“The last time I saw them,” Rafael said, thoughtfully, “they were stuck in your mother’s ass.”
Barnes froze, his face turning red. Rafael was crossing the line. Barnes got up again and headed for the detainee. Standing close, he whispered in his ear.
“Why are you wasting my time, Jack?” As he spoke, his saliva spattered Jack’s face. “Don’t you get it, that I’ve got the woman and don’t need you? Maybe you won’t talk, but she’ll cackle like a parrot. So can you please explain to me, what could it possibly be that keeps me from killing you?”
“What I know, that she doesn’t know,” Rafael declared firmly.
“And what do you know that she doesn’t?”
“I know that she only received two pages out of a total of thirteen.”
“Go on.”
“I know where the other pages are,” he said, arrogantly, casting a line and hoping Barnes would take the bait.
Barnes observed him for a few seconds, weighing his words and trying to read his mind.
“You’re lying,” he said finally.
“You wanna risk killing me? What if I’m not lying?”
“I’ve got the daughter and the father, Jack. I can do quite well without you.”
“You’d be making sense if you weren’t wrong.”
Barnes could barely contain his wrath. He wanted to crush this bastard. He shook him, grabbing his lapels.
“Don’t tempt me, Jack. I can finish you off in a second.”
Bound up as he was, Rafael still defied him with his look.
“It’s not in your hands, Barnes.”
The latter tightened his grip even more.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the great Geoffrey Barnes could have bashed in my brains long ago. You haven’t done it because it’s not up to you. Not that you don’t want to-I can see it in your eyes-but there’s a motherfucker above you who won’t let you pull the trigger.”
“Shut up,” the big man yelled, shoving him against the wall. Infuriated, he punched him in the stomach. Rafael collapsed to the floor, but Barnes didn’t let up, and started kicking him amid an avalanche of insults. Suddenly a strong pair of hands pulled him back.
“Hold it. Right now,” an elegantly dressed man ordered, grasping the still-raving Barnes. “What are you doing?”
“I’m gonna kill this son of a bitch,” Barnes roared, glaring at Rafael, who was struggling to stand up.
“Get a grip,” the man shouted.
Staughton and Thompson poked their heads in, to see what was happening.
“Take him out of here,” the man ordered Staughton and Thompson. Obeying quickly, they started dragging Rafael between them.
“Not that one, this one,” the newcomer corrected, keeping a firm hold on Barnes.
The fat man simmered down, taking several deep breaths and recovering his composure.
“Okay, I’m fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“I’m taking over as of now,” the other man announced. “Go have something to drink and settle your nerves.” Then he turned to Staughton and Thompson. “Take this gentleman over with the others. The Grand Master’s already here.”
His orders were immediately followed. Barnes went through the door without looking back. “Fucking bastards,” he mumbled. The other two were supporting Rafael, who couldn’t stay on his feet.
The man who’d restored order in the room readjusted his Armani suit. The time had come.
54
The four men were walking through a long, dimly lit hallway, with closed doors dotting both sides. The place was cold, dilapidated, but not abandoned. There was no dirt or cobwebs. These quarters seemed to be used only sporadically.
Rafael walked with Staughton’s and Thompson’s help. The man behind them in the Armani suit didn’t allow any threats or punches. There was an intense light coming out of an open door. Voices could be heard. The pair walked the last few feet almost dragging Rafael.
“This fucker keeps getting heavier,” Thompson complained.
“He’s doing it on purpose,” Staughton remarked.
Staughton wasn’t far from the truth. Rafael pretended that his condition was getting worse, just to make their task more difficult. He wanted to irritate them, and didn’t expect to gain anything. Even so, he felt a slight ache in his chest. Could be a broken rib, making it harder to breathe. But he would have to worry about his health later, after this nightmare ended, if ever. This hallway could well be his death walk.
While being dragged along, he thought of Sarah. Was she having to endure the same abuse? Rafael had been trained for it. Barnes’s wrath, his uncontrolled punches, were minor disturbances for him. It was a different story for Sarah, though she had demonstrated her courage in their brief amount of time together. Despite the tension, she held herself together again and again. And what she did with the papers, knowing they were their only bargaining chip, the only card they could play, spoke volumes about her character.
When they entered the room, Rafael saw, backed against a wall but attached by the wrists to ceiling chains, Captain Raul Monteiro, Sarah, and an older man he didn’t know, though his face looked familiar.
Next to the group, dressed in black like most of the agents, was an individual Rafael instantly recognized. It was the Pole. Staughton and Thompson dragged Rafael over to the others, and locked both his wrists to a metal ring linked with the ceiling chains. Barnes’s two agents left the room. Now the detainees were at the mercy of the assistant and the Pole.
Rafael looked at Sarah, searching for signs of torture. Nothing-they hadn’t even touched her yet. He was afraid they’d taken her somewhere else. They’d been separated during the flight, and from then on, he didn’t know what had happened to her or her father.
The captain showed no sign of mistreatment, either, nor did the man next to him, whom he still could not identify. The assistant was the first to speak.
“Finally we’re all here.”
“Isn’t there anything to eat?” Rafael asked.
The assistant ignored the provocation.
“My deepest apologies for the treatment you have received, but I assure you it will all be over very soon.”
“Who are you?” Rafael asked the older man.
“I’m Marius Ferris. And you?”
“Marius Ferris. The one in the photo,” Rafael said, finally recognizing him. “My name’s Rafael.”
“We all know why we’re here, so let’s get straight to the point. Where are the papers?” the assistant asked.
On the only table in the room was a black suitcase, which the servant opened at that moment, handling the various cutting tools inside. They were torture devices capable of producing a confession from even the most stalwart. In some cases, simply displaying these terrible instruments was enough to make the detainees crumble.
“The papers are in a safe place,” Rafael asserted.
“They’ll be much safer with us,” the assistant countered. “Be reasonable. Isn’t it better to end this as soon as possible and avoid more suffering?”
Silence was their only answer. The assistant waited a few more minutes. Someone might give up. After all, it was unlikely that all four of them would be prepared to be tortured for something that didn’t directly concern them. But nobody said a word.
All right. He would start with Sarah’s father, since perhaps this could put psychological pressure on his daughter, forcing her to talk.
“Take care of the military man,” he ordered the servant.
Sarah’s startled eyes revealed her dread, her greatest fear. They were going to be tortured and would end up having the truth forced out of them, if not right away, then later, when they couldn’t stand it anymore.
The servant wielded an instrument like a lathe, its blade about a half inch wide and eight inches long, meant to pierce the skin and cause pain but not to harm any vital organ except by special intent. He slashed the captain’s shirt, exposing his torso. He aimed directly at the right side of his stomach, resting the sharp point on the skin.