The Last Man

Chapter 11
JALALABAD, AFGHANISTAN

HE lay on the floor wearing only a pair of U.S. Army - issue boxer shorts, curled up in the fetal position, his face and body battered to a pulp. Joe Rickman tried to open his eyes, but they were either too swollen or too caked with dry blood to yield. He had never felt such pain. Never even imagined that it could be so bad. His trainers back at the Farm had warned him, and he had nodded as if he understood everything they were saying at the time, but they said he didn't. Anyone who hadn't been through it could never really understand just how bad it was. Now Rickman understood. He'd kept it together so far, but just barely. There had been a few moments when he was on the verge of calling it quits. He told himself that they would know when to stop. After all, Rickman had always known when to call his people off.

He had sat through countless interrogations and had never lost a single subject. Rickman's methods, and those of his colleagues, were a bit more clinical, though. Before an interrogation started they met and put a script in place. What questions were to be asked and what methods they would use to inflict pain. Rickman was never one to get his hands dirty, of course. He didn't even like his people getting their hands dirty. That was why he was such a big fan of electricity. It was nice and clean. No blood to mop up when everything was done. His team appreciated it as well, as they were the ones who had to clean up the room. It wasn't as if you could grab a janitor and bring him to the secure detention facility to clean up the blood from a rough session that in the eyes of some of his fellow countrymen was blatantly illegal.

Rickman's captors were obviously less concerned about the mess. The people in this part of the world were far more accepting of torture. In a sense, these animals had followed their version of a script. They had spared his feet and genitals and, for the most part, had slapped rather than punched him in the head. Most of the beating had been inflicted with a rubber hose and open palms, methods that were designed to elicit pain without causing life-threatening injury. At least that's what he kept telling himself as each blow landed. Even during the height of the beating, Rickman had kept a careful inventory of where and how they were hitting him. Fortunately, they had restrained themselves from striking him in the head too many times. Other than a heart attack, the easiest way to lose a subject during interrogation was to create hemorrhaging in the brain.

Rickman tried his eyes again and got one of them partially open. The eyelid fluttered to life to reveal his dank surroundings. He was in a cellar of some sort with a dirt floor. White sheets were draped along the walls. His hosts had spray-painted the word Infidel in black across one of the sheets. They had made sure to follow their script while filming his beating and kept the word Infidel in the frame just behind him.

The place reeked of urine. That was the first thing Rickman thought of when they'd brought him here, and he was repulsed by it. He was a neat freak and the idea of being held captive in such a foul place gave him almost as much anxiety as the impending session. After the beating started, however, the smell quickly became the least of his problems. And now he cared even less, since he was pretty sure he'd added to the potpourri during his beating.

Rickman tried to lift his head, but it hurt too much, so he lay there and tried to take an inventory of his pain. Nearly every inch of his body was aching, but there were a few areas that stood out. Chief among them were his ribs. He was pretty sure a few of them were broken or at a bare minimum bruised. The majority of the session had been conducted with Rickman's arms strung above his head to some contraption on the ceiling - his flanks exposed to the brutal blows. Even when they weren't beating him, his shoulders screamed with pain as if they were going to be ripped from their sockets.

Rickman gathered the strength to roll from his side onto his back. He winced as shards of pain shot through his rib cage. Slowly he turned his head toward the door. The video camera was mounted on a tripod. The red light under the lens told him it was still recording. That was good. Record all of it, for all he cared. He heard movement and voices outside the door. Rickman tensed with the anticipation that the beating would begin again. The door opened, throwing more light into the room. The man turned off the camera and stood over Rickman. He was wearing a gray knee-length shirt with gray baggy trousers that the locals called Perahan Tunban. He squatted and held a bottle of water to Rickman's swollen lips.

"It will go much easier if you tell them what they want to know. It doesn't have to be like this."

"I guess I'm into pain. What can I tell you?"

The man frowned and shook his head in a sad manner. After a long moment he fished a bottle of pills from his pocket and took off the cap. He tapped out two pills into the palm of his hand and then shoved them one by one into Rickman's mouth. "These will help."

Rickman tried to spit them out, but the man covered his mouth with his hand and said, "Don't be a fool."

A little bit of water and the pills slid right down. The man stood and walked back to the door. He opened it and waved another man in. The new man was carrying a small black bag.

It occurred to Rickman that he was a doctor. That was a good sign. His captors were taking this seriously. The man dropped to one knee next to Rickman and placed a stethoscope against his chest. After that he slapped on a blood pressure cuff and then dilated both eyes with a penlight. After no more than two minutes the doctor announced that he was strong enough to resume the interrogation.

The doctor left, two new men entered the room, masks pulled on to conceal their faces. The camera was turned back on and the man in the baggy gray pants nodded for the two men to continue. A rope ran through a pulley on the ceiling and was tied to Rickman's wrists. The two men yanked on the rope and pulled Rickman into a standing position.

"This time you will answer my questions . . . yes."

Rickman looked at the man through his one good eye and spat a glob of blood into his face. The beating commenced immediately. Strangely, the blows didn't hurt as much this time. He told himself to stay strong. It wouldn't be much longer. It couldn't be, or he might die, and he doubted these men would want that. Discipline was paramount.