Kadar Al-Jahani began to cry, for the bed was filling with blood. Somehow he knew what would come next, he felt the movement of the hateful creatures that populated his childhood and adolescent nightmares. Rats. He felt them under his sheets, running up and down, rummaging under his body. One of them ran up on his stomach and sat back on its haunches and laughed, its face not rat-like at all but human. He cried out to his parents for help but his lips had been sewn shut. And then the air was full of strange creatures and people in various stages of decay, floating towards him in the air. He forced his lips open to scream, ripping the stitches from his lips. Blood filled his mouth and it tasted of sand.
Vojnomirovic opened the door and came in backwards, his hands full with cups of coffee and toasted Pop-Tarts.
‘Thanks, Voj, I knew you’d come through,’ said Curtis, relieving Vojnomirovic of the tarts and one of the cups before its contents spilled. ‘You’re just in time. I think we may have overdone it here.’
‘What’s up?’
Curtis gestured at the monitor and turned up the sound. A primeval howl boomed from the speakers, an agonised sound that might have come from an animal in a trap, the jaws of which had closed on the doomed creature’s shattered limb. The subject’s back was arched in the chair as if infected with tetanus, eyes wide with terror and fear, while blood flowed freely from his mouth, becoming thick red strings that ran down his chin and chest and pooled in his groin.
‘Bitten his tongue again, by the looks of things,’ said Vojnomirovic.
‘We’ve got to start using those rubber protectors,’ Curtis said as he munched on a Pop-Tart. ‘Have a look at his vitals.’
Vojnomirovic didn’t need to glance at the information on screen to see that the subject’s heart was badly stressed. He sipped his coffee contemplatively. ‘Okay, time for Mr Nice Guy,’ he said. ‘Give it to him.’
Curtis tapped the keystroke on the laptop that would release a large, soothing dose of the barbiturate sodium pentothal into the subject’s bloodstream, rescuing the subject almost instantly from the LSD-induced madness that had become his terrifying reality.
‘Okay, I’m ready,’ said Vojnomirovic, grabbing a bottle of water off the desk. He opened the door and it hissed closed behind him. A few second later, he appeared on the monitor as a door cracked open in the subject’s cell, coincidentally in the precise spot where Kadar Al-Jahani had seen the white fanged mouth.
The pentothal worked quickly, observed Vojnomirovic as the subject’s muscles began to relax. He was right about the man having bitten his tongue, but fortunately the damage was minor. He could easily have bitten it off and then drowned in his own blood as it gushed into his mouth, and he made a mental note to insist on the rubber mouth guards from here on.
Vojnomirovic watched as Kadar Al-Jahani’s breathing slowed and he slumped in the chair, exhausted. He then released the webbing that held the man’s head to the chair and, in his softest, most soothing voice, said, ‘Kadar, are you all right? It’s okay…It’s okay…’ He put the bottle to the subject’s lips and let the cool water slowly dribble into his mouth. The subject’s red-streaked tongue swept over his lips and his eyes opened. When he saw Vojnomirovic leaning over him, offering him the water, he began to cry.
‘Make them stop, make them stop,’ he said in Arabic, and then in English, ‘please…’
‘Yes, I can make them stop for a little while, Kadar, but only you can make them stop permanently.’
‘How…how can I?’ he asked thickly, a slick sheet of red mucus covering his lips and chin.
Vojnomirovic wiped the man’s face with a towel. ‘You can tell them what you know,’ he said, offering more water from the bottle. ‘Start with the embassy in Jakarta. Tell them what happened there.’
‘But I don’t know anything. I don’t. Please. I don’t know anything.’
‘Well then, I can’t make the dreams stop. I can try, but unless you help me, they won’t listen.’
Somehow, Kadar Al-Jahani had been able to step back out through the white snake’s mouth and shut it behind him, locking out the hideous world beyond that was a ghastly fusion of memory and nightmare. He knew, somehow, that these people induced the frightful pictures, but could they control them at will? The man who had rescued him from the madness was obviously his saviour. Kadar Al-Jahani looked at him briefly and thought he saw a halo, a Christian symbol of holiness, over his head. He wanted to embrace the man like a son would hold his father. But something was not right. There was a price. Information. A voice within Kadar Al-Jahani told him to be wary, careful, that the information he kept within was not to be divulged. The voice belonged to a part of Kadar that was unconvinced that the captors could release the nightmares at will.
Within a few moments, Vojnomirovic knew that the subject had not been broken. He still needed to be convinced that the terror could be unleashed on him at any moment. Kadar Al-Jahani’s own mind would ultimately demolish the will to resist. It was just a matter of time, and dosage. He estimated that this subject would need perhaps two more sessions.
‘I cannot help you then, my friend. They,’ he said, sweeping his hand towards the wall as if it was a vast audience, ‘won’t allow it.’
‘But I don’t know anything,’ said Kadar Al-Jahani, his strength returning with every moment of human contact, his senses drinking it in like the water from the bottle.
‘Then I must leave,’ said Vojnomirovic dramatically, mixing as much regret into his voice as he could muster. He didn’t like playing Mr Nice Guy. He was much more comfortable in the opposite role, the one Curtis had won on the toss of a coin — Dr Evil — estimating and delivering the cocktail of drugs. But there was a happy aspect to being perceived as a saviour. The subject would eventually tell him everything willingly in a last-ditch attempt to ward off total and complete madness that no longer had to be induced by the EA-1729.
‘I must go now, my friend,’ said Vojnomirovic.
‘No, help me, please,’ said Kadar.
This was the bit Vojnomirovic didn’t like. Thankfully the subject was strapped into the chair, otherwise his arms would have been locked around his captor’s knees, begging.
Vojnomirovic slipped out the door and breathed the cool antiseptic air in the corridor that was free of the smell of human waste. The dosage was about right, he concluded, but maybe they should up it just a fraction, say by another twenty-five micrograms. The CIA was impatient, breathing down their necks. Some bitch from the Canberra bureau — wherever that was — was on the phone every other hour demanding an update. He smiled. He’d sure like to get her ass in the chair. He stepped back into the control room and eased the door shut. ‘Well,’ he said to Curtis. ‘As Shakespeare said, “No more Mr Nice Guy”.’
Manila, Philippines
Jeff Kalas sat in the Restaurant Le Bellevue and watched the lights dance like electric ballerinas across the black waters of Manila Bay. He’d suggested the venue for dinner, the Diamond Hotel’s finest restaurant, because he wanted the event to be an occasion. He’d decided to leave his wife and children. The kids were one or two years away from moving out, and then he’d be stuck living with a stranger, his wife. He realised, since meeting Skye, that he even hated the sound of his wife’s breathing beside him, especially in bed. He had to leave her before he was driven to do something he might regret. And what better time to do the deed than when he was, quite frankly, smitten with another woman. He wondered what Skye would be wearing this night. He hoped it would be the sheer white dress that showed the perfection of her figure and set off the healthy tan of her skin. She’s a beautiful creature, and she’s mine, he said to himself, resisting the temptation to say it aloud. There were a few confessions to make, however. He didn’t think they would get in the way, but this time, he wanted the relationship to be honest and open. Skye deserved that. And more. And when it came to the ‘and more’, she would have that too. He tapped the small box in his coat pocket.