For nearly a decade Cortez ran Black Ops for the Company. He became an expert in torture. They trained him up, but he got so good that soon he was training others.
Then in the new millennium Tannenbaum told him that no one was interested in commies anymore. Marx had had his day. Now it was Mohammed they were worried about. They had a bunch of prisoners being held on non- American soil. That meant they could practise 'enhanced interrogation techniques' on them without worrying too much about the Geneva Convention.
It sounded like another routine assignment. What Cortez didn't know was that his whole life was about to change.
Linda had never seen Greaves so agitated. He was such a control freak. Everything had to be planned out meticulously in advance. Everyone had to be told what to do, but only when the time was right. If anything or anyone deviated from this, then he got mighty antsy.
They were lying down on a ledge that overlooked a central chamber. They'd gotten there by a round-about route that Greaves took to keep them out of sight. They'd passed a stash of high explosives on the way and Linda had even helped herself to a little something when Greaves wasn't looking. After all, a girl never knew when she might have to kick things off with a bang.
There were stacks and stack of crates in the main chamber. A party of about seven men with torches were tearing off the lids and drooling over the weapons they found inside.
'See Frankie, I told ya,' said a scrawny looking guy with a limp. He looked like a scav and most of the fingers on his left hand were missing. 'There's caves and caves of this stuff. You've no idea the things I could direct you to.'
'Ya done good this time Vinny,' said Frankie. He was taller and broader than any of the others. He looked Italian and acted like he was some kind of Klan boss. 'I might even let you live when we're through with you.'
'Aw come on Frankie. Look at the size of this haul. This has got to make us quits. Way I figure it, you probably owe me now.'
Frankie grabbed him by the front of his jacket. 'Don't push your luck dickwad.' He threw Vinny to the floor and wrinkled his nose? 'Jesus you stink. When's the last time you took a bath.'
Vinny giggled nervously and waited until Frankie's back was turned before he got up and brushed himself down.
Linda was just about to get up herself when she heard a voice say: 'Don't either of you fuckers move!' A shotgun barrel was pointed right at her head and another at Greaves.
Five minutes later they were kneeling in the middle of the chamber in front of Frankie and his boy with their hands on their heads.
'Good thing I sent two men out to case the joint ain't it?' Frankie said. Then he turned to Vinny. 'I thought you said no-one else knew about this place.'
'They don't,' said Vinny, starting to shake. 'I swear to God I'm the only one.'
'They was armed too boss,' said one of the men who'd got the drop on them.
Frankie didn't look happy. 'I swear to God Vinny, if you were trying to double cross me.'
'No Frankie no. I could never… how could you even think… '
'Cut it out Vinny,' said Linda. 'The games up. He's on to us. I told you Frankie was too smart.
'Oh, so it all comes out now,' said Frankie, smacking Vinny across the face with the back of his hand.
'Frankie, on my mother's grave. I don't know who these people are. I have never seen them before.'
Frankie raised his fist. 'Still you lie to me, right to my face you lie!'
While Frankie and the rest of them were distracted, Linda stood up and took her hands off her head. 'That's enough,' she said in a commanding voice. 'Now I want all of you to drop your weapons and lie face down on the floor.'
Everyone pointed their weapons at her. Frankie was non-plussed. He turned to Linda with a smile of bemusement. 'And do ya mind telling me why we'd want to do that?'
Linda lifted her top to reveal the belt of gelignite she was wearing. ''Cos I'll blow everyone of you to hell if you don't.'
Cortez heard a scuffle behind him. It was Anna behind the filing cabinet. She was praying. He went over to where she was hiding and bent down. 'Are you alright?'
'Are you going to sacrifice me to Satan now?' she said.
Cortez was stunned by the question. 'Why do you think I'd want to do that?'
'Well that's who you worship isn't it? That's who you're talking to when you do all that praying on your mat.'
Cortez shook his head and laughed. There was something so child-like in the way she asked the question that he couldn't take offence. 'No. I abjure Satan and all his works. I worship God, just as you do.'
'But don't you hate Jesus?'
Cortez shook his head. 'Muslims recognise Jesus as a great prophet. We revere his teachings. We also believe he will return in the last days, transported bodily down from heaven to slay the Anti-Christ at the gate of Ludd in the Holy Land.'
It was Anna's turn to look shocked. Cortez recognised that look. He knew what it was like to re-think all your prejudices about Islam. He'd been there himself.
When he first worked for them, Cortez had a lot of respect for the CIA. Without them he'd have been nothing. They killed all that on his last assignment though.
He was transported to a secure facility in the back of a van with no lights and no windows. Not even the guards there were allowed to know its location. The US government wanted full deniability on its existence.
They kept the suspects who were brought to him in cages too small to stand up or sit down in. At first they were just glad to be out of them. Their relief didn't last long once Cortez's got his hands on them. What did seem to last was their inability to tell him anything. No matter how much pain he inflicted.
To begin with Cortez wondered if his paymasters were testing him. Did they distrust his loyalty? Were they trying to see if he could tell a genuine terrorist from a loudmouthed idiot? The people he had worked with before always knew something, even the nuns and the priests. They could usually call up one tiny bit of information to make the pain stop. The name of a neighbour with sympathies, a deal they'd heard about in the street, anything. The suspects Cortez were sent weren't even aware of what they were supposed to be telling him.
Neither were the officers Cortez reported to. At first they wanted to know about the network of secret underground caves that the suspects used. When Cortez failed to get even a shred of evidence out of his subjects, and when the troops on the ground in Afghanistan also failed to turn up anything, command changed their minds.
Next they wanted to learn everything they could about the suspects' terror cells and how they were organised. Who the suspects reported to, how they were recruited, where they met and what they were planning. When, once again, Cortez was unable to uncover any information of note, the officer in charge starting asking for things on the strangest of whims.
Finally they decided they wanted to create double-agents and to get some of the suspects to turn. They were going to do this by getting the suspects to foreswear their religion and convert to Christianity. Cortez was ordered to get them to turn their back on Islam and accept Jesus as their personal saviour. This was where he met his biggest failure yet.
Given enough pain most people will say and do just about anything you want them to. Including spit on their religious icons and call their god a cock-sucking motherfucker. But not the Muslims Cortez worked on. They would sooner give up their lives than their faith. Cortez had never come across such conviction and strength of purpose. It actually earned the poor wretches his respect and grudging admiration.
One of the men they were holding was an Imam. A much revered holy man, who was a great inspiration to the other prisoners. If Cortez could break him, the officers reasoned, then the other men would soon fall into line.
Cortez had worked over some tough bastards in his time but no-one had ever held out on him like the Imam did. He was easily into his sixties but he took everything that Cortez did to him and never gave an inch.
Cortez changed tactics. He decided to learn a little something about the Imam's faith, so he could have something to use against him. As he tore off the Imam's finger nails, worked heated knives into his nerve endings and broke the Imam's toe bones to grind together the jagged ends, he questioned the teachings of Islam. Slowly it
