24 Declassified: Veto Power

hours.”

That might be long enough, Jack thought. He lay down and straightened himself out, then rolled himself over to the desk. When he reached it, he curled back up, sat up, and slowly got himself to his feet. With his ankles fettered, it was hard to maintain balance. He leaned against the desk to keep from falling.

“They’ll come back in here!” the woman hissed. The old lady, probably her mother, said something sharp in Farsi, but she said it to her daughter.

Jack hopped around the desk until he reached the lamp. It was a modern looking directional lamp, designed for reading. A brushed metal stand rose up from the base, and a flexible coil curved away from the top, ending in a bell-shaped metal shade that pointed down toward the desk top. The bulb inside was bright. Jack leaned his face near it and could feel the heat radiating off it. It might be enough.

He turned his back on the lamp and leaned over, raising his bound hands toward it. The heat singed his skin. He ignored it and touched the rip hobble cord to the bulb. A few seconds later, the faint, acrid smell of burning plastic filled the air.

The problem was, the heat wasn’t intense enough to melt the plastic right away, but it was hot enough to burn Jack. The skin on his wrist began to blister, but it was better than a bullet in the brain.

From the room next door, he heard a crash and a thud. The Greater Nation thugs were prepping Ramin for some more intense questioning. They were going to torture him, Jack was sure. The irony didn’t escape him — that these zealots who believed the government overreached its powers now far overreached their own. In the end, he thought, people were all the same. They wanted what they wanted, and they made and broke rules to achieve their own satisfaction.

The burning smell grew stronger, and he heard something pop. But it was taking too long. The plastic was thick and the lamp was weak. It would never cut through before the militia men thought to check on their captives. Jack began to pull and wriggle his hands. If the plastic had been heated enough to stretch.

In the next room, one of the militia men said, “This is your last chance—”

“Fuck it, no last chances,” said another one.

A muffled scream of agony penetrated the wall. The desk lamp in the library flickered on and off. When the light became steady again, they could all hear a sob from the other room.

Jack slid his hands back and forth. The plastic had stretched. Now he needed lubricant.

Jack crouched down a little, which wasn’t easy with his ankles hobbled, and pressed his wrists against the edge of the desk. Gritting his teeth, he slid the side of his wrist along the edge. It hurt, but he could tell he hadn’t cut the skin. He rubbed his wrist up and down a few times, ignoring the pain, then he slid his arm across the desk edge again. This time the pain was sharp, like a sudden burn, then he felt warmth ooze down to his palms and fingers. Blood, until it started to dry, was very slick. He started to rub his wrists up and down again, letting the blood spread. He pushed his elbows as close together as possible, making a straight line up and down relative to the plastic strip, straightened his fingers and palms, and pulled. His right hand slid up and out of the rip hobble. He brought his hands around and rubbed his wrists. The cut he’d made was deep, and still oozing. He compressed it against his chest as he shook the hobble off his other hand. His legs would be easier. He searched the desk drawer, hoping for a letter opener. He was rewarded with a pair of scissors instead. He attacked the plastic binding on his feet — even though they were sharp, the scissors wore, rather than sliced, through the hobble. Nothing short of wire cutters would cut the cord in one snip. The scissors, in fact, broke at the hinge. Jack swore under his breath, sensing that his time was growing short. He picked up one of the scissors blades and sawed at the plastic. Finally it surrendered and he was free.

The others looked at him expectantly. “Now my wife,” the man said bravely.

Jack shook his head. There was no point in trying to cut them all free. It would take too long. Besides, he didn’t like being on defense.

Jack reversed his grip on the scissors and stalked toward the door.

“Tell me names, and tell me where they are,” one of the militia men ordered.

“Aaghh!” The lights flickered again and a muffled cry followed.

They were electrocuting him. Jack knew the procedure — the cord ripped from an electrical appliance but still plugged into the wall, the protective coating stripped from the ends of the wire, and a little water splashed on the most sensitive parts of the victims’ skin made for a simple but effective instrument of torture.

“You don’t like it on your balls. I can always put it in your eye instead.”

Jack started out the door.

“Okay, okay!” Ramin Rafizadeh yelled.

Jack stopped.

“I’ll tell you what I know.”

This is good, Jack thought. Let them do the dirty work. He listened closely.

“Tell us where your terrorist friends are. Tell us what they’re going to do.”

“I don’t have any terrorist friends — aghh! — I’m telling the truth, please, I’m telling the truth. I don’t know any terrorists. But I have heard some people talk, just talk, that’s all — aghh! — about some Saudis coming up from South America.”

There is a quality of sheer terror in the human voice that is hard for most people to imitate. The best counter-interrogation specialists can mimic it, but for most victims it is impossible to simulate. It swells up from the gut, rising through the body as it rises in pitch until it escapes from the mouth like the very soul is under pressure. And it is at that moment that the torturer knows, with his hands and his instruments only millimeters from an eye or a genital, that he has broken through the walls of defiance and heard the truth.

Jack heard that same quality of terror in Ramin’s voice. He was telling all he knew.

Jack felt eyes on him and he glanced backward. Nazila and the others were all staring in horror — not at the sounds coming from the other room, but at him. He focused on Nazila and he read her thoughts through her eyes and her expression. You monster, she was thinking, you’re letting them torture him. You’re torturing him through them to learn what he knows.

Yes, Jack thought. That’s what I’m doing. And he knew that in the world they came from, what he was doing was wrong.

“There’s more,” one of the torturers said. “That’s nothing.”

“No, no, no!” Ramin screamed as the lights flickered again. “That’s all I know, and I don’t even know if that’s true. I just heard someone talking, I swear!”

Jack moved. He slid out of the library door, across the short distance of the hallway and into the room next door. When attacking it was best to use surprise, speed, and overwhelming force. Two out of three would have to do, Jack thought. He burst into the room and drank in data without stopping. Three men. Two of them leaning over Ramin Rafizadeh, who was tied to a chair. One closest to Jack, by the door, with his back to the entrance. Jack moved fast, and by the time one of the two torturers had looked up and shouted in alarm, Jack had buried the scissors blade upward under the base of the near man’s skull. He jiggled it a little, scrambling the brains, and the man became a rag doll. He let the corpse fall, jerking the scissors blade out and lunging forward. It penetrated the throat of another militia man, who was just raising his weapon. The man shouted, but no sound came out except a gurgling from his throat. The third man, on Jack’s left, had his weapon leveled. Jack’s left hand shot out, grabbing the barrel of the pistol and pushing it off line. Two rounds thundered out of the muzzle. Jack ignored the deafening sound of gunfire close to his head and punched the scissors blade into the gunman’s sternum. It stuck there, so Jack let go of it and, still pushing the pistol away, elbowed the man in the throat. He dropped to his knees. Jack snapped the gun from his grip and whirled. The second man, one hand still clutching his throat, shakily raised his gun in the other and fired. Jack dropped to one knee and the rounds punctured the wall behind him. He fired twice and red blossoms appeared on the militia man’s blue overalls until he fell dead.

Jack waited on bended knee, listening for footsteps running toward them or away. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice. But he could hear no one else in the house. Rising, he moved over to Ramin Rafizadeh and, with one eye still on the door, looked the young man over. He was thin, weak, and terrified. Blisters marred both cheeks, just below his eyes. His pants had been pulled down and his shoes had been removed. He’d been burned on the soles of his feet, his thighs, and his testicles. The gunfire had terrified him. He was sobbing.

Not a terrorist, Jack thought.

He moved back to the militia man he had elbowed in the throat. The scissors still protruded from his chest,