The scientist knew they’d been doing this to the subject for six years. What was another few minutes to them? Cavemen. That was what they were. The two doing the work were not government, because even though various judges and the Department of Justice had tacitly, and not so tacitly, approved enhanced interrogation, no one with a federal pension wanted to get their hands dirty. So much easier to pay the contract muscle to do the grunt work.
In fact, the two doing the work weren’t even American. They muttered in low voices to each other as they worked, something that sounded Eastern European. They wore black balaclavas to hide their faces.
The detainee gagged and spit as the wet towel was pulled off his face, retching, nothing more than tainted water coming up as he’d long since emptied his stomach of anything of substance. He had not done the same with information. Not during the six years he’d been held in Guantanamo. And not now.
He wasn’t in Cuba anymore. He was in a strip mall in Springfield, Virginia. In a room with two merks, two scientists, and one soldier. It had once been a lingerie shop, but the front glass was presently covered with sheeting that looked like plywood to the outside — another small business victim of the economy — hiding metal plating covered with thick soundproofing on the inside. All the walls were lined with the same material, except one, which had a twelve-foot-long plate of dark glass from floor to ceiling. On the other side of that glass were twenty-four chairs, stadium seating, to view the room. The viewing room had once housed an adult bookstore.
The scientist looked at Colonel Johnston and raised an eyebrow.
Colonel Sidney Albert Johnston was a distant relative by blood and the years between, but he was close in spirit to the general of the same name who took a bullet behind the knee at the Battle of Shiloh and bled to death because he’d sent his surgeon to care for some “damn Yankee” wounded prisoners. Johnston glanced at the pane of dark glass. According to the memorandum, on the other side were staffers for the congressmen and senators on the committees who voted money to who the hell knew what or wanted to know; high-level Pentagon aides who would go back and brief their bosses; and some suits from the alphabet soups: CIA, NSA, FBI, NRO, and a few that had no initials because they thought they were even cooler that way. They all wanted to be one pane of glass removed from the indictment that might come someday if the bureaucrats and politicians suddenly grew a conscience and remembered America was founded on principles that didn’t include torture. Not likely in Johnston’s opinion or experience with bureaucrats and politicians.
Colonel Johnston raised a hand and the two merks stopped, one with the towel hovering over the detainee’s face, the other with a bucket in hand.
“It’s Doctor Upton’s turn.”
Johnston had a rough, gravelly voice that went with his imposing stature. Every inch of him emanated warrior, and his leathery face was lined with the creases of worry a good commander bore from years of leading men into battle. He had a square jaw and his hair was gray barbed wire, trimmed short every week. With a wave of the same hand, Johnston invited the scientist and his assistant to the prisoner, as if allowing them to enter the foyer of a grand mansion.
Upton turned to the black glass. “I am the head of Project Cherry Tree. This”—he held up the syringe case—“is the result of five difficult years of research and development.” His first lie, but the truth would not serve here. Upton nodded over his shoulder at the detainee. “Which is less time consumed by the other methods used on that man, and he has not once ever given up any useful information. He has been waterboarded”—Upton paused—“what is it, Colonel? One hundred and sixty or so times?”
Colonel Johnston’s jaw remained square. “One hundred and eighty-seven.”
“I stand corrected. One hundred and eighty-seven times. And never said a word. Truly remarkable.” Upton turned from the glass and walked over to a small table. The detainee was strapped to a heavy wood chair with an adjustable back. Right now it was almost horizontal to the floor to allow the water-soaked towel to press against the man’s mouth and nose to simulate drowning. Upton gestured and the two merks put down their towel and bucket and roughly pulled the chair upright, locking it in place. The detainee was blinking, eyes on Upton, waiting for the next chapter in the tragedy his life had become. His forearms were strapped to the arms of the chair, his ankles to the front legs, and a thick leather strap wound about the chair and his chest.
The scientist reached into his pocket for a pair of gloves, and his assistant, a young man named Rhodes, also put on a pair. Rhodes went to the detainee’s left arm and efficiently strapped yellow tubing around it. Then he walked around and waited on the other side.
Upton opened the case. The syringe glittered against black velvet. It was the smallest gauge, 32, and the best metal, designed to have deep penetration and minimal drag force. At least that’s what the ad said. Almost a work of art.
“This is the first clinical trial of Cherry Tree on a human.” Another lie, but it sounded more dramatic for this to be the first.
Only an idiot would walk in here not having tested it, and Upton was many things but not an idiot.
Upton lifted the needle up, higher than needed, so that the audience could see. “We’ve tested it for toxicity and other side effects on rats, but rats can’t tell the truth, can they?” He laughed, alone, at what he thought was a joke. There was no way to tell if those on the other side of the glass got it. He didn’t realize he’d just made a serious logic flaw, underestimating his audience.
Upton lowered the needle, eye level to the suspect whose head was pivoted left, focused on the glittering spike of steel.
Thus he didn’t see as Rhodes pricked him with a small needle in the right forearm, the same used for TB tests, a short 27 gauge, right under the skin.
He reacted though, body jerking away. He spit at Rhodes and glared about, his last refuge of defiance.
“My assistant,” Upton said, “has just injected point-one milliliters of Cherry Tree intradermally into the subject’s forearm.” He waved the fancy syringe. “This was just a distraction.” He put it back in the case and snapped it shut. Then he made a show of looking at his watch. “Cherry Tree is quick acting. Less than one minute.” He stepped back. “All yours, Colonel.”
Johnston came forward, stopping out of spitting distance. “Wahid.”
The prisoner’s eyelids were fluttering as if trying to pull a curtain call on the softening glare.
“Wahid,” Johnston repeated.
The glare was gone. “Osama,” the detainee said with the rasp of a voice that had not spoken in a long time. “He’s in Pakistan. They always, always ask, so there is the answer.”
Johnston straightened in surprise.
“Water,” Upton said with a sharp nod at Rhodes. The assistant peeled off his gloves and went to a table in the corner of the room, grabbing a plastic bottle. He brought it over to Wahid. The prisoner arced his head back and Rhodes dribbled some into his open mouth.
Wahid swallowed. He started nodding, as if memories were flooding his brain. “Osama moved there”—he paused, at a loss for how long he’d been a prisoner—“in 2006. Abbottabad. A compound. I can show you. Pigsty.” Wahid shook his head in disgust. “It’s not even wired to explode. My house was wired. You were lucky to catch me away from it. Very lucky for you. Very unlucky for me. Such is Allah’s will. I cannot fight the will of God. No man can. But why does he curse me so? Why is not all his will and not luck? Good or bad?” Wahid looked at Johnston as if he expected an answer to the question.
Johnston took a step back and glanced over at the glass. “Wahid. We know about Osama. Tell us—”