“Injuries to the lumbar or sacral region of the spinal canal usually result in decreased control of the legs, hips and anus,” my father said, matter-of-fact, as though he was delivering a lecture to a group of his medical students. “There is also the likelihood of bowel, bladder and sexual dysfunction.”
Collingwood let out a shaky laugh. “You can’t do this, Doc,” he said, and I wondered if it was us or himself he was trying to convince. “Meyer there, or your little girl, now, they’ve got the look. I’ve seen enough killers in my time to know. But you? You’re a doctor—sworn to uphold life, not to destroy it.”
“Quite so,” my father agreed easily. “Just as I imagine that you, Mr. Collingwood, have sworn to serve and protect your country. It’s the interpretation of that oath that makes the difference, wouldn’t you say? If,” he added, without waiting for a reply, “by sacrificing your health, your mobility, I retrieve my wife, unhurt, then the end will have justified the means.”
They were the same words Collingwood himself had used to Terry, back in the lobby. He couldn’t possibly have known that, of course. Just fate running one of those odd parallels.
My father walked his fingers slowly a little farther up Collingwood’s back. The government man was thin enough that the ridges of his vertebrae stood out like the plates of a prehistoric stegosaurus, just as easily defined.
“Damage to the thoracic spine results in paraplegia,” my father went on. “You’re likely to retain control of your hands but not your abdominal muscles, so you will not only be confined to a wheelchair and catheterized, but you will have to be strapped in like a rag doll.”
“Pretty pictures you’re painting, Doc,” Collingwood said. He was sweating badly now, and even he heard the desperate edge, the false bravado, in his tone. But he had guts, I’ll give him that. “I can’t say I approve, but you have, ah, a certain style.”
“How’s this for a ‘pretty picture,’ Mr. Collingwood?” my father snapped, his face tight and white across his bones. “Spending your days tied to a wheelchair, shitting into a bag, pissing into a tube, and never having another hard-on for the rest of your life.”
My mouth dropped open, I know it did. My father was cold and clinical and there were times when I would have sworn he had ice in his veins, but I’d never heard him stoop to crudeness. Never heard him really swear, or lose his temper, or make an off-color remark. That shocked me more than the violence of what he was proposing.
It must have taken Collingwood aback, too. He was silent as my father’s fingers walked higher still, to somewhere up above his shoulder blades. “Cervical injuries are the most debilitating,” my father went on, toneless again now, his outburst forgotten. “They normally result in what is known as full or partial tetraplegia—complete paralysis. C-7—here—is the last point at which you can still expect to live any kind of independent existence. You may have some control over your arms, but your hands and fingers will be compromised.”
“The Afghanis beat the soles of my feet, flayed the skin off my back, broke both my arms, my hands, and my left leg in three places,” Collingwood said, like he was clinging on to the conviction that whatever was about to happen now would not—could not—be worse. “They left me to die in the mountains.”
“Yes,” my father said distantly, “but you didn’t die. And you must have known that, should you survive, there was every chance of recovery.” He moved slower now, counting off each rise. “C-6 means you’ll entirely lose the use of your hands. C-5 and C-4—you might perhaps be able to move your shoulders and biceps, getting weaker, naturally. At C-3 you lose diaphragm function. You’ll need a ventilator to breathe.”
His fingers were almost at the back of Collingwood’s neck now, delicate, light.
“I don’t think you need to know about anything higher—the atlas and axis. You’d be dead. And I have no intention of letting you take the easy way out.” He leaned closer, so he could almost whisper in Collingwood’s ear. “Not like your people gave poor Jeremy Lee the easy way out. But that was after his spine had collapsed over a period of months, causing chronic pain as well as a gradual paralysis. Do you consider it ironic, Mr. Collingwood, that the same fate is going to befall you?”
He stepped back, seemed to shake himself, glanced at Sean’s expressionless face but carefully avoided mine. “The incision itself will be excruciating—albeit briefly,” he said. “You might want to hold his legs.”
“Wait a minute—” Collingwood sounded breathless, but that could just have been from the way he was hanging. He twisted again, struggling now. Sean anchored his legs while I stood as a helpless bystander, unable to stop the sudden runaway plunge of thoughts inside my head.
Hey, Mummy, what did you and Daddy and Grandpa do in the war?
“You don’t have a minute,” my father said. He steadied the tip of the knife against the skin covering Collingwood’s spine. “You have participated in the deaths of two people of whom I was extremely fond. You have ruined my career, ordered the torture of my daughter, and now you are holding my wife. Say good-bye to your legs, Mr. Collingwood.”
His hand slid forwards and the blade penetrated, sending a vivid viscous spill of scarlet across the pallid skin.
Collingwood shrieked. His body voided, but still the overwhelming stench in that room was sweat and blood and fear. Sean let go and staggered back as if, right up to that point, he’d believed my father was bluffing. A part of me had believed it, too.
Collingwood’s knees buckled, so he was hanging entirely from his arms. I saw his spine flex, saw the ripple of vertebrae as he collapsed, then realized that he was still moving his feet. Still capable of doing so.
My own legs refused to keep me upright and I slid, very slowly, to the base of the wall.
“The next cut,” my father said, unconcerned, mopping away some of the ooze with Collingwood’s own tattered shirt, “will be for real.”
“She’s in the lab!” Collingwood almost screamed it. “In the research lab. Second level. They haven’t touched her. They’re waiting for my orders. They haven’t touched her! Please! You have to believe me.”
My father paused, stepped back. His expression was carefully blank, but I saw the throb of veins pulsing at his temple and could only feel some minor relief that this was having an effect on him after all.
But not enough to make him stop.
“Why?” It was Sean who spoke, recovered enough for his tone to be as dispassionate as my father’s. “Why should we believe that a man who held out for three days against Afghani tribesmen would give us the truth so easily?”
“I am!” Collingwood yelped. “I am. I swear to God. Jesus. Why would I lie?”
“Because you know what would happen if she’s already dead?” Sean said, arms folded, head tilted slightly. “Why did you arrange a trap for us here, Collingwood? Not to arrest us, certainly. You tried misinformation, blackmail, threats, but they didn’t work, did they?”
He moved round in front of the government man, ducked so he could be sure of eye contact. “Richard loves his wife—enough to ruin himself for her. You counted on that. But you didn’t count on the fact that Charlie loves her parents too much to allow them to go down without a fight.” He straightened, looked down at the bowed head without emotion. “If you’d done your homework, you would have known you had to take out Charlie—and me—right at the start, instead of leaving us until last. And you’re foolishly still hoping you can come out of this on top, aren’t you? So, is Elizabeth alive or not?”
Collingwood lifted his head, pulled his lips back as much in a snarl as a smile. He’d bitten his tongue and the blood stained his teeth.