Now Dr. Mendoza was able to do his work with his accustomed fastidiousness. He untied the agent and then removed his blue button-down shirt, unbuttoning the placket carefully. Now the man’s torso was exposed.
Two more injections, the first a delicate job. He used a Whitacre needle, three and a half inches long, and injected it at the C4 level of Touhy’s cervical spine, about three centimeters deep at the back of his neck. There was a small yet distinct pop as the needle point penetrated the dura.
Then he injected the fluid, a local nerve block called ropivacaine.
He stood up, returned the syringes to his zippered travel case, and selected a conventional hypodermic. This one could be injected nearly anywhere. He chose the same carotid artery where he’d injected the etomidate. The damage had already been done. This hypodermic contained naloxone, an opioid inverse agonist. Naloxone was sometimes used to counteract heroin or morphine overdose. Inject it in the bloodstream of someone floating on a heroin high and it would bring him crashing down, make him scream in pain. In a normal person it heightens the sensation of pain.
It would put Agent Touhy into a nightmare from which he could not awaken.
Dr. Mendoza rolled the agent over onto his back. His chest was pale and doughy. Wispy gray hairs garlanded his nipples. His eyes fluttered and then opened as the drug began to take effect. Dr. Mendoza peeled the duct tape back so the man could talk.
“What the hell are you-I can’t-I can’t-”
“You can’t move,” Dr. Mendoza said gently. “You are paralyzed.”
“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.”
“The pain you are about to experience will be unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. Normally, if you were to drop a brick on your foot, say, or accidentally hit your thumb with a hammer, you’d feel intense pain, but then the pain would subside. Your body secretes endorphins that dull the pain and make it bearable. But the drug that is now in your system blocks those endorphins. You will feel pain with an intensity that human beings are simply not meant to experience.”
He took a number 11 disposable scalpel from the nylon travel case, pushed its blade through the sealed foil pouch, and without hesitation flicked it precisely down the DEA man’s areola and nipple, splitting the nipple cleanly in half. Bright red blood wept from the wound.
Agent Touhy bellowed, his eyes wide, his mouth contorted.
Dr. Mendoza replaced the tape over his mouth. It flapped open, allowing Touhy to emit a full, ear-rending scream of pain. The adhesive had disintegrated, so Dr. Mendoza ripped off another length of the silvery tape and placed it over the agent’s mouth.
The screaming did not stop, but now at least it was muted.
Dr. Mendoza put his index finger to his mouth and made a shushing sound. “You see, the pain does not subside, does it? Sadly, it will continue as long as the naloxone courses through your blood vessels.”
The duct tape wrinkled and belled but stayed affixed.
“If I do nothing, the pain will begin to diminish within five minutes. It will be a very long five minutes, but it will come to an end. If, however, I inject another bolus of naloxone, you will experience excruciating pain. Before long, either your heart will give out or you will simply lose your mind.”
Agent Touhy’s face was purplish red and his eyes bulged. He snorted in a lungful of air.
“Agent Touhy, you have the ability to make the pain go away. All I want is one name. Right now it doesn’t seem a frightfully high price to pay, does it?”
Agent Touhy held out less than one minute more.
65
Danny had no choice. He had to meet them.
If he didn’t show up, they’d become suspicious. He had to keep things as normal-seeming as he could.
But what if this were a setup?
And if they knew he’d learned the truth?
If they’d cloned his iPhone and could monitor every call he made or received, they’d have listened to his conversations with his lawyer.
If they had, then this meet was going to be an execution.
Or maybe he was just being paranoid. They had to take physical possession of the iPhone in order to clone it, right? Then maybe they thought nothing had changed. That Danny still believed they worked for the DEA.
But how was this different from playing Russian roulette, spinning a revolver’s chamber and pulling the trigger?
Was there a round in the chamber, or not?
He looked at his watch. In about half an hour he was supposed to pick Abby up from school and take her home. But if “Slocum” and “Yeager” knew he knew, then Abby wasn’t safe. Anywhere, really, but especially not at his apartment.
He needed to talk to Tom Galvin on a phone he could trust.
He bought a ten-dollar Samsung TracFone and spent another twenty bucks on a card offering sixty minutes of call time.
It was a truly craptastic phone. You had to put in a battery and slide in the metallic-look plastic back panel, then hook up the power cord to charge it. The instructions were half in English, half in Spanish. On his laptop he went to the TracFone website and activated the phone. He put in a fake name-Jay Gould, because why not? And a fake e-mail address, and the serial number of the phone from the brochure in the phone’s box. He scratched the silvery stuff off the back of the phone card to reveal the airtime PIN, and he entered that, too. Eventually, he got the phone to work, even though the website kept chiding him in red type that the phone number wasn’t verified. That didn’t seem to make any difference; the phone worked anyway. He wondered how a strung-out meth head or cokehead was able to set up burner phones and make it through the complicated registration process. Maybe they didn’t bother, either. Maybe you didn’t have to.
But whatever: He now had a disposable cell phone that wasn’t cloned or traceable.
He couldn’t call Galvin’s BlackBerry-that was out-and he wasn’t sure about Galvin’s office line. Maybe that was safe, maybe not. He had Celina’s cell phone number. The DEA guys probably did not.
When she first answered, she sounded guarded, not recognizing the incoming number. Then, when she recognized Danny’s voice, her voice warmed a bit.
“I was wondering whether Abby could go home with Jenna today. I’m going to be out for the afternoon.”
“I’m sure that would be fine with Jenna.”
“Is your driver picking Jenna up?”
She was silent for several seconds. Then: “Tom changed drivers.”
“Okay.” Meaning what, exactly? Another dead chauffeur/bodyguard? The only job with less security was managing the Red Sox.
“He replaced Diego with someone he hired himself.”
Good. He’d followed Danny’s suggestion.
“One more thing. Did my number come up on your caller ID, the number of the phone I’m calling from?”
“I-let me-yes, but I don’t recognize-this isn’t your normal number.”
“Is Tom there?”
“He’s gone into his office.”
“Okay. Do me a favor. Call Tom and give him this number. But don’t call him on his BlackBerry or his office phone. Give this number to someone else to give to him.”
“What-?” she began, but then, understanding that everything had changed and that bad things were happening, she said, “All right.”
On his iPhone he texted Abby and told her that the Galvins would pick her up and that she should go to their house after school. He didn’t offer an explanation. Abby’s text came back quickly: OK!
No argument there.
A few minutes later, the disposable Samsung trilled.
“Danny?” It was Galvin. A number Danny didn’t recognize. “Everything okay?”
“Use this number from now on.”
“Understood. Same with this one.”
“I asked Abby to go home with Jenna today.”
“Right, Lina told me. Did something happen?”