“Wouldn’t have a Band-Aid, would you?” Mercer asked, finally paying attention to the executive. He’d already assumed he was in the presence of Liu Yousheng.
“That cut will soon be the least of your worries,” Liu replied. “Do you know where you are and who I am?”
Mercer looked around the cell, as if seeing its utilitarianism for the first time. “Well, this hotel doesn’t look familiar, but you do. I’ve seen your commercials for dog food on TV. Aren’t you Pup E. Chow?”
“I expected more than insults from you, Dr. Mercer,” Liu said. “You are Philip Mercer, aren’t you?”
“Sorry. My name’s Al Abama, from California. I was taking one of those adventure cruises from Europe aboard a car carrier with my sister, Carol Ina. She lives in Wisconsin.” Mercer smiled. “Check the passenger manifest if you don’t believe me.”
Liu shook his head, as if disappointed in his prisoner. “Your acquisition of the Lepinay journal started out as a minor distraction in Paris. But suddenly you’ve become a rather significant obstacle. I’m curious how you accomplished this feat.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Interestingly,” Liu continued as if Mercer hadn’t spoken, “the two bodies we recovered at the lake don’t appear to be American. One had a tattoo we traced to a German motorcycle gang called Das Gremium on his shoulder. I had assumed you were working with the CIA. Maybe I was wrong. Care to comment?”
“Not particularly,” Mercer said, and then his voice hardened. “Let’s cut the bull. I know who you are. You know me. All I wanted was to discover what happened to my friend Gary. I know now that you had nothing to do with his death. It was a freakish accident. I have no quarrel with you, and if you let me go I’ll be on the next plane back to the States and you can do whatever you want down here. I have no connection to the CIA, the FBI or even the ASPCA. I can’t hurt you. There’s no need for you to hurt me.”
Liu almost seemed to consider Mercer’s plea. “It is possible that you are telling me the truth.” Menace filled his every word. “But even if it were, it wouldn’t matter. Your meddling has cost me too much already. More importantly, you have forced me to act in ways I rather wish to avoid. I prefer bank transfers and balance sheets, not bullets. It is because of you there has been so much bloodshed. I am working a business deal and you’re acting like an American cowboy, shooting first and asking questions later. Had you understood that my actions here will prevent countless deaths later, you wouldn’t have involved yourself the way you have.”
“Tell me what you’re doing,” Mercer invited. “Maybe we can come to an understanding.”
“That time is past.”
“Then kill me now!” Mercer’s startling shout rocked Liu back. “Quit these stupid games and put a bullet in my head. I’ve got nothing you want so end it right here.”
“Again”—Liu smiled, pleased at what he thought was the first crack in Mercer’s studied calm—“I don’t think that’s true either. I think you have a great deal to tell me.” He called out for more guards.
Mercer allowed the soldiers to overwhelm him, reserving his strength for when the interrogation started. A moment later he was cuffed to a stretcher and carried down a cinder-block corridor to another cell. This one was as cool as the previous one, making Mercer guess they were underground. The stretcher was placed on a metal table and additional restraints were put in place to keep him completely immobile. The guards cleared out.
Liu moved to the head of the table. “We won’t see each other again, Dr. Mercer, so I will do you the honor of wishing you a peaceable journey.”
From his supine position, Mercer couldn’t see the other man who stepped into the room but got a real bad feeling just from the distaste that showed on Liu’s face.
“You have my list of questions, Mr. Sun. Get them answered.” Liu stepped from the room, purposefully staying as far from Sun as he could.
A skeletal head suddenly loomed into Mercer’s view. Had Mercer been able, he would have recoiled. The face was cadaverous, sunken and shriveled like a mummy. Flakes of skin spilled off like thick dandruff. The man’s breath enveloped Mercer in a stench like rotted meat. Mr. Sun’s teeth were nearly black. Sun traced a finger along Mercer’s cheek, marveling at the elasticity of his skin. The finger felt like a claw from a dead bird. Mercer noted angrily that the man was wearing his TAG Heuer watch.
“I haven’t been friends with an American in a long time.” Sun spoke decent English in a voice filled with wonder, like a child’s. It made Mercer’s flesh crawl. “There was one we found smuggling weapons into Tibet about six years ago, but he could only be my friend for a little while so I don’t count him. My last real American friend was an air force pilot who came to me during the end of your war in Vietnam. We were friends until 1983.”
The realization that this Mr. Sun considered the victims of his torture as friends made Mercer swallow reflexively. Whatever psychological problems allowed Sun to torture another human had become something worse, he realized. Sun liked what he did, needed it, for all Mercer knew. Despite the cell’s low temperature, sweat began to run from his pores.
“My last American friend kept a secret from me at the end,” Sun continued, his black eyes losing focus as he recalled the airman he had mutilated long ago. “He let a fingernail grow without any of his guards noticing. One night he sharpened it on the wall of his cell and used it to cut through the tissue under his tongue. We found him the next morning. He had swallowed his tongue to suffocate himself.” He returned from the memory. “Toward the end, our conversations were not that good, but I still think of our earlier times together. I never figured out how he could keep speaking for so long. For years he kept it up. Remarkable.”
Mercer realized by “speaking” Sun meant screaming. The conversations were between Sun’s instruments of torture and the pain they invoked.
“Anyway,” the interrogator continued, “I have you now. We can’t be friends for very long, I’m afraid. Mr. Liu is pressed for time. Still, I think our talks will be interesting.” Sun unrolled a black cloth next to Mercer’s head. It contained a collection of fine acupuncture needles. Hundreds of them.
On the auto carrier, when Mercer had given himself up, he’d known something like this would be in store. He’d willingly traded the promise of torture for a little more time alive. Seeing Sun for the first time, and his needles, he wondered if letting those soldiers kill him wouldn’t have been smarter.
“There are many ways to get someone to talk,” Sun said conversationally. “The threat of death is usually enough for most people. Because of your situation, you know your death is inevitable so that won’t work. Mutilation is another way. People fear permanent injury as much as they fear dying. Again, permanent for you is only a day or two. Not much of a threat, eh?”
“Works for me,” Mercer rasped, his throat so dry it felt like he’d swallowed the contents of an hourglass. “What do you want to know?”
When Sun smiled, a shower of skin flakes fell from around his mouth. “I think you make a joke with me. Our conversation hasn’t even started yet. In your situation, my job is to make you believe that death is better than what I will do to you. To reach that goal you must first answer my questions. Answering me is the only way I will give you death. Do you understand?”
Sun didn’t wait for a reply. Using a technique forged long before recorded history he began inserting needles into Mercer’s body, first breaking skin with a quick flick of his fingers then twisting them deeper. Mercer had braced himself for pain but felt nothing but a minor discomfort as each needle was drilled a short way into his body. He felt no ill effects as Sun inserted forty needles into various parts of his body. Most were on his neck, chest, and stomach, while others had been stuck between his fingers and at each ankle.