and she panicked and crashed, and that the reason she isn’t talking to you is because she doesn’t remember. She’s got amnesia from a bang on the head, and you’re scared she isn’t going to remember. Basically, you’re screwed.’
Slater crossed his arms. ‘You’re a very smart man, that’s for sure. Shame we couldn’t find a job for you on our team.’
‘Smarter than you,’ Ben said. ‘A cage load of monkeys could have done better. But that’s what happens when you hire a brainless piece of shit like Jones to do your dirty work.’
‘A man in your position should be trying to make me happy,’ Slater said. ‘You’re not making me happy.’
‘I haven’t even started yet,’ Ben replied. ‘You’re wasting your time on me. Even if I did know what you wanted to know, I wouldn’t tell you.’
‘Even smart guys can get into the shit, and you’re in a whole heap of it. We can bury you for ever. You shot two cops, for a start.’
‘That was Jones,’ Ben said. ‘He’s the real hard guy here.’
‘We have a whole bunch of witnesses who watched you murder two officers in cold blood,’ Slater said. ‘Then there’s the question of the two missing agents in Greece. I figure you for that as well.’
Ben didn’t reply.
Slater grinned. ‘Don’t remember? Did you get a knock on the head too? Let’s see if this refreshes your memory.’ He gestured to Jones, who aimed a remote at the flatscreen monitor on the table. It flashed into life and Ben recognised the scene right away. It was crisp colour footage of him and Charlie sitting at the cafe table on Corfu. The sound was muted.
Slater let it play for a few seconds, and Ben watched himself shifting around in his seat as Charlie unfolded the story to him. Then the kid with the ball came past, and moments later he saw himself jump up and run out into the road to save the child from the oncoming van. Charlie was up on his feet. It was the moment just before the explosion.
‘OK, you made your point,’ Ben said. He didn’t want to be reminded of that moment. He’d relived it enough times over the last few days.
Jones drew his scabbed lips back over his jagged teeth. He aimed the remote and his thumb stabbed the pause key just as the shockwave erupted across the cafe terrace and hit Charlie, ripping his body apart in a red blur. The image froze. Jones gazed at it and seemed satisfied.
Ben stared at the screen. He was seeing the blast in a whole new way. When the bomb had exploded, he’d been on the other side of the road behind the cover of the van, with his face down close to the ground. He’d hardly seen a thing.
This image was taken from a completely different angle. It showed the direction of the blast, and it told Ben exactly where the bomb had been. Memories flooded through his mind. He remembered the little boy with the ball. The man at the nearby table with the laptop. He remembered the way the man had shouted at the kid. Most of all, he remembered the fierce look in the man’s eyes.
He’d never forget that face. Especially not now.
He hadn’t noticed before that the man had slipped away while he and Charlie had been deep in conversation. That’s what people did in cafes, finish their drink and slip away – each table its own private, self-contained world. Nothing unusual about it. But he wished now that he’d taken more notice. Frozen up on the screen, caught in the exact moment it fragmented and belched fire and death across the cafe terrace, the laptop case was a dark blur under the empty table.
Ben turned away from the screen and stared hard at Slater, then at Jones. ‘So I was right. You planted that bomb.’
Slater waved his hand in the air. ‘I’m a businessman. I don’t plant bombs. I just pay other people to plant them.’
‘That recording was the last thing my agents sent to me before they went off the grid,’ Jones said. ‘What did you do to them?’
‘They’re both dead on a beach,’ Ben replied. ‘If you’re quick you might find them before the crabs finish what’s left of them.’
Slater smiled. ‘So you’ve decided to be straight with us.’
‘I’ll tell you something else too,’ Ben said. ‘I’m going to kill you soon.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘Yes. That’s a fact. Jones too. I’d get those graves ready.’
There was a silence. Slater paled, and covered it with a nervous laugh. ‘I was hoping you were going to be reasonable. This isn’t making it any easier for yourself.’
‘You’ve let me see your faces,’ Ben said. ‘You wouldn’t let me out of here alive anyway. So even if I knew where the ostraka were, which I don’t, I wouldn’t give you the pleasure.’
Slater tossed his empty chocolate wrapper into a bin. ‘Fine. But there are quick and easy ways of dying, and there are slow and horrible ways to suffer.’
‘I’ll have to decide which one you deserve,’ Ben said.
Slater sighed. ‘My God, you’re so stubborn. OK, let me show you something else.’ He gestured again at Jones. The agent pressed another button and from inside the DVD player came the clunking, whirring sound of the disc changer. The screen was blank for a few moments, then another image came up. A close-up shot of a gaunt, wasted man in grimy fatigues. He was in a filthy cell, or a cage, clutching at the bars. There was bright light shining in his face, showing the glistening fresh wounds and bruises on his jaw and cheek, the livid swelling of his right eye.
‘What you’re seeing here is from classified CIA archives,’ Slater said. ‘You don’t need to know what this is about. Same old story. Let’s just say the guy is privy to certain information, and these other guys want to get it out of him. He’s a tough fucker, like you. He’s resisted all kinds of torture. When the camera zooms out, you can just about make out the blood on his feet where they tore out his toenails. Any time now. There.’
Ben watched the images on the screen as Slater stood up and walked around. ‘See, I’m a bureaucrat,’ Slater said. ‘I’ll admit it. I like to hear the truth from people, but I’m not a guy who’s comfortable around blood and violence – at least not at close range.’
‘It’s different when you’re just making a phone call, isn’t it?’
Slater ignored that. ‘I could have you beaten into catmeat right now,’ he said. ‘I could have them cut off your fingers and ears, cut off your balls, fry you with electricity, dunk you in a tub, string you up by the thumbs, all that kind of shit. With your background, I’m sure you have a pretty good idea of what’s involved. But that’s more Jones’s line. Personally, I’d rather get what I want without the mess. I like things clean and clinical. If I have to have someone fucked up…’ Slater smiled. ‘Well, take a look at this guy.’
Ben was watching. As Slater talked, the prisoner onscreen was being forced down in his chair by guards in unmarked uniform. A third came into shot and stabbed a syringe in the man’s neck, pressed the plunger home and jerked the needle out with a squirt of blood.
Slater reached into his jacket pocket, took out a small amber bottle and laid it down with a clunk on the desk. Then he reached into the other pocket and brought out a small leather case. He unzipped it and laid it open on the desk beside the bottle. There was a syringe inside. ‘Know what this stuff is for?’
Ben gazed across at the bottle. ‘Yes, I do. But I thought Jones asked us not to discuss his personal condition.’
‘Oh, that’s so funny. You know what this is.’
‘I’ve heard about it.’
‘I thought you would have. The very best of its kind. Vintage stuff. Hard to get. Unfortunately, the good doctor who supplied it won’t be joining us.’ Slater gestured at the screen. ‘Now, this guy, he was like you. He absolutely insisted he didn’t know what they needed to know. Boy, he was so sure of himself. But then he talked, all right. One shot was all it took. Within an hour he was telling them everything, and then some. Remarkable. And you know what, they didn’t even have to put a bullet in his head afterwards, because look what happened.’
Jones thumbed the remote again, three times. The image accelerated to eight times the speed, and suddenly the picture changed: new camera angle, different lighting. The same man, but he had changed too. Radically. He’d gone from being a terrified, beaten-up prisoner to being a babbling, screaming lunatic jerking on his cage bars, eyes wild, teeth bared, foaming at the mouth. He was on a different planet.
