Chapter 57
HURLEY had lost track of time. After the fingernail incident, they’d left him alone. Turned off the light and shut the door. He sat in the chair, his arms duct-taped to the armrests and his ankles to the two front legs. His chest and shoulders were also taped to the chair back. Big loops of silver tape, as if he were a mummy. For the first few hours he tried to catalogue everything he’d seen, said, and heard. Abu Radih was what he’d expected—a thin-skinned overwrought child in a man’s body. If he was lucky, he could provoke the man into killing him. That was the first priority. He had to enrage the man to the point where he defied the orders of the others. Go down fighting. He dozed off thinking of his own death. What a beautiful death it would be if he could pull it off. Exercise his will over a free man. Inflict enough mental pain on Radih to get him to do something he himself knew was wrong.
The thought brought a smile to his swollen lips, and then he let his chin rest on his chest and went to sleep. He awoke some time later. It could have been an hour, three hours, or half a day, and what did it really matter? The stink in the room was horrendous, but it was far better than the hood. He needed to go to the bathroom, so he whizzed right there, letting it splash over the seat of the chair onto the concrete floor. That helped him relax a little bit, but his fingers were starting to really sting, so he started talking to God to take his mind off the pain.
Hurley had no illusions about his potential for sainthood. He pretty much knew where he was headed when it was over, and yes, he did believe in the man upstairs and the man downstairs. He’d seen too much nasty shit in his life to think for a second that there wasn’t both good and evil in this world. Where he fit into that paradigm was a little more complicated. One of his favorite aphorisms involved sending Boy Scouts after bad men. Good people needed men like Hurley even if they couldn’t bring themselves to admit it. Maybe God would take pity on him. Maybe he wouldn’t.
Hurley bowed his head and asked for forgiveness for any of the innocent people he’d killed over the years, but that was as far as he was willing to go. The a*sholes, he would not apologize for. He then nodded off to sleep again. He awoke later to the sounds of a man screaming. He knew instantly that it was Richards. What they were doing to him, Hurley could only imagine. The screams came and went, rising and falling like waves crashing into the rocks. And then Hurley could tell by the steady rhythm what they were doing. They were electrocuting him and they weren’t bothering to ask questions. They were just trying to wear him down. Listening to the pain of one of his own men was the most difficult thing of all.
Hurley bowed his head again and asked God for the strength to kill these men. It went like this for four or five cycles. He tried not to obsess over the time. When he was awake, he tried to prepare himself for what would come next. With an almost endless string of awful possibilities, there was one in particular that had him worried, and when the door finally opened, it was if his captors had read his mind.
A man entered, plugged in the cord for the light, and there in the doorway was a bloodied and battered Richards. Two men were at his sides, holding him up. His wrists were bound in front of him with duct tape. The red marks on his chest confirmed what they had been doing, although it wasn’t all. Richards’s face was beaten and swollen—one of his eyes completely shut.
Sayyed entered the room, a man following him with a chair similar to the one Hurley was in. He showed the man where to place it and said to Hurley, “How are you feeling today?”
“Great!” Hurley said with enthusiasm. “You guys really do a nice job of making people feel comfortable.”
“Yes.” Sayyed smiled. “I’m sure you would show us the same hospitality if we were in your country.”
“Slightly better,” Hurley said, flashing the new gap in his teeth. “You know how competitive we Americans are. We didn’t put a man on the moon by making our women walk around in sheets all day and blowing ourselves up.”
“We all know that was faked.”
“Sure it was,” Hurley said agreeably as they placed Richards in the other chair. One of the men produced a knife so he could cut Richards’s duct tape. Hurley wanted that knife, and in Arabic asked, “Where’s my buddy Radih? Either of you boys ever get a blow job from his mom?” Hurley then launched into an invective-filled description of the sex acts that Radih’s mom used to perform for him.
Sayyed would never admit it, but this American’s descriptive abilities were in a league of their own. In fact, the descriptions were so detailed that even he wondered for a second if it could be true.
Hurley read the unsure looks on the faces of the two goons and said, “You really didn’t know Radih’s mother was a whore? You should try her some time. She’s getting a little up there in age … not quite as tight a fit, if you know what I mean.” Hurley winked at them as if they were of the same mind.
“That will be enough,” Sayyed said. He ordered the men to finish taping Richards’s wrists to the chair. When they were finished he told them they could wait outside.
Hurley smiled at them and waited until they were at the door and then shouted, “Don’t forget to ask Radih about his mother. Dirtiest piece of ass I’ve ever had.”
The door closed with a click. Sayyed placed his hands on his hips and let out an exasperated sigh.
“It’s true,” Hurley said, punctuating his words with an emphatic nod. “The woman was a sex machine. She should have paid me.”
Doctrine told Sayyed he should ignore the comments, but he felt that he needed to say something. “You are a very interesting man, Mr. Sherman. You must be very unsure of yourself.”
“Why do you say that, Colonel?”
“It is so obvious. Do I really have to say it?”
“Well, unless I’ve learned how to read minds since we last saw each other, I suggest you spit it out.”
“You are afraid you won’t be able to stand up to my methods, so you are trying to enrage my colleague to the point where he kills you.”
Hurley screwed on a confused look. “Colonel, you give me way too much credit. I’m not that smart. I’m just a horny bastard who’s slept with a ton of prostitutes … one of whom just happens to Radih’s mom.”
Sayyed laughed at him. “You are an unusual man.”
“What do I have to do to get you guys to take me seriously? I’m going to lie to you about a lot of shit, but I am dead serious about Radih’s mom, and I’m not knocking the woman, she was amazing. And besides, you can’t blame a woman for trying to put some food on the table. Can you?”
Sayyed thought about that for a second and simply shook his head. It was time to take charge again. He wheeled his little cart over and checked his instruments. When he was ready he broke open some smelling salts and stuck them under the other American’s nose. Richards snorted and opened his eyes. Turning back to the foul-mouthed older one, he said, “Your friend, Mr. Richards, was kind enough to give us his name.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Yes … well, let’s see if we can jog your memory. This is what we are going to do.” Sayyed picked up the tin snips and said, “I will ask you a question. If you refuse to answer or lie I will cut off one of his fingers.”
“Cool.” Hurley straightened up as much as the tape would allow. “I’d like to see you cut one off right now. Go ahead … let’s get started.”
“Mr. Sherman, what is your real name?”
“Come on, cut his finger off. Cut his wrist off … that would be really awesome.”
Richards was awake now, a panicked look in his eyes. “What the hell?”
Sayyed said, “He has already told us your name, but I want to hear you say it.”
“Fine … William Tecumseh Sherman. Are you happy now? Can we go home?”
“No. That is not the name he gave us.”
“I think I’d know my own name.”
“Last chance.” Sayyed placed the tin snips around the first knuckle on Richards’s left hand.
“William Tecumseh Sherman.”
“Wrong answer.” Sayyed pushed the two red handles together and there was a quick snip and the pinky fell to the dirty floor. Richards started screaming, and Sayyed quickly moved the snips over to Hurley’s pinky. “Your turn,” he yelled. “Name?”
Hurley had already turned his head away, as if he couldn’t bear to watch what was going on. He started to move his lips and mumbled a name.
“Louder … I can’t hear you.”
Hurley slowly turned his head, made eye contact with Sayyed, and then looked down at his pinky. The distance was about right. He pretended he was starting to cry while again mumbling, and when Sayyed moved just a touch closer, offering up his good ear so he could hear better, Hurley lunged forward, tilting his head to the right. He caught the top third of the man’s left ear between his teeth and clamped down with all of his strength, grinding and chewing and growling and then yanking his head back.
Sayyed screamed and broke free, his hand clamped around his bloody ear. He stumbled away and then turned to look at his subject. What he saw horrified him. Bill Sherman had a chunk of his ear hanging half out of his mouth. The insane American smiled at him and then started chewing on the ear, crunching it like a potato chip.