The van stopped and the door was opened. They were in a parking lot, long abandoned, overgrown and full of potholes. It was empty but for the remains of a long-dead tractor trailer rusting away amid dark weeds and drifts of garbage. They seemed to have come to an industrial wasteland in the depths of God knew where. Rotting skeletons of buildings were on three sides of them, and the air stank of black water, decaying chemicals, and clogged drains. A drab, gray, overcast dawn was just breaking. Winters smiled to himself. He thought that to Carlisle it probably looked like one of the outer circles of hell – and, indeed, it might prove to be exactly that. They undipped Carlisle from the hook and manhandled him out. One of the Magicians had walked away across the derelict parking lot. He was opening a door to one of the more substantial ruins. A light shone out, orange amid the general gray. They carried Carlisle toward it.
The interior of the ruined factory was a place of towering shadows, collapsed gantries, and loops of impossibly thick steel chains, red with rust. The first pale light of the day was creeping through the holes in the roof. Rats scuttled in the twisted falls of masonry. The massive bulks of forgotten machinery were scattered, as if by the hands of some giant child. There was a pool of bright electric light, and within that luminous circle everything had been made ready in advance. There was a single, low stool set directly under the light. On a table to one side, surgical instruments had been laid out beside a small hand-cranked generator. There were also undisguised instruments of torture: a metal and plastic reverb helmet; a length of steel cable, frayed at the end, that could be used as a whip; a number of clamps; an electric branding iron. Above the stool, there was a pulley system of ropes and chains. A large rubber sheet covered the floor of the area. A single helmeted figure presided over the ad hoc dungeon. As the men from the van entered, he greeted them with a strange finger and thumb hand signal.
Even the torturers' creature comforts had been taken care of. On a second table there was a coffee machine and a tray of plastic-wrapped sandwiches. Three robot camcorders were standing silent, waiting to be activated to record the event for posterity.
Carlisle was placed on the stool under the light. He made no sound, but his eyes were closed and his hands were an ugly mottled red. There was something strangely anticlimactic about the moment, a lull in the ceremony before the next act got under way. The Magician in the gold helmet, who once again seemed to be in control of the proceedings, nodded to the prisoner.
"Take off the handcuffs."
The Magician in the blue helmet moved forward and unlocked the manacles. Carlisle gasped as his wrists were freed. He started to massage his hands. To Winters' surprise, the Magician unfastened the straps of his gold helmet, pushed back the visor, and eased the whole thing over his head. It was Senior Deacon Spencer.
"Remember me, Carlisle?"
Carlisle said nothing. Spencer pushed his fingers through his hair. He took a pack of cigarettes from his field jacket and lit one. Very deliberately, he walked to the table and poured himself a cup of coffee.
"We have a lot of time. You're going to die very slowly, Carlisle. When they find you, I want you to be a major example to the others."
One by one, the other Magicians took off their helmets. Winters' surprise continued. There was Rogers, Gleason, Proxmire, and a man that he did not know. Their faces were smug, as if they shared a secret. Winters was the last to reveal himself. He was not sure about the way the others looked at him as he took off the plain gray helmet. He was very conscious that he was the rookie and that they were waiting to see how he would make out on his first job. They probably hoped that he would make a fool of himself, that he would break down or throw up or something.
Spencer seemed to be aware of his nervousness. "Winters."
"Yes, sir?"
"Strip the prisoner."
Winters stood rooted. The idea of taking off any other man's clothes revolted him. The fact that it was Carlisle made it ten times worse.
"Did you hear me, Winters?"
The others were starting to smirk.
"Yes, sir."
He took a deep breath and advanced on the seated Carlisle. Carlisle did not resist him, but he also did not do anything to help. As Winters was unbuttoning his shirt, his eyes opened and he muttered in a rasping voice, "Are you enjoying this, boy?"
Winters did not think. He simply lashed out in a flash of discharging tension and slapped Carlisle open handed, hard across the face. Carlisle swayed on the stool.
"I told you to strip him, not beat him up," Spencer snapped.
"Yes, sir. I'm sorry."
Spencer looked at the others. "You all better remember this. I don't want his face damaged. He has to be recognizable."
Carlisle's clothes were finally removed. Winters stepped back.
"The prisoner is naked, sir."
Spencer nodded. "So I see."
He turned to Rogers. "I think we'll put the reverb helmet on him."
"Yes, sir."
The reverb helmet in its primitive form supposedly had been invented by the Chilean secret police during the Pinochet era and had quickly spread to law enforcement agencies in South and Central America and even ones as far apart as Haiti and Iran. Originally it had been a simple steel headpiece that caused the victim's own screams to ring deafeningly in his ears. The modern version was a good deal more sophisticated, using miniature electronics to amplify the sounds way past the pain threshold.
Rogers lowered the helmet over Carlisle's head and snapped it shut. Carlisle looked like the Man in the Iron Mask. The weight of the helmet bowed his head forward.
"We'll start by suspending him from his ankles. Replace your helmets and run the cameras."
Carlisle
The amplified sound of his own breathing roared in his ears. He could see nothing, and the noise was the whole world. Harry Carlisle had never known that it was possible to be so afraid. This was it. The unthinkable was starting. The worst part was that he was angry with himself. Back there on the street, he should have pulled out the gun and forced them to blow him away. He would have been spared what was coming. But he had not pulled the gun. The immediate, moment-by-moment impulse to self-preservation was formidable, and now it was too late. Something was being looped around his ankles. His feet were jerked upward. He toppled from the stool and grunted as he hit the floor. The sound inside the headpiece was like a thunderclap. He was being pulled up by the feet until his dangling fingertips cleared the rubber sheet. He could feel himself slowly turning. He had no idea where the pain would start and from what direction it would come. His whole body cringed.
Winters
Spencer seemed to take an absolute delight in what he was doing. He selected the first man. "Proxmire, we'll start with you. Is the branding iron fired up?"
Proxmire had the look of a man who had been through it all before. He nodded. Spencer smiled and closed his visor. Winters prayed that he would never see that smile directed at him.
"Confine your work to the skin around his armpits."
"Yes, sir."
"Activate the cameras."
Proxmire seemed in no hurry. He inspected the heated tip of the iron and walked slowly to where Carlisle hung upside down and naked like a side of beef. He put a hand on Carlisle's chest to stop the slow rotation of the body. Then there was a crack, and Proxmire's head burst in a spray of bloody mist.