Chapter
15
ROBIE LOOKED AT REEL.
Reel studied the floor.
It was nearly midnight a week into their stay here. After their psychological vetting they had undergone more physical endurance tests, each more difficult than the last. They had been given a bit of food and water and then brought back here, sweaty and tired and increasingly depressed. Over the next days they had been worked relentlessly and had dropped exhausted into their bunks for a few hours of sleep before they were hustled from their beds and it all started up again.
Tonight, they had gotten off relatively early. And so this was the first real time they had been able to speak to each other since the first day.
“How did your shrink session go?” asked Robie, finally breaking the silence in their tiny shared room.
“Great, how about you?” she said sarcastically.
“We spent a good deal of the time talking about you, actually.”
She looked up at him and then stared over at the nearest listening device.
She glanced back at him and mouthed, Here? Now?
He looked around the room and noted the video cameras that they both knew were embedded in the walls. He flipped up the mattress so that it leaned against his back, effectively shielding him from view. Then he motioned for her to sit on the other side of the bunk and face him. She did so, staring at him curiously.
Then he began using sign language. He had been taught this, as had Reel, he knew, because silent communication was often very useful in the field.
He said in sign, “Marks is Evan Tucker’s person through and through. Can’t believe we’re intended to survive this place. Do we make a break for it?”
Reel thought about this and signed back, “Gives them a great excuse to kill us with no repercussions.”
He signed, “So we sit tight?”
“I think we can survive this.”
“What’s your plan?”
“We recruit Marks to our side.”
Robie’s eyes widened. “How?”
“We suffer together.”
“You’ve been bitchy to her so far. How can you turn that around?”
“I was bitchy to her for the very reason that it would allow me an opportunity to turn it around with credibility. If she thinks I hate her, it could work. If I had started out nice, she would have been instantly suspicious.”
Robie still looked dubious.
Reel signed, “What other option do we have?”
“None,” he signed. “Except die.”
At that moment the door burst open and a half dozen armed men came in. Robie and Reel were shackled and then hustled out of the room. They were hurried down one long hall after another. They were being moved so fast neither Reel nor Robie could get a handle on which direction they were going.
A door was thrown open and they were pushed inside. The door slammed shut behind them and other hands grabbed them. Reel and Robie were lifted off their feet and each was placed prone on a long board.
The room was dimly lighted but they could still see each other, being only inches apart. They both knew what was coming. They were strapped to the boards. Then the boards were tipped back. Their heads were submerged in a large bucket of icy water. They were held there nearly long enough to be drowned.
When they were lifted free from the water, their feet were kept elevated. Next, a thin cloth was placed over their faces and icy water poured over it. The liquid quickly saturated the cloth and then filled their mouths and noses. The gag reflex was nearly immediate. They coughed and spit. More water was poured. They coughed and gagged. More water was poured. They both retched.
The cloth was lifted and they were allowed to snatch three or four normal breaths before the cloth went back on. The water was poured again, with the same result. This process was repeated over the next twenty minutes.
Both Reel and Robie had vomited what little was in their stomachs. All that was coming out now was bile.
They were kept on the boards with the cloth over their faces. Neither knew when the water would start up again, which was all part of the technique. No training in the world could really insulate you from the terrors of waterboarding.
They both lay there gasping, their limbs pressing against the restraints, their chests heaving.
Normally, interrogation would start now. Both Robie and Reel knew this, but they each wondered what sort of interrogation they would be subjected to.
The lights dimmed even more and both of them braced for what might be coming next.
A voice said, “This can stop; it’s up to you.”
It was not Amanda Marks. It was a male voice neither of them recognized.
“What’s the price?” gasped Reel.
“A signed confession,” said the voice.
“Confessing what?” said Robie, spitting retch from his mouth.
“For Reel, the murders of two CIA operatives. For you, aiding and abetting her. And also to a count of treason.”
“You a lawyer?” sputtered Reel.
“All I need is your answer.”
Reel’s next words made the man chuckle. He said, “I’m afraid that is physically impossible for me to do to myself. But that’s an answer in itself, I suppose.”
Twenty more minutes of waterboarding occurred.
When they came back up for air the same question was posed.
“This will stop,” said the voice. “All you have to do is sign.”
“Treason carries the death penalty,” gasped Robie. Then he turned to the side and threw up more bile. His brain was about to explode and his lungs felt seared.
Reel interjected, “So what the hell does it matter?”
“It does matter. You’ll be given lengthy prison terms, but you won’t be executed. That’s the deal. But you have to sign the confession. It’s all prepared. You just have to sign.”
Neither Robie nor Reel said anything.
The ordeal went on for twenty more minutes.
When it finished, neither of them was conscious. This was one drawback to this form of torture. The body just shut down. And there was no purpose in torturing an unconscious person.
The lights came on and the man stared down at the pair strapped to the long boards.
“An hour, impressive,” he said.
His name was Andrew Viola. Up until the year before he had been the chief trainer at the Burner Box, and before that a legendary CIA field agent who’d had a hand in some of the most complex and dangerous missions of the past twenty-five years. He would be fifty on his next birthday. He was still fit and trim, although his hair was an iron gray and his face heavily lined. And scarred from one mission that had not gone according to plan.
He looked over at Amanda Marks, who had been observing the entire process with a look of slight revulsion. “Not for the weak of stomach, or heart,” he said.
“And I didn’t exactly understand the purpose. Did we really expect them to sign a confession?”
“Not my call. I was told to do this and I did it. CIA lawyers and upper management can figure out the rest.”
“This was my mission to run,” she said.
“And it still is, Amanda. I’m not stepping on toes here. But I had my orders. And”—he glanced down at Robie and then Reel—“unlike some, I always follow orders.”
“So what now?”
“My work here is done until I’m called up again. So I might see these two again before they leave here. If they leave here,” he corrected himself.