That night they took him out to the courtyard and made him walk in circles. Every time he flagged, every time he tried to stop in place and close his eyes, even for a second, an orderly would hit him with a baton. Not hard. Just enough to get him moving again. They had a knack for finding the bruises he already had and prodding those. They seemed to think it was funny when he jumped away from them. They started brandishing their batons at him even when he was moving, just to see him flinch.
In Ranger school, his trainer Bigelow had told him that a soldier needed to be able to sleep anywhere, anytime, under any conditions. “Sometimes you’ll be in the field for days on end. Behind enemy lines, or just in the middle of a battle that goes on and on. Your inclination will be to keep going, to just not sleep. Don’t do it. Even one night without sleep has the same effect as drinking three shots of tequila. It’s like being too drunk to drive. Your reaction time slows way down. You stop thinking about what you’re doing and you go on autopilot. You know what happens to a soldier who stops thinking on the battlefield?”
“He gets killed, sir,” Chapel had replied.
Bigelow had nodded. “That’s right. So you’re going to learn to sleep in a foxhole with artillery going off right next to you. You’re going to learn to sleep in a puddle of mud — to sleep standing up, if need be. You’ll learn to sleep for twenty minutes and feel as fresh as a daisy. You’ll—”
His reverie was interrupted by a quick blow to the bullet wound on his leg. Chapel shouted in pain and hopped forward on his other foot, while an orderly in a white coat laughed in his face. The man’s breath stank of meat.
For hours they kept him moving. He couldn’t keep up the pace, so the blows came more and more often. Eventually even the pain and the jeers couldn’t keep him from just shuffling his feet, stumbling along as they pulled his arm and dragged him. He fell down on his knees, and they dragged him back up to his feet. His chin dropped to his chest, and someone grabbed his hair and pulled it back.
He kept moving, as best he could. It got to the point where he wanted it, wanted to keep walking, because the alternative was so hellish. It got to the point where he wanted to please the orderlies, make them happy — if he could just walk, if he could walk a few more steps, maybe they would stop laughing—
He must have blacked out. He must have just collapsed. Because suddenly his face hurt like he’d scraped it on the pavement, and when he opened his eyes, he saw feet all around him, shoes — and then Kalin, who was squatting down next to him. Squatting and holding an empty hypodermic needle.
Chapel reared up like a startled bull, whooping for breath. His eyes snapped wide open, and he could feel his heart jumping around in his chest like it was trying to break free of his rib cage. Every muscle in his body twitched and shook, and he had a desperate need to urinate.
“What — did — you — give — me?” he demanded, through chattering teeth.
Kalin flicked the end of his needle. “Adrenaline,” he said. “Not quite enough to give you a heart attack, but enough to keep you awake. Now. Back on your feet.”
“Are you ready to tell me your name?” Kalin asked, pen poised.
Chapel couldn’t stop blinking. His eyes hurt, a deep, dull ache. He moved his head to try to get away from it. It didn’t work. His eyes hurt. He — he had already — he’d already — his eyes hurt.
He was pretty sure there had been more in the last needle than just adrenaline.
“Drugging me. You’re… you’re drugging me, that’s — that’s illegal, it’s — you’re giving me medical treatment without my consent. You can’t — it’s illegal.”
“What is your name?” Kalin asked.
“I know my rights!” Chapel shouted. He tried to grab for the notebook, but Kalin was too fast for him, yanking it out of the way. Chapel turned around and went to the wall and pressed his face against it. He scratched at his scalp. “You have to let me shower. You have to feed me. You have to let me sleep. You can’t drug me like this. I have rights!”
“Human beings have rights,” Kalin pointed out.
“Exactly. Yes. Human beings have rights,” Chapel said. He knew how he sounded. He knew how he was acting. He couldn’t help it. He needed to sleep. But he couldn’t sleep, not with the drugs they’d given him. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t sit down, couldn’t stand still.
His eyes hurt. A deep, profound ache. His eyes wanted to sleep. They wanted to close, but they couldn’t. He could only blink, over and over and over again.
“You don’t seem to have a name.”
“I have a name! You can’t have it,” Chapel insisted.
“If you don’t have a name,” Kalin said, as if Chapel hadn’t spoken, “that makes you a nonperson. Nonpersons don’t have any rights.”
Chapel turned and stared at him. Staring was easy. His eyes wouldn’t close. I’m a person, he thought. I am a person. I am a person.
“If you tell me your name, you can sleep. You can eat. We’ll even hose you down,” Kalin said, with a smile.
“I–I have a name,” Chapel insisted.
“I know. Just tell me what it is. Really, what’s the worst that can happen?”
Chapel tried to remember. He tried to remember why he couldn’t give this man his name. He was sure there was a good reason. He just had it. He just had the reason, he just had to remember. Remember why—
Kalin clicked his pen. Got ready to write something down.
“In your own time,” he said.
Chapel stared and stared and stared. He opened his mouth. He felt like something was going to come out. Words. Two words. A name.
“Indira Gandhi,” he said.
The look on Kalin’s face made him laugh. And laugh and laugh.
“David Cameron,” he tried, which was even funnier. Then he thought of the funniest name of all.
“My name is Senior Lieutenant Pavel Kalin, and I’ll be conducting your interview,” he said. And that was just hysterical.
He was still laughing when Kalin got up and picked up his chair. The notebook was nowhere to be seen.
“I apologize,” Kalin said.
Chapel stopped laughing instantly.
“I underestimated you,” Kalin told him. “It’s clear you’ve been trained to counter this kind of persuasion. Sleep deprivation isn’t going to work on you.”
“It’s — not?”
“We find it highly effective with most people. But there are limits to what can be done this way. Sleep deprivation can even be fatal if it’s taken too far. The first queen Elizabeth of England died of insomnia, did you know that?”
“That’s my name,” Chapel tried. “Queen Elizabeth.”
Kalin shook his head. “I could keep you awake longer, but then you would die. And that wouldn’t help me finish my report. So go ahead and sleep.” He shrugged and headed for the door. “The drugs will wear off in a few hours, and then I imagine you’ll sleep very well indeed. That’s good. I’ll want you clear-headed tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? What happens then?”
“That’s when we take things to the next level.”
Chapel woke up on the tiled floor of his room, his eyes slowly opening. He stretched out his arm, his legs, luxuriating in how rested he felt. He was sore from lying all night on the hard tiles, but he didn’t care. He felt a million times better than he had the day before.
He was considering his options — most of which involved rolling over and taking a nap — when there was a knock at the door. It opened before he could even realize he should say something, and an orderly came in, bearing a tray of food. Dry toast and some water. Chapel didn’t protest how plain it was. His stomach had shrunk from going without for so long, and he probably couldn’t have handled anything more complex. The orderly left again without a word, before Chapel could ask for more.