“Coincidence. I swear.”
“Coincidences don’t exist in our world. Listen to me. Please. You will save yourself much torment. You must know we examined the Forbidden City very”—with his Russian accent, the word sounded like “wery”—“thoroughly today, Mr. Wilson. Twenty-two other Americans. None with green shirts.” He held up two fingers. “Only two visited the stone. Gerry and Tim Metz. From New York.” He held up a Polaroid of a smiling couple, both in their sixties. “Do they look like spies to you?”
“I don’t know what spies look like.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“No, sir.”
“My name is Feng Jianguo. I specialize in these… discussions. I wish we could talk like men, solve bit by bit this puzzle of who you are. But General Li told me I don’t have time.”
Feng walked to Wells, leaned in, locked his eyes onto Wells.
“Do you understand? I don’t have time. And I must know three things. First, your name. Second, what you were expecting to receive. Third, most important, the name of the man who you meant to meet.”
“I wish I could help.” Again Wells wondered. Was it possible they didn’t know he was here to meet Cao Se? Or were they setting up some larger trap, something he couldn’t see?
“If you are honest. I cannot promise you’ll live. Only Li can do that. But I won’t hurt you unnecessarily.” He paused. He seemed to sense that he was losing Wells. “This way, once we start… even after you beg us to stop. As you will. We won’t stop. Once we start, we must be sure we’ve broken you. Do you understand, Mr.Wilson?”
“Your English is very good. You give this speech a lot?” Wells said nothing more.
Feng’s face never changed. The silence stretched on. Wells focused on the heat in his shoulder. He had an insane impulse to twist in his shackles, amp up the agony for himself before these men did it for him. He restrained himself. Plenty of pain coming. No need to rush.
Feng shook his head, walked away, shuffled the papers back in the bag.
“A quiet American,” he said. “One of the few. And all the worse for you.”
Feng pulled a black towel from his bag and stepped onto a chair. He reached up, draped the towel over the closed-circuit camera, making sure the lens was covered.
The power forwards reached into their pockets and slipped on brass knuckles, the kind that bridged four fingers at once. They stepped forward and set themselves on either side of Wells. Feng sat down, pulled a Coke from his bag. He sipped quietly as he waited for the show to start.
“Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant,”Wells said under his breath. A bit of Latin said by the gladiators before they entered the ring: Hail, Caesar, we whoare about to die salute you.
And the torture began.
THE POWER FORWARDS TOOK TURNS. The one on the left began, punching quickly, hard jabs, right-left-right-left. When he tired, the other took over, swinging more slowly but more powerfully, long hooks that crashed into Wells’s stomach and ribs. They stayed off his face.
Wells had a tiny advantage at first from the adrenaline he’d mustered when Feng was talking. He kept his stomach tight as long as he could, sneaking in breaths when they weren’t hitting him. But then his body twisted in the shackles, and his shoulder popped out. He lost focus for just a second and a jab caught him unready and his abs loosened and the punches crashed through and then he couldn’t breathe—
Black spots filled the room and the demon-men kept punching and he couldn’t breathe God he had never hurt like this too bad he wasn’t going to tell them anything—
Then the severed head of the guerrilla he’d blown apart in Afghanistan showed up, rolling around like a soccer ball with a face, smirking and chattering nonsense—
And just as the darkness closed in to give his oxygen-starved brain relief from its delusions, they stopped hitting him. Cruelty in the guise of kindness. They stepped back and watched him flail, their flat square faces impassive, like they were watching a lab experiment.
Wells couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get his diaphragm steady, and then finally he remembered. The trick was to relax, let the voluntary muscles go soft and the diaphragm work on its own. He sucked in the room’s stale air and pushed suffocation away. But the agony in his shoulder intensified as he returned to full consciousness. Wells wondered how long they’d been hitting him. Five minutes? At most. Five minutes down, an eternity to go.
They reached side by side into their canvas bags, pulled out water bottles, took a couple of sips each. Bert and Ernie, Wells thought. Or maybe Ernie and Bert. Just as his breath evened out, Bert nodded at Ernie and they stepped toward him.
“Round two,” Wells said aloud. “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”
ROUND THREE FOLLOWED, AND ROUND FOUR. The beatings didn’t get harder to take, but they didn’t get easier either. The brass knuckles shredded his skin, exposing his twitching abdominal muscles. Blood dripped from his stomach, blackening the concrete beneath him.
By round five, Bert and Ernie had tired and were cheating. One of Bert’s punches slipped low, catching Wells full in the testicles. Wells screamed, an inhuman howl, and thrashed against the shackles. Bert and Ernie stepped back as a pure white light filled Wells’s mind—
Bismillah rahmani rahim al hamdulillah—
Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us—
English and Arabic, the Quran and the Bible, mixing inside him—
And tears dripping from his eyes, joining the blood on the floor.
STILL THEY DIDN’T STOP.
AFTER THE FIFTH ROUND they stepped back, wringing their hands, giving Wells a momentary, pointless flash of pleasure. He’d made them work a little, at least. They’d cracked two, maybe three, of his ribs somewhere along the way, he wasn’t sure when.
They stowed the brass knuckles in their canvas bag, dabbed at their foreheads with a little towel that Ernie had brought — an oddly dainty gesture — and took a long drink of water.
“Snack break, gentlemen?” Wells nearly delirious now. “Like Rodney King said, can’t we all just get along?” They ignored him. He wasn’t even sure they could hear him, wasn’t sure he was speaking aloud. “Can I ask you boys something? Are you partners? Not like Starsky and Hutch, but partners. Okay, Starsky and Hutch is a bad example, but you see what I’m saying.”
As an answer, Bert and Ernie pulled out their batons.
The change of weapon seemed to suit them. They worked his legs for a while, mainly his thighs, bringing the steel batons down with gusto. Then Ernie slammed the baton on Wells’s damaged left shoulder, a quick chop. Wells couldn’t help himself. He moaned. Ernie said something in Chinese to Bert and started to work the shoulder hard. The pain doubled and redoubled and redoubled again, all the way to infinity.
Drink this and you’ll grow wings on your feet.
“God,” Wells mumbled. “Please.” He sagged against the shackles. The worst part was that they probably knew already. Most likely Cao Se had set him up. He was enduring all this for nothing.
Then the door slid open and Cao walked in.
33
AS CAO CLOSED THE DOOR, Ernie took one last shot, bringing his baton down so hard that Wells’s shoulder popped out again and didn’t slide back in. A whole new level of hell. Don’t scream. The room whirled, faster and faster. The severed head of the guerrilla stared at him, not on the floor this time but directly in front of him. Wells felt his stomach clench and the room-service eggs he’d eaten that morning at the St. Regis spill out of his mouth and land in a stinking pile at his feet.