Durrani did not resist as he was manhandled out of the cell in his bare feet and along a slippery damp stone walkway. His guides were not particularly rough with him as long as he remained compliant. Resistance was futile, a lesson he had learned during his first visit to the Styx interrogation room. If he struggled his arms were twisted up his back. If he refused to walk he was released and seconds later a powerful electrode was thrust into his groin, racking his entire body with a pain so intense that it induced vomiting and rectal evacuation. After that he was not interested enough to find out what they would do to him if he resisted further.
Durrani was brought to a halt while a door hissed open in front of him. He was guided through it and up a flight of stairs.This was the usual route he remembered. It led to another corridor at the top of the metal stairs where he was steered left into a room and then into a chair. His hood would then be removed and he would find himself sitting at a table, with a white man sitting on the other side, aiming a microphone at him. A wire leading to a recording device was attached to the mike.
On the whole his interrogations had not been particularly harsh. The first series had been at a camp in Germany, his first stop after being flown out of Afghanistan. It had been run by soldiers and a handful of men in suits and had been all very unsophisticated and procedural. After confirming his identity, place of birth and the school he went to Durrani was asked about the operations he’d taken part in, the names of various commanders and the locations of meeting places, training camps, weapons caches and so on. He answered many of their questions in one of two alternative ways: the ones he felt were inconsequential he answered truthfully, those that he considered more important he lied about. His interrogators did not appear to know anything about him such as the identity of his true father or the fact that he was part Hazara. ‘Tell us now for we will always find out in the end and it will be worse for you,’ they had threatened. He did not believe them.
As Durrani shuffled along the corridor between his guards their grip on him tightened perceptibly and he was alarmed by the feeling that they had passed the point where they usually turned off into the interrogation room. He wondered if he was confused about the route but when they took a sharp left-hand corner and passed through a narrow rocky corridor only wide enough for one person he knew this was a different place.
Durrani was guided through a narrow doorway and brought to an abrupt halt, turned around and pushed down into an uncomfortable metal chair. His arms were placed on the hand rests where spring-loaded clamps held them in place, something else that was new to him, and his feet were secured in the same manner to the chair legs. The guards had, without doubt, become more aggressive and the rate of Durrani’s breathing increased in line with his nervousness as a horrible thought suddenly nagged at him. He recalled a story, told during a previous gathering of the Taliban prisoners in the food hall, about a special room in Styx with a metal chair in the centre of it and how those who visited it were usually not heard from for weeks after. Sometimes never again.
Durrani’s hood was pulled off and he struggled to focus his eyes in the dim light. His shirt was pulled open to expose his bare chest, whereupon a man proceeded to stick small pads on the ends of wires to his flesh in various places. Several were taped to his chest in the area of his heart while others were attached to his neck and temples. Rings with wires coming off them were placed over a finger on each hand as well as on both of his big toes. The wires all came together at a box attached to the wall and after a brief check of the connections the man left the room followed by the guards.
The door closed behind them with a hiss and a clunk.
Durrani looked around him.The small concrete room was circular and otherwise empty. A light glowed on the wall directly in front of and slightly above him. Its source was a rectangular piece of glass, behind which a figure could be seen. The glass was foggy and several inches thick making it impossible to determine the person’s features. Only when a voice filled the room through tinny speakers, a voice which Durrani presumed belonged to the person behind the glass, did it become plain that the blurred figure was that of a man.
‘Why were you crossing the border the day you were captured by American soldiers?’ the man asked in passable Farsi.
Durrani did not answer. In the silence he could hear the echo of dripping water. He looked at the floor, his eyes by now almost fully adjusted to the dim light. It was wet.A drip struck the top of his head and he looked up to see a circle in the vaulted ceiling directly above him. It was a robust metal hatch set within a thick concrete ring. Another drip struck him in the eye, the salt water stinging, made worse because he was unable to reach it with either of his clamped hands.
‘Do you refuse to answer my question or are you considering your reply?’
Durrani looked at the ghostly figure and thought now that he could make out another in the background. He expected some form of punishment for not answering. After his earlier interrogations he had wondered to what extent his captors were prepared to torture him and how he would react.When sleep deprivation, loud noises, physical discomfort and shouting appeared to be the full extent of their techniques he had put their restraint down to the usual weakness of Western institutions and their fear of the media, human-rights groups and liberal politicians. But as he stared at the figure behind the glass and took in the characteristics of his confines it struck him that this time he might have made an error of judgement.
‘I will ask you once more,’ the voice boomed. ‘Why were you crossing the border the day you were captured?’
Durrani looked down at the floor, a signal that the man behind the glass appeared to take as a refusal to answer.There was a loud clunk from somewhere in the room, followed by a whirling sound and the noise of the sucking-in of air. Durrani immediately felt the change in pressure in his ears and his face flushed as his entire body tightened. He shook uncontrollably and struggled to breathe. It was as if he’d been gripped by a giant hand that was squeezing him like a sponge. It lasted only a few seconds before he was released, only to swiftly experience the opposite effect. Now he felt as if he was being blown up like a balloon.
The resulting intense discomfort and confusion were unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Just as it seemed his body was going to blow apart, his rib joints straining to disconnect, another loud clunk signalled a reversal of the pumps and a return to normal pressure.When Durrani unclenched his hands he looked down at them to see the fingers had swollen to twice their normal size.
‘You just went for a trip towards the surface,’ the voice echoed. ‘Another few feet and you would have started to stretch like a balloon . . . You see, there’s gas in every inch of your body, dissolved into your flesh, blood, other fluids. Even your bones. Nitrogen mostly, the rest oxygen, carbon dioxide, inert gases . . . You ever open a bottle of fizzy drink? Of course you have. Remember how the bubbles suddenly appeared everywhere in the bottle as if by magic? And if you took the top off too quickly the froth would gush out of the bottle? Remember that? Well, that’s exactly what happens to the human body if it’s depressurised too quickly. Divers call it the bends . . . That’s what I’m doing to you . . . Of course, it’s not an exact science. I drop the pressure a little, you get a body full of bubbles - the more I drop the pressure, the bigger the bubbles get. Problem is it only takes one little bubble to block the wrong vein in your brain and that’s it. Permanent brain damage. Even death. What I’m aiming to do is keep you alive. I’m getting pretty good at it now. Had a bit of practice . . . Made some mistakes, but that’s life. Now, let’s go back in time a little, to before you were captured. Only a few days before . . .You were in Kabul, is that right?’
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.
