‘It’s painful, no doubt about that,’ said Yokely. ‘But wait until they start the pumping. That really hurts.’
‘Pumping?’
‘They’ll use a garden hose to pump water into his stomach. “ Tormento de toca ”, as they used to call it in the Inquisition. It’s reckoned to be the most agonising pain that visceral tissue can experience. And the beauty is that it doesn’t leave marks.’ He grinned. ‘Not that that’s an issue here.’
‘It doesn’t worry you?’ asked Button, pacing up and down as the American stared intently at the monitor.
‘In what way?’
Broken Nose and Scarred Lip slowly lowered the plank so that the Saudi’s head dipped into the paddling pool. He shook his head from side to side as his hair went under the water. The two men toyed with him, letting the water play over his face.
‘It’s torture, pure and simple.’
‘It’s robust interrogation,’ said Yokely. ‘He comes from a society where torture is used routinely. We haven’t done anything yet that wouldn’t have been done to him in his own country. They stone women to death for adultery, Charlie.’
‘Just because they behave like savages doesn’t mean we should fall to their level.’
‘Al-Qaeda wrote and published a manual to tell their people how to deal with interrogation if they got caught. It detailed the torture they could expect if they were captured in Middle Eastern countries sympathetic to the US. And then there was a section on GTMO.’ He smiled. ‘That’s what we call Guantan amo Bay. Anyway, the thrust of the al-Qaeda manual was that in GTMO all they had to do was ride it out. The Americans were not warriors and the interrogators were not allowed to inflict harm. They could lie or they could stay silent, because other than keeping them incarcerated and feeding them three meals a day, there was nothing the Americans could do.’ Yokely’s smile widened. ‘We’ve moved on since then, I can tell you.’ He stared at the monitor. ‘What’s happening now is about control as much as pain,’ he said. ‘He has to learn that his life is in our hands. Whether he lives or dies is up to us. We decide when he breathes and when he doesn’t.’
‘Where did you learn this stuff, Richard?’ asked Button.
The American grinned. ‘That’s classified,’ he said. ‘I could tell you…’
‘But you’d have to kill me. Yeah, it’s an old joke.’
‘I got started in South America where there are fewer concerns about human rights than there are here. But I was there as an observer. I cut my teeth in Afghanistan. The hunt for bin Laden. We had to get intelligence and we needed it quickly.’
‘Forgive me, but aren’t we still looking for bin Laden?’ said Button.
‘We got close,’ said Yokely, ‘and we got a lot of his people. And that was as a direct result of the information obtained by the coercive techniques we employed. Then I was in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for a while.’ He smiled. ‘Incidentally, there are no interrogators in Abu Ghraib. They’re all human-intelligence collectors now.’
‘A rose by any other name?’ said Button, drily.
‘Exactly,’ said Yokely.
Button stepped closer to the monitor. Broken Nose had moved to stand by the paddling pool while Scarred Lip let the plank drop so that the Saudi’s head dipped under the water. His feet drummed on the plank and his shoulders and chest strained against the webbing straps. His cheeks were puffed and his eyes bulged as he fought to hold his breath. It wasn’t a battle he could win. Broken Nose was peering at him, waiting for the moment when the Saudi had to give in.
Button was appalled. The Saudi’s chest heaved. Then there was an explosion of bubbles from his mouth and his head thrashed as he breathed water.
Broken Nose made a chopping motion with his right hand and Scarred Lip put all his weight on the raised end of the plank. The Saudi’s head and shoulders burst out of the water and he coughed.
Broken Nose nodded and Scarred Lip let the plank fall back. The Saudi’s head disappeared under the water again.
‘And this works?’ asked Button.
‘It’s part of the process,’ said the American. ‘Under normal circumstances we wouldn’t be under so much time pressure so we wouldn’t get to this stage until we were well down the line. We’d start with disorientation and sleep deprivation. Then we’d move on to standing.’ He grinned. ‘You’d be surprised how effective that is.’
‘Just standing?’
‘On a stool. Or a brick. For hours on end. It’s painful, but it’s the pain of the body working against itself. The Gestapo perfected the technique. They had cells built just big enough to hold a standing man. Like an upturned coffin. A week was enough to drive a man mad. I tell you, forced standing is one of the most effective tortures there is. But, like I said, it takes time.’
The Saudi was bucking and kicking and Scarred Lip lifted him out of the water. He spat out water and groaned.
‘Can’t we use drugs or something?’ asked Button.
‘There’s no such thing as a truth serum,’ said Yokely. ‘People can lie as easily when they’re doped as they can when they’re sober. Trust me, Charlie, I know what I’m doing.’
Scarred Lip let go of the plank and the Saudi fell back into the water.
‘You should go back in there,’ said Yokely. ‘Keep the pressure on him.’
Button sighed.
‘You’re okay, yeah?’ asked Yokely.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You look a bit pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ repeated Button.
‘We need you in there.’
‘I’m going.’
Yokely turned back to the monitor and watched the Saudi drown again.
The train slowed as it approached Paddington. Shepherd was standing by the carriage door. He’d go first, get ahead of Hagerman, and Sharpe would bring up the rear. Then they’d play it by ear. If Hagerman was heading for the airport they’d board the Heathrow Express with him. If he got on to another train, it might be more complicated, but they’d be above ground and could be in phone contact with Bingham and the back-up teams.
The train juddered to a halt and the doors clattered open. Shepherd glanced to his left. Hagerman hadn’t moved. He was still sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped on his suitcase as if he was in prayer. Shepherd looked at Sharpe, who shrugged almost imperceptibly. Their quarry was staying on the train.
Shepherd stepped off and walked down the platform, away from Hagerman. He passed one carriage, then got into the next and sat down.
The train lurched off and, within seconds, was roaring into the tunnel once more. There was a map of the Tube network above the door. Marylebone station was on the Bakerloo Line. So were Charing Cross and Waterloo. Liverpool Street, King’s Cross and Victoria were on the Circle Line, so Hagerman would have changed at Paddington if he’d been heading for any of them. But if he was only making a rail journey, why the rush to pick up a passport from the Uddins? Shepherd studied the map. Waterloo. The Eurostar. Hagerman was leaving the country, but he wasn’t flying. He was going by train.
He counted the stations between Paddington and Waterloo. Eight. At about two minutes between stations, it would be sixteen minutes at least before they could phone Bingham. And depending on where the back-up had got to, there might not be enough time for them to get to Waterloo before Hagerman boarded the Eurostar.
Shepherd’s eyes flicked across the stations on the Bakerloo Line. The line was one of the deepest on the underground system. He wouldn’t get a mobile signal until they arrived at Waterloo. On the bright side, if Hagerman was aiming to travel on the Eurostar, he’d be a lot easier to tail. There was only one way in and one way out. Europol would have plenty of time to mount a surveillance operation at their end. Shepherd started to relax. From where he was sitting he couldn’t see Hagerman but he had Sharpe in vision and he didn’t have to move until Sharpe did.
The train rattled south. Oxford Circus was the busiest station and so many shoppers crowded on that Shepherd gave up his seat so that he could stand and see through the connecting door. He made brief eye-contact with Sharpe, and then his view was blocked by a housewife struggling with half a dozen Debenhams’ carrier-
