an oversized beer can with a nozzle attached to the top. He pushed a button on the side of the can. A blue flame spurted out with a tiny
“I’m telling you. This is a mistake.”
The man reached into the bag once more. This time he held up the flash drive that the boy had given Wells in Tiananmen. Li Ping stepped quickly across the cell and in a single fluid motion hit Wells under the ribs, in the solar plexus once, twice, three times — and then three times more.
Considering his age, Li hit hard, Wells thought. Wells had a boxer’s abs, flat and tough, and the punches themselves didn’t hurt all that much. But every one rolled him side to side in his shackles, sending shots of pain through his damaged shoulder. Li and the men around him watched him without a word. They were on another planet, in another universe, one where pain didn’t exist.
Li took the flash drive from the man who’d been holding it. “Who gave this?” he said in broken English.
“A boy. In Tiananmen. This is all a mistake. Please, sir, I don’t know who you are, but you have to help me.”
Li spoke in Chinese. “He says, you know very well who he is,” the man who’d been holding the flash drive said to Wells in English. He spoke with a heavy Russian accent. “He is head of the People’s Liberation Army. He wants you to know, he doesn’t speak much English. So he’s going to leave you now. But he wanted to see you for himself. The American spy who was so foolish as to come to the Forbidden City on this day.”
Li said something more. “And he says it is nothing to him if you live or die. This is your last chance to tell the truth. If you do, maybe the Chinese people will show some mercy. If not—” The interrogator shook his head.
“Tell him, I promise, he’s making a mistake—”
The interrogator said a few words to Li. “Okay,” Li said in English. “Your choice.” He stepped away. At the door, he turned to Wells and made a throat-cutting motion. Then he walked out. Cao followed wordlessly.
AS SOON AS THE DOOR CLOSED, the power forward stepped up, but the interrogator waved him back and reached into the bag. Despite himself, despite everything he’d seen and done, Wells was afraid. He pulled himself back.
The interrogator lifted a piece of paper from the bag.
“What is your name?”
“Jim Wilson. James Wilson—”
The man shook his head. “Your real name. Please.” The interrogator held up the paper for Wells. “The reason you’re here. The letter your embassy received last week. The instructions are quite specific. You are to come to the Forbidden City today. As you did. To wait at the stone that looks like wood at noon. As you did. And finally, you are to wear a green shirt.” The man pointed at the corner where Wells’s shirt lay.
“Coincidence. I swear.”
“Coincidences don’t exist in our world. Listen to me.
“I don’t know what spies look like.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“No, sir.”
“My name is Feng Jianguo. I specialize in these… discussions. I wish we could talk like men, solve bit by bit this puzzle of who you are. But General Li told me I don’t have time.”
Feng walked to Wells, leaned in, locked his eyes onto Wells.
“Do you understand? I don’t have time. And I must know three things. First, your name. Second, what you were expecting to receive. Third, most important, the name of the man who you meant to meet.”
“I wish I could help.” Again Wells wondered. Was it possible they didn’t know he was here to meet Cao Se? Or were they setting up some larger trap, something he couldn’t see?
“If you are honest. I cannot promise you’ll live. Only Li can do that. But I won’t hurt you unnecessarily.” He paused. He seemed to sense that he was losing Wells. “This way, once we start… even after you beg us to stop. As you will. We won’t stop. Once we start, we must be sure we’ve broken you.
“Your English is very good. You give this speech a lot?” Wells said nothing more.
Feng’s face never changed. The silence stretched on. Wells focused on the heat in his shoulder. He had an insane impulse to twist in his shackles, amp up the agony for himself before these men did it for him. He restrained himself. Plenty of pain coming. No need to rush.
Feng shook his head, walked away, shuffled the papers back in the bag.
“A quiet American,” he said. “One of the few. And all the worse for you.”
Feng pulled a black towel from his bag and stepped onto a chair. He reached up, draped the towel over the closed-circuit camera, making sure the lens was covered.
The power forwards reached into their pockets and slipped on brass knuckles, the kind that bridged four fingers at once. They stepped forward and set themselves on either side of Wells. Feng sat down, pulled a Coke from his bag. He sipped quietly as he waited for the show to start.
And the torture began.
THE POWER FORWARDS TOOK TURNS. The one on the left began, punching quickly, hard jabs, right-left- right-left. When he tired, the other took over, swinging more slowly but more powerfully, long hooks that crashed into Wells’s stomach and ribs. They stayed off his face.
Wells had a tiny advantage at first from the adrenaline he’d mustered when Feng was talking. He kept his stomach tight as long as he could, sneaking in breaths when they weren’t hitting him. But then his body twisted in the shackles, and his shoulder popped out. He lost focus for just a second and a jab caught him unready and his abs loosened and the punches crashed through and then he couldn’t breathe—
Black spots filled the room and the demon-men kept punching and he couldn’t breathe God he had never hurt like this too bad he wasn’t going to tell them anything—
Then the severed head of the guerrilla he’d blown apart in Afghanistan showed up, rolling around like a soccer ball with a face, smirking and chattering nonsense—
And just as the darkness closed in to give his oxygen-starved brain relief from its delusions, they stopped hitting him. Cruelty in the guise of kindness. They stepped back and watched him flail, their flat square faces impassive, like they were watching a lab experiment.
Wells couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get his diaphragm steady, and then finally he remembered. The trick was to relax, let the voluntary muscles go soft and the diaphragm work on its own. He sucked in the room’s stale air and pushed suffocation away. But the agony in his shoulder intensified as he returned to full consciousness. Wells wondered how long they’d been hitting him. Five minutes? At most. Five minutes down, an eternity to go.
They reached side by side into their canvas bags, pulled out water bottles, took a couple of sips each. Bert and Ernie, Wells thought. Or maybe Ernie and Bert. Just as his breath evened out, Bert nodded at Ernie and they stepped toward him.
“Round two,” Wells said aloud. “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
ROUND THREE FOLLOWED, AND ROUND FOUR. The beatings didn’t get harder to take, but they didn’t get easier either. The brass knuckles shredded his skin, exposing his twitching abdominal muscles. Blood dripped from his stomach, blackening the concrete beneath him.
