CHAPTER 88

THE CELL WAS SIX-BY-SIX CONCRETE, cold, damp and windowless. Sean’s clothes were stripped off and he was ordered to stand at attention in the corner. After six hours, exhausted, he squatted on the floor. The door to his cell immediately banged open and hands lifted him back up. An hour later, his legs growing numb, he squatted again. The same thing happened over and over. Twenty-two hours later he was allowed to fall back on his hard cot. A minute later the cold water hit him in the face. Then he was forced to sit on the edge of a metal stool that was bolted to the floor. If he moved even a millimeter the door immediately clanged open and he was forced back to his original position. An hour later he was forced to sit so close to the edge he could barely stay on the stool. Thirty minutes later, he was forced even closer to the edge. Every time they moved him, part of the skin from his butt cheeks remained on the cold metal stool. His muscles knotted up after five hours. After ten hours he threw up everything in his belly. Sixteen hours later he was allowed to collapse on his bed covered in his retch. He was given a cup of water but no food.

As soon as he was drifting off to sleep the door banged open again and he was lightly smacked in the sides with wooden batons and ordered to remain awake. As soon as he started falling asleep again the same thing happened. For two days this occurred until he finally fell to the floor, his body twitching uncontrollably.

After three days of this treatment he found the strength to scream, “I’m a United States citizen, dammit, you can’t do this. You can’t do this.”

He jumped up and charged the door, but strong hands shoved him back. He fell onto the concrete, ripping skin off his knees and hands.

“You can’t do this,” he said again. He tried to rise, to fight them, but he was too weak. “You can’t do this. You have no right.”

“We have every right,” a voice said. Sean looked up to see Valerie standing there.

“You broke into a United States intelligence facility. You stole things.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You are a traitor to your country. We have evidence that you came down here on the pretense of investigating a murder but with the real purpose of spying on the CIA.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it! I want a lawyer, right now!”

She went on calmly, “Based on our investigation we have classified you and Michelle Maxwell as persons who are materially aiding enemies of this country by spying on the CIA. Therefore you are not entitled to legal representation or to habeas corpus until we decide to charge you with a crime and bring you to trial.”

He exploded, “You can’t fucking keep me here just because you want to.”

“The law allows us quite a bit of latitude.”

“What do you want from me?” he shouted.

“Things you saw, things you heard. Even what you’re imagining. But I’ll talk about that once you’re softened up a bit more. You gave us quite a rough time out on the river; it’s payback now.”

She turned to leave.

“You killed Monk Turing. And Len Rivest. And you blew up the morgue? All in the name of serving your freaking country? Do you know how many laws you’ve broken?”

Valerie said, “Monk Turing did what you did. Broke in here. He was shot for it. And we had every right to do it.”

“Right. If that were the truth you wouldn’t have made it look like a suicide. So people would think it was like the others. He saw the people getting off the plane, didn’t he? He saw the drugs. So Turing had to die. But what you didn’t know was he’d been over here before and he put it all down in a code. Alicia took the code and despite what she told us I bet she actually did crack it. So Viggie disappears. Am I right? Come on, Val, tell me!”

“You’re hardly in a position to demand answers.”

Despite being weak Sean was just warming up. “And Rivest. He was going to tell me things about Babbage Town before he was killed. Maybe he found out the CIA was spying on the place. Maybe he confided in Alicia, who was pretending to have a thing for him. Only he didn’t know she was on your team. Bam, he’s dead. Later you blow up the morgue to cover up some incriminating evidence. How am I doing Val? Batting a thousand?”

“You can speculate all you want.”

“The FBI and the DEA know you have us here. There’s no way you’re going to get away with this.”

Valerie looked at him condescendingly. “You just don’t understand how this whole thing works, do you? In the grand scheme of saving millions of lives, what’s a couple of deaths? I mean really? What’s a couple of deaths? You’re just a blip on the ass of history. Nobody will even remember you.”

She told the guard, “Hit it hard.” And then she closed the cell door behind her.

CHAPTER 89

TWO DAYS LATER SEAN KING could barely remember his own name. “Please stop,” he kept asking them. “Please stop.” They never listened.

Instead they picked him up and carried him to another room. He was placed in a long box resembling a coffin. He was packed in so tightly he could barely move. Wires were attached to his chest and arm. When the cover was put on, it rested within two inches of his face. The feeling of claustrophobia was extreme. What Sean couldn’t see were the pipes attached to the chamber. At regular intervals the temperature in the chamber was lowered until Sean was pushed right to the edge of hypothermia. He struggled to catch his breath as the oxygen levels were reduced. Just as he was about pass out, they pumped more air in. For ten hours this process went on. And he grew weaker and weaker. Finally, thankfully, he lost consciousness.

When he awoke later in his cell he noticed he had another visitor.

“Hello, Sean,” Alicia said.

“Come to gloat?” he answered weakly.

“No. I take no pleasure in seeing you in here.”

“Really? That’s sort of hard to believe.” Sean sat up and leaned his back against the wall. “Drug smuggling, murder, kidnapping, torture. Have I left anything out?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she said calmly.

“I mean you and Val are smuggling drugs in on planes.”

“You may call it that. I don’t.”

“And what do you call murdering Monk Turing and Len Rivest?”

“Monk was shot for trespassing.”

“But you did kill Len, didn’t you? And I thought you liked him.”

“We all have a job to do.”

“So you’re admitting you killed him?”

“There’s a war going on. We all have a job to do,” she repeated more slowly.

“And you almost killed me!”

“We knew it was you who broke into the camp. You saw things. You and Michelle. Just like Monk Turing. That’s why you’re here.”

“So you torture us, find out what we know and then what? Let us go?”

“That’s not my responsibility.”

“Oh, good, just pass the buck along to someone else. So what’ll it be? Gas explosion? Suicide? Will I die in my bathtub? By the way did you use the plunger or that metal leg of yours?”

“I simply follow orders.”

“From Valerie? Is that all it takes for you to kill somebody? Orders from a psychopath? What about the morgue doc? What the hell did he do to deserve getting blown up?”

“There’s always collateral damage. It comes with the territory. I don’t like it, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Sure there is. You can stop doing it.”

“I don’t know what sort of world you want to live in, but it’s obviously not the one I’m envisioning.”

“Does that world include killing Viggie?”

Alicia quickly looked down. “Viggie will be fine.”

He roared, “No she won’t be fine, Alicia. She’s going to be collateral damage too. She probably already is. You know that and I know that.”

Alicia turned to leave.

“What, you just came to see me before the hammer comes down? Is that it? Seeing another victim off to the great hereafter. I’m sure Len appreciated the gesture. Did he even know it was you? Did he think you came there to screw him? A little fun in the old tub?”