We crossed the room’s vastness towards the man in the chair, our steps echoing like gunshots.
The prisoner was an Arab, mid-to-late 20’s. He was naked. His head hung down on his chest, and though the room was cool, sweat beaded along his receding hairline. I smelled the vomit before I saw it, stuck in his hair and smeared on his chest and groin.
No injuries, though. At least, not on the outside.
Like a man anxious to return to his muse, Harker’s gait had sped up as we’d entered the room. He was far ahead of us when I hissed to Speer, “This is inhumane. What have you done to him?”
“You’ll see,” Speer said.
“No. Make him stop.”
“And give up our only lead?”
“How are you any better than he is?” I hated how Pollyanna I sounded, but it was true. This job had taught me that the world was colored in grayscale, and sometimes rules had to be bent. But there was a difference between bending rules and not having any.
“I am better than he,” Speer said, “because I do not blow up theaters showing the latest Disney movies to maximize child casualties. Nor do I enable, celebrate, or excuse those that do. I stop such people.”
“Nice rationalization. You’re white, racist xenophobes with an enthusiasm for torture. Nazis, basically.”
He actually laughed at me. “One man’s racism and xenophobia are another man’s common sense.”
“Sounds like a police state,” I said.
“Does it? Applying common sense to counterterrorism, for instance, one would naturally focus first on those coming from Islamic countries, and next on legal residents of Arab extraction, while allowing the rest of the citizenry to go about their daily lives unmolested. Ignoring common sense, one might very well wind up with a regime where all citizens are subject to checkpoint stops, surveillance, and offensive searches as they simply try to travel around what used to be their country.”
That stung. My badge had spared me from being groped by the TSA on the flight out of JFK, but I’d still had to wait in line half an hour for the privilege of getting irradiated by a body scanner.
Speer was on a roll now. “Civil society is organized to protect citizens, not vouchsafe the sensitivities of foreigners and their imbecilic champions among the native population. When did you people forget that?”
I was tired of this. I needed Talib found. So this would be one of those moral compromises we make for the greater good. At least any blood was on the Steamies’ hands, not mine.
We caught up with Harker. Just outside the light now, I could see a series of levers jutting out of the floor. Weirdly, an umbrella stand was also nearby.
“Hello again, Omar,” Harker chimed in the same pleasant tone with which he’d greeted me. “Do we feel more cooperative now that you’ve had some time to think? Or would you like to go for another spin on the Merry-Go-Round?”
There was fear in Khaliq’s eyes, but the Arabic that came from his throat was guttural and defiant. Harker responded himself in brief, polite-sounding Arabic before throwing one of the levers.
The floor shook slightly, as if a dragon was awakening beneath us. Then there was a hiss of steam, and the groan of massive iron gears limbering.
“What did you say to him?” Speer asked, as the steam’s whine grew louder.
Harker smiled. “Bon voyage.”
Dozens, maybe hundreds of gaslights suddenly came to life. The cavernous torture chamber glowed orange, and I could see now what the darkness had been hiding.
Weaving all around and above us was a hopeless tangle of what looked like rollercoaster tracks. Silhouetted black against the orange light, it might have been an amusement park designed in hell.
My eyes couldn’t follow the layout, but Khaliq’s scream drew my gaze back to him. I noticed now that there were wheels on his chair’s legs, threaded into tracks beneath him. Carnival music — popping and skipping as if played on a phonogram — blared on, and the chair shot away from us down the length of the room.
It was going almost too fast to follow as the chair took Khaliq up and up, never slowing before sweeping down even faster through the tracks’ absurdist architecture.
With the chair’s every turn, I could feel the rush of wind in my hair. It had to be going fifty or sixty miles per hour.
“You may want to get an umbrella,” Harker yelled over the music and clatter. “I’d think his stomach would be empty by now, but one never knows!”
I leaned into Speer so he could hear me. “You torture people with rollercoaster rides?”
“Just watch,” he said.
Harker began throwing levers like a mad scientist. As he did, not only would Khaliq’s chair react, so would the room itself. The chair stopped suddenly, and jerked onto another track close to the wall where an iron panel retracted. Out slid a small pool, and the chair swung him upside down, dragging his head through the water.
Another lever, and the chair stopped and rotated like a spit as a different wall panel opened. This time, he found himself turning inches above hot coals like a cannibal’s appetizer.
Another lever, and a giant bell descended over the stopped chair, then clanged deafeningly.
On and on it went, one absurd, Wile E. Coyote contraption after another appearing from behind the walls or out of the floor or ceiling. Periodically, some vomit would rain down as Speer and I took shelter beneath our umbrellas. It felt like it went on for hours. It was closer to 15 minutes.
Finally, Harker returned the levers to their starting position, and Khaliq’s chair slid to a halt in front of us. The music died, the gaslights dimmed, and the rumbling machines quieted. Once again, a single finger of bright light spotlighted the prisoner.
“Shall we go again?” Harker asked. “No need to worry about keeping me up all night. I can have coffee brought down.”
Blood was coming down Khaliq’s nose. His voice sounded barely human. “No — I’ll tell you,” he gasped.
2
Blue Cliffs
Fifteen minutes later, Speer was assembling his team in the courtyard. Twenty-five men in thundercloud blue uniforms milled around us, some checking their rifles, others simply smoking pipes or cigars. They looked like Civil War re-enactors to me, except I’m reasonably sure neither side in that war used cartridges as big as the ones in these men’s belts.
On the periphery were what had to be pilots. The goggles, leather jackets, and general swagger were a dead giveaway. I could see the noses of smaller zeppelins peeking over the building’s roof.
“Right,” Speer shouted, calling the group to attention. “The interrogation section has determined that the terrorist wanted by the Americans is hiding in the Blue Cliffs Industrial Airship Parks. While he is only one man, he has proven himself quite adept at explosives, so we will move on him in force. A Triclops will be taking up the rear, with two infantry squad carriages leading.
“Infantry shall dismount a mile from Blue Cliffs and advance on foot through the nearby woods. Darkness will cover our approach. We would prefer to take him alive, and since smashing down trees, fences, and buildings tends to draw no small amount of attention, the Triclops will remain behind with the carriages until needed.
“Additionally,” Speer continued, “we will have three pocket-zeps to keep an eye on things from above, and to fire upon anyone who tries to slip our cordon. Any questions?”
Someone called from the back, “Is the girl coming?” Laughter followed.
I’m pretty sure I was blushing. I refused to lower my eyes, though. Instead I kept my head up, which is why I could see the smirk on Speer’s lips.