CHAPTER 89
TWO DAYS LATER SEAN KING could barely remember his own name. “Please stop,” he kept asking them. “Please stop.” They never listened.
Instead they picked him up and carried him to another room. He was placed in a long box resembling a coffin. He was packed in so tightly he could barely move. Wires were attached to his chest and arm. When the cover was put on, it rested within two inches of his face. The feeling of claustrophobia was extreme. What Sean couldn’t see were the pipes attached to the chamber. At regular intervals the temperature in the chamber was lowered until Sean was pushed right to the edge of hypothermia. He struggled to catch his breath as the oxygen levels were reduced. Just as he was about pass out, they pumped more air in. For ten hours this process went on. And he grew weaker and weaker. Finally, thankfully, he lost consciousness.
When he awoke later in his cell he noticed he had another visitor.
“Hello, Sean,” Alicia said.
“Come to gloat?” he answered weakly.
“No. I take no pleasure in seeing you in here.”
“Really? That’s sort of hard to believe.” Sean sat up and leaned his back against the wall. “Drug smuggling, murder, kidnapping, torture. Have I left anything out?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said calmly.
“I mean you and Val are smuggling drugs in on planes.”
“You may call it that. I don’t.”
“And what do you call murdering Monk Turing and Len Rivest?”
“Monk was shot for trespassing.”
“But you did kill Len, didn’t you? And I thought you liked him.”
“We all have a job to do.”
“So you’re admitting you killed him?”
“There’s a war going on. We all have a job to do,” she repeated more slowly.
“And you almost killed me!”
“We knew it was you who broke into the camp. You saw things. You and Michelle. Just like Monk Turing. That’s why you’re here.”
“So you torture us, find out what we know and then what? Let us go?”
“That’s not my responsibility.”
“Oh, good, just pass the buck along to someone else. So what’ll it be? Gas explosion? Suicide? Will I die in my bathtub? By the way did you use the plunger or that metal leg of yours?”
“I simply follow orders.”
“From Valerie? Is that all it takes for you to kill somebody? Orders from a psychopath? What about the morgue doc? What the hell did he do to deserve getting blown up?”
“There’s always collateral damage. It comes with the territory. I don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Sure there is. You can stop doing it.”
“I don’t know what sort of world you want to live in, but it’s obviously not the one I’m envisioning.”
“Does that world include killing Viggie?”
Alicia quickly looked down. “Viggie will be fine.”
He roared, “No she
Alicia turned to leave.
“What, you just came to see me before the hammer comes down? Is that it? Seeing another victim off to the great hereafter. I’m sure Len appreciated the gesture. Did he even know it was you? Did he think you came there to screw him? A little fun in the old tub?”
“Shut up!” she said sharply.
“No, I’m not shutting up. You’re going to hear me out, lady.”
As Alicia fled the cell, his screams of outrage followed her. “Are you gonna pull the trigger on Viggie? Are you?”
Alicia broke into a run, but she couldn’t outrun the screams. The stone floor was slick and she stumbled. As she fell, her prosthetic leg hit her good leg, cutting into her skin. She slumped to the floor sobbing quietly as Sean’s shouts thundered down the bleak hall.
“I’m so sorry, Viggie,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
CHAPTER 90
FOR THREE MORE DAYS Sean was forced to stand at attention or squat. He was barely fed and a cup of water a day was his sole allotment, enough only to keep him alive. He was returned to the coffin three times.
He was poked or hit with a water jet whenever he tried to doze off. Deafening music was piped into his cell without warning and stayed on for hours. They had rigged his cell with electricity that would give him a mild shock when he touched his bed or the wall, or certain spots on the floor. It got so he simply huddled in one corner afraid to move. His belly was empty, his skin was raw; his spirit was cracking in half.
After his last trip to the coffin he awoke two hours later in his cell and looked around. He didn’t know how long he’d been in here. It could be days, weeks or years. His brain had simply shut down on him. As the cell door opened, he started sobbing, terrified of what they were going to do to him next.
“Hello, Sean, are we ready to be a good boy now?” Valerie asked.
He couldn’t even raise his head.
“Your friend’s made of tougher stuff. We never got
Now he looked up. “Where is Michelle?”
“That’s really none of your concern, now is it,
As Sean stared at Valerie Messaline, at the arrogant features of her face, at the confident tilt of her body, rage replaced his fear. He pushed his hand against the wall to steady himself. And then before anyone could react he pushed off the wall, lunged and was on top of her, his hands around her throat. He wanted to kill her, squeeze every molecule of arrogance, of superiority out of her ugly, filthy being.
Guards pulled him off and threw Sean back into a corner. When Sean sat up he looked at her. Valerie was standing against the far wall trying to appear composed yet he could see the fear in her eyes. And that small triumph was all he needed right now.
He stood on trembling legs, holding on to the wall for support, and said, “That’s a nasty bruise, Val. You might want to take a session in the coffin. They say oxygen deprivation is good for strangulation marks, if you don’t suffocate that is.”
“You think it’s been bad up till now,” she hissed. “Just wait.”
“Where’s Michelle?”
“Like I said you should be concerned about yourself.”
“She’s my partner and my friend. But I guess you don’t understand those concepts.” He glanced at one of the guards, a young man with short blond hair and a muscular physique. “Hey, kid, you better hope to hell you don’t do anything to piss this lady off. She might just decide to label you a
The guard said nothing, but Sean could see just the tiniest bit of doubt creep into his eyes as he shot a sideways glance at his boss.
He turned back to Valerie. “Where is Michelle?” he screamed, finding lung power he didn’t know he had left.
