“I…I’d say you know me pretty well, Muhammad, my old friend,” Buzhazi said through the choking clouds of pain.
“Where are they? I want them.”
“Of course you do, you piece of shit — because they’re Pasdaran, aren’t they?”
Badi’s eyes widened in surprise and his mouth dropped open in confusion, but only for a moment, and then the crocodile’s smile came back. “Very clever, Hesarak. Did you know, or did you just guess?”
“I suspected it, but when you showed up here, I knew,” Buzhazi groaned. “It’s the only logical reason why you would come down here and interrogate me personally. You sent Pasdaran Special Forces disguised as Kurds to attack fellow Iranian soldiers? Why, for God’s sake?” Badi didn’t answer — but his eyes told the whole story. “You’re shitting me, Badi — you did it because you thought the Internal Defense Forces would replace the Pasdaran as guardians of the revolution?”
“Your units were good…almost too good,” Badi said. “You stood up that base at Orumiyeh for a tenth of what it would cost the Pasdaran, and in less time than anyone would have guessed. Yassini and the Supreme Defense Council were starting to take notice. A few on the Council argued that paramilitary forces couldn’t take the place of the Pasdaran, that they would flee at the first sign of the enemy — I just took his suggestion and staged a little raid. Your men didn’t run, I’ll give them that, but they were completely unprepared. It was easier than I ever could have hoped…”
“Except for some of your men being captured, you mean?”
“Before long you will be terminated, and soon after so too your Internal Defense Force project,” Badi went on, “and the Pasdaran’s budget and border security responsibilities will be fully restored — perhaps even increased, as they should be.”
“You’re nothing but a sick, egomaniacal bastard, Badi,” Buzhazi said. “You can’t stand to be subordinate to anyone, so you stayed quiet about Tufayli’s incompetence as captain of the aircraft carrier Khomeini, and then after he was dead you blamed the whole defeat on me. I never would have thought you’d stoop so low as to kill your own people to advance your career.”
“Why not, Hesarak? Your career certainly isn’t going anywhere. You could have raised the Prophet up from the dead, and you’d still be known as the one who lost Iran’s regional military domination to a numerically inferior Western force. And since Yassini is such a proponent of this idiotic Internal Defense Force idea, he’ll go down too…”
“And you’ll be promoted as chief of staff and remain head of the Pasdaran.”
“Why stop there? If I can plant enough false memos and directives, I might implicate the president in the whole Internal Defense Force scheme and take him down too — and I can slip into that position as well.”
“All I have to do is trot out your Pasdaran agents captured in the raid wearing Kurdish terrorist outfits, and your game is up.”
“Not if I can get to them first, Hesarak,” Badi said menacingly. “That’s why you’re going to tell me where they are.”
“Screw you.”
“General, I’m going to take great delight in watching you be tortured by my man here,” Badi said, nodding to the very large man standing over Buzhazi. “He’s going to do it the old-fashioned way — not with unpredictable drugs, but with good old-fashioned physical torture. You’re too old to resist it. My man is an expert on knowing exactly how far he can take old geezers like you through the corridors of pain, to the very thresholds of coma and death, without crossing over. All of your Shock Trooper training from thirty years ago won’t help you one bit.”
“Fuck you, Badi.”
“It’s going to take us a few minutes to get set up, Hesarak. We’ll let you think about what is about to happen to you. If you talk, and if what you say is true and my men are recovered, I’ll kill you quick and painlessly. Otherwise, you will experience levels of pain that you can’t imagine. And it won’t be continuous or cause unconsciousness — it’ll be slow, lingering, sharp, and unexpected. Before long you’ll be screaming information at me and begging for mercy. You can end any such unpleasantness by telling me what I want to know. I know my man here will be disappointed by not performing his tricks on you, but he’ll get over it, I’m sure.”
Badi rose from the desk, grabbed Buzhazi by the hair, and said in his face, “You’ll be taken to an interrogation room, Hesarak, and prepped. You’ll be ‘wired for sound,’ as they say — your tongue, your testicles, your heart, and your entire nervous system will be plugged into a nice big electrical transformer that we can precisely control. But there is no ‘volume control’ on this device, Hesarak — just an ‘on’ and ‘off’ switch. It’s full voltage every time. It’ll be interesting to see how you do. I strongly recommend you tell me what I want to know, now, before the fun really begins.”
“I said, go screw yourself, Badi,” Buzhazi said. “By the time you get anything out of me, my men will have changed locations a half-dozen times. If I’m dead, my men will trot out those captured Pasdaran commandos and release their videotaped confessions. The warrant for your arrest will be issued shortly after that. You might as well start getting out of the country now. May I suggest South America?”
“At the very least, we can find out what else you might know,” Badi said. “As I said, as we go on, you’ll be most anxious to tell us all sorts of things. This I guarantee. Good-bye, Hesarak. This will probably be the last time I see you with all of your faculties still intact.” Badi patted Buzhazi’s face, then motioned to the bodyguard. “Have the general taken to an interrogation room and prepared for his ‘debriefing.’ Have them notify me immediately when he breaks.” The bodyguard nodded and opened the door for the general…
…and Badi saw a man in light gray fatigues, desert combat boots, and the blue beret of the Iranian Air forces standing in the doorway. Behind him stood three soldiers, similarly dressed, carrying automatic rifles. “What is this?” he shouted.
“Greetings, General Badi,” the first soldier said — and in the blink of an eye he raised a sound-suppressed Russian Makarov automatic pistol, fired three shots just past Badi’s left ear and directly into the torturer’s face, then pushed Badi inside and closed the door, leaving his three soldiers to guard the outside. The soldier dumped Badi to the carpet with a kick to the side of his left knee. The Pasdaran general screamed aloud at the pain and shock of the sudden attack. “Who in hell are you?” he cried.
“You don’t recognize me, General?” the soldier asked. “You took great delight in ruining my career about eleven years ago.” He tossed a set of handcuff keys to the Pasdaran commander, then pressed his pistol against his forehead. “While you’re thinking, release General Buzhazi, now.”
Badi crawled over to Buzhazi and unlocked the handcuffs; Buzhazi grabbed the keys and released the waist chain. “Now I remember…Sattari. Mansour Sattari, Buzhazi’s chief of staff.”
“Very good, General,” the young officer said. After the handcuffs were removed, Sattari had Badi place them on himself, then helped Buzhazi to his feet and waited until the injured general was able to stay on his feet by himself. “If the general is injured, Badi, you die right here and now.”
“Killing me won’t help you get out of here,” Badi said. “There are over a thousand armed Pasdaran guards here.”
“Your security force here at Doshan Tappeh is exactly three hundred and fifteen soldiers per shift, Badi,” Sattari said. “I brought a team of just a hundred lightly armed Internal Defense Force soldiers and killed or captured every one of the guards on duty already. Your day shift got too cocky and overconfident, Badi — they obviously thought no one ever wants to break into a Pasdaran compound, especially at daytime.”