded again, this time more emphatically.
‘Was it you who shot that helicopter down?’
Durrani nodded.
‘And then you went to the wreckage, didn’t you?’
Durrani did not move.
‘What did you take from the wreckage?’
Durrani clenched his jaw. The interrogator knew something but not everything. If he did he would have already cut his abdomen open and found the little packet. Durrani had arrived at the point he could not go beyond without shaming himself, without failing.
‘I know you took something from the wreckage. What was it, Durrani? What did you find that you were taking to Peshawar?’
Durrani breathed deeply and tried to prepare himself for the pain that was about to come. He hoped that it would bring death, for that was his only escape now.
The clunk came, followed by the whirling and sucking of air.The pressure dropped, one of his eardrums burst and his eyes pushed out against his eyelids that were squeezed tightly shut. He let out a high-pitched scream as if the life was being squeezed out of every inch of his body. Then something inside him snapped and what light there was went out.
Hank Palmerston sat behind the interrogator, both men squinting through the thick glass at Durrani slumped in his chair.
‘You went too far, you assholes,’ Hank muttered.
The technician who had stuck the sensors to Durrani was seated in a corner in front of several life-monitoring devices. ‘He’s not dead,’ he said. ‘He’s just unconscious. ’
‘That machine tell you when he’s gonna come out of it and in what condition?’
‘He has normal brain and sensory nerve activity at all extremities,’ the technician confirmed. ‘We just took him beyond his pain threshold.’
Hank shook his head as he got to his feet. ‘Two fuckin’ years you’ve been doing this and you still can’t get it right . . . Now you listen to me,’ he said, leaning heavily over the back of the young Ivy League CIA interrogator who remained sitting in his chair and facing the glass. ‘We know that helicopter was a British intelligence operation carrying a VIP passenger to Bagram. We know this guy shot it down. We know he found something in the wreckage. We know he took it to his boss in Kabul who then sent him into Pakistan with it . . . What we don’t know is what he found in the wreckage, if it was the same thing he was carrying, who he was taking it to or why, or where the hell it is now! But maybe he could help us with a few of those questions, that man sat unconscious in the chair, the one who can’t talk to us ANY FUCKING MORE!!! . . . And now it would seem that we’re not the only people in this place interested in talking to him. When I heard the feds were sending an agent down here I assumed it was to spy on us and the pricks who run this place. If that’s true, which I have every reason to believe it is, then who’s this guy Charon and what’s his interest in Durrani? Is he a fed? If not, who’s he working for? Now you’re probably asking yourself, why should we care anyway? Well, I’ll tell you. This place, and places like it, produce the information that allows our citizens to sleep safely in their beds at night, to go about their normal daily lives, to fill up their gas tanks without worrying if they’ll be able to fill them up next time they get low. But the only threat to places like this, information-providing institutions of national importance, comes not from our enemies but from ourselves. We’re falling apart from the inside, like the Roman Empire. We’re eating our own flesh, coming up with laws and rules we can’t possibly live up to. They might be great and righteous rules, but they’re a thousand years too early. And so it’s up to us to keep this country safe any way we can. And if it means taking on our own people, then so be it. How we do it is to find ways of convincing the doubters to see things our way. Now I’m an intelligence officer. The only weapon I’ve ever used is information. But it’s more powerful than any gun or any bomb. Whatever Durrani knows is worth something, a lot maybe. I want to know what it is - but I can’t get information from UNCONSCIOUS PEOPLE!!! . . . Have I made myself clear?!’