Saul glanced at his watch. “Only nineteen hours. But his tolerance for the room seems to be breaking down.”
“That doesn’t always happen?” Shafer said.
“Some of these guys get stronger for a while, which makes things tough. But Farouk — I think he’s about ready to break completely.”
“So now what?” Exley said.
“We typically introduce an additional stress element at some point in his sessions. Sometimes early, sometimes late — we don’t want him to be able to anticipate it. Now seems like a good time.”
THE DARK DARK dark. Farouk tried to count to one thousand, but he couldn’t keep the numbers straight anymore. He had tried to recite bits of the Koran, but each time he said Allah’s name he felt more forsaken. So he quit that too, and just sat in the dark.
The American was right, Farouk thought. This was worse than being dead. In fact, maybe he was dead already. Maybe he had died on the roof in Baghdad and he was in hell. But it couldn’t be. He had served Allah as best he could. He belonged in heaven.
“Heaven,” he said aloud. “Heaven.”
As he said the words an intense electrical shock flooded his legs. He threw his head back and screamed in pain. His muscles spasmed uncontrollably, tightening and loosening over and over. He had never felt so much pain, up one leg and down the other.
“STOP STOP STOP!” he screamed.
Finally it did. “Allah,” he said. It had lasted only a few seconds, he realized. Thank God. He couldn’t have taken much more. His legs were still quivering from the shock, and the muscles felt…warm, as if he had been running. He tentatively shook them. They still worked.
Then the pain came again, up his left calf and thigh and across his waist and down the other leg. “STOP! STOP!” He felt his heart thumping, but he couldn’t move. Time no longer existed. He couldn’t tell, couldn’t even guess, how long the shock flowed through him.
The electricity stopped. He had time for three quick breaths before it started again. Somehow it hurt even more this time. He tried to tell himself that they couldn’t keep shocking him like this unless they really wanted to kill him…but that knowledge didn’t help. He wanted to beg them to stop, but the words melted on his tongue and he merely moaned until the electricity stopped flowing.
He could take no more. He would tell them anything, everything, not to have to sit in here and wait for this agony. He wrenched his head from side to side.
“Please…please…please…”
“LET HIM CALM down a little and then get him out of there,” Saul said, watching Farouk twist. “I think it’s done.”
They had just used a Taser on Farouk, an electrical gun that produced 50,000-volt shocks that caused involuntary muscle spasms, Saul said. The gun’s barbs were attached to Farouk’s ankles and didn’t need to break the skin to deliver the electricity, so Farouk probably had no idea where the pain had come from. “I’ve had it done to me and it hurts,” Saul said. “But it works.”
EXLEY KEPT HER face straight. She should have been elated. A senior al Qaeda operative cracked. If he
I just want to live in the suburbs somewhere with my kids and work forty hours a week and have a nice, small life. Someone has to do this but it doesn’t have to be me. Or maybe no one had to do it. Maybe they just all needed to relax and treat the guys on the other side like human beings.
Then that little voice of hers: Even you aren’t that dumb, Jenny. You want this guy to nuke New York City?
Had Shafer brought her here as an object lesson? Did he believe this torture was necessary? Was it even torture? Farouk would be okay, at least physically. She didn’t have any answers anymore, only questions, and she couldn’t face any more questions.
Suddenly she knew that Wells was going to die. He would be another human sacrifice on the altar of this war. He would die, and she would never see him again. The thought roiled her gut, and she wanted nothing more than to be back in her little bedroom, lying on her back, looking up at the ceiling, with Wells beside her, holding her. Anywhere but here.
Shafer tapped her. “You okay, Jennifer?”
She wasn’t, not at all.
“Fine,” she said. “Just thinking about what he’s gonna have for us. Great job, Saul.”
10
TAP. TAP. A finger poked at Khadri’s shoulder. He turned to find a shapeless vagrant standing too close, her stringy brown hair pulled into a ponytail, an oversized cross hanging dully around her neck, her foul warm breath on his cheek.
“Excuse me, sir? Spare some change for something to eat?”
“I’m afraid I can’t.” Khadri could hear his English accent creeping out. He didn’t like surprises, even small ones.
“Please, mister? You look like a nice man.”
Khadri fished in his pocket for a dollar so she would go away. The woman’s eyes lit up when she saw the bill. She tugged it out of his hand.
“Thank you, sir.” Khadri shook his head and turned away, hearing her last words, almost a whisper: “I’m gonna pray for you.”
The prayers of an infidel. He mused over the woman’s promise as he opened the glass doors to Albany’s dingy downtown bus station, walking in for the third time that morning. Would she help the cause, or hurt? He stepped slowly through the station’s main hallway, his trainers — what the Americans called sneakers — squeaking on the dirty floor. Besides the trainers, he was wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt, camouflage for this ridiculous country where everyone took pride in dressing as poorly as possible.
A half hour later, after what felt like his hundredth loop through the station, he bought a cup of coffee and plunked down on a wire chair, which rocked under him on uneven legs. Running a hand through his close-cropped dark hair, Khadri cataloged his annoyances. The coffee was acrid and cold. The air was stale and hot.
And he was surrounded by Americans. Sweaty fat poor Americans. Women in cheap white uniforms and hairnets trudged past, their mouths slack, their smiles missing teeth. By day’s end they would earn a few dollars, enough to feed their families if they were lucky. This station had lights and running water, but in its rank desperation it reminded Khadri of the most pitiful precincts of Islamabad.
Khadri almost sympathized with these fools. Their infidel religion blinded them to the truth: they were nothing but chattel for the Jews who ran the United States. If only they would realize that Allah was the only God and Mohammed his prophet. If only they would rise against this corrupt country and their devil leaders. But they were caught up in their worship of Jesus. And anyway most Americans weren’t so poor, Khadri reminded himself. They enjoyed their lives, supported America’s wars. No, the United States would never redeem itself, not until the day when al Qaeda proved beyond doubt that only fools stood against Islam.
Khadri believed that such a day would arrive, believed it as he believed in the beating of his heart. So he tried not to overreact to disappointments, like the bad news he had just received from Tarik Dourant in Montreal. Tarik should worry less about his wife and more about his work, Khadri thought. Tarik was a brilliant biochemist and
