“Oh dear, Jerry, Control now thinks you’ve talked. They also won’t come and save you as they think I’m on my way to get them. For all they know, you’re dead,” I said and patted his shoulder.
Jack pulled the rag out of Jerry’s mouth, who shouted, “They’re in Michigan, you dick.”
“So what? We can drive there.”
“You think you can get there in one piece?”
Jack grabbed Jerry’s hair, “Why don’t you tell us what’s happening, where in Michigan?”
“Fuck you.”
Jack shook his head and walked over to the water jugs.
“Harry, stretch the t-shirt over his head so it’s covering his face, and hold his head still.”
Jack poured water on the towels to make them damp, and then returned to the table, “Jerry, I am definitely going to enjoy this a lot more than you are.”
Before he could reply, I stretched the t-shirt over his face and held his head still; Jack laid the wet towels over the top and started pouring more water on top of them. Initially, Jerry was quite still. I thought he was trying to play it cool. He would quickly change his mind.
After twenty seconds of Jack pouring the water onto the towels, Jerry started to struggle wildly.
“Harry,” he said softly so Jerry wouldn’t hear, “when I pull the towels off, rip the t-shirt up, but not all the way off his head. It’s going back on pretty much straight away.”
We quickly removed the towels and t-shirt, Jerry gasped for air.
“Did you like that?” Jack asked.
Jerry didn’t get a chance to answer. As he was desperately gulping for air, Jack nodded at me. I pulled the t-shirt back over Jerry’s face and Jack laid down the towels and started pouring water again. This time it took less than ten seconds for Jerry to start struggling.
“Same again, Harry.”
We pulled off the covering again. Jerry was wild-eyed and panicking.
Jack leaned down and laughed in his face. “Third time lucky, you piece of shit.”
I nodded to Jack; it was all part of the act.
I pulled the t-shirt back over Jerry’s head, and Jack repeated his procedure. This time it was only a matter of seconds before Jerry was trying to rip off his limbs to escape. Jack nodded at me, and we revealed his face again.
“I am going to carry on doing this until you talk. Trust me, I can go for hours. Can you?” Jack said.
Oddly, I knew Jack wasn’t bluffing. Jerry had a lot of explaining to do, and we were going to use any means necessary to get information out of him. Though I hoped, I didn’t have to use the bolt cutters.
“Please… Please… No more,” Jerry spluttered.
“I bet you didn’t know we could do so much with water and linen,” Jack said.
We both looked at Jerry who was breathing heavily and staring at the roof. He didn’t seem as cocky and defiant as he had a few minutes ago.
“Talk now, Jerry, or we carry on,” I snapped.
“I’m not the only one, there’s others,” Jerry said nervously.
“No shit, do you think we believed that you masterminded everything? We heard you on the radio and took out that patrol,” Jack replied, pointing towards the direction of the road through the barn doors.
“You saw the consequences of the first activation on Friday. You can’t fight it.”
“First Activation?” I said. “Activation of what?”
“You can’t stop anything, even if you knew.”
“Harry, put the t-shirt back over this cock sucker’s face.”
I stretched it back over; Jack put the towels on again and poured the remaining water over where Jerry’s nose and mouth would be. As I clamped his head, I felt him wretch a couple of times. We unmasked him and he desperately gulped for air.
“Stop fucking around,” Jack growled at Jerry who nodded, “or next time, we’ll give you a five minute session.”
This could kill him, but what did we have to lose? Jerry had information and we had to know more. Any feelings of humanity towards him were quickly overridden by images of Bernie.
“You can’t… please…”
“Why can’t we?” I responded.
“Will you call the police? Oh, that’s right; you helped fucking kill all of them,” Jack said.
He slapped Jerry across the face.
Jerry scowled at me, so I raised the soaking t-shirt.
“No, no, wait,” he stammered. “Anthony knows more than me, he’s higher up the pecking order and knew about the first activation well before I did. I only found out on Thursday evening.”
“You knew what would happen? Do you realise what you’ve done?” I shouted.
I was struggling to keep my anger controlled at his apparent lack of guilt. It sounded like Jerry was also now trying to sell out one of his own to save himself.
“Where is Anthony? What does he know?”
“He’s lives in Hermitage, and always gets to know things before me, if you want to know what’s happening next, untie me, and I’ll take you to him. It’s just less than four hundred miles away.”
“Yeah, right, Jerry, if you didn’t want to reveal all before, you do now,” Jack replied.
Jack picked up the bolt cutters and tapped Jerry’s shoe, which seemed to give Jerry another nudge.
“The device in the corner of the barn, it’s part of the North American grid. That’s what transmitted the first activation. Don’t ask me about the technology, but it works.”
“We’ll smash it up then,” Jack said.
“It wouldn’t make a difference. The radius of each device overlaps to ensure all areas are covered if one malfunctions.”
“Where are the other devices? Do you have a map?” I said, grabbing Jerry by the ear.
“No. They’ve all been placed in position over the last few years. That one has been in my barn for two years. I know Anthony has one in his garage, he might know the other locations.”
Jack’s anger showed no signs of weakening. He was staring down at Jerry with vicious intent in his eyes.
“Who has been placing these devices? Who has the technology to create them?” I said.
Jerry laughed again.
“That’s the point you fucking retards.”
Jack swung the bolt cutters into Jerry’s forehead and his head slammed back onto the table.
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist it,” Jack said, he grabbed Jerry’s chin and shook it. “He’s out cold.”
We’d have to wait to speak to Jerry again. In the meantime, we inspected the device. It didn’t appear to be anything special. It was just a shaped piece of metal that could have been seen in any trendy furniture shop. When Jack tried to push it over so we could check the bottom for markings, he couldn’t. It seemed to weigh a ton. We both grabbed the chrome pole protruding from the black box and managed to pull the whole thing over after a couple of heaves.
The only thing on the bottom of the box was a line of unrecognisable symbols.
“Do you think its code?” Jack said.
“I’ve no idea. I’m guessing whoever made this wouldn’t exactly advertise themselves on it, so maybe you’re right. Who could create such a thing?”
“I don’t know, but I am going to smash it open. We might find some names on the parts inside.”
Jack found an axe in the corner and started attacking the large, heavy, black box. I could see that he was putting all his strength behind the blows, but he struggled even to put a dent in the cover.
“Christ, it must be made of titanium,” he said.
“You keep going at that,” I replied, “I’m going to have a look around the barn.”
I left Jack chopping away as I went back to the radio. I recognised it as a HF radio because of the frequency range on the dial. This meant Jerry might not have been lying about Control being in Michigan, as distance was no object, especially during daylight hours.