Colonel Petkovic was optimistic about the possibility of being broken out of prison by his own Spetsnaz, or escaping on his own, until he was flown from a small firebase to Fairbanks and then to northern Wisconsin. So far, his treatment had been better than expected; he had been given medical attention when he needed it, and he was fed three meals a day. He had made the mistake of mentioning the new Russian tank and how it was going to destroy the Americans to a fellow prisoner, who must have told the Yankees (the Americans had placed several of their interpreters among the prison population to gather intelligence inside the camp; this had proven extremely useful). This little slip-up was probably why he had been flown to Wisconsin instead of staying in Alaska. Petkovic thought to himself, “It doesn’t matter. The Americans will ultimately lose the war; the numbers are against them no matter what new technology they create.”
The Colonel had been at Ft. McCoy for five days, nearly all of it spent in isolation. What little he had seen of the base when he was driven from the airstrip to the prison camp, did amaze him. He saw thousands of American men and women conducting physical training and other types of military training. Clearly, the Americans were trying to train a new army, but it was too late. The Russian and Chinese alliance had already trained millions of soldiers and were in the process of training millions more. He knew that as soon as his division’s objectives would have been completed, he would have been heading back to the Western front to be equipped with the new T41 battle tanks. The Chinese were also training five million soldiers, specifically to assist the Russians in Europe. He felt certain of the inevitability of the victory on his side.
As Petkovic walked in to the interrogation room, he was not afraid. Of course, he was determined to do his best to resist; he had received interrogation resistance training, and he had been told that the Americans would not use torture, so that relieved most of the anxiety he might have felt. As the Colonel oriented himself to this new room, he saw a man in his late thirties standing before him.
“Hello, Colonel Petkovic. You can call me Mr. Smith.”
Petkovic was sure that this name was an alias, but that didn’t matter. There was an interpreter in the room with him, and a third person, a woman who sat in the back corner at a desk with a laptop. He assumed the woman was there to take notes for the interrogator, who looked all business. The interrogator shook his hand, and offered him some coffee or a bottle of water. Petkovic accepted both and thanked “Mr. Smith.” There was no reason to be rude.
Schafer knew that they were going to be talking for several hours, and one trick of the trade that he had learned was to humanize the detainee and his relationship with him. This would make it easier to develop rapport, and enable him to obtain the information he was looking for. He had the prisoner sit down, and then began to attach several wires to his hand, finger and chest.
“Colonel Petkovic, I am going to attach several sensors to your body; these will help us determine if you are lying or telling us the truth.”
“This is a lie detector?” asked Petkovic curiously as he looked at the instruments.
“Yes and no. We use the data to determine if you are telling the truth or hiding something. If you are less than truthful, I will know.” Schafer was very matter-of-fact.
“All I am obligated to provide you with is my name, rank and service number,” the Colonel said sarcastically.
Josh smiled before responding, “Technically, that is true. However, there are a lot of incentives I can provide to you that would make your stay here at the camp a lot nicer and more enjoyable, if you are willing to cooperate.”
Petkovic sighed deeply before he replied, “What could you possibly offer me that would make me want to betray my country?”
“If you are willing to talk openly with me, then I can have you moved to a single person room, complete with TV rights and room service. You can pick what you would like to eat, and each meal will be delivered to your room, or you may eat in the cafeteria with the other prisoners who have chosen to cooperate.”
“Those prisoners will never be allowed to return back to Russia; they would be shot for treason,” said Petkovic in a serious manner. The tone of his voice implied that he knew from personal experience what happens to people that the State determines to be traitors.
CW4 Schafer had heard this before, and had a response ready. “You should know that when the war is over, those who want to stay in the US will be allowed to do so. Those who wish to return back to their country will be swapped for our prisoners.”
Having presented the situation, Josh switched gears. He sat down and began to look through his questioning guide to start the interrogation. “Tell me about the T41 tank. What makes it so special?” Schafer actually had no idea if the tank was going to be called a T41; he was guessing at the name and figured this is most likely what it would be called.
“Hmm, so they know what the tank is going to be called. I wonder what else they know about it? ” thought the Colonel.
“I have nothing to say,” replied Petkovic with a look of determination.
Immediately, Schafer could see in Petkovic’s eyes that he was going to be a problem; he was not going to talk easily. He thought to himself, “That’s fine. I still have my ways of making you talk. ”
With a mischievous grin developing, Schafer answered, “That’s fine.”
Signaling for the guards to return, he directed them to hold Petkovic in his chair so he could not move. Then he lifted a syringe from a small black case that he had in the cargo pocket of his military trousers.
Petkovic’s eyes went wide with fear and surprise.
“I had hoped we could have a normal conversation, two military professionals discussing a host of topics. However, if you want to be obstinate, then we have our ways of making you talk. I am going to inject you with something that is going to make every nerve in your body feel as if it is on fire. It is going to be excruciatingly painful. Fortunately, the pain can be immediately turned off if I inject you with a counteracting drug. However, I will only do so if you are willing to answer my questions truthfully.” Schafer spoke in a cold detached voice. He had the look of someone who had done this many, many times before.
Prior to the outbreak of World War III, the President had authorized a secret military interrogation manual and a program that incorporated the use of pharmaceutical interrogations, using drugs to facilitate the cooperation of a detainee. There were two main drugs they used. The first, the “fire drug,” would indeed cause the nerves in the detainee’s body to feel as though they were burning in scorching flames. The second, the “lucidity drug,” was very similar to a medication often given to patients before surgery to relax them, Ativan. It quickly loosened the mind’s ability to resist. After some interrogation trials on US Special Forces and Navy Seals, the military had found that if you give the fire drug first, the lucidity drug worked even better (because the individual’s mind would have been exhausted from dealing with the fire drug). Part of the qualification process of being able to administer this type of interrogation required the interrogator to have gone through the process themselves. This ensured that the interrogator knew the type of pain the prisoner was being subjected to.