The Leveling

“Rally on me. That was the hand signal. And he was standing in front of one of those chimneys.”


They both stared at the house for a while until Mark reluctantly said, “If I’m going to do this, we’re going to need some more equipment.”





58




ALTHOUGH BOTH OF his new jailers spoke fluent English, Decker guessed from their facial features that they were Chinese. One wore a white T-shirt and gray slacks, the other a white T-shirt and blue slacks.

Blue apologized to Decker for his previous treatment, gave him a shirt and pants, a little food and drink, set his broken ankle, and allowed him to sleep for a few minutes.

Gray woke Decker up, stripped him naked, poured cold water all over him, hit his broken ankle with a baseball bat, and forced Decker to stand by strapping a noose made of electrical wire around his neck so that if he fell, he’d hang.

Blue said that he hated this kind of inhumane treatment and wanted to find a way to make it stop. If only Decker would help…

Beyond the good-cop-bad-cop routine, Decker knew what they were doing—they’d stripped his clothes off to strip him of his identity, in order to build a new, more dependent and compliant one. They’d had him stand with a broken ankle and a noose around his neck to make him feel that if he fell, he’d be committing suicide.

Why are you doing this to yourself? Let us help you.

Break apart a person’s identity and then give them a false sense of being able to guide their own destiny. These guys knew exactly what they were doing.

Time bent into strange, hallucinogenic contortions. He spent long periods downstairs in the safe, his mouth pressed up to one of the holes that had been drilled through the metal, afraid that if he drifted off to sleep his mouth would fall from the hole and he’d die from lack of oxygen.

After hours or days—Decker wasn’t sure—Gray hauled him up from the pit and injected him with what he said was a truth serum. Real truth serums didn’t exist, Decker knew. There were drugs like sodium pentothal that could make you less inhibited, but just because you were more inclined to talk didn’t mean you felt some pressing need to tell the truth while you were talking.

“There is no shame in sharing information with us,” said Blue. “This drug is so strong. No one is able to resist it.”

A ready-made excuse to give in. They were screwing with his mind, with his pride.

“You would personally be doing me a great favor,” said Blue.

Decker said nothing. Blue left the room. Gray strung him up again with the noose around his neck. The pain that shot through Decker’s ankle and wounded thigh made his legs shake. The drug compromised his ability to balance. He started wheezing and drooling.

When Blue returned he said, “I have spoken with my superiors. They have agreed that if you are generous enough to help us with this matter, we can arrange for a cash payment to you of three hundred thousand dollars plus transport to the border of your choice.”

It was just a bullshit ploy to get him to talk, he knew. But there was an irrational voice inside him that wanted to believe the offer was real, that he could walk away from all this with a bit of cash and his life intact…

His legs began to buckle. He felt pressure on his neck—the weight of his own body pulling him down into the noose. White spots danced in front of his eyes. Everything started playing in slow motion.

“I beg of you,” said Blue. “You can go free if you help us now.”

Decker was past being able to speak.

Gray came up and kicked Decker’s legs out from under him. He put his mouth right next to Decker’s ear, so that he could be heard over the choking sounds.

“Soon I will start cutting. Your fingers, your eyes, your dick, your asshole. I’ll keep you alive so you can watch as I cut you down to a stump. If you still don’t talk, I’ll pick up children from the street and kill them in front of you until you tell us what we want to know.” He spoke with the quiet confidence of someone who was absolutely insane.

“Don’t let him do this, friend,” said Blue. “Help me to stop him. He’s mad!”

Decker passed out. When he regained consciousness, he was being dragged down into the dank pit. They stuffed him in the safe and slammed the door shut.

The sound of his unsteady breathing reverberated in the small space. After a while, the air warmed up.

Decker’s father was a big man, with strong arms. He felt his father’s arms around him now, followed by the strange sensation of having reentered his mother’s womb, of ending where he’d started.

It’s over.

At least the path forward was now clear. He still had his teeth. He could kill himself by tearing open his wrist. The sodium pentothal was still coursing through him; it probably wouldn’t even hurt if he did it now.

Decker twisted his head to the right and put his mouth to one of the air holes. He didn’t want to do it. He loved this world, loved his family, loved himself, loved being alive. But he didn’t have a choice. He had to do it soon.

Before they came back for him.