Back at the house, the telephone rang. Wolfgang picked it up. “OK, OK”, he said and hung up.
“Dimitri”, Wolfgang called. “It’s show time.
“The fish and the bait will leave the bar in ten minutes and will come straight here. Now we need to make sure that you haven’t wasted your time coming here. Right?”
Wolfgang handed Dimitri a black woolen ski mask. He gave another to Thomas and kept one for himself.
“We will all cover our faces”, he directed.
“But you said that we would eliminate him anyway”, Thomas protested. Wolfgang looked at Thomas as if he were a toddler.
“When will you learn, Thomas? If he sees our faces, he will understand right away that he is not coming out alive and he will not talk. With our faces covered, he will sing right away, as he will assume that we will release him after he gives us answers.”
Wolfgang was an old hand in the business of getting people to talk.
“Now”, he said to Thomas, “Turn off all the lights and open the window in the living room. We need to hear them when they come. Hurry!”
Dimitri looked at Thomas. This is a man who does not attract attention and does not leave an impression, Dimitri thought. He was of medium height with bland facial features; balding, bespectacled. A postal clerk type.
The hum of a car engine sounded through the open window as the car came to a stop. They heard doors opening and closing and a cheerful, giggly exchange between a man and a woman heading for the house. Soon the door opened, and the man drawled in a loud deep voice, “After you, ma’am.”
“Thank you for being such a gentleman, but it’s dark and you’d better go in first”, demurred the woman, who was Olga.
The man entered cautiously in total darkness, groping the wall in search of a light switch. Then suddenly a bright flash, similar to lighting, lit the room for a moment, followed by a scorching sound and chirping. The man dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
“Hurry, hurry”, sounded a voice. It was Wolfgang. “Thomas, quick, turn the light on. Let’s drag him to the pantry.”
The lights went on. The two struggled to move the unconscious Sergeant Major William “Bill” Lance.
Dimitri sought out Olga. She was sitting in an armchair in the living room, looking out and smoking a cigarette. She was calm, as if she had just returned home from a boring evening with a date. There was nothing in her demeanor that hinted that she knew that the bore she had just dated, married and a father, on a military career path, would be dead within an hour, at most.
Colossus appeared at the door, closing and locking it. He walked briskly to his business in the pantry. He will not miss an opportunity, Dimitri thought, to refresh his skills of subduing an enemy, squeezing information out of him for dear life, killing him humanely and disposing of him without leaving a trace. It was an activity that would give him a great sense of accomplishment.
Dimitri followed Colossus to the pantry, which contained a few cans of food on the shelves, a rusty old bicycle and a collection of unwanted household items. Bill Lance, all six feet four inches of him, was seated on a massive wooden chair. His arms and feet were bound with canvas straps to the chair’s armrests and legs. He was heaving, not yet awake.
Dimitri was concerned. “Wolfgang”, he implored, constantly searching for a sign of life in the prisoner’s face, “I hope your electric shocker did not finish him off completely. He seems halfway to paradise to me.”
“Trust me”, Wolfgang replied resolutely, while tightening the straps on the man’s feet. “From experience, within four minutes he will be up and singing.”
Bill Lance began to regain consciousness, coughing and moving his head from side to side. Thomas appeared from nowhere with a small bucket and poured its contents of ice water over the prisoner’s head. The Sergeant Major gasped, opened his eyes and looked up. He appeared to be trying to get up from his chair, but the chair was solidly bolted to the floor. He was struggling. He looked up fearfully at the four hooded men who surrounded him.
“What the hell!” exclaimed the American.
None of the captors responded.
“I swear”, implored the American soldier, “by my wife and son, that I will never again date a German woman. I swear.
“Now let me go”, he pleaded. “Please.”
“Sergeant Major Bill Lance, shut your mouth”, Wolfgang barked in heavily accented English. “You wish we were Fascist. If we were neo- Nazis, you would be much better off. Your adultery is against the rules of your military but of no interest to us. We are here tonight to discuss with you a rather technical subject, Pershing missiles. Have you heard about them? If we have time left, we can discuss your infidelities later.”
Sergeant Major Lance fell silent, taking in the turn of events and the severity of his grim situation. He then returned to his senses and tried his utmost to be as professional as he thought was expected of him.
“My Name is William Keith Lance, Sergeant Major in the United States Army, serial number 353-40-1733.”
Wolfgang reached into his coat’s inner pocket and pulled out a handgun. It was a SIG Sauer P220 with a built-in silencer. He cocked it and slowly directed it at the American, bringing it closer to his face.
“So it is you, Rambo”, Wolfgang snarled in a mocking voice. “OK, Rambo, listen up. You have only two options. One option is that we leave the room, put in earplugs, and let you negotiate your fate with this gorilla”, he said, pointing at Colossus.
The non-commissioned officer gazed at Colossus, who stood facing him with folded arms.
“The second option is that we skip the first part and get straight to work”, offered Wolfgang.
Dimitri watched the scene as if he were in a theater, not believing his eyes. Wolfgang aimed the barrel of his pistol at the American’s left knee and pulled the trigger. A faint puff and the gun action sounded, and through the pungent smoke, Dimitri could see that the nine- millimeter round had pierced the knee of his subject, who screamed in agony. His face was contorted with pain and his eyes looked as though they would pop out of their sockets. His chest was heaving uncontrollably. As if this was not enough, Wolfgang hit the American’s head with the pistol.
Wolfgang seemed to be in his element when torturing his captive. Dimitri feared that Wolfgang was risking the prisoner’s life before he could be interrogated, but kept his thoughts to himself.
“You are making too much noise”, snarled Wolfgang, “and it really is annoying to everybody, especially to your girlfriend in the other room. I thought we could have a laugh together, but now I give you only two options to choose from, right now. The first is that you start talking now, and do it quickly, before you bleed out, because, unfortunately, I don’t have any bandages left. The second option is that I tell you that we are short of time, and my way of hinting is to put a bullet in your other knee.”
Wolfgang was now aiming the pistol at the American’s right knee. His captive’s eyes were clenched shut in agony and he was weeping profusely. It would break the heart of any man, but not of his tormentor.
“Don’t do it, please. Please”, begged the captive. “I’ll tell you all you want to know.”
Dimitri, who was afraid that Wolfgang’s finest moments would cost him valuable information, approached Wolfgang and whispered in his ear.
“He is mine now”, Dimitri said.
Dimitri grabbed a chair and dragged it towards the American. He sat very close to his subject, a few inches from his face. Wolfgang spoke again.